Norm Wattenberger: Yahoo! considers counting cards as cheating

[Norm Wattenberger]

This may have been mentioned before. In any case, Yahoo deserves to hear from counters for the following:

Please note: Yahoo! considers counting cards as cheating. The information has been included to help you identify card counters.

At the below page:

Yahoo sucks

[Bettie]

I am writing in regards to the message Yahoo posted on the card-counting informational page; "Please note: Yahoo! considers counting cards as cheating. The information has been included to help you identify card counters."

Card counting is not illegal, and this fact has been upheld by the courts in both New Jersey and Nevada. You will not find one country or state or county that has deemed card counting illegal. Though casinos do not like card-counters, this has nothing to do with the legality of the action.

Card counting is nothing more than keeping track of the cards seen by everybody in order to make the next betting and playing decision. It's simply a more sophisticated method of the little old lady seeing that a bunch of small cards came out and so assuming that a bunch of big cards must be coming out next.

Regardless of how Yahoo views card counting, the fact remains that it is NOT illegal, and you are doing your customers a disservice by providing this disinformation - an outright lie, actually.

Bettie Paige
Director of Operations,
RGE Publishing, Ltd.
702-798-7743

[Saboteur]

The text at the link provided doesn't say that card-counting is illegal. It doesn't even say that card-counting is cheating.

I have more of a problem with their disclaimer that the text was provided only to assist in the detection of counters. I couldn't really find anything in their text that would help in doing that.

The disclaimer is there so that Yahoo can nullify the results of any of their contests in which a programmer gains an advantage over non-counting opponents. Any programmer who challenges his forfeiture of a prize after Yahoo has determined that he used counting software to gain an advantage will not be able to refer to Yahoo's text as a defense. I suspect there has been a precedent involving Yahoo which made the need for the disclaimer relevant.

Yahoo is trying to ensure as level a playing-field as possible for its own players. Their goal is to make the results of any of their contests more a result of pure luck and random chance than any other single factor. I don't fault them for that. I don't believe Yahoo meant for their statement to apply to games outside the domain and control of Yahoo. Yahoo is in effect saying "For OUR purposes here, we consider counting to be cheating. We want you to know about counting, but we don't want you doing it here".

Pick your fights. I seriously doubt that Yahoo will be changing their disclaimer. But I've been wrong before.

[Geoff Hall]

> The text at the link provided doesn't say
> that card-counting is illegal. It doesn't
> even say that card-counting is cheating.

Quote from Yahoo :
"Please note: Yahoo! considers counting cards as cheating. The information has been included to help you identify card counters."

I agree with the legal part but how can you say that the text above does not support the view that Yahoo considers card counting as cheating ?

The words 'Crystal' and 'Clear' come to my mind :-)

Best regards

Geoff

Blackjack Switch

[Saboteur]

Could you please point out where I said that?

[paranoid android]

Whatever the reason for their statement, I think it's not terribly important what Yahoo considers counters to be (although I admit it's not enjoyable to be labeled as a cheater). In fact, I'm thinking that this kind of information may be beneficial to our cause by giving people just enough information to be dangerous to themselves. An increase in bad counters will be beneficial to the casinos and to us (I like to consider myself among the non-bad counters). It should make the casinos less fearful of counters, make it easier for us to blend in, and they should discourage the use of shuffle machines.

The idea that counting could be cheating is humorous though. Imagine a chess match where they told the players that trying too hard to win within the outlined rules was cheating and that they must ignore certain information about their opponents positions. "Here's the rules. Try as hard as you can to win, but not too hard." I guess it'd kinda be like a speed walking race ;-) (no offense intended to speed walkers).

[Garry Baldy]

Hi there.

It looks like no victory at all at this time:

"Hello,

Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

We appreciate you bringing this incident to our attention. It is important to us that our users have a positive experience while using Yahoo! Games. We will be sure to look into this situation and take the appropriate action regarding this individual."

Luck.

Garry Baldy.

[Victoria]

Sounds like canned answer number 637. You were expecting a personal reply from a person???
Dealing with Yahoo is like dealing with Harrah's.

[Lee Aaron Blair]

> Dealing with Yahoo is like dealing with
> Harrah's.

Really? Gee, at Harrah's they always treat me very individually. A man in a suit comes up behind the table, taps my shoulder, and says, "Sir, will you step away from the game for a moment; I'd like to have a word...."

[Victoria]

Sorry, I stand corrected.

[bigplayer]

then it should not expect a game of skill to be a game of random luck.

[Saboteur]

Yahoo can't keep anyone from simply counting. They can't come peeking in your window to see how you're playing the game.

As far as I can see, the only possible use for this disclaimer to is to invalidate winnings by those who attempt to count via their computers. Even then, the person would have to really screw things up to get caught.

I'm pretty confident that if you ask any of the online casinos about it, they too would say that they consider card-counting (for their purposes) to be cheating. The difference is that the online casinos can cut anyone off without any real ill effects and with no explanation. Yahoo is not attempting to make a direct profit from their games. They want everyone to return to their sites. They've made a risk-reward assessment and have decided that they want people who never even think of cheating at their stupid games. They're supposed to be brainless fun. I don't know of any serious BJ players who play at Yahoo, do you?

[SOTSOG]

At least I do. Free drill software to keep in practice ;>)

Beats manually flipping cards. Plus with 3 other players, you have to quickly scan and keep track of 4 hands --- Almost like the real thing!

I like to play with a 1:1000 spread.