bj bob
Well-Known Member
I would like to take the occasion of my 1000th post and dedicate it to those of you who dwell on " the other side", i.e.the fine folks of casino management, both prowling the pits and crunching the numbers upstairs.
Recently I undertook the arduous task of covertly timing and detailing real-time table play on a DD, $25 game. My observations and conclusions are as follows:
The table consisted of four players pretty much throughout the entire hour. There was one player flat betting $25 while her husband(?) flat bet $50 consistently. The other two randomly bet between $25 and $100 each. The average bet across the table was pretty close to $50 throughout the entire session. Having established the avg. per player bet I then carefully calculated the exact dealer penetration. This was very easy to do since I wasn't playing, just counting the number of cards dealt. The first dealer was very consistent at 50% varying between 48 and 55 cards per deal over 4 deals. I then clocked the average shuffle/ down time between deals and recorded the total 'down time" per hour vs. actual deal time. Then came the difficult part.
It took a while to observe another DD game with the same conditions except deeper penetration. I finally observed another dealer dealing with some magnificant penetration talant--around 80%. She looked like she'd worked there for a while and had the cards airborne two / three at a time. The only problem here was there were only two players seated, so I waited. As luck would have it a guy came up to me and asked if this was a hot table. I told him (lying through my teeth:grin
the dealer was busting almost every hand. He then sat down and soon signaled to a friend to make four. This particular dealer continued for 10 more minutes before her relief came and I stopped the timer figuring she'd be back soon and about 20 mins. later she returned. It turned out that this was her last rotation of her shift , but that left me exactly 30 mins. of raw data and enough to extrapolate accurately.
Having gone to my room to crunch the numbers I learned that the 80% dealer was able to avoid 3-4 shuffles / hour, thus able to deal an extra 24-32 hands over that same period. Now assuming a 2% house advantage against each player at a $50 average bet, each extra hand dealt was worth $1 to the house thus resulting in an additional $24-32/ hr. table profit. My best guess is that the extra pen. actually paid the dealer's salary plus benefits. One other interesting observation. yet hard to quantify, was that the players tended to resize (lower) their bets at the beginning of every shuffle. So it would seem that the deeper dealer was, in effect, producing a larger average bet/ player.
My conclusions were easy to deduce. Deal deeper into a deck/ shoe. you idiots. Your paranoia is costing you your entire labor/ benefit overhead, especially at a 1/2 to full table and FYI, counters do NOT like crowded tables and even if there were one effective counter at EVERY table you would still break even.
Recently I undertook the arduous task of covertly timing and detailing real-time table play on a DD, $25 game. My observations and conclusions are as follows:
The table consisted of four players pretty much throughout the entire hour. There was one player flat betting $25 while her husband(?) flat bet $50 consistently. The other two randomly bet between $25 and $100 each. The average bet across the table was pretty close to $50 throughout the entire session. Having established the avg. per player bet I then carefully calculated the exact dealer penetration. This was very easy to do since I wasn't playing, just counting the number of cards dealt. The first dealer was very consistent at 50% varying between 48 and 55 cards per deal over 4 deals. I then clocked the average shuffle/ down time between deals and recorded the total 'down time" per hour vs. actual deal time. Then came the difficult part.
It took a while to observe another DD game with the same conditions except deeper penetration. I finally observed another dealer dealing with some magnificant penetration talant--around 80%. She looked like she'd worked there for a while and had the cards airborne two / three at a time. The only problem here was there were only two players seated, so I waited. As luck would have it a guy came up to me and asked if this was a hot table. I told him (lying through my teeth:grin
the dealer was busting almost every hand. He then sat down and soon signaled to a friend to make four. This particular dealer continued for 10 more minutes before her relief came and I stopped the timer figuring she'd be back soon and about 20 mins. later she returned. It turned out that this was her last rotation of her shift , but that left me exactly 30 mins. of raw data and enough to extrapolate accurately.Having gone to my room to crunch the numbers I learned that the 80% dealer was able to avoid 3-4 shuffles / hour, thus able to deal an extra 24-32 hands over that same period. Now assuming a 2% house advantage against each player at a $50 average bet, each extra hand dealt was worth $1 to the house thus resulting in an additional $24-32/ hr. table profit. My best guess is that the extra pen. actually paid the dealer's salary plus benefits. One other interesting observation. yet hard to quantify, was that the players tended to resize (lower) their bets at the beginning of every shuffle. So it would seem that the deeper dealer was, in effect, producing a larger average bet/ player.
My conclusions were easy to deduce. Deal deeper into a deck/ shoe. you idiots. Your paranoia is costing you your entire labor/ benefit overhead, especially at a 1/2 to full table and FYI, counters do NOT like crowded tables and even if there were one effective counter at EVERY table you would still break even.
