Editing Card counting (section)

=== Group counting ===
While a single player can maintain their own advantage with back-counting, card counting is most often used by teams of players to maximize their advantage. In such a team, some players called "spotters" will sit at a table and play the game at the table minimum, while keeping a count (basically doing the back "counting"). When the count is significantly high, the spotter will discreetly signal another player, known as a "big player", that the count is high (the table is "hot"). The big player will then "Wong in" and wager vastly higher sums (up to the table maximum) while the count is high. When the count "cools off" or the shoe is shuffled (resetting the count), the big player will "Wong out" and look for other counters who are signaling a high count. This was the system used by the [[MIT Blackjack Team]], whose story was in turn the inspiration for the Canadian movie ''[[The Last Casino]]'' which was later re-made into the [[cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] version ''[[21 (2008 film)|21]]''.<ref>Axelrad (2010), pp. 19, 259.</ref>

The main advantage of group play is that the team can count several tables while a single back-counting player can usually only track one table. This allows big players to move from table to table, maintaining the high-count advantage without being out of action very long. It also allows redundancy while the big player is seated as both the counter and big player can keep the count (as in the movie ''21'', the spotter can communicate the count to the big player discreetly as they sit down). The disadvantages include requiring multiple spotters who can keep an accurate count, splitting the "take" among all members of the team, requiring spotters to play a table regardless of the count (using only basic strategy, these players will lose money long-term), and requiring signals, which can alert pit bosses.

A simple variation removes the loss of having spotters play; the spotters simply watch the table instead of playing and signal big players to Wong in and out as normal. The disadvantages of this variation are reduced ability of the spotter and big player to communicate, reduced comps as the spotters are not sitting down, and vastly increased suspicion, as blackjack is not generally considered a spectator sport in casinos except among those actually playing (unlike [[craps]], [[roulette]], and [[Big Six wheel|wheels of fortune]] which have larger displays and so tend to attract more spectators).