My Casino Odyssey

30 December 2023

By Frank Scoblete

The casino games have changed; very few games for the better and very many games for the worst.

I have now been playing in casinos for almost 35 years. That’s a long time in my estimation. Some years I have stayed at casino hotels 130 days! So, I am experienced. I have literally lived the casino life.

So, I’ll now do a “then” versus “now” comparison.

I don’t play blackjack as much as I used to, not because of my age, but because of the way blackjack has aged – in short, in most casinos (well, change that to almost all casinos) blackjack is not as good a game as it used to be in 1990, my first year of full-time play.

I learned blackjack playing in Atlantic City – Tropworld (now Tropicana) and Claridge and Golden Nugget and Resorts and Sands. In those days, the rules of the game were excellent and you could find scores of four-deck games. If the players knew basic strategy and played it perfectly, they had a decent chance to beat the house.

You could double-down on any first two cards, split and resplit, double down on splits and resplits, and surrender hands. The dealer stood on all 17s. Good rules.

It wasn’t long before my wife, the Beautiful AP and I decided to head to Vegas to try our hand at their games. Our very first stop was the Maxim Hotel and Casino, across the street from Bally’s.

The Maxim was a somewhat small hotel that offered six-deck games with good rules and several tables of single-deck games. The Maxim’s single-deck games were the best I have ever played in my life.

The casino only took one card out of play after the shuffle. All other cards were played. If the cards ran out the dealer took the discards, shuffled them, and put them into play (minus a burn card). That’s right, only one card was not played.

The rules were outrageously good too. In short, the same rules as in Atlantic City. There was more too!

For every blackjack a player got when he or she was betting five dollars, the casino gave you a one-dollar bonus coupon that could be spent anywhere in the casino hotel. Approximately one hand in twenty is an expected blackjack so the more you played, the more bonus coupons you received.

We were going to stay in Vegas for a week. Instead, we increased our stay to eight weeks. We knew a good game when we played one. We each played two hands for about eight hours a day.

And now…today and – yuck!

Fast forward about 30 years have passed and the blackjack games are just not what they used to be. In Atlantic City or Vegas or in the other 40 or so states that now have casino gambling, today’s blackjack when compared with the games of the early 1990s is awful.

Most casinos have their dealers hit soft 17. Splits and resplits are often not allowed. Some casinos will not allow any doubling on splits. Rarely will you see any single-deck games except for the ones that severely shortchange the payment of blackjack by making that 6-to-5 ($12 to $10) as opposed to 7.5 to 5 ($15 to $10). Surrender is rarely seen anymore.

Many casinos will not allow new players to jump into a game already being played. They must wait for the shuffle. Maybe 30 to 40 percent of the cards are cut out of play after the dealer shuffles.

Automatic shuffle machines are now used quite often and some of these machines are continuous shuffle ones that never give the player a shuffle break.

Blackjack is still the number-one table game but it is just not all that good anymore.

All the best in and out of the casinos.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available from Amason.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries, and bookstores.