Topic: Card counting in black jack (Read 834 times)

Well, technically I agree with you. But for me, there is nothing wrong using with this and I am not also using this method of card counting, -- I will not risk my money and betting someone that has an advantage. Stick with your odds and play fair to them, no need to use any other card counting to taking advantage against your opponent. However, a casino has a right to choose if you will stay in or kick you out if you are taking advantage of someone else.

Yes, I find it quite unfair. For example, a cafe cannot deny service to any specific people, since they will violate their public offer and lose in court. Casinos in this regard are in a privileged position and have such a right (denial of service) by law. I do not think this provision is fair. Math works the same for everyone and you have to serve everyone if you are not a private club.

Guys, it is already clear that card counting is useless when playing online blackjack. But does it offer even a tiny advantage to use it for cards dealt during bets? Meaning when the deck is shuffled, one card is dealt to the dealer, two cards are dealt to each player, so that's at least 3 cards dealt (could also be 5 or 7 cards initially). Without knowing how many decks are used, does the running count give any benefit for predicting future draws?

E.g. I just got dealt 10-6, dealer gets 8, so the running count is effectively 0. But as you keep hitting, this might change the running count to a different value, though it's still going to be small. Can I make any reasonable predictions with a running count of -2 for example?

I'm thinking card counting at online games is more useful if multiple players are playing at the same time, since more cards get to be dealt before the deck is shuffled at the next hand. Even then, only the player who bets last makes the most out of this.

Physical Gambling operators consider card counting a big threat to their business so they will try everything to eliminate that threat every players that comes along that is having a good success even if they are lucky that night is analyzed and if they have a continuous round of success chances are they will be ban.

Yes, such options are possible, but serious casinos are unlikely to do so. All these manipulations will be clearly visible if you take a large statistical sample. A casino caught on such manipulations will suffer big losses and most likely go bankrupt, therefore, if such things are done, then in new/small projects.

It's very likely too that bogus (AI) players can be salted into games or even a hand is played between hands by the gambler (ie a hand is played invisibly and those cards are discarded after play in the same manor as the cards being played by the gambler - that way even if you think you know what cards *might* be about to be played, the invisible hand(s) could potentially remove them)

Even without reading the article, it was easy to guess that card counting in online casinos does not provide any advantage 
Firstly, it is obvious that in an online casino the deck is shuffled after each hand and this does not require any effort/time.
Secondly, no project in the digital world can exist if it can be "counted" and beaten. Therefore, if the casino exists, then card counting when playing in it does not provide any advantage.

I must say that the reason card counting has been scrapped from casinos is because it would otherwise put the player at an arguably greater advantage and thus giving them a higher winning chance.

Of course, this type of business will lead to casinos losing much more than they want as they're all about making money. SO asking for something like this is nothing more but futile.

To read more about how this is implemented in blackjack online casinos, click here. Happy reading

So far playing black jack has never had such a detailed formula and if the counting really works, I think there will be plenty of gamblers who become successful at black jack easily. So, I'm not sure counting like that will always produce good results so still, everyone has at least a different level of luck, so whatever method or strategy is used can have both good and bad results.

LOL card counting is not in any way a cheat as long as you don't have any devices to do it like physical cards or anything that can act as a card. In fact card counting is hard to pull off especially when you are under pressure, or does have a short term memory. AFAIK, some dealers shuffles the card after every round to avoid these things to happen, it is not a cheating but when you have someone to help you to count it is an advantage against the casino.

Thanks for the link to the article, I read it with interest. And I was very surprised because the events of almost modern times are described - the beginning of the 2000s - 2010s. I assumed that by this time the card counters had no chance to win something because of the measures that the casinos had thought up when they were fighting against similar players back in the 60s and 70s.

I ask the same question few pages back and tried to search if card counting would work on online blackjack and it seems that online casinos use automatic shuffler every time a card is shown. although in the article that I have read, card counting could still work on online blackjack. but it would be trickier compare to the blackjack on a casino. they also said that there is a software that could card count for you on an online casino but it is usually forbidden to use.

https://www.casino.org/blackjack/card-counting/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20you%20can%20count%20cards,are%20generally%20forbidden%20to%20use.

