Which AC casinos offer surrender? (nt)

The rules for games in AC are set by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. The first casino opened in May of 1978. The rules included EARLY surrender, along with s17, das, doa (except BJ or 21) and nr, giving the basic strategy player an EV of about .6% in the 4 and 6 deck games. A dealer with an upcard of Ace or 10 was not permitted to check for BJ until all players finished playing their hands to prevent collusion. Perhaps, that was how surrender became es. Most players did not know basic strategy for es: Surrender 16 (except 8-8) v. 9; surrender 14-16 (incl. 7-7 and 8-8) v. 10 and surrender 5-7 and 12-h17 (incl. 6-6, 7-7 and 8-8) v. A. Either Griffin's "Theory of Blackjack," Uston's "One-Third of a Shoe" or Uston's newsletter was the first to publish it. The casinos did not like the rule and prevailed upon the Commission to remove it 1n 1981, using questionable data in support of its position, without substituting a compensating favorable rule, e.g. late surrender, and w/o the proper procedure. Ken Uston succeeded in having it restored until the Commission repealed it using its emergency powers and the governor signed the "emergency" order.

Later, in the 1980s, the Commission authorized LATE surrender as an optional rule. The Claridge and the Tropicana offered it occasionally, but no casino has offered it in recent years.

Also in 1981, the Commission removed a rule that had required casinos to maintain set percentages of $2 and $5 tables. The $2 is gone and the $5 is almost extinct.

At lantic City went from being just about the best place to play blackjack to being a mediocre place to play. What it needs is more competition among casinos. What it has instead, like Las Vegas, is more concentration of ownership of casinos in fewer hands.

While it may have been a good place to play in the 80s, now the conditions are 8 deckers with 70-75% penetration and horrible rules!

I appreciate what Ken Uston did and all. But sometimes I wonder if the conditions today would be better in AC had Uston not gone ahead with the lawsuit.

-MJ

Basic Strategy for early surrender may have been published in Stanford Wong's "Winning Without Counting" (1978) before it appeared on the books by griffin or Uston.

Uston probably did kill the AC game. I'm amazed that it has never recovered after all this time. I always thought that Connecticut's offering LS would force at least that change....but no. Same crap for the most part.

The problem is that they no longer have the vision of being an "east coast" version of Vegas and hence don't even try to compete of rule offerings. And these damn idiots get up there and play this crap 6:5 single deck game. Why not just un-learn basic strategy and play the 8 decker?

I hadn't read all the comments above when I made my last post so I would like to say my comment on "these damn idiots" was a general comment reflecting my personal frustration with the 6:5 "crapjack" rather that a slap on the people who may have naively stepped into one of these horrible traps.

Li tan, STAY away from 6:5 AC single deck because the BJ payout constitutes a HUGE portion of the players edge. These games have an inherant house edge of anywhere between 1.9% and 2.3% and are impossible to beat. They are designed to sucker in the casual player who has been told that the 1 game is superior (which is true if the rules are halfway decent). In short, they are an evil and sinister invention designed to destroy the demand for pitch games altogether (which cost the casino too much money to protect).

If I didn't have to make a living and I had limitless time and money, I would travel the world looking for 6:5 crapjack games telling all the players seated at the table that the game is garbage and the casino is ripping them off. So I'll just say it here!