Harrah's in SoCal just changed all their shoe games (8 Deck) to 6:5 Blackjack which should now be called 21! =)

Nightshifter

Well-Known Member
#1
Thoughts on this trend?

The 6 Deck games in the high limit room are still 3:2 though =) as well as all the double deck games. So now no more $10 - $15 min tables with 3:2 Blackjack.
 
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The G Man

Well-Known Member
#3
Nightshifter said:
Thoughts on this trend?

The 6 Deck games in the high limit room are still 3:2 though =) as well as all the double deck games. So now no more $10 - $15 min tables with 3:2 Blackjack.
Keep saying to anyone you see that "Only idiots and brain dead play 6:5 shitty games"
 

Nightshifter

Well-Known Member
#4
Yeah... was just over there again yesterday afternoon. Usually I see the locals sitting down but now the shoe games were empty =) Wonder how long they'll try this scenario until they revert back to get the players. It was bad enough already with the bet tracking sensors and having to register and get a card or you weren't allowed to play.
 

Nightshifter

Well-Known Member
#9
Was complaining to the dealer about the games being 6:5 now (not just single deck anymore). His reply was that it doesn't really matter... like how many times do you get a blackjack. Well apparently it does matter... like the house gains ~1.39%? That's huge!
 

gronbog

Well-Known Member
#10
Nightshifter said:
I ventured over to the free bet at Barona and did better... at least BJ pays 3:2 and you can surrender =)
The push on a dealer 22 costs you much more than the benefit of the free bets and surrender. The house edge is more than 1% even if you play the corrected basic strategy, which most players don't.
 

Nightshifter

Well-Known Member
#11
gronbog said:
The push on a dealer 22 costs you much more than the benefit of the free bets and surrender. The house edge is more than 1% even if you play the corrected basic strategy, which most players don't.
Allowed to re-split Aces as well... so it's more like ~0.7% =D Side bet push 22 all red nice payout lol (which the guy at first base won)!
Yes you have to play the correct strategy... esp. on the free bet bet =) Many people won't hit a hard 17...
 

The G Man

Well-Known Member
#13
Nightshifter said:
Was complaining to the dealer about the games being 6:5 now (not just single deck anymore). His reply was that it doesn't really matter... like how many times do you get a blackjack. Well apparently it does matter... like the house gains ~1.39%? That's huge!
I would simply remind him that the name of the game is "Blackjack" and that anyone with half a brain would never accept a payout of $12 on a $10 bet when in any decent casino you could get $15 for the same hand. "Hey dealer, did you go to school ? "
 

Nightshifter

Well-Known Member
#15
gronbog said:
According to https://wizardofodds.com/games/free-bet-blackjack/ the house edge with resplitting aces is 1.04%. If you could not resplit aces, it would cost you an additional 0.08%.
And when late surrender is offered, the player gains another 0.21 percent. So it probably gets down to ~0.8% range. Dealer hits soft-17 so I just added back the 0.31 to 0.52 which is ~0.83% house advantage. Thought the re-splitting of Aces wasn't included so I added that as well to get ~0.7%, but if it's included then it's ~0.83% for the game I was playing.

At WizardOfOdds.com, Michael Shackelford has a breakdown of Free Bet that includes the effect of rules variations. When the dealer stands on all 17s, the player gains 0.31 percent. And when late surrender is offered, the player gains another 0.21 percent.
So with all rules standard except for these two variations, Free Bet has a house edge of about 0.52 percent against a basic strategy player, making it very competitive with mainstream six-deck games.
On the Wizard of Odds site, Shackelford raises an interesting point. Contrary to most blackjack games, Free Bet is better for the player when more decks are used. A single-deck Free Bet game would have a house edge 0.14 percent higher than a six-deck game. That’s one variation to beware.
 
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Nightshifter

Well-Known Member
#16
LC Larry said:
Decent casino is an oxymoron.
Losing casino :D Just checking out vegas and a lot of places are taking away re-splitting of cards, double on only 9,10 & 11 and BJ pays even money? wow... something like ~2.36% house advantage :/
 

StudiodeKadent

Well-Known Member
#17
Runit said:
Let’s stop giving them our business. That will show them
I wish I could believe you. But the reality is that "sophisticated players" are not a lucrative demographic. We know the basic strategy, some of us know and are proficient at card counting, and unless we're throwing down very large sums of money on the regular (and many of us aren't), getting money out of us is like getting blood out of a stone. And it is far easier getting money out of baccarat players in the premium gambling world.

You could make the argument that blackjack's ability to be AP'd is the reason it is so popular (the "card counters produce positive externalities" theory). But I'm not sure that is entirely true because if card counters really did produce those positive externalities then its unlikely super-zealous security would be as much of a problem.

On a global, geopolitical scale, the reality is that few policymakers want to have a policy that minimizes the consumer price of casino gambling. They want the tax revenue. So the revenue-maximizing outcome is a monopoly or oligopoly of large, glamorous casino resorts... this is also an easier sale to the voting public, since they can be promoted as "mostly for super rich foreigners" and the very policies which create excessively high prices can get justified as a form of "consumer protection" (even though they're anything but).

I don't know exactly how we can solve the issue of bad blackjack in noncompetitive markets (beyond a policy fix), but in the USA I think it is obvious that casinos will not re-institute good rules unless they see their revenue increase from doing so. Which means, basically, players need to be willing to bet more (and/or spend more time) at better-rules-casinos, and APs need to be willing to refrain from engaging in AP at these casinos and/or let these casinos use the necessary technological means to protect their games (whether that be CSMs or greatly reduced penetration).
 
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