What about online black jack gaming? In a fully electronic game there is probably no edge for the player. But there are some live casino games with blackjack where you can actually see the dealer and his decks. From home it would be much easier to count cards. Anyone ever tried that?

yups because monitoring is too easy from casino operators as cameras are installed in all sides ,but this is for physical casinos,i don't know if this is applicable in Online lol.

card counting used to be my style when playing with friends,they did not notice but i can read while they are throwing cards infront .

lets not cheat guys ,if we don't wanna lose then don't play at all.

This are some of them, https://www.gamblingsites.com/info/famous-gamblers/card-counters/.
Some of them played in early 1950s and 1970s. I have no doubt on this list so maybe you can check it out and check their background stories thoroughly. Card counting will sure not be banned if really there are some people who took advantage of it.

Yeh, I think I can see where you're coming from.  One I heard a long time ago involved foot movements from back to front as a type of card counting.  I would imagine you'd have to be able to sit near perfectly still and be able to look relaxed enough that your foot moving didn't arouse suspicion. (then again replaying the activity in fast forward might give that game away)

Oh I wasn't pertaining to something like that, what I meant was finding a sort of rhythm when remembering to count the cards, so that it's a lot easier to remember. There's the idea of using the +1 0 -1 strategy in card counting, plus add that to a sort of rhythm that loops in your mind to remind you what cards were in the said categories, which makes card counting a lot easier imo. Apologies if I came out a bit different from what I meant to. It's like a supportive device towards the main core of your strategy in card counting.

They exist and the casinos operators knows this, that is why they are always on the watch on who they think among their clients are engaged on card counting, physical casinos have a lot of cameras installed on their vicinity and of course they have people there to watch your face and your eyes expressions if you are engaged in card counting.

It's true that Don Johnson is a fairly well-known gambling legend, his skill at playing blackjack cannot be doubted. Managed to win $ 15 million
from several casinos in America. The possibility of Don Johnson doing card counting, so it is proven that gamblers who win a lot of money at
the casino based on the skills they have actually exist. Therefore it is not impossible that we can also use the card counting strategy, but we do
have to practice diligently in order to master card counting.

I think the problem is being over thought - you don't need to have a "perfect" memory.  Why would you want to recall a hand that was delt to you weeks ago?  It has no relevance in the here and now.  What you would need to do is be able to recall patterns first card...  first card, second card... first card, second card, third card ... and so on.

When you're driving for an hour, do you see a car, lorry, bus etc or a distinctive license plate then half an hour later, you vaguely recall that same bus, lorry, car?  I would imagine it's something like that where you only have to recall something a few moments later.

Here's one for you.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man-who-broke-atlantic-city/308900/
Didn't really read it thoroughly, but the article doesn't seem to be lying with the fact that he beat those casinos with pure skill since the first casino he visited already had security cams analyzing his every movement to prevent any type of cheating. Card counting may be done in the mind, but it still needs obvious eye movement as well as some kind of pattern or rhythm that may be helpful to you in remembering (imo that is). That, or you can just have a perfect memory, which is almost impossible.

Although it seems like the biggest factor here was removing the edge for the house, and instead, giving it to the player. I've read some other articles, and they've also detailed about them winning on casinos not only based on skill, but also by negotiating with them on discounts and the like, they then start to break the bank of the casinos.

Not necessary man. You're just counting cards which on the table and after that cheking the probability to get what you need. At least i was doing in such way. Sometimes it was enough useful in poker, in pre flop/flop distribution.

Physical casinos are very much aware of this card counting so they take all the precautionary measures that this will not be employed by gamblers who knows card counting they even ban players who know card counting and they have cctv cameras to check gamblers who are doing this, and about online blackjack casinos there is no way they can employ this, so operators have nothing to worry.

Do you know such people (who won a lot of money from the casino not just because of luck, but regularly based on their skill)? I would like to know about them in more detail because there are many legends and tales about such masters, but there is very little reliable information, so I doubt that they really exist/existed.

Every casino considers card counting in their possibilities of losing their money and gamblers win their bets.
For this reason, they are changing the decks every so and then and they are making the rounds so fast that your mind would not have the ease in counting the cards.
This becomes more difficult if you play online as you cannot expect what the deck is going to drop.

