|
|
SlotsPlus
with over 90 games to bet Blackjack, Video Poker, Big Jackpots, and more!
|
|
|
|
|
where the excitement is present 24/7
|
|
| Play Online Blackjack, Poker, Slots and many other online casino games! |
|
Shoes
In Nevada and Atlantic City, shoe games are honest. Outside of Nevada and Atlantic City, most shoe games are honest but be wary of gaffed shoes.Gaffed Shoes
Peeking at cards in a shoe is possible if it contains a mechanism for reflecting an image of the top card to the dealer. Seconds can be dealt from a shoe. That is how I was cheated in Indonesia. Even to an expert, a gaffed shoe looks like an honest shoe. One way to tell a gaffed shoe is to weigh it; a gaffed shoe generally is heavier than one that is not gaffed.If the dealer has stacked the cards in a predetermined order, peeking will not be necessary. Do not play against a dealer who, while picking up used cards, arranges them in a high-low sequence. The sequence can be preserved by means of a false shuffle. The dealer then knows without peeking whether the next card is low or high.
Unusual Decks
Alison Green says of her visit to Puerto Rico in 1982:I was never present when the casino opened, but I doubt if the cards were spread before the first shuffle of the day. At one table, the first two shoes produced running counts of -20 and -25 with a deck to go. I sat out the next shoe to count aces and separate ten-valued ranks. The four decks were shuffled, three of them were dealt out, and I counted 22 queens! Meanwhile a friend was observing an excess of small cards at his table.
Don Schlesinger says:
I was a bit perplexed over Alison Green's inferences about the less-than-pure motives of the casino in Puerto Rico. Should not she have been pleased to find 22 queens in the first three decks of a four-deck shoe? There might have been a few more queens in the remaining deck! Such a situation would suit me just fine. Why complain?As a matter of fact, Alison Green was pleased to find an overabundance of favorable cards in the shoe. However, she was in town as part of a team, and the other members of the team thought it best to avoid playing in a casino that they know for certain used other than 16 cards of each rank in a four-deck shoe. It is true that if the game were otherwise honest she would have had a big advantage, but she was outvoted on whether to stick around to find out if the game was otherwise honest.
I have omitted the name of the casino Alison Green visited in Puerto Rico in 1982, because reports I have gotten indicate that the game has been honest since then. So do not let this incident keep you from visiting Puerto Rico. However, do let this incident keep you alert to the possibility of similar things happening at any casino you visit, especially any casino outside of Nevada or Atlantic City.
Fast Dealers
Another reader says:When playing in Aruba, Curacao, and St. Martin, I had a problem with dealers playing my hands for me. This happens occasionally in the United States too — but not very often. But in Aruba the cocky dealers were dealing a face-up game exceedingly fast. They prided themselves on being great rapid dealers, but their inaccuracy I found intolerable. Often they would pass me up if I had a pair of 9s. I would call their attention to it but sometimes the dealer had already laid a card on another player's hand. Same thing with soft doubling A-7, A-8, and especially A-9. Also splitting 10s - I learned to move quickly or the dealer would pass me by. What can a player do when the dealer plays the hand for the player?
They can cheat you like that from a shoe. What can you do when you get the shaft on a dealer mistake or error? Example: I am playing third base. The dealer shows a 6. I wish to double down. The dealer goes around the table and skips me and pulls a card from the shoe, the dealer can glance at this card and know its value in a flash — he turns up his hole card and hits himself with a 4! giving him a total of twenty (he was indeed stiff). I immediately protested. I had wanted to double down on my A-6. The pit boss, who was no friend of mine, said I could still double down if I cared to or I could call the hand dead. I still protested. That 4 was meant to be mine and I wanted it. The next card would have busted the dealer. This happened to me in Las Vegas once for two hundred dollars and I lost the protest. What could I have done? The other players at the table were betting two dollars and were mice.
Do not let dealers play your hands for you. On splits and doubles, have your money on the table well in advance. When you know that you will want a hit, put your hand on the table by your cards. In other words, act as though you want to play your hand before the dealer gets to it rather than waiting until the dealer asks what you want to do.
Hand-Held Games
Even in Nevada you may run into a cheating dealer. A dealer is always subject to the temptation to play Robin Hood by cheating you to aid a friend. A dealer who cheats to let a friend win must then take extra money from other customers so that the total table win is about normal. Table hopping will keep you from getting wiped out by one cheat, but the experience can still be expensive.While cheating can be done in many ways, sleight of hand with hand-held cards is much more common than marked cards or missing cards or anything else that would be hard evidence. Most cheating dealers rely on peeking at the top card and then deciding whether to deal it or the second card. It is possible but extremely rare for a cheater to be so skillful that you can be alert, be cheated, and not spot evidence of cheating. You can spot almost all cheating if you know what to look for. Most customers do not look and do not know what to look for.
Peeking at the top card can be accomplished in various ways when the cards are hand held, but two ways are the most common. The dealer can bow the top card with a thumb and peek at a corner of the face. Watch the top of the pack. If you see the dealer's thumb move and a flash of white, the dealer has peeked. Alternatively, the dealer can make the top card swing away from the rest of the pack as if on a hinge while picking up losing bets and used cards at the end of a round. If that top card is an ace or 10, you know who is going to get it. Dealing seconds is accomplished by pulling the top card back slightly with the thumb, pulling the second card out, and pushing the top card back in place with the thumb. Do not play against a dealer who moves the thumb back and then forward while pulling a card, as this motion is useless except for dealing seconds. The most skillful cheaters use the same thumb motion when dealing from the top as when dealing seconds.
There are several excellent video tapes showing cheating; one of the best is Steve Forte's Gambling Protection Series. For further discussion of cheat-ing and photographs of cheating moves, see A. D. Livingston's Dealing with Cheats.
If the dealer uses borderless Bee cards held in the hand, the diamond design dazzles and makes it hard to see whether the dealer pulls the top card or a second. Since these cards are used at few casinos, a good rule is simply not to play blackjack at a casino that uses hand-held Bee cards with the solid, unbroken diamond pattern. With most other designs of cards, if you can see the top of the pack you can see which card is being dealt by all except the very fastest hands. Be wary of dealers who tilt the pack so far up that you cannot see the top surface.
The two most common cheating situations are: 1) the start of a round — because the dealer has plenty of opportunity to peek at the top card, and 2) when the dealer's upcard is 10, because then the dealer knows what cards will make a good hand. Watch for peeking all of the time, but particularly when against a 10. Watch for seconds all of the time, but particularly on the first cards of a round. You may see everything a cheating dealer does, or you may catch only part of the act and suspect the rest. Do not play against a dealer who peeks. Do not play against a dealer who deals seconds.
In single and double deck, if I can not see the top card being dealt I avoid that dealer. There are few dealers so fast that I cannot watch the card coming off the deck. The dealers I avoid may not be dishonest, but I feel more comfortable playing in situations where I know each card being dealt is the top card.
This is the final article of the series: "Cheating by the dealer", you can read the previous article.
© Copyright 2007 Gambling Central's material. It may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|
SlotsPlus.com
Free Download or Flash version play for real money or just check out our games and play for fun |
|