Miss Stud -How Casinos Can Cheat

Let me say that I am not claiming that that any casino is cheating at Miss Stud. But I will explain how the House Edge at Miss Stud can be increased - so that players in third world casinos and self-regulated Indian casinos at least know what to look for.

Background At my local Indian casino, the Miss. Stud automated shuffler formerly dealt two card packets with the first ones corresponding to the player hands, and then dealt two 2-card packets corresponding to the community cards (with a burn card, I recall.) Recently, this order of dealing has changed at my local Casino. Now, the shuffler device deals a 3-card packet first for the Miss Stud community cards and then two card packets are dealt for the player cards.

Significant change? Who knows? Probably not. However, I make these claims:
- The automated shuffler software has indeed been changed (presumably by the manufacturer.)
- When I raised this issue in the WOV forum, the responses seemed to indicated that this change in the shuffler sequence for dealing Miss Stud cards had not occurred in Vegas or other state regulated casinos
- Now the automated shuffler clearly knows that the first three cards are the community cards; i.e., there are no ambiguities arising from how many players are at the table when identifying the community cards.

So, I wondered: What happens to the mathematical House Edge if the shuffler software is changed to (occasionally) control the rank of the very first community card to be turned over?

Calculations Remember: the theoretical Mississippi Stud House Edge = 4.9% (4.9149%) with perfect play.

In these calculations I assumed that all player hands are dealt randomly and that the 2nd and 3rd community cards are random, but that the first community card is known (or controlled.) I assume that all players follow the WOO site strategy. I calculate these House Edges

- 1st community card is a 2, 3 or 4 (all other cards are random) House Edge =57%

- 1st community card is a 5 House Edge =55%

These are round numbers because my method was approximate for one category of player hands: when the player has a suited High-Medium hand such as Ah-6h.

So basically, the Miss Stud house edge is increased from 5% to approximately 55% whenever the first community card (which I believe is the 1st card out of the shuffler at my Indian casino) is a low card.

To increase the mathematical House Edge from 5% to 10%, all the shuffler must be reprogrammed to do is to make the first card dealt from the shuffler a 2,3,4 or 5 (chosen at random) on 1 out of 10 deals. The shuffler software does not need to control the player cards, those are still dealt randomly. Players will still randomly get high pairs JJ-AA (and actually will get them slightly more frequently.) The other two community cards may still be dealt randomly, Just control the 1st community card to be a 2,3,4 or 5 on 1 out of ten deals. Would players notice that? I don't think so.

I also looked at a case where the first two community cards are two low cards of different ranks and suits, and all other cards are random. I specifically picked a 2c and 5h as the first two community cards, respectively. I calculate that the House Edge is 136.3557%! I think that is an exact calculation. So, if five players at a Miss Stud table have wagered a total of $200 before the cards are dealt, the house can expect to win an average of about $272.71 on that one deal if the first two cards are 2c and 5h (or some other non-matching suits and ranks from 2-5.) Now, that would be Beast Mode!

I expect that the largest Miss Stud House Edge achievable by controlling the community cards is 5h 4h 2d or other suit combinations in that pattern. I haven't yet calculated the House Edge for that set of community cards because I had seen enough to make my point.

So, if you are Chief SuckEmDry in charge of an Indian-regulated Casino, or Igor Ripemov in charge of a Russian casino, and you want to make more money from your Miss. Stud game then all you need to do to is to deliberately put a low card into the community cards every once in a while. Ka-ching!

Players beware, and keep your eyes wide open!

Note. This post was designed to be a little bit like an Elliot Jacobsen blog that has gone Through the Looking Glass.

Many state regulated casinos have the machines set to deal the community cards first.

I definitely appreciate the "looking glass" information from the other side. I definitely wish the players had an Elliot Jacobson for the players (since most of his posts were very helpful to both, but geared towards the casino industry). Would be nice to hear that information geared towards the players... and I'm sure you could make millions from the ::tinfoil:: hat wearers that just want some mathematical plausibility to their theories such as this =P.

For the record I too know of state regulated non-indian casinos that deal the 3 card flop first as well.

The 3,2,2,2,2,2,2 is probably the most common. UTH would be 5,2,2,2,2,2,2

I hear you guys on the 3 card flops being dealt first in state-regulated casinos. I imagine that change is being made to make the hands easier to reconstruct in case of disputes, or for security purposes. Still, from the first moment I saw this I recognized that the cards that matter the most to the casino are now the first to hit the felt. It creeped me out a bit.

