Ploppies don't like CSM's (and the positive influence of counters - long)

On a recent Saturday night at a crowded Riverboat casino. Only $5 table was using the casino's only CSM. Only 2-4 players there every time I looked.
Meanwhile, the $10 tables were all pretty full (6d shoes). Of course, usually you would expect to see it jam-packed at the $5 table with slightly less traffic at the $10 tables but here it was the opposite thanks to the CSM.
This is great news and I wonder if other advantage players have made similar observations as to the average ploppy's aversion to the CSM. I didn't specifically approach any players with their thoughts on the CSM's. Just observed that nobody wanted to play them at this particular casino. I'd be willing to bet that several players simply trust or ar more comfortable with a hand shuffle (or even an automated shuffler where they can at least see the cards) more than a CSM.
Obviously, this casino will likely not be going to an all CSM format any time soon because nobody wanted to touch it even though it was the only $5 table in the whole place.
Also, there is a popular misconception in shoe play to bring out the big bets for the last couple hands. I've seen several players ask if this was the last hand and then everyone raised their bet 3x or so while I held steady at 1 unit thanks to a minus-count or low Aces remaining.
Thus, the casinos were actually making money from the ploppies faster despite the time lost for the hand-shuffle. I think players on CSM's are more likely to keep their bets lower, especially since they are not able to try to "take advantage" of the last hand of the shoe.

My other theory - If casinos got rid of counters entirely (by CSM's or other methods) they would miss an opportunity to maximie their profits.
1. Most counters aren't that good and often times overbet thus losing their bankroll faster then they would if they were just flat-betting. These counters should be welcomed with open-arms.
2. The reputation that blackjack is a beatable game attracts the ploppies. Implement the CSM's and quickly the repuation is gone.
3. Quality counters who are able to take a few bucks here and there serve as a positive advertisment to sit down at the game.
In other words, if you're a ploppy or a first-time player, you are more likely to play if you see at least one player has a modest stack of chips. If it's a table full of ploppies all clinging to their last 5 chips you are not as likely to join the game.

I have had several occassions where a ploppy has told me he was staying at the game because I was obviously bringing good luck to the table. Nevermind the fact that I was the only one at the table who was winning.
One time this guy was happily losing his green's and I was grinding away the red's. When I cashed out, he decided to call it a night also because the good-luck charm was leaving. I was +100 or so and he was probably down 500 but I think he would have bought in for more if I had stayed.

...I have travelled quite a bit and CSMs are very unpopular all over the world. Here are some quotable quotes:

...if they weren't to the casino's advantage, they would't bring them in, would they?

...when you get bad cards, you can get those bad cards very next hand! [nb. actually generally wrong due to the latency of redistribution effect of CSMs]

...you never know when the shoe starts or ends...

...you never get a break to take stock of where you're at...

...that "electronic card reader thingy" can rig the cards, you know, it doesn't deal the good cards as much...

Here are some other problems with CSMs (certainly not an exhaustive list):

1. They often jam, causing downtime and player dissatisfaction
2. The dealers have to twist their backs (pulling cards from discard rack to shoe) maybe 80 times per hour now instead of 4...bad for their backs
3. Ploppies just don't trust anything new
4. They cost the casino a lot more money than a regular shoe (both in initial outlay and maintenance cost)

AWS

I dont really observe the CSM's too much (just walk on by) but I am not averse to playing the regular automated shufflers even though I know they bother other advantage players.
In my time, I have seen several automated shufflers that have been down. So the dealer has to hand-shuffle anyway and it takes the new dealers a bit longer since they hadn't shuffled there previously. I can't imagine how much those things cost and then on top of that how much they cost to repair.
Once saw an automated shuffler, which seemed to working fine for the past hour, go nuts spitting and chewing cards all over the place.
The dealer was told he would have to hand-shuffle from then on. Dealer proceeded to very poorly and unexpertly shuffle the cards when we reachd the end of the shoe. Wasn't his fault, he was new and hadn't been taught. PB groaned and switched him to a different table and brought in a more experienced dealer who knew proper shuffling technique.

What is our approximation for the cost of an automated shuffler or CSM. About $500 per or maybe more?

An excerpt from the Far Eastern Economic Review 25 Jan 2001:

GAMING
Asia's Casino Boom

By Bruce Gilley/HONG KONG

...Big names include Aristocrat Leisure and Australasian Casino Equipment Supplies, or Aces, whose top-of-the-line card shuffling machines go for $11,000.

