A close friend of mine has been playing blackjack professionally for many years
and has done very well until recently (the last year or so). He tells me that
he's doing much worse now than what would be expected statistically. He uses the
Hi-Opt II count. Over the last months, he has not been winning much at all,
especially at certain casinos. Recently, he was playing at a casino with an
8-deck shoe using a shuffling machine (not continuous shuffle, of course). The
dealer was dealing down to one deck or less. He won about $2000 the first day,
then lost several thousand over the next couple of days. It just seems a little
suspicious that even though he was winning the first day, the casino still dealt
down to one deck or less, and there was no attempt to back him off or anything.
He's been backed off and barred many times at other casinos over the years, by
the way. What do you think? Is there any way to find out if a casino is cheating
or has cheated in the past? Maybe some of these shuffling machines are so
sophisticated these days that they can shuffle the cards in such a way as to
produce clumping. There'd be no way to beat that by counting.
Thanks for your help!
