Vegas Trip Notes - BS Player on the Strip

winr_winr_chicken_dinner! said:
Yeah, I guess it would be "impossible" to have a machine malfunction and/or a card stick in the mechanism and go unnoticed for a whole shift or two, right? Oh wait, that just happened recently - casino ended up paying a fine or two because of it...

I like it hand shuffled please, spread 'em out, let me see 'em, wash 'em, then shuffle and deal them!
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Of course it's not impossible. More like very unlikely. You said yourself the casino ended up paying fines, that tells me the casino is going make sure it happens as little as possible. If you're not playing with a CSM just because of that reasoning, you might as well not play a normal shuffled shoe game either. The Ace of Hearts can easily be overlooked and left in the box when opening a table, or a manufacturing error can leave a card out of the box and not be noticed by a dealer and floor person who have been going through tons of other boxes of cards. Basically it seems to me that what you just said is no reason to refuse playing a CSM over a hand shuffled shoe, but more like rationalizing a personal preference.
 
Couple things I saw in Vegas last weekend...

Downtown properties have $5 tables with good odds/penetration (everything you expect on a DD except stay on S17), which was great for teaching my friend how to count. They seem to be super paranoid down there though. Got kicked out of one casino after 30ish minutes of a 5-30 spread (on a side note, really? how much money could I possibly win with that spread? was just trying to teach my friend how to count). Other casinos I constantly overheard pit bosses saying to each other stuff about watching me whenever I raised my bet.
Wish I could remember the names of the casinos downtown. One had a single deck $5 min, $500 max table with shitty rules (DD only 10/11, no DAS) but it had great pen and paid 3:2 BJ. Not sure how beatable that game is?

MGM: Love this place. Can sit at a DD table all day with a 25 min, 2x100 max spread and never have any problems. I always give out my players card there too and get great comps. Not sure how it would be for counters who bet bigger money (my paltry bankroll is probably the reason no one there cares about me). Plus the patrons of MGM generally have a good respect for the game. When the count is high, I've never had a problem when asking someone if they minded letting me finish out the shoe before coming in. Another cool thing is they let their high rollers ask for shuffles mid-shoe. I sat next to a guy flat betting 10k a hand. When the count was pretty bad, I'd start chatting to him about awful this shuffle/cut was and a couple times he asked for a reshuffle. Kind of cool.

TI: Floor DD had awful pen. HL DD game was good, but pit boss started shuffling every time I raised my bet after about 20 minutes of 50-200 spread.

Harrah's Properties: As others have said, awful awful rules. It's sad most players aren't more discriminate with their games, because it lets casinos do this stuff.

NYNY: Floor DDs have awful pen (~55% I'd say). The HL DD is good, about 75%, but dealers hits S17. Played there for a few hours with no heat, even when I was the only person in the room.

Trop: Crappy rules unless you ask them to open a DD game for you (min 100 bet per hand for that). I'm not sure if that would be the best way to fly under the radar though...

Also, seems like there are lots of attractive girls at NYNY and Trop. Can be very distracting if you are like me, and care more about picking up girls than keeping the count haha.
 
For me the reasons for not liking CSM are:

- Like it was said, potential malfunctions (casinos regularly refuse to pay multi million jackpots due to malfunctions, so yes in all sort of machines, there is a potential malfunction)
- Speed of game, CSM’s are very fast and I’d rather be chatting with other players when the dealer is hand shuffling the decks – increases the fun, reduces the house edge dollars
- Big black box, I just don’t trust it. Call it the history of Vegas, or me playing at NA casinos most of the time, I just don’t like to trust a casino. There are tremendous amount of cases, where dealer mispays, and although they seem to be unintentional, who can prove it? And I’ve read a lot of cases where people counted more small cards than there should be etc. These types of things can still occur in hand shuffled games, but it’s much easier to catch compared to a CSM. Also, in a couple instances, when I asked, NA casinos refused to lay the new cards on the felt face up. I asked why and they shut me up by saying that it’s their policy. An organization that provides its patrons with free booze, aromatic scents, mood lighting, bad playing advice, and hot dealer/crappy rule combination with one certain goal “to part the customers with their money as quickly as possible” doesn’t create much trust in my heart for it.
- Preferential shuffle, some dealers put the cards back into CSM right away, some wait for a couple hands. It’s regular most of the time, but sometimes I noticed that after a lot of face cards are out, they wait for a while to put them back in (and the opposite with a lot of small cards out). Although I cannot prove, I don’t like the idea of preferential treatment. If it was a rule to feed the machine after every single hand, maybe this can be prevented. This is also a reason for me to avoid double deck pitch game at one of my local NA casinos. They seem to put the smartest dealers there, who immediately sense that the deck got hotter and they shuffle right away (they don’t use a cut card like they do in a shoe game).
 