The thing with card counting is also that casinos are looking for people who exploit it and might ban you. If you stand for 1h behind a black jack table just looking very concentrated you will definitely alert the casino security. And if you then suddenly when the odds are in your favour sit down at the table and start playing for the maximum buy in, I would assume the casino asks you kindly to leave and not come back to their casino. That is why most card counters work in teams and use disguises.

Goof for young people who can retain their memory but how about those aged people who has a lot of issues in life, card counting is not for everyone, and you need a very high concentration and focus, you practice this almost every waking hour, I would not even think of doing this and there's a chance to get caught because physical gambling casinos prohibit this. 

I think you'll find the Casino's dealers will be keeping a mental note of who is winning and loosing (and it comes back to how many decks, deck changes, dealer changes occur while you are sitting there).

There is only one way if  this will work on you, try experimenting with small amount. But casinos will not ban card counting if that isn't effective and doesn't affect or changes the possibility of winning and losing of a player. They banned it because there are actual people who are good at it and they are making tons of money so this seem to work for some who really knows how to count cards.

If the strategy is effective in blackjack to win then casino must have already taken measures for this to happen.

Hmmm. As I read more above that the strategy in card counting could be not effective anymore because casino were smart and use more decks to counter this strategy.

In my own opinion card counting strategy would only be a guide and not really the way it should be follow. For examole you had already held good card then why need to follow the strategy when you think you can win already? This can change the game and this is why card counting would not really be effective but it could be use as a guide to win the game.

Its not really simple as we see because we need to keep all the counts and also more the decks then the harder it is going to be.As far as I know this strategy is banned in every casinos and people will keep watching even your expression if you keep winning the bets and they can throw you out with this reason.

That's right, Logically house will not allow that to happened. It's a business so for sure adjustment will be done to make
sure that the business won't suffer if such strategy exist.
Casino always find ways to make sure that the gambler will not easily find  anything that will bring them advantages.
Most of the time, casino allow those gamblers to believe that they can beat the house only to find out in the end that
house played well with emotions and leave gamblers empty handed in the end.

   Popularity of this strategy made casino owners to add more decks, it's the way they fight against card-counters. With more decks
chances for a card-counter to be accurate in his predictions are minimal, under zero probably. Nothing last forever, gambling
strategies are good for some time, but that suits casinos, people spend a lot of money in searching for perfect strategy!

If that so, you better not try.
It can be working or not but the problem is that this trick is not accepted in casinos and it finds that it was cheating against them. Actually, casinos make things to take advantage of the players (really unfair). They don't want to lose and so they don't want every gambler will trick them. But I'm not sure how it helps to increases our chance to win against the house, we already know it before it starts.

It's not simple at all, because casinos often use an unknown number of decks, which makes it difficult to keep track of how many outs have been removed from the deck.

If you're a mathematical savant, then you might be able to keep up if the casino is only using 3 or 4 decks, but you'll soon start struggling above that.

I don't think anybody really uses this system anymore, given that most casinos now have automatic card shuffling machines and are always bringing in fresh decks.

Yes, it would be really hard, this can be done if you really can memorize so much at once or maybe if you have enough company to do it with you. Also, this is really hard to do since the casino can easily know if you are card counting even if you try to hide it because they all know how to deal with this kind of situation.

That would be really hard, for sure. You can't memorize all of the cards alone even with 100% concentration and zero distraction since first of all, you are in a casino, you will never be able to hit that 100% concentration that easily and second of all, if you are dealing with 5-6 deck of cards and its continuously shuffled. Most of the casinos hate counting because as they've said, you are gaining an edge.

Although I haven’t done this card counting before, I really agree with your point here. Observing the movement in the deck by yourself would be exhausting and can cause confusion when your concentration is hampered. As they say having a team is better than playing solo.

I don't think you can do it alone it's just too much work for one person. Just because you are counting a deck doesn't mean that the odds will be in your favour. It might be that you watch a table for 1h and it's still not enough odds in your favour to start actually playing. Most people who were successful in card counting had a hole team working on it. It's best to have 2-3 spotter just to find the best deck for you, and you want to stay relaxed and fresh yourself until you actually start playing. The game can be quite fast with many people playing on a table.

It is, you need 100% concentration and zero distraction I don't know how these people do it but it's more of countless hours of practice and of course, you also need luck, luck that you have a good state of mind to give 100% concentration and zero distractions I read in one article that it's illegal, so you are actually doing it without anybody noticing it.

