The Pendulum Swung Back and Knocked Me Over

“PROFESSIONAL CARD COUNTERS ARE FORBIDDEN FROM PLAY AT OUR TABLES”

That’s the sign that many years ago was posted at each entrance to every Atlantic City casino.

Along came Ken Uston and his merry band of coked-up card counters who sued the casinos and won the right to play without the risk of being escorted out. Sadly, this was the beginning of the end of advantage-play at blackjack.

In the subsequent years, the casinos devised many methods to negate the advantage of card counters in blackjack. They tried the Bart Carter shuffle, cutting off half the shoe, the preferential shuffle and many other tricks.

Later, as technologies evolved, the continual shuffle machine and the “smart play” system were invented. The former made card counting impossible, the latter made identifying card counters simple, which outside of Atlantic City still mattered.

Many of my card counting friends drifted away from the blackjack table and found their way to the poker room, the only other place in the casino where skill can defeat the house edge. I was still working the blackjack table, desperately seeking a beatable game, and every so often finding one.

Introducing 6 to 5 blackjack.

Somewhere about 7 or 8 years ago, some genius casino employee or consultant came up with the idea of paying out 6 to 5 when the player got a natural 21 blackjack. Ordinarily blackjack pays 3 to 2. So for a ten-dollar bet, rather than get paid 15 dollars on blackjack, instead you got paid 12 dollars.

I can’t convey to you the dramatic change in the odds of the game. An average multi-deck blackjack game with proper strategy would give the house an advantage of right around 0.48%. The introduction of single-deck 6 to 5 blackjack increases that edge to over 1.45%! For all intents and purposes, this makes the game unbeatable.

Of course, one can never underestimate the stupidity of the gaming public. The average player has been told that playing against a single-deck is much better then playing against a shoe game. The minions flocked to blackjack. And I packed up my chips like those before me and moved to the poker room, and I have been there for the last 6 years.

MGM/Mirage is a casino conglomerate. They own the Bellagio, The Mirage, The MGM Grand (maybe we should rob those), Treasure Island, The Monte Carlo, The Excalibur, The Luxor, Mandalay Bay and a few other casinos. MGM/Mirage adopted 6 to 5 blackjack with a vengeance. I paid a visit to Las Vegas late in ’06 and was disgusted by the throngs playing this game up and down the Strip. I played poker. A repeat visit a year ago revealed the same thing. Recently, the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa introduced blackjack tables to go along with slots and poker. And typically, they offer blackjack dealt from continual shuffle machines, making the game unbeatable. I continued to play poker.

The Pendulum has swung.

I was back in Las Vegas again this week. MGM/Mirage had made me several offers I couldn’t refuse, so I booked the MGM Grand. I was walking from the elevators near the Majestic Lions slot machines all the way to the far end of the casino where the poker room was, and stopped to have a look at the blackjack game.

The game I observed was 6-deck, 3 to 2 blackjacks, dealer hits soft 17, conventional surrender with the cut card placed at 80% penetration. What??? Are you sure??!! Aside from a few casinos around the US which I loathe to mention by name, I haven’t seen a blackjack game this good in years! Five dollar minimum, 2000 dollar maximum made this game truly beatable.

Over the next couple of days wandering through various casinos I saw beatable blackjack everywhere. The Venetion was even playing a highly beatable double-deck game.

Having not played very much blackjack over the last few years, I really couldn’t leave town without giving it a crack. Before heading out of town, I paid a quick visit to Downtown Vegas to have a world famous 99 cent shrimp cocktail (which is now $1.99) at the Golden Gate casino. A year ago, they were cutting off more than half the shoe in their six deck game, making counting useless, this week they were cutting off about a quarter. Not great, but playable. I played one shoe, and won a few bucks.

I wandered up the street to Binions (formerly the Horseshoe) to pay homage at the Mecca where the World Series of Poker was created. For shits and giggles I bought in at the blackjack table since I had some time to kill. Within the first 3 hands, the running count went to +22, translating to a true count of +5 and a player advantage of around 4%. I bumped my bet. Blackjack! I parlayed. 19, dealer breaks. Two 9’s, I split, dealer breaks. I parlayed. Twenty, dealer 17. The true count remained at that level for the rest of the shoe and the chips were piling up in front of Rusty to the point where he figured he’s be getting tossed within a couple of minutes. Eleven, double down, 21, dealer breaks. Blackjack. One last 20, and the shoe was done. I looked down, full stack of reds, nearly a full stack of greens. Rusty get the fark out of there!!

I found the cage, cashed in my chips, and headed towards the airport.

My friends, Blackjack is BACK!!