I have an idea about CSMs. Not sure if it is plausible. Say the dealer puts cards back in the CSM after there is 30 cards in the discard tray (it could be any number, this is just an example). If the dealer is dealing out primarily low cards, you will play less hands before the dealer puts the cards back in because it will be quicker to reach 30 cards in the tray (since people take more hits with low cards, and often split low cards against low cards). If the dealer is dealing out high cards, they will sit in the tray for more hands because people are likely to stay on 20s, BJ, etc.

Could this effect the odds of CSM games in any meaningful or measurable way?
 
Sonny said:
The speed of play is dictated by the players. ;)

-Sonny-
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And you can always take breaks (restroom, etc.). Do that enough and you may break even in the number of hands lost during shuffles.

good luck :joker:
 
wwcd said:
- Preferential shuffle, some dealers put the cards back into CSM right away, some wait for a couple hands. It’s regular most of the time, but sometimes I noticed that after a lot of face cards are out, they wait for a while to put them back in (and the opposite with a lot of small cards out). Although I cannot prove, I don’t like the idea of preferential treatment. If it was a rule to feed the machine after every single hand, maybe this can be prevented. This is also a reason for me to avoid double deck pitch game at one of my local NA casinos. They seem to put the smartest dealers there, who immediately sense that the deck got hotter and they shuffle right away (they don’t use a cut card like they do in a shoe game).
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I think you might be seeing a conspiracy here where one doesn't really exist. In my experience with CSMs, the dealers were supposed to add the cards back into the machine after a certain amount have been discarded - usually half a deck. That's also going to get corrupted by human error a lot. I've seen some dealers put them back in after every hand, some of the more forgetful ones after about a deck, and I've seen multiple occasions of dealers accidentally go about four or more decks before beginning to put them back in, essentially dealing from a large black shoe.

If you're only using BS, I've never heard any legit reason to not play on CSMs other than your money is more exposed to the house advantage (which is now slightly lower thanks to the CSM) because of the more hands per hour. And like what was said, the players actually control the pace of the game.
 
decks of card inside the CSM?

Can some insider tell me how many decks of card inside the CSM?
 
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The one2six machine can hold anywhere from (you guessed it) one to six decks. I believe they can be configured to hold fewer cards as well. The small green display on the side of the machine will tell you how many it is currently holding. Other machines may vary.

-Sonny-
 
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EarthBowser said:
I think you might be seeing a conspiracy here where one doesn't really exist. In my experience with CSMs, the dealers were supposed to add the cards back into the machine after a certain amount have been discarded - usually half a deck. That's also going to get corrupted by human error a lot. I've seen some dealers put them back in after every hand, some of the more forgetful ones after about a deck, and I've seen multiple occasions of dealers accidentally go about four or more decks before beginning to put them back in, essentially dealing from a large black shoe.

If you're only using BS, I've never heard any legit reason to not play on CSMs other than your money is more exposed to the house advantage (which is now slightly lower thanks to the CSM) because of the more hands per hour. And like what was said, the players actually control the pace of the game.
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The more ill feeling about these machines, the better. Whether seemingly logical or not. Besides, Casino Blackjack is a human game, not a video game. The casinos make a huge mistake making casino games more and more like a PC game. It's a lot easier and cheaper to use I'Net casinos than plan a trip, pack, go through the airport security game, fly, get to a hotel, unpack -- play -- then do it all over again to get home. They make a mistake lessening the difference in the experience to the average customer.
 
Ask the Trop for a $25 shoe game

My last trip to Vegas, the Trop would open a $25 6 deck game that was S-17, with pen depending upon the dealer but no late surrender.



ooter said:
Couple things I saw in Vegas last weekend...

Downtown properties have $5 tables with good odds/penetration (everything you expect on a DD except stay on S17), which was great for teaching my friend how to count. They seem to be super paranoid down there though. Got kicked out of one casino after 30ish minutes of a 5-30 spread (on a side note, really? how much money could I possibly win with that spread? was just trying to teach my friend how to count). Other casinos I constantly overheard pit bosses saying to each other stuff about watching me whenever I raised my bet.
Wish I could remember the names of the casinos downtown. One had a single deck $5 min, $500 max table with shitty rules (DD only 10/11, no DAS) but it had great pen and paid 3:2 BJ. Not sure how beatable that game is?