Anyway, I enjoy calculations like this that look at things from a different angle. And Mississippi Stud is an easy subject because it is such a bipolar casino game. It has enormous mood swings.

Quote: Romes

I'm sure you could make millions from the ::tinfoil:: hat wearers that just want some mathematical plausibility to their theories such as this =P.

If I felt that writing legitimate gambling books was +EV I would take a shot. But I suspect that WOO and other internet sites have pretty much wrecked the gambling publication industry on everything except maybe poker. "Its hard to operate a brothel when so many girls give it away for free."

If you worry about a 55% casino house edge on MS, you can edge sort the cards. Problem solved!

Quote: lightningbolts

If you worry about a 55% casino house edge on MS, you can edge sort the cards. Problem solved!

Now, doggone it, stop outing all the good AP moves!

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

The 3,2,2,2,2,2,2 is probably the most common. UTH would be 5,2,2,2,2,2,2

I do not understand this post.

Quote: gordonm888

I do not understand this post.

He's talking about the settings on the shuffler, how they are programmed to come out of the machine. They don't HAVE to do it with the community cards first, but a lot of them do. And most of THOSE (in UTH) then place the dealer's hand next, followed by as many player hands as necessary. A few do give community, player (s), dealer.

The point being, if they always deal in that order, the first 2 batches of cards are always known to be house cards, and theoretically could be stacked thru programming.

There are other houses that simply deliver a shuffled deck, which the dealer may or may not cut before they pitch the hands.

And at least one place I play UTH where they start with 2-packets and deal to players first, dealer last, then hand-deal each of the flop and river from the stub after bets are placed/checked.

The thing he's describing, it has been my experience (and that's all I can claim), that the cards run significantly worse for the players when dealt this way. I don't care who you are, you see enough runs like that and you start to wonder if there's a gaff going on.

But I went on about it a bit last year, so not going to repeat myself.

Quote: gordonm888

I do not understand this post.

Meaning the community cards first, then players hole cards, then dealers hole cards (if necessary).

The community cards should be dealt first as a game protection measure. You put a cut card in the shuffler that comes out under the packet so people can't hole card. It has nothing to do with rigging the shuffle.

^Thanks. Was waiting for that, and don't have to know much of the specifics of the game to have known there'd be somesuch. Sheesh.

That's leaving aside the drooling idiocy of someone somewhere somehow imagining that they'd potentially maximize or better increase net revenue by some complex nefarious plot that involves rigging the shuffle... rather than simply setting the payout explicitly and above board at the rate which... get this, hold your breath now: maximizes total net revenue. Like the price of tea in China or totally opaque slot machine hold or anything else in the world, the volume of play (how much of your stuff people buy) will vary according to the inverse of house hold (price of the product). How much and how often the players get paid something, and therefore how much they like doing it (without any knowledge of that hold rate necessarily becoming involved) determines how often for how much for for how long they will naturally feel like doing so.

Which is all a description of exactly what every competent enterprise and individual seeks to do in charging for their goods & services, everywhere, all the time, as they should, including the kid running a corner lemonade stand if the poor little nipper is of something near normal reasoning ability and motivation. And is the most basic fundamental elementary concept of market economics that SHOULD have been retained, if nothing else ever was, by those who were not hopelessly stoned or otherwise cognitively impaired during school hours in their pre-teen years and beyond. As price (house hold) of something rises, demand (play volume) declines, and one always seeks to set the former at the level which maximizes the final net total of price x volume (minus marginal cost).

If your game's rate of house hold is too low so it does not already maximize revenue, then you are simply incompetent. If your hold is too low and you raise it to the optimum level THIS WAY instead of doing so explicitly in the rules & payouts of your games, then you are both incompetent at pursuing your own self-interest and also congenitally sleazy. If your game's hold rate does already maximize revenue, and you surreptitiously increase the hold further beyond that optimal revenue maximizing rate then you only hurt the total net result for your own business, and in that case are not only criminally incompetent but beyond that also too spectacularly stupid to remain employed in a responsible position of any sort, even in a simple criminal enterprise. Which you likely won't for too long because of your propensity for hurting your own revenue through such childish moronic nonsense. Good freaking grief.

In the whole wide world I don't doubt that somewhere sometime there probably would exist an exceptionally stupid crook that's actually incompetent enough to do this. But they flunked out of the intro to MAKING MORE MONEY (instead of LESS) by stealing class.

