How much longer until the jig is up?

[Avincow]

I've only been at this blackjack thing for a little over half a year, and I gotta say, I am having a lot of fun so far. But I do realize I missed blackjack in its prime. I don't really care about having to play multiple decks or playing with worse rules. I never played the single deck early surrender games, so I guess I don't really miss something that I never had.

What worries me though is all the 6:5 games and CSMs. I didn't realize how bad it was in Vegas. At my local casinos, CSMs and/or 6:5 games account for <5% of all blackjack games. Luckily, most locals seem to exhibit discretion and avoid the 6:5 games. But the same cannot be said for the tourists in Las Vegas. They will play anything and everything. It's almost as if they just don't care!

I've heard the argument that CSMs will never completely take over since average players don't trust machines. Well I think that's a bunch of hogwash. Gamblers will lose all their money at the slots, complain on Yelp about how such and such casino is too tight, move onto a new casino, rinse and repeat. I don't see how there would be a difference of trust between slots and blackjack.

Then you've got the argument that gamblers like to 'think' that they are beating blackjack when they really aren't. Well, I guess this is the only valid argument. A lot of gamblers do seem to enjoy shoes and pitch games as opposed to CSMs. They like to determine the hotness of shoe just like Baccarat players try to predict the next win with their little pieces of paper. However, I think that if tomorrow suddenly all casinos in the US switched to CSMs, there would be no noticeable difference in the popularity of blackjack. Gamblers like to gamble, and they will play blackjack with or without CSMs.

Finally, the argument for 6:5 blackjack. You would think that people would know better, but no. they play the $10 6:5 game when there is a $10 3:2 game right next to them! Plenty of players are playing bad blackjack games for no reason at all. I bet if casinos starting adding roulette wheels with 000, those wheels would get the same amount of action as the 00 wheels.

I have played around with the idea of playing blackjack professionally, but what's stopping me is the fact that I don't know if blackjack will last for the next 30 years. CSMs seem to be very popular in other countries as it stands right now. So how much longer do we have until the well runs dry? Give it to me straight. I know that there are other AP opportunities out there, but counting cards is the play that I like the best and the one that I know I can excel at.

[Three]

6:5 is a carny game not BJ.

[Avincow]

6:5 is a carny game not BJ.

I like that classification. So do you think there will be BJ 10 years down the road, or are we going to be limited to just carny games?

[ZenKinG]

I like that classification. So do you think there will be BJ 10 years down the road, or are we going to be limited to just carny games?

My opinion is card counting and blackjack will be around forever. Casinos simply make too much money off average joes than they lose to counters. It's as simple as that. What you will actually start seeing is a nationwide trend where casinos start to make the games more favorable for counters by giving better pen and better rules once they start realizing better games keeps the average player around longer and thus more recurring profit. It's all a waiting game as casinos start to get more educated and wise up about what blackjack and counting actually means to them and how much of a threat we actually are in comparison to the profit they can make off the recreational gambler. Right now there is still a notion that card counting is still a heat generator and most casinos see it as a threat, but in my opinion they will eventually wise up and make the games even better as they will realize it will actually bring in more profits.

[stopgambling]

HMmmm.... Interesting. i think totally in the opposite direction. That is all i have to say.

[NotEnoughHeat]

I've heard the argument that CSMs will never completely take over since average players don't trust machines. Well I think that's a bunch of hogwash. Gamblers will lose all their money at the slots, complain on Yelp about how such and such casino is too tight, move onto a new casino, rinse and repeat. I don't see how there would be a difference of trust between slots and blackjack.

I agree with a decent amount of what you said (stuff I've omitted in the quotation) however I think you underestimate the average blackjack players distrust of CSMs. Yeah there's slot players, but from my personal experience table players and machine players are different demographics with a small, but noticeably not non-existence) overlap. Even within table games, the blackjack players tend to mostly just play blackjack, perhaps with a few other table games mixed in occasionally. There's a decent amount of them that like card games because the bets are determined by the order of physical objects rather than the RNG or programming of a machine. Of course, all this superstition on its own won't stop CSMs from being more prevalent, but it's a factor in the mix. Also remember, the casino cashes in big on player's superstition.

