a very basic concept of the game
Casino blackjack has no fixed odds against the player. Other casino games have fixed odds against the player. For example, American roulette, the game with a single and a double zero, given that the ball will fall into the little sections at the bottom of the spinning wheel with equiprobability, will always yield a negative expectation for the player of 1/19th, or about 5�%, regardless of how the wagers are configured. (In actual fact, there is one proposition where the expectation is worse.)
In casino blackjack, every subset of undealt cards within the shoe will offer a different expectation, some of them favorable to the player. This is exactly why people (meaning some people, particularly the readership of this site) use card counting methods: to detect and exploit these favorable subsets.
But "off the top", meaning the subset of six intact but well shuffled decks of cards, the best strategy will offer the player a disadvantage of about �%. And shuffling after each dealt hand means the player is always facing this same disadvantage. It's better than roulette but the ultimate result is the same: you lose.
