Blackjack Card Counting on continuous shuffling machines (One2Six)

I've heard that some can still have the edge in Blackjack by counting cards in a continuous shuffling machine. They were able to do this in casinos that use six decks of cards. The usual structure and system of shuffling of a continuous shuffle machine is the 24-slot card stack that rotates and depending on a random number generated, stops to deposit a card at a end of the stack of the slot. The basis is that, if six decks is used, there are more cards per stack, such that there is a very very slim chance for the cards from the previous deal/s will be dealt. Six decks means about 11-16 cards per stack, one deck, would be easy, but three decks, with 4 to 8 cards per stack will be harder to count because cards from the previous deal may appear on the immediately following deal.....

Stephen How has a post about this on discountgambling.net. The edges that pop up are TINY. It's theoretically interesting but practically useless.

Yeah. This was very lucrative when the machines first appeared. The gap between cards being dealt then reappearing on subsequent hands has narrowed considerably. It is referred to as 'latency' in another thread here.

Even if one ignores technical aspects of the mechanism, think about this point.

If you are at a full table 7-spots and are sitting at 3B, the best you can hope for with lucaritive rules is that you might DD on 9 or A7 vs. 2, Stand on 12 vs. 3, DD or Hit on A4 vs. 4 or A2 vs. 5, or make an extra surrender play like 15 vs. A. These adjustments are still not enough to wipe out even a 0.20% H.A. With 6-Decks the adjustment for CSM-effect is also small. Still not enough.

Quote: 98Clubs

Even if one ignores technical aspects of the mechanism, think about this point.

If you are at a full table 7-spots and are sitting at 3B, the best you can hope for with lucaritive rules is that you might DD on 9 or A7 vs. 2, Stand on 12 vs. 3, DD or Hit on A4 vs. 4 or A2 vs. 5, or make an extra surrender play like 15 vs. A. These adjustments are still not enough to wipe out even a 0.20% H.A. With 6-Decks the adjustment for CSM-effect is also small. Still not enough.

Stephen How showed that an edge sometimes pops up, so you can do bet variation too. This comes from the fact that the cards from the last hand are not shuffled in (because the cards are "ready" for the dealer before the previous hands' cards go in)

The problem is that when a hand with an edge does come up, that edge is measured in 10ths or 100ths of a percent. You would need a massive bet spread to beat the game (you might be able to get away with this, due to the CSM). The bigger issue is that you would need an absolutely monstrous bankroll. If you have that kind of bankroll, you are probably not interested in picking up a dollar or 2 in EV once in a while.

http://discountgambling.net/2012/07/27/counting-csm-blackjack-ev

There is the link. You have an edge about 8% of the time. About 3 of those 8%, your edge is 0.04%.

From my back-of-the envelope calculations (ie, wild-assed guess -- I'm currently at a bar and typing on my phone) you could probably beat this game for a small amount spreading $5 - $200 (jump spreading -- not a ramp). Bet $200 whenever you have an edge, and $5 otherwise. You would probably need a bankroll of about half a million.

Now, if you just want to count a bit and have fun playing, sure, you can cut down the house edge a little. But you are still going to be -EV overall.

This isn't very inspiring:
there’s a buffer "of at least 16" cards in the chute. Not too specific.