What is the true likelyhood

I recently started playing blackjack, well i tend to go to my local casino "Delaware Park" which is for the most part a fun and friendly place. Well last week i went everyday the first three days i came out pretty good i went with 100 and averaged +125 each day and the table went back and fourth win a few loose a few. Now the fourth day is where it all went wrong. The dealer probably only busted 1 out of 10 hands and had BJ 2 out of every 10, had 21 on 3+ card draw probably 3 out of 10 hands and beat the count buy one atleast 3 out of 10 hands and flat lost on the 1 out of 10. And i am not talking just against my hand this was the entire table of 6. everyone that day took a beating.. i finally left when i lost my winnings and my original bank roll. The minimum best was 10.

What would be the likelyhood of this happening.. it really felt as if the shuffler was stacking the deck...

Second side question so as not to start a new thread. This same casino has like 6 - 10 blackjack tables in action all the time.. but the minimum bets are $25 on most tables.. and hardly ever full. But the $10 minimum tables usually 1 or 2 are full. what would the logic for the casino to refuse to lower the minimum on the higher tables that are not full "WHEN" they have a lot of players wanting to play the lower tables?

Quote: kauboj

What would be the likelyhood of this happening.. it really felt as if the shuffler was stacking the deck...

How come it did not look that way for you when you more than doubled your bankroll three times in a row? The likelihood of that isn't very high either.

Quote:

Second side question so as not to start a new thread. This same casino has like 6 - 10 blackjack tables in action all the time.. but the minimum bets are $25 on most tables.. and hardly ever full. But the $10 minimum tables usually 1 or 2 are full. what would the logic for the casino to refuse to lower the minimum on the higher tables that are not full "WHEN" they have a lot of players wanting to play the lower tables?

Well, it's a guessing game. They want to get as much action on the high limit tables as they can. Increasing the number of low-limits goes against that goal.
What usually pisses me off is people, sitting at a $10 table, and betting 50 bucks per hand on every hand. Why would they not move to a higher limit and yield their spot for a low roller like myself?

The reason i asked it was because before everyone was winning and loosing and winning and loosing... and everyone was playing for a long time... those days i came ahead i was playing for 3 - 4 hours... when everyone was loosing.. it was loss after loss i blew threw my winnings and bankroll in about an hour... and really it was like player average was 18 - 19. Dealer average was 20 - 21 every hand.

4 times in a row i was dealt an hard 14. to me thats just about as crappy as being dealt a hard 16

Quote: kauboj

those days i came ahead i was playing for 3 - 4 hours...

With only 10 units initial bankroll, even to last 3-4 hours is already a pretty lucky (unlikely) outcome. Getting it doubled in 3 hours three times in a row is like dealer getting 6 blackjacks one after another :)

kauboj- how about you think of your last 4 times gambling there as one time. If you add up all the good hands and bad hands it probably would seem fairly equal and not noteworthy. I would guess for your 4 times total you are still ahead. I will tell you this true story about my visit to my local casino this week. I sat down to play pai gow, a game similar to blackjack just with lots more pushes. I had 4 in a row against the dealer, then one push, then 4 more in a row. My third hand I had a VERY bad hand, too. But I won them, not the casino. Including the 3rd hand when the dealer had a worse hand. So I won 8 of the first 9. The odds of that are probably less than 1 in 1000. I never once thought that there was 'something fishy' going on. I just was getting lucky. Had I had the dealers cards and him having mine, I would have been on a horrible streak. But I would just chalk that up to bad luck, not have a theory that the casino was somehow cheating against me. In summary, if you are losing you tend to notice 'how unfair' the cards seem to be dealt, but you never think the opposite when you are on the lucky side of the cards.

how would you say i was ahead... i won 375 and lost 475 that puts me at a net loss of 100.. i am not really complaining.. just curious as to how often one could expect to see a string of losses of 8 out of 10 hands for a full table

All sounds pretty normal to me. The probability of losing 8 or more coin flips out of 10 is over 5%. So, once every ~20 hands, you can expect to lose 8 (or more) of the next 10 hands.

If you played 3-4 hours for 3 days (let's call it 10), plus another hour on the 4th day, at 60 hands per hour you've got 660 hands. At $10 min, that's an edge of $0.04 per hand. 660*.04 = -$26.4.

The standard deviation on this many hands is very large, so -$100 is well within the range of expected results.