It almost sounds like you have to be a narcissist to concentrate on your surroundings (checking out for security etc) as well as recalling cards per hand/shuffle.  The OP adds a degree of difficulty with having to convert card values to a score then adding up that score.  Are there any examples of people winning big bucks with these kinds of methodologies, or is it all just a working theory?

its cool that this strat was so popular and it ended up with its own movie . no casino owner will not recognized that so prolly they already came up with strat to make this counting strat impossible to work . on the past when the counting strat isnt yet popular , gamblers that knows it are lucky because they probably win alot that time .

 it is still possible to win today but the game now would only be depend mostly by luck and not by skill

   Any task is harder when you are doing it under the pressure. I read what people commented in this thread and as some people
said, maybe it's possible for some people to count cards when they play with one deck, but what happens when dealer has more than
one deck? And online casinos use more decks probably, how to count cards when there're too many possibilities. Even it sounds good,
and there are films about counting cards, I don't think it's a perfect strategy for winning in Black Jack, there's no perfect strategy!

It turns out that card counting in blackjack is quite difficult when it's actually done at a casino. Even though when our practice was
smooth using the card counting strategy, but when used in casinos there are too many obstacles and pressures that make it difficult
for us to focus on card counting. So the card counting strategy really has to increase the practice, so that we can focus and concentrate.

This only happens in the movies and no one in real life break your knees if you win to often.You can go to the casino with a group of friends so you will not be alone at the mercy of casino gorillas if that is the case.

However count as much as you want,you can’t win always as sometimes you receive cards like J and 5 which is the worst combination being a 16 and you can go bust if you hit or when you dont the dealer get a 17 and wins.Although counting is possible do not rely on it to win as is not possible.

I only know what I've seen in US movies/TV series, and in these it seems the casinos just throw you out/take your winnings/break your knees if they suspect you of counting cards. How do they suspect you ? If you win too often !

I never tried so I do not have personal experience but it is known that it works, however most croupiers know card counting as well and they keep track of the count and if they see you change your betting patterns and bet very little when the count is against you and you bet a lot when the count is in your favour then you are going to be eventually banned from the casino, however players found a way around it by the introduction of team play, what they do is that one player keeps track of the count and keeps his bets constant but when the count is on favour of the player they give a signal to another player that comes and makes big bets which makes him look as a high roller and not a card counter.

It sounds simple but when you are on the actual thing then it would really be already a confusing thing if you havent mastered this enough.Im able to tried or practice this one but it seems it would need
several months to keep on playing before i do able to take a grasp on it.Take note that dont let yourself get caught or making yourself way too obvious on this stuff or else you would really be
blocked or restricted on a certain casino.

Just as a side note: When walking up to a blackjack table, always read what is on the felt. Card counting may lower the house advantage by -1% vs. playing with the optimal basic strategy will result in a house edge of .46%.

However, something as simple as "Blackjack pays 6/5" plus perfect strategy will set the house edge at 1.82%. That's 4 times as much loss per hour as a "Blackjack pays 3/2". Add in other rule changes like "Dealer must hit soft 17" and "double on 10/11 only" will raise the house edge to 2.32%. This will swamp even card counting.

This is why those tables are usually the ones with fake strippers on poles next to them. Those strippers are powered by money, and all the lights/etc are run on money as well. Even on a straight table you're talking a profit of $50 an hour (before taxes) with $100 base bets and a $10,000 stash to the table. Worth it? Eh.....

If I want to go to casinos and have "fun" or hang around with people I will play don't pass/don't come on craps with a per roll house edge of .40%. Plus it keeps the table and the casino honest, as loading the dice will seriously affect the payouts for the donts. (This is why craps is a game that doesn't tolerate house cheating, if the house cheats then the donts will rob them blind) But yes, you will lose over time because those lights won't pay for themselves....

Your mileage may vary.....

You don't messed with the casino with this system, I've watched the movie as well and I like the movie very much, it was already an old movie but I can still watch it over and over again without losing the entertainment value I get.

check out the thriller, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsK1c9ZBpuw&ab_channel=21Movie .. you might like to watch the full movie once you see it, but I'm not telling you to do bad things, of course let's play fair as that would challenge us and will give us real entertainment.

