Another Friday night in Las Vegas. Casandra sat in a suite on the 12th floor practicing card tricks and waiting for the call. It came at 9:35 p.m., table 15. Casandra got up and walked over to the camera room. Casandra inserted her key into a non-descript door on the 5th floor, known only to a half dozen of the casino's 540 employees. She continued down a short corridor and touched a six-digit number on the keyboard and entered. The spotter had gotten a call from the pit boss 15 minutes ago and had been watching the man in the green coat, white shirt and jeans ever since. Casandra watched him play through a couple of shuffles.
Yup, he was counting alright. He was at third base on a $5 blackjack table. On the two deck game he was varying his bets 8 to 1, between the minimum and $40. She watched him through a couple more shuffles. Definitely a simple count. She even caught him palming some chips and putting them into his jacket pocket while he pulled out his smokes. She asked the spotter how much he had made, he said "$375."
The normal shift change would be in 2 minutes, so she walked down to the tables with the other dealers. She adjusted the little name tag that said "Kaori - Japan" on it. When it was time for the change she took over and got to work. There were four people at the table including her mark. Casandra started to keep track of where the high and low cards were. When it came time to shuffle she started moving the cards where she wanted them. After another shuffle she was set to go. She made a fairly deep cut, getting about six hands to the shuffle. She dealt the other three players out of the game in about twelve hands.
Each lost between nine and ten of the twelve hands, and one-by-one they left. Her mark did OK throughout. Now it was time to get serious. The dealing was fast and ferocious. Casandra started keeping track of where all of the cards were and dealing him what she wanted him to have. He won while the count and the bets were low, but high positive true counts, and their corresponding bets, just didn't seem to work out for him. Just bad luck, huh?
She let him win enough to keep from catching on and cashing out, but she was definitely whittling down his winnings. She used a combination of techniques from marking cards and dealing from the bottom, to dealing the second card and even palming a card once or twice.
Every once in awhile she would deal him a ten or an eleven while she showed a four, five, or six. Despite the positive count she managed to deal him a nineteen or less while saving a couple of middle cards for herself to finish with a twenty or twenty-one. Another $80 to the house.
Split those aces and lose twice as much. Every time he seemed about to quit she would let him win a few hands. Soon he was reaching in his wallet for another $100 bill. In just 30 minutes he had lost $1,000.
"Sucker," Casandra thought, "never bet into a bad streak." But out loud she only expressed concern at his bad luck and encouragement that things would turn around soon.
After losing $1,200, the mark decided he had had enough. He walked away from the table and out the door. A couple from Kansas sat down and managed to win a hundred dollars in a string of good hands. They would later deposit it all in the $.25 slots. Another pair of happy tourists in the land of sin.
At the next shift change Casandra walked back to the elevators and up to her suite, and waited for the next call. The Casino manager dropped by with an envelope. In it was $600. The deal was 50% of any winnings. It was doubtful that the mark would return, and that was fine by the casino. If he did he would get a different dealer, but the result would be the same.