MGM: Love this place. Can sit at a DD table all day with a 25 min, 2x100 max spread and never have any problems. I always give out my players card there too and get great comps. Not sure how it would be for counters who bet bigger money (my paltry bankroll is probably the reason no one there cares about me). Plus the patrons of MGM generally have a good respect for the game. When the count is high, I've never had a problem when asking someone if they minded letting me finish out the shoe before coming in. Another cool thing is they let their high rollers ask for shuffles mid-shoe. I sat next to a guy flat betting 10k a hand. When the count was pretty bad, I'd start chatting to him about awful this shuffle/cut was and a couple times he asked for a reshuffle. Kind of cool.

TI: Floor DD had awful pen. HL DD game was good, but pit boss started shuffling every time I raised my bet after about 20 minutes of 50-200 spread.

Harrah's Properties: As others have said, awful awful rules. It's sad most players aren't more discriminate with their games, because it lets casinos do this stuff.

NYNY: Floor DDs have awful pen (~55% I'd say). The HL DD is good, about 75%, but dealers hits S17. Played there for a few hours with no heat, even when I was the only person in the room.

Trop: Crappy rules unless you ask them to open a DD game for you (min 100 bet per hand for that). I'm not sure if that would be the best way to fly under the radar though...

Also, seems like there are lots of attractive girls at NYNY and Trop. Can be very distracting if you are like me, and care more about picking up girls than keeping the count haha.
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EarthBowser said:
That's a perfectly legit reason since your money will be exposed to the house advantage more often, so your expected hourly loss will increase. It just irks me when people refuse to play them because they don't "trust the machines."
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Due to the way the internal mechanisms function, I have a theory (not able to prove one way or another) that not all of the cards fed into a CSM - whether four decks or six - have an equal chance of coming out. In actual fact I think there's a distinct possibility that some may never come out.

At intervals, the carousel wheel will discharge the contents of it's tray (up to around 15-20 cards) into the ramp, whereupon they will be queued in the order they have been inserted to be dealt out. There's no way, that this block of cards can be inserted to the very front, ie so the first card off the top of the block will be the next card dealt. If it is also he case that this block cannot be discharged any further to the rear of the ramp of queued cards than, say, 6 cards from the end it therefore follows that six cards will never be dealt. It is an "if" of course, but not beyond the realms of possibility. I have been told that the mechanism would require a fair degree of sophistication to allow a block of 15+ cards to be inserted to the very back of the hopper, whereas in the middle of the hopper it requires less so (???).

It would be an interesting experiment to watch one of these things for an hour or so with the side off, to see how often the blocks of cards do actually hit the very back end of the ramp. Unfortunately, only people who work in a casino will ever be able to test this theory, as us mere punters would never be allowed the opportunity to see if these things do actually provide the same level of fairness as a hand shuffled shoe. I'm sceptical.

Presumably, the various gambling supervision bodies around the world have approved CSMs for use, but I wonder how many of them conducted any independent tests on the randomness and equal probability of cards being dealt fvom them before doing so? Or just took Shufflemaster Inc's word for it?

It's an interesting thought that if the theory of some cards never coming out is proven, this would be same effect as if the house removed 6 cards from a shoe at random. Could be advantageous to the player or inversely disadvantageous - either way it would be grounds to have their licence to operate revoked.

For anything other than a bit of recreational fun, CSMs should be avoided (IMHO).
 
QFIT said:
The more ill feeling about these machines, the better. Whether seemingly logical or not. Besides, Casino Blackjack is a human game, not a video game. The casinos make a huge mistake making casino games more and more like a PC game. It's a lot easier and cheaper to use I'Net casinos than plan a trip, pack, go through the airport security game, fly, get to a hotel, unpack -- play -- then do it all over again to get home. They make a mistake lessening the difference in the experience to the average customer.
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(Bold highlight.) Hear! hear! I believe casinos would like eventually to see most games run like PC games. Big savings are to be made, just on less staff required, alone. Seeing computer roulette and blackjack controlled by a shrieking large screen serving 20 or more terminals just leaves me cold. Is this the way for the public to be led even further up the garden path? I guess so. I guess one game might be free from nerds: craps. You hope, ChefJJ? :)
 
The ironic thing about using CSMs is that they don't save money. They're only used on the low-roller tables. Serious counters can afford shoe games and higher limits.

They also are extremely pricey to maintain.
 
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