Try Poker in which card counting is really rampant specially in Real game.
But yeah i am as well have no Big luck in blackjack,i would rather play roulette or Slots than this one lol
it is not easy to do mate and besides i believe that Only few mastered this meaning it will take time and effort before finally making it right.

not familiar to this trick but ive known blackjack a long time ago and been also involved on it  .

 now that im aware that the trick exist , i think im still not going to learn it  , not because that im afraid to get caught and banned but i just wanted to play fair and square   . casino's are trying to be fair here so why will we cheat them  but other than that  i also believer that if you did bad things , you will also get bad returns much more that what you have done .

I've seen that movie and I think it's illegal in most casinos so I would not try to master this one, besides, I am not really a big fan of Blackjack game, I have other interest but I really love the movie though, anything as long as related to gambling.

Is card counting possible online or even by a single individual. I really don't know the trick and even if you had laid it here I can't still grasp the details of it and how it would function. Well, that's only me. I have to happen seen it on the movie series of Lucifer wherein Ms. Lopez was used that trick but sadly the gal was banned on almost all casinos, it's just a movie though but I think it is possible in real life, am I right? Maybe some card geniuses?

That's interesting but I think that in live ones the developers already would have done some limitations in the code to prevent such actions being done by other players.

Since when we are talking about playing online against a program ; it does have all the datas and such ; therefore I think I won't go that far to try it online but offline ones are something that can be tried on .


I think even before that you have to practice ; don't loose money unnecessarily or maybe don't play for much ?

This trick doesn't need much thought and such it's simple 1+1+0-1-1 ... Etc.. therefore it's something that we all can do ... At the same time try and associate a big number with an animal or a thing this way by picturizing that number you will be able to remember it more.

If you enjoy reading I would recommend the old - but still accurate book by Edward Thorp ("Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-one") This guy is a genius in gambling and also investing.

The thing with counting cards is that is only working in a physical casino with multiple decks. Such strategies don't work online.

The edge of the casino in black jack comes from the fact that you are getting your cards before the dealer does. So if you go above 21 and go bust you lose and the round is over. Theoretical the casino could also go bust this round but it doesn't come to that since you already lost. With counting cards you are trying to get a deck with a lot of valu 10 cards, so your chances of getting 21 or 20 is much higher.

I am not aware there is such a counting trick in black jack. I am only relying on my guts to stand with the cards i picked. Usually losing on that game though since I always had a bad luck on black jack or maybe not my game since I most often play dice and mines.

Anyway, let me try that trick next time. Who knows, if i have a good seed and luck then probably this will works.

These strategy is actually applicable to Blackjack and Poker, and it will give an edge to someone who have a great memory skills like this. That is why most of the people say that good poker players know and memorized the entire deck of cards but I believe they really doesn't. There's still no 100 percent assurance that you can win with this, you still need  to test your luck because of failure rate to execute it. Perhaps, poker player's investment isn't card counting but the ability to read minds and expression of the other player.

As far as I know, to counter this strategy, card counting, there are casinos that use continuous shuffling of cards. Also, it is said that the guy doesn't need to be a math wizard or maybe a math teacher, as long as he can memorize the cards being dealt and can multi-task on the table, you can actually win. I think martingale would be a great one to combine but it is counting so there are times that you are sure what to bet then you make some high bets sometime too.

I will ask from a friend who is a math teacher to help me for beating the dealer in a live blackjack table. From the first look, it is not hard to learn but it is hard to master after falling many times. Overall, the edge over the house will increase and of course, our minds will be messy, just a single mistake can ruin the whole combination. Imagine combining this with martingale money management and being unsuccessful.

I just wrote about this in my other post - theoretically this occupation is profitable, but in fact it is pointless to do it.


Now I get it, thanks for the clarification. Under such conditions, this activity can easily be classified as a cheating/violation of the rules of the game.

To be honest, I have never used a card counting strategy, but according to some reviews I have read on various forums.
Many card counting is successful after practicing it, but this strategy must have a good memory and can focus on concentration.
So it is clear that people with weak memories will not succeed in using the card counting strategy.