Quote: lightningbolts

The community cards should be dealt first as a game protection measure. You put a cut card in the shuffler that comes out under the packet so people can't hole card. It has nothing to do with rigging the shuffle.

our casino solved this problem by leaving the house cards in the shuffler until all players have acted.....my own view on this game is like most: no need to cheat just open the doors.

I don't know what about you, but it seems to me that today all casinos have "tightened the nut". I mean, that it became harder to win than before. Everybody driven by greed(((

By the way, theoretically, I think the worst set of community cards for the casino are J-J-J.

Quote: gordonm888

By the way, theoretically, I think the worst set of community cards for the casino are J-J-J.

How would 10,J,Q suited do versus J J J ?

Quote: gordonm888

By the way, theoretically, I think the worst set of community cards for the casino are J-J-J.

Still waiting for a 3oak community and everyone be dealt pocket pairs.

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Still waiting for a 3oak community and everyone be dealt pocket pairs.

I saw 3 out of 4 players get fh with a trips board once.

If the number of community cards is different than the number of cards delivered to the players, then they have to be delivered first. Otherwise, the machine would have to deal out hands to every spot, like Pai Gow Poker, whether there was a player there or not.

It is much more efficient to deal the odd packet first, and then as many packets as necessary for the players and then hit the green button to dispense the rest of the deck.

It amazes me how many rational thinking people think that Shuffle Master, which is now part of a HUGE company, Scientific Gaming, would have any reason to have a way for their devices to be used dishonestly. It would destroy their entire business model, which is fast, secure, random shuffling. What would motivate them to do anything different? Same reasoning goes for the casinos. IF they could reverse engineer the programming (Big IF), what motivation would they have to cheat? It has been proven over literally a hundred years, that the small house edge the casino enjoys is enough to make gazillions of dollars. Why risk the goose that lays the golden eggs for a couple measly extra dollars?

Every time I hear the Shuffle Master is Rigged argument my head explodes.

Quote: FCBLComish

If the number of community cards is different than the number of cards delivered to the players, then they have to be delivered first. Otherwise, the machine would have to deal out hands to every spot, like Pai Gow Poker, whether there was a player there or not.

It is much more efficient to deal the odd packet first, and then as many packets as necessary for the players and then hit the green button to dispense the rest of the deck.

It amazes me how many rational thinking people think that Shuffle Master, which is now part of a HUGE company, Scientific Gaming, would have any reason to have a way for their devices to be used dishonestly. It would destroy their entire business model, which is fast, secure, random shuffling. What would motivate them to do anything different? Same reasoning goes for the casinos. IF they could reverse engineer the programming (Big IF), what motivation would they have to cheat? It has been proven over literally a hundred years, that the small house edge the casino enjoys is enough to make gazillions of dollars. Why risk the goose that lays the golden eggs for a couple measly extra dollars?

Every time I hear the Shuffle Master is Rigged argument my head explodes.

I agree the issue is not happening. However, that's not to say it couldn't be done, just that it's not being done.

My problem with the dealing structure is that they have other options (and some of them use them) to dealing the community cards first (as you rightly note, the only practical way to automate it), then the dealer's hand, and THEN the player hands. This specific order just begs people to think there's something going on.

They COULD deal the player hands after the community cards, THEN the dealer's hand.

They COULD deal all the player hands, then the dealer hand, and allow initial bets before hand-dealing the community cards.

They COULD just let the shuffler work, then hand-pitch the game.

They COULD even add a hand cut onto the cut card once out of the shuffler.

Every one of those would serve to randomize the deal, progressively better mechanics to reduce the appearance of monkeyshines.

Quote: FCBLComish

Every time I hear the Shuffle Master is Rigged argument my head explodes.

Your head suffers from "premature explosion."

You walk into a small illegal casino in Moscow. In the backroom there is a dealer who is manually dealing Mississippi Stud -obviously without paying any royalties to Shufflemaster. You sit down to play but are nervous that the dealer is a card shark and can manipulate the cards. What do you look for? If the dealer were to cheat, how would he do it?

My post was a theoretical study of how the game of Miss. Stud could be rigged by a dishonest house -say in a lawless or third-world foreign nation or a self-regulated Indian Casino. I specifically said that I am not claiming this is happening in state-regulated casinos in North America. I never mentioned Shufflemaster.

So many casino industry advocates in this forum claim that it would be impossibly complex to rig a card game with an automated shuffler. They always seem to assume that a shuffler would need to know where a player was sitting so as to alter the players hand. In my post, I attempted to quantify how much the House Edge could, in theory, be affected by controlling the first card dealt in Miss Stud. Its just a ding-dong theoretical study. Your head exploded prematurely.