how vegas has tightened up on the VBJ machines--not near as good

[sevencard2003]

am starting to wonder if these machines were beatable after all and maybe i was just not using the right strategy--

so many casino managers have tightened up and 3 different slot managers admitted to me a good counter has taken them for a bunch of money--and cause of it at a few casinos the max bet has been lowered to $25 instead of $100 or $200. but i still havent been able to figure out when the shuffle takes place.

here's the newest evidence its beatable:

the stratosphere got rid of their good paying 3-2 machine, same as binions, osheas, and the sahara did they once had last year. now the stratosphere has NONE and the other places have ones paying 6-5 only.

and the riveira lowered the max bet to $50 on the ones that dont shuffle til after 2 3rds of a 6 deck shoe paying 3-2 and now the only ones that allow $200 max bet are the ones that shuffle every hand, (but those still are 3-2).

would like to know who all agrees its beatable and what about in FL, PA, RI, AR WA or any other state?

 

[Machinist]

More than likely they were "beating them with a card".... the game has such a low edge that some bounce back cash, or mailings might have been fairly good... Possibly promo's at higher tiered card levels that most players wouldnt know about.
Strait up i dont think it is beatable...i have never heard of where the shuffle point is.
Also if i did know where the shuffle point was ....it would be real hard for me to share that hard earned information...So if someone has figured it out.....all i can say is get em!!!!!!

Machinist

 

[sabre]

Tony, your life would be undoubtedly better if you ceased gambling. You are not, and never will be cut out to be an AP.


Before you dismiss this post. Think for a moment. How many times have you heard someone say this to you? Is it in the thousands? Or merely the hundreds?

Are we all wrong?

 

[sevencard2003]

i already am a PRO. i can count a 8 deck shoe with no mistakes, will make a big side bet and u can watch me do it in vegas.

i came to vegas with $3800, and now have $8300 3 months later and spent a ton on expenses and lost a ton on video poker too. so i am most definitely winning at gambling. now i do admit most of that was won on $1-2 NL instead of BJ.

 

[Sonny]

i already am a PRO. i can count a 8 deck shoe with no mistakes, will make a big side bet and u can watch me do it in vegas.

i came to vegas with $3800, and now have $8300 3 months later and spent a ton on expenses and lost a ton on video poker too. so i am most definitely winning at gambling. now i do admit most of that was won on $1-2 NL instead of BJ.

Did this post make anyone else cringe?

-Sonny-

 

[sevencard2003]

Did this post make anyone else cringe?

-Sonny-

not sure i understand what u are saying, all i meant was that im WINNING--and the roll keeps growing and gets further from being broke. although i did admit most of the wins came from poker not BJ. to me a professional is someone who knows the correct strategy and can keep an accurate count. not necessary the guy with the biggest bankroll to put it into practice.

 

[kewljason]

Did this post make anyone else cringe?

-Sonny-

Last year when he posted similar things, it made me cringe, sonny. This time I just have to dismiss it as well, I don't want to say not true, but something isn't right.

Last year in a thread which spanned several months about the BJ machines at strat he posted that he arrived in vegas with $3000, ran it up to $8300 playing these blackjack machines and then his BR at fallen back to $1900, all while being comped and living at Binions for several months. Not an impossible story, but certainly improbable. Now many months later, his posts have a similar theme and when you raise doubts we get an all cap assertion that he is WINNING. :laugh:

 

[fubster]

+1 on you shouldn't gamble.

 

[Sonny]

Not an impossible story, but certainly improbable.

Not so improbable when you consider his strategy:

ive lost several thousand martingaling these machines.

A progression system would give him a very good chance of winning for a little while (just long enough to think that he is a pro) before blowing it all back. That sounds par for the course to me. What really makes me cringe is not just the "I'm winning" and "I can count an 8D shoe so I'm a pro" remarks, but his overall gameplan. He went to Vegas completely underbankrolled, spent "a ton" on expenses and played very high variance games like VP. Add to that a poor playing strategy and you have a recipe for bankruptcy. The fact that he hasn't gone broke yet is certainly something worth bragging about (while he still can), but it really does confirm sabre's commets above.

-Sonny-

 

[sevencard2003]

ive changed my system on them machines, i wait now til the count turns positive to start raising the bets til i win, and flat bet the min in the meanwhile. the other way i think hurt me too much. and i did say most of my winnings were at poker instead. no case can be made for me not to gamble when its been my means of income since i was 21 and now im 41. but i would accept a case that im better off sticking to $1-2 NL at the poker table instead of BJ--at least til i run my roll up to 15k or so.

at least the machines gave me an awful lot of room comps and offers.

but hey lets end the debate as to whether i should gamble and get back to the subject matter. which is whether the machines are beatable and if thats why the machines are being removed, changed to 6-5 payouts, and max bets lowered to unreasonably low maximums such as $25

 

[sabre]

Considering you don't know the shuffle point, you can't identify situations that provide a player advantage, let alone accurately quantify that advantage.

