By RICK ALM

Staff Writer

During Missouri's stormy gambling debates of 1994 riverboat casino companies argued that blackjack is a game of skill.

Three years later a few are complaining that some black jack players out there are too skillful--and the boats need protection from them.

They are the "card counters," long a thorn in the gaming industry's side. And now Missouri's casinos are feeling that pain.

At least one of these mentally agile gamblers has been banned from a casino--sim ply for being too good.

But card counter Robert Cherry 49, of Kansas City may have the last laugh. His complaint to state gaming regulators could result in the sanctioning of the practice in Missouri.

Cherry modestly describes himself as an apprentice card counter. He hasn't won big, yet.

But the printing plant worker says he's learning after an estimated 100,000 hands played over the last two years at casinos in Missouri, Illinois and Kansas. At least Cherry was learning until a pit boss at Harrah's North Kansas City Casino & Hotel tagged him as a card counter.

"They said I could play any other game but blackjack," Cherry said. "I had been in and winning a couple of days before. They just decided it was time to do something."

Harrah's General Manager Jay Sevigny doesn't dispute a word of Cherry's story. Blackjack card counters can and do beat the house at its own game, acknowledged Sevigny, and that isn't good business.

"We've only experienced a handful here in Missouri." But one card counter is one too many, said Sevigny.

Until the Missouri Gaming Commission adopts a rule prohibiting it, Sevigny said Harrah's will continue to yank suspected counters out of their chairs and show them the door.

The state has no policy on card counters. Thanks to Cherry, one could be in place as early as next month.

Gaming Commission officials suspect the issue hasn't come up before, because Missouri's generally lowstakes tables and $500 betting limit make blackjack and other games here hardly worth the plundering for card counters and professional gamblers.

Not so, argues Arnold Snyder, publisher of Blackjack Forum, a quarterly magazine for card counters.

"The written reports on Missouri are pretty good," he said of players' published reviews and regular updates on card-counting conditions in all the casino states.

Professional counters who wager huge amounts are few and far between, said Snyder.

"Most of them join teams and pool their results ... They know in the long haul they're going to come out ahead, because they have the edge."

In three years, Cherry is the only counter to file a formal complaint alleging unfair treatment. Other counters say that's because they fear the cure may be worse than the disease.

'Beat the house'

Card counting is not cheating. That's the problem.

Counters are perhaps the most highly skilled of all gamblers. Their arcane craft may be what Missouri lawmakers had in mind in 1994 when they wrote the law defining "games of skill" as those in which players use their "fore sight, dexterity, sagacity, design, in formation or strategy" to increase their chances of winning.

Missouri's casinos opened in early 1994, offering only games of skill, including poker. blackjack and craps.

"Games of chance,?' which voters legalized in late 1994, include slot machines and wheels of fortune in which players have no means to influence the outcome.

Even in the skill games, however, the long-term odds invariably favor the house. If not, the casinos would be out of business.

But of all casino games, experts say only blackjack the venerable game of "21"--offers players a fighting chance to beat those unyielding house odds, also over the long term.

The best card counters are invisible, and mobile. They'll hop from table to table, casino to casino and city to city plying their trade in the hopes no one ever notices them.

They don't always win. But even average counters don't lose as often as non-counters.

Betting modestly to avoid attention in Kansas City's casinos, one local counter said on a good night he can earn about $50 an hour. He also said he's gone months without making a dime, losing thousands of dollars in the process.

Card counters capitalize on temporary swings in the odds, betting big when the next deal is more likely to yield aces and 10s.

"It's not illegal, and you're not breaking any laws when you count cards," admitted Hilton Flamingo president Lee Skelley.

"But if you owned a store and were selling shirts for $10, would you accept $8" said Skelley.

Missouri riverboats do not publicly report revenues by game. Collectively, table games such as craps, cards and roulette represent 29 per cent of the boats' annual gross of nearly $600 million.

Money is the issue, said Harrah's Sevigny.

"There's an exchange of value in the casino entertainment experience." And he said the casinos invest a lot of money to provide lavish environments.

In exchange, "the gaming activities always remain in a positive advantage for the house. If it is possible to statistically predict that a customer is unprofitable, we do not believe we should have to conduct a business relationship with them."

Phil Saluter, general manager of the Argosy Riverside Casino, agrees but isn't so adamant. ' lt's an argument I've always avoided," he said, "because I see both sides."

"The ability of counting is an unfair advantage," said Saluter, "(but) what is right and what is wrong?

"Is it a game of chance? Should the odds be the same for all players? How far does strategy go?"

Fighting back

Nevada and New Jersey, the nation's two oldest casino gambling states? have been down this road.