Card counting is not a way to speculate, for me it is a statistical way of having an upper hand against the dealers. As I also watched some videos in the past, some say it is just a mere subtraction and addition but that also means memorizing the card being dealt. No one knows if you will win or lose, even using card counting on Blackjack, some say that you can't stack wins every night. You will win some, you will lose the most, that is gambling.

I don't think it will be illegal because you are doing nothing but just speculation externally, you aren't influencing any cards. But it's surely unethical in the casino industry which is based on luck and thrill. If you get to know if you are going to win or lose, there's no thrill at all in the game play. Either way, I think if one masters it, they have a great chance of winning the game. I watched a movie based on it on Netflix few months ago.

The thing with counting cards is that there need to be a lot of decks (> 6 decks) in the game, and the dealer should cut pretty close to the end of the stack. So you are using almost all of the cards.

The plan is to get a deck with a lot of value 10 cards, and less cards with a value of below 7.

This definitely works, but you need to play a lot of hands. The strategy shifts your winning chance into positive, but it doesn't mean you are going to win every hand.

We did this a few times in our math course and was a nice strategy. The problem is that it's hard to do such a strat alone. You need a spotter to count the table for you. You can't be standing behind a black jack table and just count the deck until you eventually start playing. This is very suspicious and will make you get kicked out of the casino fast.

I can't vouch for my self but I have seen cases where people get banned on a casino or ask to leave the casino if they were caught card counting and basing on how the casino owners respond to card counting it seems that it works and if the person who is card counting is left alone they have a higher chance of losing to the gambler.

a little offtopic: I wonder if card counting works in black jack in an online casino(not live black jack).

Multiple decks is a game changer here! I didn't know how many decks there can be, but if it's max 8 it's crazy, too many combinations here. And card counting maybe works in land casino, where you can see how many decks
there are, you can calculate your odds when you know that, but in online gambling you don't see how many decks there are. I never tried to check that information, online casino should state somewhere how many decks they are using for blackjack, can that even be checked?
I play black jack from time to time, but it's not in my list of favorite games, it's why I never bother to check more about this matter.

Very good memory is the key. If you are good in remembering and also calculating at the same time which is also fast, then it became an advantage for you. Though only few of them would be able to take advantage of it and rest of them will just have to play in a normal way.

Most of the casino including online are using continuous deck shuffle method plus multiple deck to eliminate this counting trick so I believe this normal counting card method don’t work anymore and if you are lucky to find one then the security on that casino is very tight you can easily place under there watchlist if you are winning consecutively which is very risky.

Blackjack nowadays is not that profitable and the only tool that you can use is the strategy table guide which gives you approximately  60% winning chance rate. I regularly play blackjack on different casino before this pandemic hits that’s why I observe this.

If you find an online black that has a single deck and no continuous shuffle. Then maybe you can share it with me and let’s rekt them badly.

I think it is pretty hard. The movies show everything to be so easy when in-fact it is almost always the opposite of it. But what I want to know is, say someone becomes good at it and knows how to 'cound-cards'. Can this skill be applied to online casinos?

Btw, I have seen a movie or 2 on Black-Jack Card-Counters and it is often shown that they worked in groups. 

Bro, it's not, I'll tell you that.

It is simple if you read it like these so I need to tell you what is hard. You are being dealt with six-deck of cards, which is 312(52*6). You need to be observant and track the cards that are being dealt with, and yeah quickly memorize all of them to eliminate them in that 312 cards. Some of the videos I watched about it says it is working but it is not a 100% working strategy since they could still lose, maybe they are losing the count.

I read the book Bringing Down the House. It was about very brilliant students from no less than MIT and not ordinary guys playing blackjack occasionally.

And it was not just about learning card-counting skills alone and using whatever resources taken from different sources. They had mentors. They had serious practice sessions and sophisticated plans.

Having said these, I don't think card counting is an easy thing to do, more so because most blackjack games are now using multiple decks, even reaching a total of 8. If counting in a single deck game is hard, it would be a lot harder in a multiple-deck blackjack game.

Yes, it works, back then that is. Casinos pretty much countered this by having a few decks in play so that card counting is REALLY hard to do anymore. It increases your chances even though the chances are still pretty low imo. If it were one deck, then your chances are pretty good as long as you're able to card count properly.

