In this post I’ll talk about the downsides of card counting, the future of an advantage player, and what happens when the heat you have travels.
Disclaimer: It’s 5:30 a.m. I’m on a new schedule where I go to bed at 10:30 p.m. I missed my bedtime tonight. I’m tired. I might come back to this post and edit for sanity later this week.
What do card counting and sports betting have in common? If you’re good at either you’re going to get limited.
If you’re a winning bettor, sports books, live and online, are going to cut your betting limits down to a few dollars. Literally. Your $500 max on alt lines will get cut to $4.72.
Even if you’re not winning at the moment, if the operator suspects you’re sharp, you’re maximum is cut to pennies.
If you’re a card counter, and you’re not even that good but the casino recognizes you move your bets up and down with the count, you’re going to get backed off either from blackjack, all table games, or the casino itself. They won’t even let you bet $4.72.
The biggest difference? Sports books don’t share information on unwelcome customers. When Bet Rivers limits you, they don’t send an alert to Fanduel. Sports bettors have the luxury of burning down sports books one by one.
The same is not true for card counters and other advantage players.
Casinos share information about players internally and they subscribe to third party databases like Biometrica, OSN, and other less common but up-and-coming facial recognition services. It doesn’t take much for a card counter to make it into a database. I’ve looked through OSN. They have photos of counters whose top bet is $50. Fifty American dollars. Along with the make and model of their car and license plate number.
Is Card Counting Profitable in 2026?
Yes.
It’s 2026 and card counting is alive and well. You can make money. How much? It depends on your bankroll. 6-figures a year though? Yes.
With precision, travel, and an apathetic attitude toward being kicked out of casinos, you will find success. The bankroll needed to bet enough to make 6-figures counting cards is its own post. For the purposes of this post all I need to tell you is that you need a larger bankroll to make $100/hour card counting than you need to make $100/hour playing hole cards, hustling advantage slots, or playing purely for marketing offers live or online.
“But hole cards are hard to find and there’s too much competition playing advantage slots,” you scream at the screen. “Card counting is fun, and accessible!”
Card counting will kill your name and face faster than other, more valuable advantage plays.
Does that mean you shouldn’t count cards?
About Me
I have a boyfriend.
(Hold for applause)
Our origin story is really sweet, but I’ll spare you the details. Just know that when we met he didn’t know that I was a gambler.
And before we met he had consumed a lot of Blackjack Apprenticeship content. He wanted to learn how to count cards. When I entered his life he was working on learning basic strategy.
Adorable, right?
Or was it…
When he told me about his love for BJA and Colin Jones especially I was surprised. Not because Blackjack Apprenticeship isn’t an amazing card counting resource (it is) or that Colin isn’t the nicest guy (he is). I was surprised because I’d never met anyone outside of gamblers who knew about BJA.
But I only know gamblers and parents of small children. My social circle is not varied. Someone has to be watching all of their videos. BJA’s YouTube channel gets millions of views — their interviews and advice are good. Should I be surprised that a 30-something, white, middle American, traditional-job-having male is watching? He’s their target audience!
Fast forward, we’re in it. He learns all about me. He becomes more motivated than ever to… count cards.
My response? No. Absolutely no.
But it looks fun, he said. He could make extra money, he said. He’d just play for small stakes so he wouldn’t get backed off, he said.
Remember this guy?
My target-audience-boyfriend has a clean name and face. He could make more money doing other advantage plays that have less chance of killing his name and face than card counting.
(Not that I want him to. I don’t.)
He could turn his attention to prediction markets (another topic that deserves its own post). He could hustle online bonuses (still profitable). He could learn to sequence blackjack games or play hole cards. Or he could use his pristine profile to attack casino marketing. Play X amount of video poker at Casino Lucky Devil and get back Y amount in marketing offers.
You know who can’t attack casino marketing? The card counter in the OSN flier who was betting $50!
Heat Is Contagious
Several of you already count cards. And most of the several of you have already had your name exposed, and are still counting cards. Being in a database doesn’t mean that your future in advantage play is doomed.
I saw the best illustration of this at a BJA presentation a couple years ago. One of the successful veterans showed a graph of his lifetime earnings. His name was in a database early in his career, toward the bottom of the graph. From that point forward he won almost a million dollars as a card counter.
I’m not against card counting. You can make money and have the added benefit of being in a new community of like-minded individuals. But would winning a million dollars be worth it to you to not be able to play video poker at Casino Lucky Devils two years later so you could cash in on their generous monthly free play offers, hotel suites, and cruises?
I mean maybe, it is a million dollars. What about $100,000, or $20,000?
This is the type of thing you need to think about when you get into advantage play. How long do you want to be in the business? What is your goal? How risk averse are you?
For most people getting into card counting they don’t even know that other advantage plays exist, and are equally as accessible as card counting. By the time they do know, their name is dust.
Residual Heat
You did your thing, whatever that was, and now your name and face are known. When you move on to other plays, or enter casinos that can identify you as an unwelcome guest, you’re carrying residual heat.
This was actually supposed to be the main part of this post, and it is. It just took 1100 words to get here.
You’re going to get less heat playing hole cards than you are card counting.
Card counters move their bets, hole carders don’t. Counters have to bet hundreds of dollars a hand to make hundreds of dollars an hour. Holecarders don’t.
If you’re a card counter who has heat from your days counting and so you turn your attention to holecarding because you think you can stay under the radar playing easy games and continue your life as a casino AP, you’re very likely not a good holecarder.
You’re new. You don’t know how to sit, how to look, how to communicate with your partners or other holecarders who you run into in the wild.
You’re not a good holecarder and you have residual card counting heat and you’re killing games and it’s hurting everyone.
These are the things I’m hearing from active players. That’s the actual point of this post.
Card counters know they’re going to get backed off. They’ve prepared for it and view it as part of doing business. Card counters are less concerned with getting heat than other advantage players.
Holecarders absolutely do not think like this.
Is Holecarding Profitable in 2026?
Yes. Will it remain profitable in 2027? Yes. But there will be less games and poorer game conditions if inexperienced players (card counters turned holecarders) don’t educate themselves on how to play games safely.
For card counters who are new to scouting and/or playing hole cards, below is a list of posts specific to holecarding. You should read them. They’re behind my paywall. If you’re actively out there attempting to play hole cards, I promise you the subscription fee to pass the paywall and consume the posts is worth it.
After you read about the techniques, go back and read the other AP301 posts about the art of advantage play. You may not be able to get marketing money because you can’t use your real name, but you may be able to sit anonymously on a Mississippi Stud game and bet red chips for hundreds of dollars an hour.
Advantage Player: A Memoir of Blackjack, Backrooms, and Beginnings is out October 27. Order now wherever books are sold!