Renowned and now deceased card counter Ken Uston sued them both and fought his banning through courts for a decade starting in the late 1970s.

He lost in Nevada. State and Federal judges there ultimately upheld the casinos' argument that under both Nevada and common law principles --and within broad civil rights guidelines a business may refuse service to anyone.

As a result. Nevada gaming authorities do not interfere when casinos catch and ban counters.

Uston won in New Jersey, but there it was a different argument. The state Supreme Court said only the New Jersey Casino Control Commission may set the rules of casino games or ban individuals from Atlantic City's casinos.

To date New Jersey has not banned counters. But regulators there gave the casinos wide discretion in how they conduct their games.

Now the state agency officially looks the other way when casinos match wits with known or suspected card counters at their tables. The dealers use frequent shuffling and fresh starts to frustrate the card counting and betting "systems."

Because of the casinos' aggressive countermeasures, "Atlantic City offers some of the poorest blackjack games in the country.

said Blackjack Insider.

Saluter, who once worked there, said Uston confronted those techniques with his own countermeasures. "He used to wear disguises.

The game was finding where he was."

Missouri authorities appear to be leaning toward the New Jersey approach.

"Our mindset is one of consumer protection," said Gaming Commission deputy director Keven Mullally. "Why should somebody, be cause they have a particular skill not be allowed to participate?"

If Missouri sanctions card counters, Sevigny and others say they will fight back--New Jersey style.

And Missouri will probably look the other way.

"I think we'll give the casinos some control over the rules of the game," said Mullally. "They've still got a place of business to run . . . The most important thing is that the customer is given a fair shot (to win) and is not penalized for their skill."

Many try, few win

Casinos ' paranoia' over card counters is part sham, contends Snyder.

"The majority of (card counters) can't beat the games anyway. Many people are losing immense amounts of money at this game, because they read a book on card counting."

And even professionals have losing streaks, he said. "It's like playing the stock market."

Cherry said he hasn't broken through yet with big winnings. At any given time, he said, his gambling bankroll will be up or down no more than about $3,000. "I'm not trying to get rich," he said. "I play for reasonable amounts."

And the casinos know that, said Snyder. "To casinos the (monetary) damage is nothing. If they completely ignored the card counters and didn't waste so much time with all the shuffling and all the paranoid countermeasures they take, they would probably make more money.

"It's almost a great marketing tactic for the casinos to be so paranoid." added Snyder.

"It attracts people to the game. It supports this myth that there are these invincible players out there hat the casinos are afraid of."

By RICK ALM

Staff Writer

Card counting isn't easy.

These nimble-minded "21" players use dozens of methods and systems, but each ultimately must track the relative number of high and low-numbered cards remaining to be dealt.

That is no mean task.

In blackjack, aces, 10s and 10 point face cards are the most desirable cards in the quest to arrive at a hand of 21 points. Aces can have a value of 11 points or one, depending on the player's need.

"Hi-lo," the most popular card counting system assigns a value to each card as it is dealt. Sixes and under are "plus one." All 7's, 8's and 9's have a "zero" value. Aces and all 10s are "minus one."

Keeping a mental running tab (the use of any recording device is illegal), the counter knows that a "plus value" in the dealer's "shoe" means more high cards than low are still to be played. The shoe is a device that holds several decks of cards and makes easier the dealing of the cards to the players.

The higher the "value" of the un dealt shoe, the better. That's when the card counter gains a statistical --and temporary--edge, knowing the odds favor more aces and 10s in the next deal.

And that's when they bet heavily. When the shoe's value shifts back

to a preponderance of little cards, counters bet small, or perhaps not at all.

That knowledge, used correctly, flips the long-term winning odds by only a percentage point or two --but from the house's favor to the card counter's.

Casinos fight back by shuffling more often, perhaps after just four decks in a typical six-deck shoe have been dealt out.

Counters also must utilize black jack's basic strategy system -- available on shirt-pocket cards at almost every casino. These offer standardized advice on when to "hit" a hand or "stand pat" in various situations.

If the player is dealt 13 points, for instance, and the dealer's "up" card is a 3, basic strategy says the player should safely stand on his 13 points. That's because the dealer must draw a third card, which is statistically likely to push his hand over 21 points and lose.

But in that same situation and given a strong "minus" count in the shoe, a counter might hit his own 13-point hand, because the odds at that moment favor a small point card coming out next. It's al ways a gamble--in more ways than one.

Casinos closely watch successful players for deviations in basic strategy play and wide swings in their betting patterns.

They're also alert to table watchers who suddenly jump into the game with a large bet.

And good counters might deliberately muff a few hands now and then just to keep the pit-boss dogs off their scent.

*From the Kansas City Star, Wednesday, February 19, 1997