Other than on the Seminole Casinos in Florida, has anyone noticed the use of prepackaged, preshuffled playing cards in any other casinos?
You may find them in use in baccarat, especially big table, high limit games, where cards are used for just one shoe, as well as blackjack or some other game.
Thanks in advance,
Cobbson
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Are you saying that 6 decks of cards come in one big package preshuffled? Or, do you mean an empty 6D table has all 6 decks already shuffled and in the shoe ready for play?
The later, I have seen. I don't always trust it but have played it.
See my posting today in Greenchp-USA South "Preshuffled decks".
Thanks,
Cobbson
BJC, What's next out there? How about pre-shuffled, pre-packed blackjack dealers? Or pre-packed pitcritters. Just add water.
Can you give us the lowdown on Vegas? Have you noticed a severe slowdown, or a minor slowdown, (or what?) in casino action, as you get about there?
I'm waiting for good news about the disappearance of those accursed 6:5 games; and to attract more players during the downturn, BETTER RULES FOR PLAYERS. Am I still pissing into the wind in hoping for these, in the desert? Surely the odd LV casino owner has a bit more creativity than the stereotype. (I wish) Any positive comments about that area?
The slowdown in Las Vegas has nothing to do with BJ rules...it's all about the economy. There are plenty of good games in LV, especially when compared to the East Coast. Of course, there are excellent games in Bhotswana, Uzbekistan, and Greenland.
...both on and off strip. Revereman is correct, it's the ecoonomy. All the large corporate casino operations have tremendous debt service, thus it doesn't take much of a decrease in revenue and cash flow to put them into a tail-spin. The Rodeo comes to town next week which will give the town a boost. After the Rodeo, Vegas enters its traditionally slow season.
As for 6:5 blackjack, I'm afraid it's here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. There are still plenty of beatable games here in the desert.
"Old Las Vegas casino owner" is a thing of the past. It ended recently with the sale of the ElCortez by Jackie Gaughan to Kenny Epstein, Mike Nolan, and Joe Woody. Jackie's son, Michael Gaughan owns the Southpoint, and operates it somewhat like an "old time casino owner. He even has family members on the floor in suits.
Cobbson
Yeah, right, BJC. I thought maybe, there may be an isolated casino here and there actually using innovative thinking and giving, for example, some new ideas with blackjack. Such as 'Blackjack attack' in AC a while back. Maybe some rules for the better?
After all, with some casinos' panic stations blaring, (about servicing massive debt,) - if they are to survive - they will need to dig deep in their box of tricks and come up with some things EXTRA to entice players to turn up in the desert. Otherwise, why would we bother when the same old, same old, can be had without going there...
Have you noticed any evidence of creative/innovative new BJ ideas?
I have made my first sighting of the use of preshuffled, prepacked cards in Las Vegas. It was at "midi-baccarat". In this game,similar to mini-baccarat, the bankers cards are dealt to one of the players (the shoe doesn't pass as in "big table baccarat")giving that person the opportunity to squeeze, bend and mutilate the cards, ahhh so.
The pit broke the seal and took off the "lid" of the pack of eight decks. There was no further shuffling of the cards. The dealer proceeded in the usual "baccarat manner" cutting off the required 13 or so cards to be able to finish the shoe and exposing one card to determine the total number of cards to be burned.
For baccarat, where cards are only used for one shoe, this is a brilliant idea. I wish I had thought of it. The usual shuffling and inspection of eight single decks can take upwards of 10 to 15 minutes.
As long as the players of this game, being mostly Asian, don't object, it is a money maker for the casino.
Cobbson
In particular, I do not like the lack of transparency. Under the traditional system, all cards are spread out on the table and shown to the camera (and in most cases, can be observed by any player who happens to be there while they go through this process). The casino is required to maintain a tape on site for a certain period of time to document that the game is honest. Every now and then, packaging errors are made with a standard deck of 52 cards (a missing card or one of the deck backs is flawed in some way). I personally bought a package of cards where the color of the backs of five or so cards did not match the rest of the deck. I have to think at some point, there will be a similar error when they box up one of these multi-deck packages. It will be interesting to see what happens once such an error is discovered.
Another issue is the randomness of the shuffle. Under the traditional system, we can observe the shuffle procedure first hand (regardless of whether its a hand shuffle or a machine shuffle). When the cards are pre-shuffled off site, there is no way we can be guaranteed that the deck is not "stacked" in a certain way. If the shuffle is unrandom in any way which could be identified by either the casino or by players with certain inside knowledge, there is no telling what sort of risk there would be to the parties who are unaware of the situation.
