Never played blackjack at a casino. Played poker for years and did well. Have been practicing counting and spreading at home w poker chips, recording everything, studying.. Decide to hit up the closest joint to home.
I was running red hot at first and playing really well.. and although I was betting half what the crazy asian guy was at the highest spread the pit boss was behind my shoulder within the first half hour. First I had a blackjack ruled no hand. What was supposed to be 3:2 became a push. They told me it was because the player to my left was supposed to get blackjack, not me haha. Two players and dealer. I got black Ace-Ten ss. She was dealt 12.. The dealer stopped dealing, didn't deal her upcard, and said "that's not right."
I thought for sure this was a welcoming prank and started laughing w them. When they didn't shower me with confetti and comp me a meal I told them to look at the two cards in front of me. I have blackjack and she has 10-2. Shift supervisor is sent over and tells me its a push because I wasn't supposed to get those cards. I should have left here, up a decent clip in a half hour or so. **** got even weirder. Again, purely my fault for sticking around and not giving them credit for doing stuff this audacious.
Each time after was with the third dealer; the pit boss started rotating them faster as I was winning. She was sent in strategically. A legit con artist. First she flat out didn't pay me for a bet. Had 2 hands, one of which i split. I lost 2 hands of 3 and she didn't pay me back for the hand that I won. She did it as quick as humanly possible and I will say it was impressive. Nobody else even noticed, that or they know that it happens and don't care. The swoop of the discards, the rake of the chips, payment of every bet except my middle split.. right before throwing the discards and next round simultaneously.. this was all in what seemed like a couple seconds.
A few minutes later I stand on a hand, even verbally stating "stand," while waving my palm horizontally. and she throws another card down, which busted me and went immediately to drawing her hand with everybody else involved and intent on seeing the finish of the round. At this point somebody else finally muttered something about everything that was happening at our table but he just hit a double bj so it's not like he was going to say **** more. For her to recognize this opportunity and to synch everything with the window of time was ****ing impressive. I tried saying something and she said "sorry, we're on the next hand."
Again, literally a few minutes afterward.. it was my turn to act. The player before me busted and the dealer looks to me and throws a card down before I can do anything. She laughed and said "sorry, I'm tired" and started dealing out the next hand. I won that hand, but I was going to double it.. I knew the paint card was much more likely to fall than not. And it did come, but with half the bet that I wanted out there. She probably started out as some carnie, scamming little kids somewhere.
I had had enough and they finally switched dealers. This guy was the third one in a row that smirks and comments every other minute. "Are you sure you want to stand? this guy's standing on 12." "So how much do you really know about blackjack.""So do you usually win?" They were grilling me for winning reds.
That was actually the last of the blatant scamming/skimming. For another hour me and 4 others played with the new dealer and new deck. This wiped out what i took early on and what I brought with to lose. I want to say it was just an infrequent especially bad run of cards.. The new deck did come into question by myself and the other players once or twice because, every shoe, the count kept running very high, but we all lost most hands and with 75% penetration most of the face cards had to be cut out, every shoe. In about an hour the dealer busted maybe 3 times and almost always was dealt 20 with only two player blackjacks to follow in that time. Just a bad run IMO.. I think
I'm kind of sick over the whole incident. I should have stopped playing immediately but I was doing well and thought why not see where it goes, I drove an hour. I can't walk out after a half hour. Besides, things were getting interesting.
I also know that because it's native property there's pretty much no legal recourse when things like this happen. They are their own law. They can do no wrong. I willingly stayed and played anyway.
After a decade of a successful poker grind I was prepared and excited to work my ass off for a true 1% ROI on this big bet game, hitting up casinos playing a game I enjoy, having fun. Needless to say I'm really hesitant to ever play again. I think that's exactly what they want.
Just thought I would share my experience. Absolutely DO NOT play there unless you are intent on blowing money for a night knowing what should be a .5% initial house advantage is much closer to 5-10%. Everybody at the end of the night had been there a couple hours, no new players. And I didn't see anybody that was up. Doesn't mean there weren't any. But not from the tables that I could watch.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by mcallister3200
Bookmarks