Putting a Blackjack Dealer on Tilt

A distracted blackjack dealer can be a very profitable proposition for an advantage player.

This deterioration can create several types of profitable opportunity, for example:

1. Dealer mays inadvertently expose their hole card or the next card out of the shoe before it should have been exposed.
2. They may make payoff errors.
3. They may riffle or strip too high and, again, inadvertently expose cards allowing you to know their approximate location.

Putting a dealer on tilt deliberately is a rather unpleasant thing to do. It is not something I do as a matter of course. It's mainly because dealers are mostly underpaid and often get treated badly by the customers, and I'm reluctant to make things even worse for them.

However, I'll make exceptions for a minority of dealers who hustle tips aggressively. Many professionals think being rude or aggressive is a good way to put the dealer on tilt. This is not true. This has a major disadvantage from the cover perspective. If you behave obnoxiously the pit will be far more keen to get rid of you should they suspect you of being a skilled player. You have already drawn attention to yourself.

My method of psyching the dealer is simple. I hold a level, focused gaze for several seconds longer than is comfortable. You make eye contact and persist with the eye contact after the dealer has averted their eyes. That is it.

Practice this. You may be surprised at the results. I once managed to put the evil eye on a Korean dealer on a cruise ship once that she spilt a clump of aces all over the table during the shuffle revealing their precise location.