This strategy alone allows them to play at an advantage. Grosjean has devised a counting system for the game, which will let him and his partner raise their bets as the shoe of cards becomes weighted toward a particular suit. It goes that way for four additional steps, until you reach the top tier and can win 25 times your original bet or lose it. If they guess correctly, the money that can be won increases. The game's rules are simple: Prior to a card being exposed, players bet on the suit it will be. Grosjean flew here from his home in Las Vegas, armed with more than $100,000, which is stashed in a crevice above the hotel room's TV, and he intends to prove the casino execs wrong. Common wisdom among casino executives holds that the game is safe from advantage players.

His eyes lock on the screen ofĪ laptop computer running numbers that will help him to strategize against a new game, currently in an introductory phase at a riverboat casino near the Holiday Inn. He looks vaguely Asian, but could also pass for Spanish or Native American. Grosjean is slender, unshaven, dressed in jeans and a hoodie. Right now he sits on the edge of a twin bed, in the small room that he shares with his partner on this trip, a part-time folk singer who's nicknamed Pepper and is known as the world's fastest card counter.

With the money he extracts from casinos, Grosjean can buy his own porterhouse and fries. But James Grosjean doesn't hustle high-roller suites and comped meals at the steak house. A small-town Holiday Inn is not where you expect to find one of the world's most astute and notorious casino gamblers.

Spanish 21 advantage play