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John Grochowski Gaming Guru  Automatic Shufflers5 December 2021
By John Grochowski QUESTION: I like playing the table games such as Three Card Poker, Let It Ride and the newer game High Card Flush. All use automatic shufflers. What goes on inside the shuffler? How are the cards shuffled? Can the machine be manipulated to give an edge to the casino? ANSWER: The exact process differs depending on the manufacturer as well as expense and sophistication of the machine, but basically, each card goes through a series of moves into randomly selected slots. The shuffle you get is random and is not designed to favor house or player. Shufflers are inspected for randomness by gaming labs and state gaming boards. A casino caught using a non-random shuffler would be subject to fines and penalties up to suspension or loss of its license. Even if a casino tried to use a shuffler to gain an advantage, conditions of the game would negate the effort. In a simple game like Three Card Poker in which the player makes no draw decisions, the number of players is a randomizing factor. The cards may be set, but which hand belongs to the dealer changes if a player leaves the table and there are, say, four hands to be dealt instead of five, or if a player joins the game and there are five hands to be dealt instead of six. In a more complex game such as blackjack, the number of players remains a factor, but there's the additional problem of player strategy. One player might hit 16 vs., 7 while another stands, and one player might split 8s against a 10 while another shies away from the split. That makes it unpredictable who will get specific cards. Many shufflers have optical scanners and can recognize cards, but that's used to recognize when there are too many or too few cards of specific denominations. The scanners are anti-cheating devices there to detect whether an unscrupulous player is trying to sneak an extra Ace in the deck or remove a deuce, for example. But as for using shufflers to add to the house edge, that's both illegal and punishable by law and very, very difficult to accomplish because of natural randomizing factors. QUESTION: Is it possible to get the same card twice in video poker? I could have sworn I discarded a 7 of clubs and got another 7 of clubs in my final hand. ANSWER: That should not be possible. In licensed, regulated casinos in the United States, video poker games can deal a specific card only once per hand. If you have a 7 of clubs on the initial deal, there is no 7 of clubs in the 47 cards that are being electronically shuffled while waiting for you to draw. If a card appears twice in the same hand, that's a malfunction that should be reported. More likely, though, is that you made a mistake. You could be misremembering a card you discarded or you could have held a card you thought you were discarding. I know of only one video poker game in which it was possible to receive the same card more than once. It was Five Deck Frenzy, which had a brief run in Nevada casinos in the 1990s. Five Deck Frenzy shuffled together five electronic decks, so there were five of each card. Getting the same card more than once was more than possible, it was a goal. The top prize, a progressive jackpot that started at $200,000 on a quarter machine, was for five Aces of spades. This article is provided by the Frank Scoblete Network. Melissa A. Kaplan is the network's managing editor. If you would like to use this article on your website, please contact Casino City Press, the exclusive web syndication outlet for the Frank Scoblete Network. To contact Frank, please e-mail him at fscobe@optonline.net. More Roulette Systems28 November 2021
One of the constants of roulette is that it's easy to design combination bets that win more often than they lose, but impossible to alter the house edge. Eventually, every system brings large losses that overcome multiple small wins. The house maintains its advantage. Several weeks ago, I relayed a reader's question about a system called "3-2," which combines colors and columns. ... (read more)
Big Money, Little Money21 November 2021
QUESTION: On our last casino trip, it was impossible to find a $5 table. What we did notice was that most of the tables at $10-plus were empty. I found this at my preferred casino. So I checked the table at least daily for a week and rarely saw more than one person at the tables, often none. In contrast, at the only casino we found with $5 tables, the tables were packed. ... (read more)
Surprises Can Be Good!14 November 2021
QUESTION: I've never been lucky on progressive slots, so I've mostly avoided them. I've been a three-reel player since the '90s and I've never won a progressive. For the last 10 years or so, I've gone to casinos with my daughter and she likes the video. I play some video, too, just to be with her. In October, the strangest thing happened. ... (read more)
Craps SystemsCraps players love systems, trying to mix and match bets in hopes of finding the magical formula that will beat the casino. Just about any system will work sometimes, and when a player wins with a system, it encourages another try, and another, and another. In the long run, of course, the casino comes out on top. ... (read more)Multi Strike PokerIt was a Friday morning in Joliet, and I'd been playing a little video poker aboard Empress II, waiting for the 11 a.m. opening of Empress I and its video poker room. Soon, if it hasn't already happened by the time you read this, Empress' new barge will open, ending such little scheduling inconveniences, but on this day, I found myself passing time with a little quarter Triple Play Poker. ... (read more)Comps - The BasicsA colleague of mine likes to refer to casino comps as "free stuff." And for those who know their basic strategy in blackjack, optimal strategies for certain video poker games and who know how comping systems work, the "stuff" really is free--the value ... (read more)Basic Strategy for Spanish 21In the last couple of weeks, we've looked at basic strategy in blackjack. Sit down at most blackjack tables in any jurisdiction, play basic strategy and you'll narrow the house edge to a half-percent or so, perhaps a little more or a little less depending on house rules. ... (read more)Single-Deck Basic StrategyThose whose casino memories stretch back far enough may recall a time when the standard "Las Vegas Strip" blackjack game was dealt from a single deck of cards, with the dealer standing on all 17s. That started to change in the 1960s as operators grew ... (read more)John Grochowski |
John Grochowski |
