Carnival Cruise Ship Blackjack Conditions. Also Monaco Monte Carlo

Hello - taking a cruise aboard Carnival cruise ship and wondering what Blackjack table conditions are - does anyone have any information or recent links to this information?

(BTW - the monthly newsletter does not cover cruise ships, so cannot get this information there)..

Same thing for MONACO, MONTE CARLO - is the luxurious casino there open for tourists to visit and play Blackjack? If so what are typical table minimums, rules (I assume European Hole Card rules) and dress code?

Can't speak of your ship in particular, but generally speaking BJ conditions on cruise ships are terrible. I've been on several lines and they are all bad. I did play once with 500 dollars and played for about an hour each night and won about 500 dollars each night. just luck. play at your own ask.

You will find either

8 deck with 2 cutoff h17 das (no rsa, no surrender)

OR

h17 das Continuous Shuffle Machine

Good Luck.

I guess I don't have to worry about heat where the games are poor, and I should probably temper my expectations and consider it a recreational game.

Also I was looking forward to playing a few hands of blackjack or Baccarat in the famous Casino in Monte Carlo - not sure if minimums are 10Euro or something else.

Actually, the first cruise ship I played on (I think it was Carnival)I spread $5-100 and I was half-shoed by Tuesday (cruise started Sat.) I was probably winning a little at the time. Never thought heat would be a consideration. They never said anything to me and didn't throw me overboard. It was fun walking into the casino every night and watching them half-shoe every table. Typically, there are only a few BJ tables in a cruise ship casino and you will be the only one on the whole ship playing close to basic strategy. However, you can split 10's without worrying one bit. My advice is to play low level for fun, unless the games are really bad. The last cruise I was on they had one table of double exposure BJ with player losing ties and it was full all week. Not surprisingly, I did not see one player win. I won the BJ tourney on that cruise. If you enter the tourney, wait until the last 15 minutes so you can see what score you need to make the final table. Good luck, but more importantly, have fun on the cruise.

Some cruise lines remove 10s/aces and/or add small cards to skew the odds.

You didn't mention whether or not you're an AP, but if so, count down 10-15 shoes and make sure the vast majority don't end with positive counts, before you play.

Maybe I will try to show up at the casino the first day / evening it opens and watch them open a table (pull out decks of cards, initial shuffle etc) to see if I can tell whether they are pulling out cards.

I am not sure whether they are ALLOWED to do this on their own (no oversight by casino regulating body) or not. This is Carnival Cruise lines - a major corporation, so don't know.

If they are not supposed to do this but do anyway then I will likely never see it happen. I might even try to ask the dealers there whether they are complete decks to get their reaction.

So maybe reasons like this are why I don't hear about APs "heading for open waters" aboard cruise ships to make a living...

On my last cruise, with the shorted decks, the cards were never spread. When they opened the tables, they were already in the shoe. I asked a dealer about this and all he said was they used the same shoe the whole week. I watched them open up the tables a few times, once they were the required distance from port, and they just pulled the shoes out of a locked cabinet.

so this makes me wonder whether Cruise Ships bring out loaded dice too for the craps table...

Seriously - IS THIS LEGAL or not? Can Cruise ships remove cards from their shoes legally?

If cruise ships can do this legally (without impunity), I wonder why casinos don't push (or lobby) for the ability to do the same thing...they have blatantly changed the rules of the game before (with the move to 6/5 payouts on blackjack for selected games) so pulling cards out of shoes seems like a logical next step.

I did a quick Google search, and the only recent reference I could was here:

http://www.montecarlocasinos.com/Black-Jack,1431.html

Not aware of any item in maritime law covering casino gaming. I don't know who has the concessions on the various cruise lines, but I wouldn't mind operating those tables. Totally and literally captive audience.

Below is a website with some sketchy information on various ships.

Cobbson

on a cruise line, if you happened to know several AP's planning to take a cruise while you were there. Do not plan on collecting a pension plan, however.

AB

There was an old thread in which someone shared a photo he had taken of a plaque on the wall of a Cruise Line Casino � informing the public that those players who are believed to be card counters will have ALL of their chips confiscated � not just their profits.

I think that it was Carnival Cruises but I could be wrong.

Thanks for the link. I guess I won't be playing Baccarat in Monte Carlo!

They call the game "Chemin de Fer", and it seems to have the same rules as Baccarat.

They advertise 10 Euro minimum for Blackjack....more my style

I ran across this thread and I wanted to make a comment to an above post. If a shoe is truly shorted, then you should note persistently POSITIVE counts at the shuffle, not negative ones. Remember, the 10's have theoretically been removed.