It isn't completely illegal per se, but some people can't really card count on their own, so they ask for others to support them, and THIS makes it illegal. It's like those movies where there's a third party behind the bad guy that's winning. Card counting on your own is legal itself, since it is a skill, and you're doing it yourself (without any external device that could help that is).

It is not completely meaningless to count cards with 8 decks of cards but the chances are very low to increase winning portability. The same frequencies will not happen as in 1 or 4 decks of cards, just try to count one of the live dealer games in Blackjack tables. You can use a single-player room which usually has more than 50 people and the time will be your advantage.  In the best case, you will have 1 max 2 percent edge over the house, will it worth to use your energy?...
P.s: Check this thread and find the statistical edge in numbers.

How does this reduce the number of hands? Shuffle machines don't care how many decks to shuffle. Therefore, this does not lead to wasted time.
As for the legislation, it is different everywhere, but it's hard for me to imagine that somewhere there is a law prohibiting counting cards and counting your own odds when playing cards.

Watching the movie 21, it is explained there show how effective card counting is and how bad it is for these casino owners, and it also shows how hard it is to do that. But it is also said that there are mistakes shown in the movie about card counting. But what I can ensure you is that these people are smart and can memorize these cards, well, since it is a movie.

Yeah there are several threads about this topic.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/does-card-counting-really-work-in-blackjack-5171747
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/counting-cards-a-dirty-cheat-or-a-legit-skill-5248436

For sure this works but i havent tested out yet im not really that much good in memorizing things after they get flashed. 

Yes, but having more deck of cards in a shoe as a way to counter these card counters means less revenue for casinos as it will result in less hands.

I don't know any gamblers who are a card counter, perhaps this is just a niche and only a handful remains in this business because casinos has also evolved on how to catch them. Not illegal per se, but you can land in jail, specially if you have been forewarned already and then you return to play, that is trespassing as casino is a privacy property per law.

In the movie, everything is shown too optimistic. Now this is simply unrealistic, since the number of decks is large and they are shuffled on time.
Plus I read one interesting study: it looked at the theoretical earnings of such card counters. Almost everything was calculated there: the preparation time (to achieve this level of skill you need to train a lot), the cost of travel (you cannot constantly play in the same casino), overhead, etc. and it turned out that this is an occupation with a minimum level of profitability. It is not profitable to do this.

I've seen the movie and it's amazing. I've never played blackjack in a real-time casino before. But if this trick is getting pulled off by most people to beat the bank roll, I guess casinos must have started doing something about it to avoid card counting trick being effective.

There are many articles on this topic, just read about the evolution of blackjack. All changes in the rules for shuffling the deck and the number of decks occurred precisely because of the people who learned how to count cards.
At the moment, this does not make any practical sense since the deck is shuffled long before the player (even the one who counted the cards completely) can gain an advantage.

i think you can try it with a small amount of capital and can give you the results of the experiments that you have done so that the people here can find out that the strategy you are using is successful and can be used by other people here.

You're right, and card counting become highlighted again with the movie '21', and I'm sure almost all gamblers have seen this movie. I doubt though, that anyone here will admit that they are card counters. This could be considered as "pro", as it is not easy as you need to avoid suspicion, you have to look that you are just an average Joe player, and just betting base on hunch, specially if you double up your bet.

Statistical evidence shows that you can turn around the house edge with this 'trick', and increases the players chances. But I never tried it though, probably it will take time and practice to memorise everything. I'm also interested to know if there are 'professional' card counter here. It's not illegal, but if the casino suspect you that you are doing this strategy, then you can be kick out of the casino and be blacklisted.

So I do know one thing that counting cards are banned in most physical casinos but if you can make it work then I do believe it works most of the time.

So how does counting card works ?
For:
Card no. 2-6 = +1 { good to remove these cards from the deck}
Card no. 7-9 = 0{ forget these cards }
Card no. 10-Ace= -1 { Do not remove them }

One needs to keep a running count of all the cards around and with multiple decks one can just divide the total running count with number of decks .

The more positive count the more the player is going to win and for the negative count the player is in a bad position; now it's completely legal in some places but banned in most .

It seems very simple but does it really work ? Did someone try it ??

Is there any card counter out here who did win most if the bets he made ? Please share your experience.

I still think it's an interesting thing to learn.