card counters' days numbered?

Wired has an article about a new very high-tech card-counter-detection system that should send a chill down the spine of every aspiring card counter.

MindPlay works by placing a set of 14 digital cameras around a specially built blackjack table tray. The optical equipment registers every card in play by reading special invisible ink printed on them.

But that isn't the only trick up MindPlay's sleeve. It can recognize the differences between a player's drink, a napkin, an ashtray, a stack of chips being held by a player and a pile of chips in play, Soltys said. And it tracks the location and value of chips by comparing 3-D models of them in a database to all objects on the table.

If it's not apparent from the technologies talked about in this article, card counting will be all but impossible within a few years, anywhere in the world. It's already extremely difficult to make more than a few thousand a year as a card counter in the U.S.

If anything it's good news for poker, which should continue to have a sunny future as a casino game where it's possible to have a positive expectation.