Does Card Counting Still Work?

The math has not changed

The arithmetic of counting is the same as it was decades ago: a shoe rich in tens and aces favors the player, and bets sized to that fact yield an edge. Nothing about the cards has changed. What changed is the games casinos choose to deal — and that is where the honest answer lives.

What casinos changed

Continuous shuffling machines erase the count entirely — a CSM game cannot be counted, full stop. Blackjack paying 6:5 instead of 3:2 taxes the game beyond what counting recovers in most spreads. Shallow penetration — cutting off two decks of six — starves the count of the depths where the edge concentrates. And table minimums, spread limits, and quick back-offs police the rest. Every one of these is a knob casinos turned specifically because counting works.

So the real skill is game selection

Counting in 2026 is two skills: the count, and finding games worth counting — 3:2 tables, human shuffles, decent penetration, rules that don't bleed you. They still exist; there are fewer of them, and they are unevenly distributed. Scouting — rules, penetration, pace, the room — is as much a part of the modern game as the arithmetic. The honest summary: the edge is real, small, and available exactly where conditions permit it, to players trained enough to hold it.

Questions

Is single-deck blackjack better for counting?

The count swings harder in fewer decks, but modern single-deck games usually pay 6:5, which poisons the well. The rules matter more than the deck count — a good six-deck game beats a bad single-deck game.