Today is the first day blackjack is legal at Indian casinos in Arizona. Casino Arizona & Fort McDowell will be the first 2 to open today, both are in the Phoenix area. I will try to visit after work to check out the playing conditions.
Casino AZ...
Started with some $5-250, $10-250, $25-500 tables. Around 11:15 a.m. local they started moving the mins up to $10. They had about 10 tables, although I did not count.
They are using ShuffleMaster's on all tables, with 4 decks inserted. The dealers for the most part are very slow, much slower than expected. The pit said it is in the gaming compact that they must use the "shuffle machines", although he did not specifically say the CSM.
The rules are Hit soft 17, double any 2, split up to 4 hands total, double after split. If you play more than 1 hand, you must bet 3X minimum, and 3 hands 5X minimum. There is no back-betting. One guy was actually playing 3 hands (purple, $500 hand) with about $50K in front of him. He was winning when I was there.
The tables are already very crowded, and the average player needs to really learn their basic strategy.
There is no comp program in place yet, although I saw someone get a free pack of cigarettes.
That's all I really have for now. Any immediate questions, let me know, but I am sure you will shortly have answers to all of your questions.
Ace
After researching Shufflemaster, I only found reference to auto shuffling and not csm.
The sequence goes like this.
The hand is played out, and all cards are eventually cleared from the table and placed in te discard tray. These cards are immediately removed and inserted into the upper rear of the machine. The pit told me there was a chance the cards from the previous hand can come out on the next hand. This is why I assume csm. The machines are very quiet, and the guts are outside of view, so I can hear or see no real shuffling going on.
Ace
It was the Shufflemaster King. The dealer told me it uses 5 decks and the pit told me 4 decks. The shufflemaster web site says 5 decks. Oh, the joy of watching a new game with new people.
