bfbagain: Not sure how to ask this

[pm]

There really aren't very many hand-shuffled shoe games around, are there? As a general question....if a place has shoe games with ASMs, wouldn't the effect of poor penetration on their bottom line be relatively minimal? If it is, then why wouldn't they offer poor penetration? Isn't that an okay trade-off, take a small e.v. hit and stop having to worry about counters all the time? Their e.v. drop would even be mitigated to at least some small extent because nobody could count there.......??

[Don Schlesinger]

I'll try to answer both of you at the same time. Let's begin here: Trying to figure out or understand why a casino does something is an exercise in futility. At least for the blackjack portion, casinos are run by total mental hernias -- so pathetically incompetent as to make one physically ill to think about it. I try not to.

As for the argument that poorer cuts don't really hurt the bottom line all that much, it is absolutely false. Blackjack is a volume issue. How many hands can you get out on the table per hour? You have an edge over 99+% of the players, so you want to have as much action as possible. Having an edge over 100% of the players, if that edge is reduced by, say, 20% (dealing 4 decks instead of 5) of what it is over the 99+% is just plain stupidity. Of course, that is what you can expect from most casinos.

Recently, I was in Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. The former deals 4.75-5.0/6; the latter deals 4.0-4.25/6. The former is the most profitable casino in the history of the planet. The latter is like Avis -- reduced to "trying harder," because whoever runs their BJ games is a consummate asshole.

Enough. I can feel my blood pressure rising already. :-)

Don

[pm]

Don, hear me out if you would, though.....I tried to work this out (out of curiosity), does this look right:

For a game with an ASM.....4.5/6, 4 people there constantly, 100 rounds being dealt per hour. There would be 2.7 * 5 = 13.5 cards used per round, so a total of (4.5 * 52)/13.5 = 17.33 rounds per shoe. So per hour, there would be 100/17.33 = 5.77 shoes, so there would be 5.77 shuffles per hour (is that right?).

If they cut their pen down to 3.5/6, there would a total of (3.5 * 52)/13.5 = 13.48 rounds per shoe. So per 100 rounds, there would be 100/13.48 = 7.42 shoes, so 7.42 shuffles per 100 rounds (??).

So they would end up with an extra 7.42 - 5.77 = 1.65 shuffles per 100 rounds. It probably takes an average of 1 minute from the end of one shoe to the beginning of the next on an ASM (is that a reasonable guess?). So their total penalty would be 1 * 1.65 = 1.65 minutes, let's say 2 minutes. So they'd get 100 rounds out in 62 minutes, which yields 96.78 rounds per hour. If that's right, that's a 3-4% reduction....even though counters don't cut into their e.v. by anything close to that amount, why not take this hit just for peace of mind? It's been a continuous thorn in their side for 4 or 5 decades, and obviously they can't keep good pen and not look out for counters at all; they'd get raped pretty quick if they did. So why not just give bad pen and be done with the whole situation?

[Don Schlesinger]

I don't think you can do it quite your way. I think you need to start two tables, side-by-side, one with a 4/6 cut and one with a 5/6 cut (or whatever comparison you want to make).

Then, you have to time how long it takes to deal each shoe and how long it takes to shuffle. Then, you can calculate how many hands per hour each table generates and what the short-fall is for the more poorly cut shoe.

Your analysis mentions one minute for an ASM, but it is clearly longer than that for hand shuffling. and, your analysis doesn't factor in the dealing time, which you need.

Don

[bfbagain]

There really aren't very many hand-shuffled shoe games around, are there?

Actually, the majority of high limit shoe games are all hand-shuffled. And in many parts of the country, casinos who did have ASM's have gone back to hand shuffling as civilians don't like them.

The only places that appear to consistently offer ASM's outside of Nevada, are the Indians. They seem to love it, and they're also in remote parts of the country where they are the only game in town.

You're also inaccurate on your time line between shuffles. If you pay attention the next time you have the opportunity to observe an ASM, they'll still do a couple of riffles before placing the pack in the machine, and the handling of a 6 deck pack isn't smooth or time efficient. Yes, it does reduce the overall shuffle time, but not as much as you'd expect, and then there is the occasional machine glitch which also slows the game down.

And a final comment, any time something is introduced by casinos to relieve game protection responsibilities, usually means there are opportunities left in its wake.

All of this essentially means that some in the casino industry attempt, albeit unsuccessfully, to be too clever by half, which adds to their stupid quotient.

I'm struck by that now famous phrase by the General in New Orleans after Katrina: "Don't get stuck on stupid." It appears that casinos will forever be stuck on stupid.

bfb