Bust: Casinos Red-Flag iPhone Blackjack App
update memo to the Control Board Web site
"The Blackjack Card Counting program can be utilized on either the Apple iPhone or the Apple iPod touch (portable music player)," read the memo. "Once this program is installed on the phone through the iTunes Web site, it can make counting cards easy. The program calculates the 'true count' and does it significantly more accurately."
The Control Board memo includes a screen shot of what iBlackjack looks like in use and details how it uses up to four card-counting strategies to help players better assess the dealer's deck. The board also warned that the program can be used in stealth mode, whereby "the screen of the phone will remain shut off, and as long as the user knows where the keys are located the program can be run effortlessly without detection."
A Control Board member, Randy Sayre, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week that the board had not yet received any proven reports of the program in use in casinos.
If you've seen 21 or any number of casino-based movies or TV shows, you know that card-counting techniques help a player to better guess the probability of winning a hand by remembering what cards have been dealt and the ratio of high cards to low cards.
Card-counting is not illegal in the state of Nevada (or at most casinos) but, according to the Control Board, card-counting with the use of a device is a felony.
If, as Casino the movie reminds, the dealers are watching the players, the box men are watching the dealers, the floor men are watching the box men, the pit bosses are watching the floor men, the shift bosses are watching the pit bosses and on and on ... well, who's watching the touch screen?