Book for blackjack players
In 1967, Griffin started a company called Griffin Investigations, Inc., “for the purpose of providing surveillance and investigative services to casinos,” according to their promotional brochure. Prior to the Griffin Agency, casinos had always provided their own surveillance, and they had rarely shared information with each other. But now, casinos had a common enemy-card counters-and Griffin’s main product was a mug book of names and photos of counters who had been identified and barred.
Most card counters learned about Griffin the hard way, when they found themselves being ejected from casinos where they had never played before, shortly after arriving at the blackjack tables for an initial play. Elaborate disguises and fake IDs soon became a necessity for high-stakes pros once they were “in the book.” Some players who were not card counters also found themselves being identified as counters in the Griffin book, as they had been misidentified to Griffin as such by paranoid pit bosses. Other non-pros had their names and photos entered into the Griffin book as “associates” of card counters simply because they had been seen socializing in the casinos with other players who were already in the book.