I have heard figures of AU$10,000 (=US$5,000) before.

AWS

That's 5-grand each?!?!?!
Wow!! Obviously my estimate was way off. That's a hefty price-tag to try to rid oneself of the occassional counter or to try to squeak out a few extra hands per hour.
No wonder you only see 1 or 2 at a time being added to a given casino. Makes me wonder if the CSM I saw at the casino I visited was perhaps a free loaner to try to convince them to buy 20 or 30 of them. If they really are that much I can see a lot of casino avoiding them because they simply aren't worth it. Maintenance as well as lost revenues of players that hate them, etc.

go for $76.95 US! Hmm, think I will try coughing next time I order a Long Island Tea, and maybe I can make a few slip.....

...you'll obviously be exhaling jet fuel!!!!!

Little bitty belts don't like that! And they are not bad tasting. And hey I was coughing and the CW brought it ;-)

gehrig's idea. We have to get him back on bj21.com now that the coast is clear for him!

was not chased away from this website, he left on his own accord and it wasn't because of Schlesinger. As I recall, too, gehrig has been posting until recently on Don's very own, and very strict, Domain.

gehrig is very academically and "street" qualified. I would be very suprised to find he is allowed on Don's Domain, with Don's well known grammarianism being in conflict with gehrig's lower case ways. Right now I have some posts on rge21.com, where I dared string together some puns about reels and reals, etc., to make some points about how you distinguish between computer cheating and computers that would only violate the actually rather vague anit-device laws. There was a predictable blast from Don, such that I very seriously doubt he would refrain from hitting gehrig with the same, if gehrig went on Don's Domain.

I am very suprised if this is true; consider rather that Don is just not actually the one posting, but being shadowed by Victor ghosting for him? It is more probable!

You can even verify some of my own investigation skills in my bjrnet.com post about gehrig, designed to point out his many qualifications, that I took down just as soon as gehrig expressed discomfort with them. gehrig is all that I claimed and more. How many people even know Mustang is a country much less helped train their armed forces, or helped save massive amounts of the archives of the redhat Llama from Chinese occupation forces? How many could have written still classified information theory papers on less than 10 months of self-study past first courses in calculus? Languages: gehrig speaks 11 fluently (even French).

"I am very suprised if this is true [that gehrig was not chased away from this website but left on his own accord and then not because of Schlesinger]"

I don't know if you would be surprised or not but that's how it happened. Or, rather, how it didn't happen. Gehrig considered himslef slighted by a remark made by a bj21.com employee. Turned out that the remark was not made by said employee and also that the remark wasn't a slight after all. A spot of curiously impetuous behavior from an otherwise cool customer, in the literal sense of the adjective.

"Consider rather that Don is just not actually the one posting, but being shadowed by Victor ghosting for him? It is more probable!"

This is total nonsense. Schlesinger spends a lot of time on the internet, something that provides the aficionados with the gigantic comp of his free advice. He has never used a ghost poster. What a preposterous thing to say!

(I notice that you also seem to confuse the terms "shadowing" and "ghosting". These are two different things.)

"You can even verify some of my own investigation skills ... How many people even know Mustang is a country ?"

Not me, brother!.. Until you told us, I did not know that there was ever a country called Mustang. (I think you are getting ahead of yourself here. Gehrig was referring to the country of the Mustang.)

"How many could have written still classified information theory papers on less than 10 months of self-study past first courses in calculus?"

You must be referring to telekinesis. I humbly submit that, although I find the g-man highly skillful in the game of repartee and extremely skillful in the game of 21+, I find those references to the bankrupt idea of telekinesis amusing, if not disconcerting. That Tibetan shit must have been a doozy.

"gehrig speaks 11 languages fluently (even French)."

Good 'un.

--Cyrus,

A real stand-up guy

AND NO doubt what you claim is sh*t. Several guards at SRI would disagree in the way they would protect same, at both thier northern and southern California locations.

"gehrig has published papers on several subjects AND NO doubt what you claim is sh*t."

You fire off missives before the understanding of what you read hits your cerebellum.

I did not refer to telekinesis as "sh*t". My characterization was merely that it's a bankrupt concept. What I called shit was the kind that does actually need papers, but of the rolling kind.