Arnold Snyder

Arnold Snyder has been a professional blackjack and poker player for over thirty years and pioneered many blackjack techniques, but he is best known for his many publications on both blackjack and poker. He is the editor of Blackjack Forum, a trade journal for blackjack professionals which he founded in 1981. Snyder began Blackjack Forum because it was the kind of journal he wanted to read, there being nothing like it available at the time. Formerly a 100-page quarterly, Blackjack Forum is now exclusively published online.

Card Counter’s Rights

Snyder is also well-known as an advocate for the rights of card counters, hole-card and dealer-tell players to use their skills while playing. Besides being an expert when it comes to playing blackjack, Snyder is also an expert on the history of blackjack with a lot of independent original research to his name. Well-read and thoughful, Snyder has argued over and over again that card counting is a perfectly legal skill that should not in any way be mistaken for cheating. He has appeared as an expert witness in many court cases against blackjack players, including the case against blackjack team leader Tommy Hyland in which Snyder’s testimony was crucial in preserving the rights of blackjack teams in the United States and Canada.

Blackjack Author

Snyder is an engaging and eloquent writer. His many publications on blackjack include his excellent book The Big Book of Blackjack, Blackbelt in Blackjack: Playing 21 as a Martial Art, The Blackjack Formula, and the Blackjack Shuffle Tracker’s Cookbook: How Players Win (And Why They Lose) With shuffle Tracking. Snyder was the first to publish on the importance of deck penetration (how far into the deck the dealer deals), proving through simulations that deck penetration is more essential to a card counter’s success than the card counting system used.

Arnold Snyder is a charter member of the Blackjack Hall of Fame.