Yeah, you'd think people would know better, but you're always wrong. Even if the players aren't necessarily educated in the math, making the house edge smaller might be better for the casinos in the long term because of the repeat business. If the just rigged the game hard to collect 10% of the amount of bets wagered it would be noticeable enough to the average player and would hurt business.

[ZeeBabar]

A factor not taken into consideration is the cost to casinos. Casinos do not buy CSM's. They are available for "rent" along with a maintenance cost. A simple shuffler is $1500 each so the CSM must be much more expensive. If you have a number of tables, the cost adds up.

[Dieter]

A simple shuffler is $1500 each so the CSM must be much more expensive.

What kind of shuffler is "simple"? Why must the CSM be more expensive?

A CSM game (which is another carnival game, IMO) might offer secondary advantages to the house, beyond simply discouraging skilled play.

[RS]

If you want to go pro, you should learn other AP techniques as well, not just CC. Counting is pretty reliable, meaning you can play at just about any casino at any time....which is not true for other types of advantage play techniques. But it's bloody obvious when you're doing it. Other techniques aren't obvious (some may be), and oftentimes have higher edges and can be milked for a good period of time. Don't just look at table games, but machines too. It isn't uncommon to find machine plays worth $500+ an hour (I know of 3)....but they can be a b*tch sometimes (casino location, availability, or not being able to play there anymore [technically I can but...]).

If you're in LV, you got plenty of quantity, but generally the casinos are smart with promotions they run. If you're in the middle of like Nebraska or Iowa (where theyre a day late on everything), you can probably find some good stuff.

I think you're asking the wrong questions.

[Dieter]

Don't just look at table games, but machines too.

I think you're asking the wrong questions.

+1.

[Three]

Almost every casino game can be beat. Counting cards at BJ is a small advantage compared to many of the other AP options. If the casino makes card counting not worth the trouble some of those APs counting BJ will quit gambling but others will just mve to their advantage plays. Most other advantage plays have a much larger advantage than counting cards. So the casino would accomplish maybe stopping 40% of AP's that will only use BJ counting to gain an advantage of maybe 1%. Then the other 60% of BJ AP's move to other opportunities in the casino at other games and play to a 2%-20%+ edge on the house. It sounds to me like the casino just raised its losses to AP's by about a factor of 10. Right now BJ is ubiquitous and other opportunities may take some research to find that they exist and exploit. AP BJ counting is easy to detect and these other opportunities if not impossible to detect are really difficult for the casino to detect.

The casinos are faced with a decision of losing some to a adversary they can see and detect or losing far far more to an adversary they can't see or detect except by noticing they won hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is a no brainer that keeping AP BJ viable is in the casinos best interest but often casino decisions make you wonder if any of them possess a brain. If you think that it is drying up just move to the next step in AP. You will look back and think that you were wasting your time when you were counting cards. Every AP I know that felt like heat was too much to be worth it have moved onto bigger advantages at better opportunities and feel just that way about when they were counting cards at BJ.

The casinos waste so much time and money worrying about that drip from the sink when the real problem is that burst pipe caused and growing due to all the counters that they caused to seek other opportunities as a result of all that money spent and time wasted on counters. The can't fix the burst pipe but they can stop making the burst pipe worse by wasting resources on counters. A few casinos get it by following the Zender Model of maximizing profits and they are the most profitable on both BJ and in general but most throw away dollars to save from losing pennies only to find if they reach the ultimate success they seek they cause the penny savings to be thousands lost for the dollars they spent.

[bjarg]

In my opinion competition between casinos is the only thing that could ever prevent blackjack from dying.

[RS]

Tthree -- I partially disagree. If an AP with a varying skill set can play BJ or other games [with a larger edge / more $$/hour], he's not going to turn down the better game and play BJ instead. Rather, he's going to play the better games, when available. When those good games aren't available, he'll fall back on BJ and play that (like a "last resort" kind of thing). That being said, the APs may decide that if CC is no longer possible or worthwhile, they'll investigate/research/scout for other and better plays. But for the most part, I think those APs who are playing blackjack are only playing blackjack because nothing else is currently available.