Question for the blackjack experts

Following a four-day trip, my girlfriend and I had an argument about blackjack odds in different places, and I%26#39;d be glad to hear comments from the experts.

First, she argues that the odds in video blackjack (the kind you can play on the ';game king'; machines and their counterparts) are different from place to place. I am not sure how this could be. All of these machines are multiple-deck as far as I understood, and have the same rules. It%26#39;s not video poker where you could have different pay schedules... And yet, certain places like the hard rock always seemed to bankrupt us. She seems to imply that certain video blackjack machines ';peek'; at the cards and only let you win occasionally. I believe that casinos can set their advantage with rules and not by actually make BJ machines that cheat to ensure a speciifc payoff. Who%26#39;s right ?

The second is that she argues that different casinos could be better or worse for multiple-shoe table blackjack even with the same rules and blackjack payoff. Although it doesn%26#39;t make any sense to me, I have noticed that I always won big in the north-strip places (Sahara, Stratosphere, Slots-o-fun) and usually lost in the more upscale casinos, and always lost at the hard rock. I play basic strategy without card counting on multiple-shoe tables. As far as I can tell, the rules are the same rules (I never got into a complex splitting situation, etc.). I think it%26#39;s just a coincedence.

Any comments?

Question for the blackjack experts

Your Friend is correct re: Question # 1

The casino can program the pay-out anyway they want, some casinos set higher payouts than others

#2 I assume you mean multi-Deck, there is no such thing as multi-shoe. SIngle or double deck holds a huge edges for card counters. You%26#39;re not a counter so, you are correct, you losses are based on coincidence, not design

Question for the blackjack experts

Hi John.

Your answer re: 1 is not so clear to me: are you saying that the machines in video blackjack are actually programmed to ';cheat';, by not truly providing randomized cards? So if I hit, for example, the machine examines the history of my wins/losses before deciding what card to give me ?

I am surprised something like this is legal. I would have figured the casino%26#39;s edge is from the rules of the game (in BJ) or from the speciifc payout levels (in VP and slots)?

anyone?

uricmu,

Both 1 and 2 take away the whole nature of gambling, which is random occurrences based off of mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive events. Both events give edges to the house (99.99% of the time), if they didn%26#39;t Vegas would look like Sagev. That%26#39;s right backwards and obsolete.

I believe that the house edge on a video blackjack game is derived from the game itself and the unfavorable rules that typically apply - ie getting paid 1:1 on blackjack, and not being able to double or split.

If the casino were cheating how the cards came out I think the gaming board would have something to say about that. It is my understanding that in a card game like poker or blackjack that the cards have to represent a true deck of cards. Thats my 5 cents.

Your girlfriend is wrong. Any video game (including VP and VBJ) that includes live gaming elements (cards or dice) has to act just like a table game version.

From 14.040(2)(b) of the Nevada Gaming Commission Regulations:

For gaming devices that are representative of live gambling games, the mathematical probability of a symbol or other element appearing in a game outcome must be equal to the mathematical probability of that symbol or element occurring in the live gambling game.

As Oshkosh said, they are free to make unfavorable rules about splits, doubles and BJ payouts, but the cards must come random.

on #2, u mean multi deck, can be 6 or 8...

some casinos hit on soft 17 some stay.

also there are shuffle machines,continues shuffle machines,

and dealer shuffle.

i play where dealer shuffles only,never play the continous

shuffle machine, the regular shuffle machines are replaced

with the dead cards and re-done, the continous one just keeps

going, those are the ones u find at the imperial palace

where the dealertainers deal. do not play those...

So basically what you%26#39;re saying is that the different results on the video blackjack machines are coincidental as long as the rules are the same. That makes sense to me. That%26#39;s what I thought...

My GF thinks she is jinxed at the hard rock because the machines there are cheating, but I found that unlikely.

So, is there an advantage to playing video BJ in specific places? It seems that everyone has basically the same machines and the entire variety of rules.

For table blackjack, I%26#39;ve been happiest at the Sahara.

the video blackjack is single deck, new deck every hand.play where you like to play with drink service and use your players card.

harrahs sent info 60,000 points and i get new sony big tv,

only 59,700 points to go !

60,00 points at the Harrah? How much did you spend there if I may ask?