Interesting Cruise Ship Rules

This was taken out of Hurricane Mikey's trip report on a cruise ship. I thought it was an interesting srew job.



There was one table in particular that I thought was amazing--it had the best rules I've ever seen on a Blackjack table. It was an eight-deck shoe, but any 21 was an automatic winner, no waiting for the dealer to make a hand and maybe push--if you drew to a 21, you got paid instantly. And if you got a blackjack, a 5-card 21, a 6-7-8 21, or a 7-7-7 21, you got paid instantly at 3:2 (no waiting to see if the dealer got a blackjack, either). You could double after *any* card, not just the third one, double after splits, re-hit split Aces, and they offered late surrender. I couldn't believe it! It was like the most amazing set of player-friendly rules ever!

Then, three days into the cruise, I found out that there we no queens in the deck. WTF? Nope, they didn't have that posted anywhere on the table, nor where they offering up that info voluntarily. You had to ask. That's 32 fewer chances to get a blackjack, a HUGE advantage for the house, so I immediately colored up and quit playing as soon as I learned that. I just never noticed that there were no queens coming out. It turned out that all of their blackjack tables had some sort of god-awful Harrah-fied rules, so after that, I avoided the blackjack tables altogether.

I agree, that is not right to not disclose the modified deck to the players. What would prevent them from removing a few aces as well?

I was deceived at first by the game Triple Action Hold Em at Binion's, which uses eights to aces only. Maybe the felt mentioned it somewhere, but I played several hands before I realized something was fishy, and the dealer confirmed my suspicion that there were only high cards in the deck.

I may have already posted this a long time ago, but I'm not sure.

I was on a cruise ship half a dozen years ago in which some players suspected incomplete decks of cards. The casino was not open 24 hours, and when it opened for players to enter, the cards were already shuffled (supposedly) and in the shoes, ready for the deal. We never got to see them spread on the table face up, as most of us were accustomed to seeing when a table was first opened. The dealers and supervisor claimed that the decks were standard and complete, and I had no well-based reason to doubt them, but a fair number of my fellow players thought that there was a distinct shortage of face cards. No, the casino was not willing to spread the cards for examination, even at the shuffle, claiming that it would delay play, or some such. I only played BJ when the crap table was not open for business. The dice certainly appeared to have the standard number of pips.

Foxwoods and MGM in Ct. buy the cards for their eight deck shoes pre-shuffled. When changing cards they are not in order when spread on the table.

Quote: thlf

That's 32 fewer chances to get a blackjack, a HUGE advantage for the house, so I immediately colored up and quit playing as soon as I learned that. I just never noticed that there were no queens coming out. It turned out that all of their blackjack tables had some sort of god-awful Harrah-fied rules, so after that, I avoided the blackjack tables altogether.

I suppose fraud is not a crime on the high seas. This would certainly be both fraud and cheating if it happened on dry land.

Quote: Doc

No, the casino was not willing to spread the cards for examination, even at the shuffle, claiming that it would delay play, or some such.

Heck no! I'd never play that way. I've been on Day Boats wherein the shuffling is done in domestic waters but the gambling doesn't start until the boat is in international waters. Sure they don't allow curious passengers to mill around when they are filling the table's banks, but during the shuffle of multiple decks into a shoe anyone with a mind to can watch. It does not in any way delay play to demonstrate the casino's honesty!