if you break into the casino and replace all their normal blackjack decks with ones which have twice as many 7s
I've always wondered about this from the other perspective. Why can't the casino remove a few cards?
E.g. in Blackjack in a six-deck shoe the house edge is perhaps 0.5% to 2.0% against a "pretty good player" (depending on exact rules). Remove a few face cards and you would probably hurt the player by another 1% or thereabouts.
But you've now moved the house edge from 1% to 2%. Double the profit!
When is the last time you've ever seen any player at a casino ask the dealer to reconstruct the six or eight starting decks that are in a shoe? I've never seen that.
But I still do enjoy taking the occasional trip to Vegas.
When is the last time you've ever seen any player at a casino ask the dealer to reconstruct the six or eight starting decks that are in a shoe? I've never seen that
You see the decks fanned out, each card visible, before they get shuffled and put in the shoe. It would require some sleight of hand from the dealer to cheat that way. If you're going to do that, it's much less risky to rig your slot machines or your craps dice or your Wheel of Fortune, where no one will ever notice any wrongdoing short of an audit by the gaming commission.
First, if people ever find out you're cheating, your reputation will take a huge hit and you'll lose a ton of clients. People know that the house always wins, but they still insist that the house must play fair within those bounds.
Second, I'm guessing there's some way for a player to take advantage of this change if he knows what's going on, so you're potentially losing money if anyone discovers it.
Compared against these downsides, what's the upside? Casinos practically print money. Why risk destroying that just so you might print a little more? Better to put your effort into convincing people to bet more, or getting less experienced players to play more.
Comments
if you break into the casino and replace all their normal blackjack decks with ones which have twice as many 7s
I've always wondered about this from the other perspective. Why can't the casino remove a few cards?
E.g. in Blackjack in a six-deck shoe the house edge is perhaps 0.5% to 2.0% against a "pretty good player" (depending on exact rules). Remove a few face cards and you would probably hurt the player by another 1% or thereabouts.
But you've now moved the house edge from 1% to 2%. Double the profit!
When is the last time you've ever seen any player at a casino ask the dealer to reconstruct the six or eight starting decks that are in a shoe? I've never seen that.
But I still do enjoy taking the occasional trip to Vegas.
You see the decks fanned out, each card visible, before they get shuffled and put in the shoe. It would require some sleight of hand from the dealer to cheat that way. If you're going to do that, it's much less risky to rig your slot machines or your craps dice or your Wheel of Fortune, where no one will ever notice any wrongdoing short of an audit by the gaming commission.
There are some potentially huge downsides.
First, if people ever find out you're cheating, your reputation will take a huge hit and you'll lose a ton of clients. People know that the house always wins, but they still insist that the house must play fair within those bounds.
Second, I'm guessing there's some way for a player to take advantage of this change if he knows what's going on, so you're potentially losing money if anyone discovers it.
Compared against these downsides, what's the upside? Casinos practically print money. Why risk destroying that just so you might print a little more? Better to put your effort into convincing people to bet more, or getting less experienced players to play more.