Well said Norm :toast:
I wanted to add that nowehere in the rules of blackjack does it say that a player cannot get information about remaining deck composition (by card counting) or about the subsequent shoe (shuffle tracking). However a basic and intrinsic rule is that the dealer's hole card is unknown. If you accidently see it, you should use that information, but hiring midgets to get that information is no different than having your children signal for you the hole cards of Poker players (This actually happened to me when i was playing Poker at some guys house, he had trained his 6 year old twin girls to signal for him the other player's cards, isn't this great parenting, oh no wait that is called being an AP these days
).
As far as card marking, it is not even close. The basic premise of any card games is that the cards be
visually indistinguishable , marking the cards nullifies this. If card marking becomes "legal". I surely can use elegant scientific to mark the cards instead of spilling my drink all over the table