Casinos are always a scam, you can't win, and if you find a way they kick you out.
this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
405 points (96.3% liked)
> Greentext
7548 readers
6 users here now
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Someone should tell Anon that him leaving with his kneecaps intact is only a recent development.
It's allowed because they can do whatever they want. It's their table and their cards. As long as they don't welch on payouts that you've already earned, they can kick you out for any reason (except belonging to a protected class), or for no reason.
On this note, don't gamble in casinos on reservations. They are not subject to federal regulations, and they absolutely do kick you out without paying if you win big enough.
After what we've done to the natives I can't blame them
We’ll do what we did to the natives again if they don’t give out their money.
Do I get kicked out if I belong to the same tribe?
Depends on if they like you or not.
Casinos absolutely do refuse to pay out all the time. Literally just Google it.
Except that the introduction of multiple decks for a single table made card counting all but useless
I call shenanigans
It still works, just not as well. There are plenty of youtube videos teaching how to count cards even with multiple decks.
Sure, but automatic shufflers are getting more and more common. Not to mention, you have to have a fairly large starting pot to have a hope of making a decent profit. Then even if you do everything right, you still have a relatively high chance of going in the red.
If you have a group of 10 all putting in 7k that’s a lot of money to gamble with pretty good gains
Not necessarily true. People still succeed at card counting with 6 deck shoes. The main problem is that you need a lot of capital for the odds to eventually even out in your favor. Even in the bast case scenario, you still only have a 1% advantage. There are counting groups that will pool tons of money and then split the total winnings as to maintain a higher average winnings.
Actually, 6 deck shoes, still slow for counting.
What has killed counting is casino's shuffling after every hand you a single deck.
Private business
If you go into a Walmart and start talking to employees about unions, you'll get escorted out.
Unfortunately for anon, "understands basic probability" is not a protected class under the civil rights act.
Too small of a minority
I have never been to a casino. Is that how it works? Seems a lot like a scam if you're not allowed to use skill in a skill game.
I mean... Casinos are all a big scam to begin with lol
I mean, gambling in a casino is always going to be a bad bet but is it a scam if the odds are public knowledge to all involved and participation is 100% voluntary? I know I'm getting into thorny territory calling something addictive "voluntary" but let's kick that can down the road and assume that gambling is nothing more than taking a bad deal voluntarily. Is that a scam?
The reason they're profitable is because all games have a negative average EV (expected value) for the player. Card counting allows you to play in a manner that is +EV, so it has to be banned.
The relevant law is "The house always wins."
Yes. And yes.
They mostly don't care unless you're at the high roller table. And even then, unless you're using a device to cheat, the most they can do is pay out your chips and escort you outside. It's not a crime to count cards, but it's still their table.
I saw a video on this recently. I think it was Wendover.
Though card counting is still possible many casinos have made it very difficult. Most methods require the counter knowing what is left in the deck.
Two methods are just using 3-5 decks and reshuffling the deck after eatch hand. This apprently stops all but the most insanely talented card counters. Some go further using a machine to shuffle the deck in a way players can't see.
Though it also mentions some players think this cheating for the house so it might not be done at every casino
Yes, but here's the thing...some casinos have now started to advertise single-deck blackjack. To me, as soon as fewer decks have become an incentive to entice people to your particular casino, they should have no right to kick you out over card counting at those tables. But that's just me and my silly basic morals.
That sounds more like you are no longer playing blackjack, but rather a cat and mouse game of trying to count without getting caught counting.
In which case, they need to throw you out, because thats what happens when the cat catches the mouse.
To me, sounds like: "You're allowed to play this game where odds are we will we take your money but you're not allowed to pay attention."
Its not meant to be a skill game. You can make it one, but it's intended to be a game with fixed odds that favor the house.
With that being said, in places where they're legal casinos tend to have really broad leeway over who they're allowed to kick out and why.
These days, casinos are trying to eliminate "skill" from blackjack entirely. You'll have six decks, and as soon as a hand is done, everything gets shuffled back together. That makes counting cards practically impossible, even with perfect playing. Counting cards mostly works when you're playing with a single deck, and it doesn't get shuffled immediately after each hand.
If there's no skill involved, why play blackjack? If you want randomness you should just go buy lottery tickets. They're both biased against you, but at least when you fail to win the lottery you'll know some of your losses went towards education.
If you play without any strategy, you lose a lot of money very quickly. If you play with perfect strategy, you lose money very slowly. With perfect strategy, you can win enough in blackjack to get hooked on gambling, whereas there's less of the intermittent reward involved in lottery tickets.
Anon doesn't need to guess hit or stand. They can just memorize the table for the casino's rule variant.
Counting cards can help adjust the bet, if they think the rest of the decks in the shoe are favorable.
Exactly, making the right call is not card counting.
Card counting is used in tandem with structuring your bets so you know when to get big and when not to.
No one is going to kick you out for making the correct decision, they are going to kick you out after watching your betting habits.
Card counting requires multiple people at the table surreptitiously working together. Anon needs to watch a video on how to count cards.
Nope, it does not. You can have a team, but you absolutely can card count on your own in BJ. I think you are the one who needs to watch a video I am afraid.
You honestly don't even really need a team to get an edge over the house. My mom is addicted to gambling and black jack is the only thing that keeps her from being broke.
If you sit at a table with people who actually know what they're doing, and are all focused on actually playing together vs the house instead of playing to win every hand they can...you can all make a good deal of money.
I've had to on multiple occasions go and pick my 60 year old mother from the casino because shes spent over 20 hours at the table and can't drive anymore. Once you have a table full of people who know how to play together nobody leaves. Because as soon as you do, some drunk dude is going to come in and ruin the count by doing a dumb split or something that only benefits themselves.
At it's simplest card counting involves keeping track of how many hard 10s (10, k, q, j) there are in the shoe, assuming you know how many decks are in the shoe and that the discard isn't reshuffled into the shoe too often. When you find yourself in a situation where there are a lot of tens still in the deck but a lot of the smaller value cards have been played, you bet heavily and stand on low values hoping that the dealer will tend to bust (in most casinos a dealer will hit on 15 or below and stand on 16 or above, more tens in the deck means it's more likely that the dealer will bust, yielding a small statistical advantage to the player in a tens-heavy scenario)