MindPlay is a technology designed to monitor blackjack players' actions while playing in a casino. Blackjack (also known as Twenty-one, Vingt-et-un (French for Twenty-one or Pontoon) is the most widely played casino banking A casino is in the modern sense of the word a facility that houses and accommodates certain types of Gambling activities
Monitoring a person's play traditionally is done visually, by the dealer, floorperson, pitboss, and the eye in the sky (video surveillance). The eye in the sky is a term given to Casino and other commercial security closed circuit cameras. If one of these observers notices something unusual in a person's play, they will do what they can to either
- determine if the person is a cheat or a card-counter, or
- change the game to turn the odds back in favor of the casino, through more frequent card-shuffling or other methods, or
- casino personnel may bar a player they think is a card counter, even though the practice is legal.
(Cheating by various means is illegal, though, and may result in arrest. )
MindPlay utilizes a specially-designed blackjack tabletop that incorporates many features to monitor players' actions:
- Specially encoded playing cards, using invisible ink and barcodes. A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper thin card or thin plastic figured with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing Card games
- 14 tiny cameras built into the dealer's chip tray (which is now slightly elevated to account for the cameras). These cameras can read every card in play by reading the invisible ink printed on them.
- Special chips, so that sensors embedded in the table can automatically calculate each player's bet more accurately than a dealer or pitboss could visually.
As MindPlay monitors every card that has been played along with players' betting habits, it is also counting cards just as a card counter would do while sitting at the table. If MindPlay notices that bets are changing dramatically at the same time that a card counter would typically make those bets, MindPlay will notify casino officials that they may want to investigate further.
MindPlay tables cost around 20,000 USD. The United States dollar ( sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of Currency of the United States; it has also been
Because MindPlay tends to thwart their efforts to beat a blackjack game, card counters generally avoid casinos which use the system and its competitiors, and often circulate news of such installations on various Internet sites. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks Some card counters have tried to make the general public aware of the use of these systems, in an effort to convince others not to patronize the games. Indeed, MindPlay has been somewhat slow to spread among American casinos, partly because of the cost (which must be weighed against that of card-counters) and partly because of negative reaction by players.
MindPlay was first released in 2003. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Since then, several newer-generation systems have been developed for chip tracking and card tracking.
For instance, RFID for chip tracking is gaining ground with casinos. Radio-frequency identification ( RFID) is an automatic identification method relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or The advantage of RFID seems to be that it can be used for games other than blackjack and also for more comprehensive tracking of chips throughout the casino. In other games, such technology would normally be used to track a player's action for rating purposes, to more accurately determine the comps a player may be given.
Two other companies offer automated card recognition capability. Tangam Gaming's solution tracks cards as well as player decisions using hidden overhead cameras, while ShuffleMaster only tracks cards, using a special electronic shoe.
See also
External links
- Bally Technologies
- Wired Magazine: Who's Holding the Aces Now?
- USA Today: MindPlay technology tracks cards, bets
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