If you were an AP blackjack player, you would play live BJ, using a count, playing and betting strategies that could be accurately simulated to give your hourly expectation, standard deviation, risk of ruin, etc. Or, if you found a player advantageous situation on a virtual BJ machine, you could similarly describe your edge and risk, whether it came from counting, cashback, or some combination.

But you play these machines because you are addicted to them. You've convinced yourself that you have some kind of advantage, even though you can't describe or quantify it.

I won't speak to whether you have an advantage playing poker. But everything you've ever written demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that you are not an AP video poker/video blackjack player.

It really doesn't matter why these casinos are reducing the max bets or removing these machines. Even if they point blank told you it was because their earn was reduced due to individuals exploiting the machines, you could never figure out how.

 

[Sucker]

The reason that these machines are being removed is because they don't get enough play to justify the floor space that they're taking up. That's the simple truth of the matter. You can take something that a slot manager tells you with a grain of salt.

If the manufacturer of the machine starts to lose client casinos because people are beating his machine by counting, don't you think that he's going to do something to save his investment? Like simply make the machine shuffle every hand? I know if I spent a few million dollars developing a machine that didn't make money, and there was a simple fix; I would certainly try it, before I decided to throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

[shadroch]

It's funny that these machines seem to do very well in some casinos and are almost always empty in others. As 95% of the people who play them don't know BS or what surrender is, it can't be that some games are better than others, it just is what it is. It bothers me that people will sit at a table playing H17 DD with no doubles after splits,50% penetration at $10 a hand when behind them is a machine thats six decks, H17, DOA,DAs and offers Surrender for $2 a hand with no dealer tipping, but what can you do?

 

[sevencard2003]

It's funny that these machines seem to do very well in some casinos and are almost always empty in others. As 95% of the people who play them don't know BS or what surrender is, it can't be that some games are better than others, it just is what it is. It bothers me that people will sit at a table playing H17 DD with no doubles after splits,50% penetration at $10 a hand when behind them is a machine thats six decks, H17, DOA,DAs and offers Surrender for $2 a hand with no dealer tipping, but what can you do?

the reason for this, many tell me, is they think the machines have to be "fixed" why they would think this i dont know that would be illegal and i may be silly for this, but i trust the casino a little bit. but i hear it all the time, even the readers on my poker blog claim i cant trust the machines to deal the cards randomly.

 

[sevencard2003]

surely this machine i just discovered in south wind casino in newkirk OK is beatable? same rules as vegas as far as 3-2 payout, with surrender allowed and no shuffle til 2 3rds of 6 decks.

but the major difference was it gives $5 freeplay for every $1000 run thru the machine on ur players card, and today was DOUBLE point day which would be $10, meaning a FULL 1% cashback. wouldnt they lose money or did i overlook something? i won $185 on it in about 2 hours.

 

[Cardcounter]

My guess is the machine shuffles when the dealers change I don't know this for sure but that is my guess of when you are getting a new deck if it doesn't shuffle every time. How ever I think playing with a real dealer is a lot more social and a lot more fun which is why a lot of players play. Plus a real dealer won't shuffle every hand!

 

[shadroch]

You don't tip a machine.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

You don't tip a machine.

Sure you do. A snack machine, when your potato chips get stuck in one of the coils.

 

[Brock Windsor]

surely this machine i just discovered in south wind casino in newkirk OK is beatable? same rules as vegas as far as 3-2 payout, with surrender allowed and no shuffle til 2 3rds of 6 decks.

but the major difference was it gives $5 freeplay for every $1000 run thru the machine on ur players card, and today was DOUBLE point day which would be $10, meaning a FULL 1% cashback. wouldnt they lose money or did i overlook something? i won $185 on it in about 2 hours.

The house will win on that machine. It is beatable off the top with perfect play and 1% cashback, but most players won't play the proper strategy. For an AP it is a waste of time, for a rec player it might be ok for food and rooms.
-BW

 

[EmeraldCityBJ]

My guess is the machine shuffles when the dealers change

I have confirmed that this is not the case. A machine I played said that it shuffles when there's 2 decks left, so I actually counted the total number of cards between dealer changes. Head's up, the number of cards dealt was consistent with a dealer change being the shuffle. However, when the table filled, more than five of the six decks were dealt before the dealer change and supposed shuffle.

I think the dealer changes are every 15-minutes or some other configurable time interval, and are completely unrelated to the shuffle point. I have also observed that if there is a bank of these machines linked together, the dealer changes occur on all of them at the same time. Certainly 3-card and other carnival games don't have dealer changes timed according to the shuffle of a shoe.