US vs European

Is it better for a casino to use the American way of dealing where the dealer receives two cards at the initial deal or the European way where the dealer only receives one card?

What is the difference in house edge of the two different dealing styles?

It makes no difference when the dealer gets his second card. The difference is in the rules. In European No Hole Card all splits and double downs are lost when the dealer has blackjack.

Better?
For a casino, better usually means faster.

So in a UK casino and a US casino the answers would be opposite but based on the same reason. What the players were most familiar with and expect will go faster.

Consider Baccarat. When it was making inroads in Las Vegas it was an Evenings and Alcoves type of game with the participants in some sort of Evening get up or pseudo evening get up and the Alcove sported a chandelier as well as crew of mature gentlemen in dignified get up. Why? Well it was part of the marketing... the alure .... the draw.

Will something like that happen with Blackjack and the European style of Dealer gets one card only spread to the USA? Only if there is a need for it. Dealer gets one card, Player reaching eleven is an automatic double... it works in Europe and it will work here but only if there is some sudden need to adopt such a procedure here.

For all casinos, speed is of the essence rather than slowing things down to explain oddities to the players.

Quote: 1BB

In European No Hole Card all splits and double downs are lost when the dealer has blackjack.

In Australia and New Zealand they deal the European style but only lose original bet if dealer gets a Blackjack.

Quote: 1BB

It makes no difference when the dealer gets his second card.

So only difference will be the order of the cards, which will not impact on any way the HE?

Correct.

Ok. Now what about shuffling machines, how do these affect the game? Obviously the gamespeed will be greatly increased and will basically eliminate counting, but what other reasons are there to bring them in?

I'm asking because I notice with a lot of HE analysis it changes according to the number of decks used. Does the same apply for how many decks are used in a shuffling machine? Some casinos use 4 decks in a shuffler, some 6. I wouldn't think it will make a difference how many decks in a shuffler because it is continuous.

Quote: Tangledweb

Ok. Now what about shuffling machines, how do these affect the game? Obviously the gamespeed will be greatly increased and will basically eliminate counting, but what other reasons are there to bring them in?

Those two reasons are precisely why they are brought in. I remember when they had to manually shuffle 6 to 8 decks. It took some time, then a cut was offered to whoever got that red cut card in the shoe.

Eliminating counting + adding hands per hour = more revenue on a game the house holds a mathematical edge on. I tend to only see these CSMs on lower limit however.

Quote: Gabes22

Those two reasons are precisely why they are brought in. I remember when they had to manually shuffle 6 to 8 decks. It took some time, then a cut was offered to whoever got that red cut card in the shoe.

Eliminating counting + adding hands per hour = more revenue on a game the house holds a mathematical edge on. I tend to only see these CSMs on lower limit however.

Counterbalanced somewhat by eliminating the cut-card effect. The non-counting player's edge is actually smaller on a CSM game than a normal shoe game that uses penetration (a cut card) to trigger shuffling.

There are also ASMs that shuffle the cards which are then put into a shoe and dealt as normal by the dealer. The casinos pay fees on both of these machines.

So is there any difference between how many decks are used in a CSM?

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Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Given all rules are the same, as always, the less the better.

Why would less be better? I would have thought that it doesn't matter as the cards are recycled each hand.

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Ok, think I've got it. So it doesn't matter if cards recycled because it is only the current hand the removal of the cards is effecting.

With four decks there are 16 Aces, if two are pulled during the hand there will be only 14 remaining in the CSM as opposed to 22 in a 6 deck game or 30 in an 8 deck game. At the conclusion of the hand, all cards are returned therefore start fresh with total number of cards available.

Quote: FleaStiff

Will something like that happen with Blackjack and the European style of Dealer gets one card only spread to the USA? Only if there is a need for it. Dealer gets one card, Player reaching eleven is an automatic double... it works in Europe and it will work here but only if there is some sudden need to adopt such a procedure here.

Erm? That's a lousy rule... unless it's only when the dealer has 2-9, that must add a mint to the edge.

Regarding the European rules of dealing one card, I believe that the initial reason for this rule was game security. I think that at the time that BJ was introduced in Europe as a new game they figured out that it will save them a lot of trouble for game secirity reasons if the second card was not dealt. At that time in US when you had Ace or Ten the Dealer manually checked the downcard (no peeping mechamism existed) which meant major collusion possibilities possible. Even without that dealing a second downcard creates the possibility of dealer flashing or holecarding. Dealing just the upcard removes all these security issues for the casino.
I do no think that the extra small edge for the casino of ENHC rules was an issue at that time.

As other people said there is no major difference in basic and Ev between the two except for a few plays like 11 v 10 (Hit) and 8,8 v A and A,A v A and a small difference in EV.
What a lot of people do not realise is the better results you get from Ace sequencing and bottom steering (following an exposed card at the bottom of the deck cut in the front) with ENHC. If your prediction for where the specific card (ie Ace card) is located is not very accurate then it reduces the possibility of landing as dealer card. As the dealer gets only one card and then hit cards follow by players then the card might fall as third hit card instead of dealer second card.