STREETWISE Blackjack

Standard Deviations

That old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times," comes to mind. This week's epic stems from a variety of experiences spent mingling, filming, advising and observing in what proved to be an diverse week in casino central.

A part of the latest Discovery Channel's on-going series of crews parading through our city's gambling halls, nightclubs, hotel rooms and every major and minor confluence, IŒve been working as a casino expert and blackjack habitué with Burrad Productions on two of their three one-hour Vegas specials in production. Customarily, these affairs begin with some initial contacts, a phone call or e-mail, and like any romance, things heat up fast, usually moving from flirtation to relationship in a matter of days, consummation upon actual shooting.

Their first filming came during a Bally's craps tournament in March and continued through the same casino's blackjack tournament I described in the last two columns. This past week the shooting varied from a dealer's training school to the labyrinthine tunnels under Caesars Palace, to Gambler's Book Shop interviews with 20-year veteran marketing director Howard Schwartz, card and dice expert and gambling historian Steve Forte, and myself, to shooting a dice game and the surveillance room at Paris.

It was this last stop which proved the most interesting. They've come a long way, baby and if you have any thoughts about getting away with any shenanigans; let me tell you something‹fahgettaboutit! Harkening back to the old days of filthy, vermin-infested crawl spaces and catwalks, the high-tech modern-day surveillance room has as much in common with the earlier model as a cave relates to your contemporary living quarters or the campfire to a microwave oven.

The show was concentrating on an interview with the casino's surveillance director and I was on site in my capacity as advisor and blackjack expert. One of the producers hatched the notion to film me coming into the casino from the outside, making my way around the floor then choosing a table to play‹all the while being filmed by a man in a harness with a state-of-the-art NASA-like swivel arrangement called a steady-cam, hanging on my every move. The plot thickens here. While Mike was filming me, the casino's surveillance department was tracking all my movements shuttling my actions from one ceiling camera to the next visible on one large screen upstairs.

When the show is aired around November, this segment will be aired on split-screen TV. One side will depict me from the steady-cam shot, the other from the casino's videotape and still captures. Anyone who thinks he or she can escape surveillance's Odin-eye is misguided or in denial. The show makes a point of proving these eagle-eyes have the capability of tracking you on tape from the moment you leave your car to a table game, slot machine, elevators or room in the hotel.

Each casino maintains a unique database of information on players that can be shared with other properties under the same corporate ownership. The information can be passed on to private consulting agencies and firms like Griffin Investigations. This organization is the long-time nemesis of card counters throughout the world as their evaluation system is often faulty corrupting their databank. It is in their interest as a business to exaggerate the comparatively small group of proficient counters as a huge threat to the industry, perpetuating the need of the casino to utilize their services.

So a decent basic strategy player is labeled a voracious card counting predator. A sloppy player is booked as a cheat. The amount of wrong information in the Griffin book and databank is legendary and often laughable. Fortunately, many in the industry are aware of this on-going endemic problem of corrupt information and take Griffin's advisories with ample tablespoons of salt.

Nonetheless, most contemporary casinos' surveillance departments can ferret out and enlarge the smallest details from their lofty positions behind nondescript offices filled with the latest optical and audio technology. And it's all on tape to protect the casino when it comes to disputes, allegations or criminal behavior. They are also in charge of evaluating play to determine if a gambler in question is employing "advantage play," or counting cards. There are sophisticated programs enabling a surveillance operator to break down the sequence of a player's actions, cycling them through the software. The player's card counting techniques are printed, the information hustled to the floor where a supervisor accompanied by casino security usually backs off the player, sending him/her home.

On a much lighter note, a major Strip hotel played host last week to a convention of 300 Tattoo and Body-Piercing fanciers. This was not the UAW by any means. We were regaled by the sight of virtually every part of the human anatomy colored or embedded with metal, plastic, fishing lure, game pieces and other miscellany‹It was different and provided a high degree of entertainment value, a distinctive universe nowhere near the concrete workers in the same hotel the prior week.

In my travels around the casino floors of the city I had a discussion with a floor supervisor concerning standard deviation‹the mathematical concept not the human version described above. We were chatting about probability theory at 2 a.m. and Peter was looking for a rock-solid description of standard deviation along with applicable examples. This got me thinking and those thoughts along with my research will be spelled out for you next week. Till then, check out your own standard deviationsŠ