Quote: kauboj

how would you say i was ahead... i won 375 and lost 475 that puts me at a net loss of 100.. i am not really complaining.. just curious as to how often one could expect to see a string of losses of 8 out of 10 hands for a full table

Welcome to the wonderful world of blackjack!
Like a lot of other games of chance, most of the play is back and forth with the house. You're up a little, down a little, up a little etc. Then when a bad streak hits, which is inevitable, you remember it, not the other uneventful sessions, and convince yourself something crazy happened. I would also characterize losing 8 out of 10 hands well within normal by the way, not a bad streak. A bad streak would be something like losing 10 1 hr sessions in a row.

As far as stacking the deck i have only run into that one time. The casino manager of a boat near where I live was losing money and decided to remove some tens from a double deck bj game. I sat down to play and thought it was strange the manager was dealing and not a dealer. Repeatedly the deck got more and more positive but the tens weren't coming. Something just wasn't right and i got up. About a year later one of the dealers told me what happened and that the casino manager was fired soon after he did this.

Another time I suspected a bj dealer at a large casino in Mississippi of some sleight of hand. What do you call it when a dealer holds the top card and deals the one underneath it until the top (bust card) is needed? Anyway, I just decided it was paranoia because there was just way to much for them to lose and very little to gain.

ok so i can atleast see that i still fall in the range it just wowed me to see so many players loosing so many hands in a row.. and it just seemed that if the players high was 18 deal would draw to 19 if players high was 19 dealer drew to 20


still aggrevated over the fact that i had to argue with the floor to lower a $25 table when they had 4 $25 tables with only 3 people at each and 2 $10 tables full and 6 or 7 people waiting to play a $10 table. seems to me drop a table those playing a $25 bet can still bet $25. I wanna bet in my comfort range when i drive out there which isnt far... but far enough to be a nuisance if i have to leave cause i cant get a $10 table.

They do the same with craps they have 4 tables only 2 open and have $25 min on them both. grrrr frustrating.

you would think that if they had lower mins more people would play and they would play longer... hence wind up better more in the long run.

I am a tipper and unfortunately i penalize the dealer on tips for not getting a table i want.

What minimums to make tables is a complex business decision for the casino. They are not trying to make you happy, they are trying to pick the number that will allow the highest dollars bet per round. If they can get 4 $25 players instead of 6 $10 players by making the table $25 minimum, then what would you do? Of course, if at a $10 table they get 4 $25 players AND 2 $10 players they would be better off. I do agree with you that often the pit bosses do not do as good a job as they should in finding the correct balance.

I vividly recall a bizarre 15 minutes at Slots-of-Fun in Vegas, when I got a hard 20 on six consecutive hands--and lost every one; then for some reason I kept playing, and got six hard 12s in a row--and won all of them. I've also lost seventeen hands in a row, gotten 21 with the A23456 of hearts, played single deck with a friend, we both got A5, doubled down (vs. a 6), and we received the two remaining 5s. Gamble long enough and you'll see everything.

Quote: kauboj

I recently started playing blackjack, well i tend to go to my local casino "Delaware Park" which is for the most part a fun and friendly place. Well last week i went everyday the first three days i came out pretty good i went with 100 and averaged +125 each day and the table went back and fourth win a few loose a few. Now the fourth day is where it all went wrong. The dealer probably only busted 1 out of 10 hands and had BJ 2 out of every 10, had 21 on 3+ card draw probably 3 out of 10 hands and beat the count buy one atleast 3 out of 10 hands and flat lost on the 1 out of 10. And i am not talking just against my hand this was the entire table of 6. everyone that day took a beating.. i finally left when i lost my winnings and my original bank roll. The minimum best was 10.

What would be the likelyhood of this happening.. it really felt as if the shuffler was stacking the deck...

Welcome to Blackjack. As a beginner, you have no concept of how bad it can get. You can only experience it for yourself. Your results were not at all unlikely. Have fun with the game, and don't try to win your losses back right away!

Quote: clarkacal

A bad streak would be something like losing 10 1 hr sessions in a row.

Happened to me. Probably will happen again.

my biggest thing with the minimums is i rather play 10 $10 hands and lose all ten in a row versus playing 4 $25 hands and lose all 4 what takes 10 minutes tops to play 4 rounds. i wanna maximize my fun at the table before i go home broke.

Well i think i am gonna set a new loss stop point... as soon as i loose $50 whether thats 5 $10 hands in a row or 5 $10 scattered..i think that will be a good point for me.