Thomas Hyland - team counting mainstay

Tommy Hyland is another original inductee into the Blackjack Hall of Fame, and is reputed to have lead the longest running counting team the game of blackjack has ever seen.

His and his team's successes saw them dragged to court by casinos in attempts to keep him from the tables.

Happy days in Atlantic City

Hyland was introduced to the possibilities of profitable blackjack advantage play by Lawrence Revere's book on counting...Playing Blackjack.  Before long Hyland had mastered Revere's techniques and put together a team that would initially work the tables in the casinos of Atlantic City.  The newly introduced early surrender rules in some of Atlantic City's establishments offered an even bigger edge to players with the where-with-all to capitalize.

Hyland's first team consisted of 4 players, each staking $4,000 into the team's bankroll.  Within a few short months, that $16,000 had become $50,000, and the Hyland team was off and running.

All good things come to an end

As all of blackjack's other legendary professionals eventually found out, Atlantic City, Vegas and any other casino town in America didn't take kindly to players consistently taking their money.  It wasn't long before Hyland's team was starting to experience considerable heat and he eventually lost a few team members who sought greener, less scrutinized pastures in Asia and Europe. 

Unfazed, Hyland recruited more players and continue to plunder casinos across the US and Canada, until legal action brought by the Harrah's-owned Casino Windsor in Canada stopped him in his tracks.

Harrah's and a few other majors joined forces and convinced Windsor authorities to have Hyland charged for employing ace sequencing methods.  Hyland was an expert proponent of both ace sequencing and shuffle tracking which enabled him to gain an even larger house edge than simple card counting alone.

The casinos were looking to establish a nationwide precedent that advantage play techniques like counting, ace sequencing and shuffle tracking were illegal.  In a landmark decision that set a precedent that stands to this day, the court found that employing such techniques was not illegal and merely intelligent game play.  They relied on the expert testimony of Arnold Snyder to reach the decision, citing many of his insights in their judgment.

Needless to say, Hyland and his team were soon back to the tables doing what they do best and the casinos had to find other ways to limit their losses.

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