Shopping list for the right blackjack setup

Dear Mark: Please settle a disagreement between my brother and me. My brother thinks he has better odds against the house at blackjack playing out of a shoe with several decks. I think it is to the gambler's advantage to play at tables with a single deck. Please explain the reason for your answer. Wade J.  

There is some mathematical footing, Wade, as to why you want to play on a single deck game. Compared to a single deck game, a two-decker handicaps your play by 0.35%, four decks 0.48%, six decks 0.54%, and eight decks 0.58%. Playing 100 hands per hour at $10 per hand, each handicap jump of 0.1% will cost you approximately a buck an hour. Given the choice, Wade, and the rules being “relatively” equal, I would recommend playing on a game with the smallest number of decks possible, because your odds are better.

Likewise, multiple decks and continuous shufflers hurt your play because the dealer shuffles less, or not at all, thus increasing the number of hands dealt per hour. Increasing hands-per-hour generally multiplies the benefits-per-hour for the entity with the built-in edge, and that, Wade, is, yep, you guessed it, the house.

Tell your brother for me, Wade, that he can plan on losing more money per hour against continuous shufflers, followed by non-continuous automatic shufflers, followed by multi-deck hand-shuffled games, than against the single deck – just by hands-per-hour.  

Still, stumbling upon a single deck blackjack game today is a rare occurrence. However, if by happenstance, you find one, make sure to look closely at the table layout, to see whether there’s this lethal notice:  "Blackjack Pays 6:5." On these new 6:5 games, a $5 blackjack gets you only $6 instead of $7.50. So although that the game is played with a single deck, the house edge increases dramatically.  

As I harped on just a few columns back, play in a casino that offers the following combination of rules: fewest decks possible; surrender, both early and late; double down allowed on any two cards; double down allowed after splitting pairs; multiple pair splitting allowed, plus re-splitting aces; dealer stands on a soft 17; deep deck penetration; and, of course, 3:2 for a blackjack.

Dear Mark: Everywhere you look nowadays, there are penny machines. How can the casino make a profit a penny at a time? Joan T.

Every gaming market in the United States is moving towards low-denomination slot machines at warp speed. The reason being, Joan, is because players keep the Naugahyde stools in front of them fully occupied.  

Penny machines and two-centers are laying claim to more and more casino real estate because players love the number of coins and lines they can bet with just the loose change they’ve been saving in their cookie jar above the refrigerator. In fact, Joan, casinos today haul in more cash per machine on penny video slots than they do on quarter or dollar reel-spinning slot machines.  

Casinos love them because they are huge moneymakers with relatively low paybacks. Certainly, you can wager just a mere penny per spin, but most players tend to bet far more than one coin per line, and many bet the maximum. This creates bets larger than they seem, putting penny play in the quarter, even dollar league. Low payback machines, and players standing in line to play them. Go figure. The casinos sure have. 

Gambling Wisdom of the Week: “Playing poker is sort of like riding a roller coaster: it's up and down, speed up, slow down, first you're scared and then you're bored. And when the ride is over and you get up to leave, you usually feel like throwing up.” --VP Pappy

Round and round …♪♫ ♫♪♪… and where she stops… ♪♫♫ ♫♪…

Dear Mark: I liked your indifferent answer last week regarding system players trying to find trends on a roulette wheel based on previous numbers. I will agree, that numbers spun are random, but, isn’t there a system based on following the traits of the way a dealer spins the ball? Brett H.

What your question references, Bret, is called a predictive system, where the system player examines specific mannerisms of the dealer – the “dealer’s  signature.” The player is foxhunting for roulette dealers who get into a rhythm of spinning the wheel and launching the ball in such a way that they consciously, or unconsciously, target a given number or section of the wheel. 

Your question reduces to: Can a dealer deliberately or accidentally target and pocket a specific number when the wheel is spinning east, the ball west, with frets impeding the descending bouncing ball as it finds its way to cuddle obediently in a particular pocket, and if so, can the system player exploit such a dealer signature?

Except for a few verified instances of some success at clocking the wheel, I stand on the “notta chance” side of this argument for the 99.9% who think their schemes of determining where the ball is more likely to land and raise the return of the game above 100% work. Moreover, Brett, casino operators have plenty of security procedures in place to preserve the integrity of the game.

Every casino has its own set of guidelines for its dealers to follow when it comes to wheel speed, plus all dealers are trained to either speed up or slow down both the wheel and ball delivery before each spin to avoid wheel clocking. Besides, to unconsciously sector-shoot or pocket a particular number, the dealer would have to be consistent in aligning the starting point of the spin with a corresponding number and with your chips lying appropriately in snug anticipation of where the ball is going to land. 

Another example of a predictive system is one that exploits flaws to the equipment. This system is centered on a biased wheel with the belief that some wheels may have a mechanical flaw that provides a non-random distribution of winning numbers. Sure, Brett, in theory, it’s a possibility, but in practice, it nosedives, mainly because casinos continually monitor the performance of their roulette wheels regularly to try to keep the result of the spins as uniform as possible. This constant maintenance and observation would catch any large bias, resulting in the table’s immediate closure.

Dear Mark: My wife and I live in Reno where we occasionally play video poker. The rumor around these parts is NOT to play ANY machines during the holidays because they "are tightened down" due to the influx of non-suspecting tourists. Is there any truth to this? Richard B. 

Not really, Richard, but you do not even have to be a non-suspecting tourist to see if the casino is altering their video poker machines during holidays. You can easily spot any monkey business by going up to a Jack’s-or-Better machine, and eyeballing the paytable. Just by noting what they pay you for a full house and a flush you would see the switcheroo.

Besides having to get approval in certain gaming jurisdictions to change the percentage return in the casino’s favor, it is not cost-effective for casinos to vary the payouts on weekends and holidays for unquestioning vacationers.

Gambling Wisdom of the Week: "If someone is unsuccessful at hanging onto money outside of a casino, why on earth would you expect him to be successful at hanging on to it inside of a casino." --Bob Dancer