I'd have no problem doing it. I'd win a couple of medium sized pots while losing some smaller ones and then move to the next casino and do the same thing all the way down the strip. It's legal and in my mind no different than using your skills to get a good paying job.

You're acting within the rules of the game while observing what's going on in the game.

Exactly. But since casinos like the house to win, any kind of advantage is considered grounds for expulsion.

Smart writers make guest appearances on The Simpsons: [link]

Tom Wolfe is screaming. He screams softly, this Southern gentleman, his trademark white suit unwrinkled, his spats unwavering even as a giant granite boulder hurtles down upon him. It looks to be the end of the pioneering New Journalism author of "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

"Aaaaaaaahh! Wait, no, that wasn't good, let me start over."

"How did you scream last time a boulder was hurtling toward you?" asks Carolyn Omine, executive producer of "The Simpsons."

"Why don't you try, 'Aaaaahhhh, my suit!' " suggests a rail-thin, nerdy-looking writer, from the front of the Fox recording studio.

"Ahhhhh, my suit! It's gabardine!" wails Wolfe, toward the microphone. "Well, but cops wear gabardine."

Slowly, Wolfe transforms. Even now, this episode's director, Mark Kirkland, is circling Wolfe, snapping pictures. Soon, a team of animators will render Wolfe bug-eyed and yellow-skinned. A year from now he'll appear on television alongside Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and the bartender Moe in an episode of "The Simpsons" parodying highfalutin literary culture.

"We started with the idea of Moe as Charles Bukowski," explains Matt Warburton, who wrote the episode. "We brought Lisa in as the person who discovers in scuzzy, barfly Moe something that we've never seen before: a poet." Antics ensue, with Wolfe and fellow guest stars Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen voicing themselves. All were thrilled to participate.

Don't the casinos write the rules? So if they say card counting is against the rules, it is.

They have to catch you.

Don't the casinos write the rules? So if they say card counting is against the rules, it is.

True. But I still think it's not unethical. You do what you can to win. If they don't like the way you play, they essentially tell you, "We don't want you as a customer." Capitalism marches on.

I don't think it's against the law to count cards - in my mind, it's not the same as stealing.

"We started with the idea of Moe as Charles Bukowski," explains Matt Warburton, who wrote the episode. "We brought Lisa in as the person who discovers in scuzzy, barfly Moe something that we've never seen before: a poet." Antics ensue, with Wolfe and fellow guest stars Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen voicing themselves. All were thrilled to participate.

Heh. Can't wait to see Chabon's flowing locks rendered in Simpsons-imation.

Speaking of writers, the publisher has acknowledged receipt of my book pitch. I'll hear sometime at the end of January. Ohmmmmmmmmm.

Also, I don't think it's unethical to count cards.

A case where a guy counting cards was barred from a casino - so he sued: [link] The case has not been settled yet.

I dont' understand how/why it's against the rules. Many people who do it can't help it (like whoever's cousin it was) I think that it's just a way of playing the game. and how do they prove it, anyway. "Look, you can see his eyes moving, He's clearly thinking "

Don't the casinos write the rules? So if they say card counting is against the rules, it is.

Sure, it's against their rules. But that doesn't make it unethical. Jaywalking or speeding are against the rules. But not unethical.