anyone still around here?

[rukus]

might be heading to aussie land for a few weeks of business. can anyone speak to the current conditions at the various casinos around the country? what about new zealand?

[rebel]

m not sure abt the other places but in sydney there's just 1 casino and that too uses CSMs, and hence is unbeatable

[pantsdown]

In Darwin its all CSM's.
I beleive Melbourne is about the only place thats countable, but the main gaming floor has replaced a lot of blackjack tables with pontoon last time I was there. At 3am there were only pontoon tables open, no blackjack at all.

Hint - Downstairs in the poker room there is a $10-$500 blackjack table which is open in the evenings on friday saturday etc. (or at least this was true last time I was there 3 months ago)

I did hear news that the casino has now added dealer hits soft 17 on the low limit tables, but the fair gaming commision might have reversed this now.

[moo321]

pontoon is beatable...

[rebel]

so anyone from sydney in here..??

[rukus]

thanks for the updates guys. still not sure what part of the country i will be in yet.

moo - do you have any links to discussions on beating pontoon? i admit i don't know anythign about the game but from some quick googling, it seems that it would be beatable with a big enough spread. but the edge still seems much higher for the house since all 10s are removed... yes you still win 3-2 on a "pontoon" even if the dealer has one as well, but this situation does not come up very often and so it seems is not enough to offset the lack of 10s in the shoe. i guess there are other givebacks that might bring the edge down such as surrender and this "forfeit" thing, but is that enough to make counting reasonably effective? would appreciate any input, or if you dont want to publicize anything, i would appreciate a PM if you wouldnt mind..

[QFIT]

See http://www.lulu.com/content/1239961

[rukus]

Originally Posted by QFIT

See http://www.lulu.com/content/1239961

yeh, for some reason when i read the rules of pontoon online it didnt strike me as the same thing as sp21... thanks for the post, will probably pick up the book and spend some time with it.

[rebel]

so are there CSM's being installed on the pontoon tables too???

[moo321]

Originally Posted by rukus

yeh, for some reason when i read the rules of pontoon online it didnt strike me as the same thing as sp21... thanks for the post, will probably pick up the book and spend some time with it.

The pontoon you find online is a different game, I believe.