They keep trying a failing
The casinos and their partner firms such as Shufflemaster and Alliance Gaming have been trying to make blackjack completely unwinable and controlable like slots and every single attempt has been either a complete or limited FAILURE, including 6/5 single deck.
To explain:
6/5 single deck is generally only found on the lowest limit tables. You might find the rare black chip player on the table (might be me if the dealer is flashing her hole card) but mostly you find low limit players who net the casino minimal profits. You might say that due to the cost of running the game the casino needs to charge these low limit players a higher rental for the seat, so they pay 6/5.
The CSM was invented to end cardcounting and get 20% more hands dealt for the casino per hour. A win/win situation according to shufflemaster, who has yet to figure out that if the players do not play, it is a lose/lose situation.
So what happened: Very quickly after the advent of the CSM the casinos had to reduce their use to again, only the lowest of limit tables because people betting green chips and higher refused to play and moved to other casinos that did not use CSM's.
Electronic Tables: There have been several different types of these made where each player has a screen, the cards are electronic and the one I am most familar with used a live dealer handling the payouts. Here the deck is an electronic image, the game may or may not be shuffled after each hand.
I have seen this table at casinos that also had regular tables but they are gone now. What I never did see was any person ever playing on one of these tables. I do remember a small casino in California that on a Saturday evening had people waiting on every single table unable to get a seat and the electronic table just sitting at the end of the pit idle for the whole evening. Again people did not play and the things disappeared.
Mindplay21: A few years back Alliance and Bally Gaming came up with what they sold to greedy and paranoid casinos as the perfect blackjack complete system. Not only did Mindplay keep a count, but most importantly it would enable the casino to reduce pit and eye salaries, stop counting, stop cheating and reduce the amount of comps on blackjack. Besides all that, since it also kept a count and knew the Exact Order of Every Single Card in the Stack!!! It could be used for cheating as the El Dorado in Reno had done.
The results: Well, good counters figured out how to fool the machine quickly and very effectively since surviellence was depending on the machine to do their work. A lawsuit was brought against the El Dorado. The pit figured out that the thing wanted their job and mysteriously it was always breaking down.
And surprise surprise, no one every asked the players if they would play against a weird machine that knew in advance what cards the players and dealers would get. Tried at the Hilton in Vegas when the Hilton had a good solid blackjack customer base and the result was the Hilton no longer has their old players and Mindplay is long gone. Tried at the Flamingo which did not have a good solid base of players, still does not have the players and Mindplay is gone from there also. No Mindplay devices in Vegas today.
They will keep trying to actually fix what does not need fixing. The casinos are winning good money on blackjack because the public plays so bad but just knowing that a few people can beat it, that there are salaries, sick days, medical and retirement money involved in the game and it can not presently be tightly controlled like a slot, the manufacturers like Shufflemaster know that they can continue to sell junk, even if it does not work, to the casinos for millions and millions. Why? Because the casinos are so paranoid and greedy that they will believe the promises of the manufacturers.
This is now and the immediate futre. Expect pretty much the same but someday these manufacturers might come up with a completely controllable blackjack game that the ploppy with black chips will play and then it will most likely be over for us. What these companies, the casinos and even us on this board fail to generally understand is that the real power and future of blackjack is in the hands of that terrible blackjack player who along with similar players, put enough money on the table to impact the casino bottom line. When he fails to play the game controlling device always will be a loser!
The is Ploppy Power
ihate17
