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.
“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.