'Austin Powers' Blackjack Scene Is Kinda Legit, So We Can All Be Number 2's Boss
Reader, are you a fan of blackjack? Do you like to live dangerously? Have you ever dreamt of gambling like a farcical supervillain in Las Vegas who singlehandedly catalyzed every boomer dad's favorite poop joke of all time ("WHO DOES NUMBER 2 WORK FOR???)
Well, my Austin Powers-obsessed friend, it seems you can. According to Sal Piacente, a casino cheating expert – an all-real, totally legit job we most definitely knew existed before today -- it seems the scene isn't as far fetched as one may assume, meaning that you too can impress your secretary, Alotta Fagina, by beating a British superspy in a game of blackjack by seeing right through the dealer's cards.
Although much to the dismay of perverted pirates, it seems we may not have collectively reached the technology to create x-ray-vision eye patches, there are a number of ways you can proverbially see through a deck of cards to know what, exactly lies on the other side.
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“There are cards like that, that you could only see with either a red lens on, luminous readers, or with contact lenses, but normally it's done with a series of dots,” Piacente told Vanity Fair during an interview discussing the plausibility of casino scenes in various films. Dubbed a “juice deck,” these cards contain small markings, sometimes made with invisible ink, that wanna-be blackjack cheaters must practice seeing.
“This deck does have a substance on it that if your eye is not trained to see this, I promise, you're not seeing it,” he explained with a smile. Although to us non-casino cheating experts, juice decks may apparently look like your average, run-of-the-mill playing cards, small markings on the back reveal what lies on the other side – some examples including two diagonal markings denoting a seven, and a dark spot on the corner of one card indicating that the card is a king.
So next time you find yourself facing off with Mike Meyers in a game of blackjack with the Soup Nazi himself as a dealer, you know what to do – well, months before you find yourself in that hyper-specific situation.
Top Image: New Line Productions/Shutterstock
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