Ozzy13
Posted by Ozzy13
Dec 13, 2015

Fixed Blackjack Deck

I recently played single deck Blackjack at a new casino in New Mexico that actually paid 3 to 2 on Blackjacks. After the first 3 hours I was up almost $1,500 and decided to take a break. When I got back to the table, the table was open with a new dealer. After the dealer dealt the first hand, the Pit-boss brought a quart-sized zip lock baggy with a new deck of cards that he instructed the dealer to play with. Although I usually make it point not to talk much to dealers, I was in a good mood and winning a lot of money, and was talking much more than usual. The dealer seemed to be deeply interested about one of my experiences in Mexico. after roughly 5 hands I noticed the hands were following the same pattern where the dealer would start with bust card between 4 and 6, and completed with a large number of small cards (about 5) that totaled 21 or 20. After losing about 10 hands in a row, I finally told the dealer that was the most extraordinary number of 5 card 21's that I had ever seen and he agreed. He also agreed that the deck seemed like it was short of 10 cards because neither of us could hardly remember one.

I had lost almost everything at that point and left the table pissed off. At the time I was not thinking clearly and thought I had a very bad streak of luck. Now, after thinking about it more, I am certain I was cheated. I was the only player at the table so there were no other witnesses. I know that I probably should have demanded to see the entire deck of cards before leaving the table or become suspicious when the cards were brought in a zip lock baggy. I just wanted to know what a player should do in situation like this and if there is anything I could do now. Is it possible to demand the videotape? Do players have any rights to make any demands of the casino, or should they just walk away and never come back?

Comments

OnceDear
OnceDear Dec 14, 2015

EEk. Sounds shady.



New Casino ( super sweaty? No reputation as such?)

Loose single deck game?

Deck brought to the table pre-shuffled/arranged?



Run Awayyyyyy.

Chance of getting the casino to show you how they cheated you on the video = Zip.

MidwestAP
MidwestAP Dec 17, 2015

They brought in a new deck in a zip lock bag and not a sealed deck? Did they spread the cards front and back for inspection before they shuffled? I would have expected and demanded they do before I placed any money on the felt.

AceTwo
AceTwo Jan 14, 2016

A long time ago I got cheated in a similar way. All cards were there but small cards A-6 were clumped together and big cards 7-10 wre clumped together. That was in a 6 deck game and there several clumps (like 4 clumps) that lasted for 1/2 deck each. And this pattern appeared in 3-4 shoes in a row, which was because of 'false' shuffles by the dealer on those clumps.



Because I was pissed of I did some calculations and sims to see what is Casino EV if you remove all 7-10s.

The Casino Edge is 34% using BS.

BUT, I also calculated the Revised BS for the conditions and that gave a Player Advantage of 28%.

That's just by hitting everything upto 17 (incl 17) and hitting Soft Hands to S19 (incl S19).

(Note: The game was S17.)



I never got the guts though to actually go and try this. If they could cheat me this way, they could cheat me in a different way.

Complaining was not an option as this was in a wild west type of jurisdiction.