Card counting Christians ‘liberate’ money from casino blackjack tables

Peter Amsel
October 9, 2011
1 Comment

holy-rollers-blackjackWhenever a US politician (be they federal, state or municipal) makes a tentative step toward expanding gaming options in his or her constituency, religious groups like Focus On The Family issue a flurry of over the top press releases, goading their membership into intimidating politicians who fear a ‘values voter’ backlash. But another Christian group figures there’s a far more direct route to defeating gambling operators: taking their money.

Enter the Church Team, a group of mathematically inclined Christians who claim to have taken millions of dollars from land-based casinos across the US via card counting at blackjack tables. Like the MIT students popularized in the Kevin Spacey movie 21, the Church Team’s story is being brought to cinematic life in a new documentary, Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians.

The Church Team began as a hobby of two young card-playing Christians. “I don’t believe in luck. I believe in probability. But I also believe God sits above probability.” The team eventually grew to 25 members, including some pastors, whose credo was to “liberate the money from the clutches of those who would use it for ill purposes.” As one member puts it: “I hate casinos … they just suck goodness out of the world.”

In an attempt to elude detection by those goodness-sucking casino bosses, Team members employed a variety of disguises. One member even gave his alter egos names, including ‘Cowboy,’ ‘Asian Gamer,’ ‘Golf Pro,’ ‘Frat Guy,’ ‘Promise Keeper,’ ‘Accountant,’ ‘Gay Art Collector,’ and ‘My Dad.’ Helpfully, we’re told that the disguise that was most popular for attracting the (unwanted) interest of female casino patrons was ‘K-Fed.’ (If there’s a more damning indictment of the tastes of American women, we haven’t heard it.)

Team members would fan out across the country, doing God’s work in various casinos, after which their total winnings would be pooled and divided equally. But when the team endures a sustained dry spell in which they actually lose money, one of the team fingers another member for allegedly pocketing his winnings and falsely claiming losses, although his sole evidence for making this accusation is that “the Holy Spirit told me.” Hmm… You know, if the Holy Spirit had told you to stand on 16, maybe you guys wouldn’t have hit a losing streak?

The Team members apparently engage in a good deal of onscreen soul-searching as they wrestle with the inherent contradiction of God-fearing folk hangin’ with the heathens and indulging in a pastime they regard as sinful (at least, when other people do it). But as some of the film’s reviewers have pointed out, the documentary doesn’t provide much info as to precisely where the alleged millions of dollars of the team’s profit goes, beyond sustaining their own activities and supporting their families. Presumably, the employees being laid off from the cash-strapped casinos in Atlantic City don’t have families, and only ever used their salaries for “ill purposes.”

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Tags: Article, Blackjack, Holy Rollers
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  • http://www.facebook.com/calvinayre Calvin Ayre

    Fuck them and the horse they road in on.  What a load of puke.