Preferential Shuffling

I was in a small downtown Las Vegas casino back in the late ’70s playing single-deck, heads-up against the dealer. After a while, the pit boss switched my dealer. The new dealer looked at me like an opponent in a boxing ring. Every time I raised my bet, even to two units, he shuffled the cards. That’s annoying. I later heard that the manager of this casino had what he called “lucky dealers” — dealers he put against perceived threats.

So, I did the obvious. Every time the count went down, I raised my bet. Sure enough he shuffled. He was not counting the cards. He was assuming that I was counting and raising my bet on a high count. Essentially, I was now quickly Wonging a single-deck game — normally not possible. Without knowing it, he was shuffling away all the poor counts on my signal. This did not last long. The pit boss shut down the table after about ten minutes. I left.

Now what I did may sound clever, and many others have thought of it independently. But I was more interested in beating this dealer than long-term profit. That is a mistake. You should never let the game become personal.

 Preferential shuffling is a method the casino can use at Blackjack to increase the house advantage. Here, the casino counts cards as a Blackjack card counter does. But when the dealer sees that the advantage is in favor of the player (i.e., there are an unusual number of high cards left in the shoe), she shuffles.

Normally there are times that the advantage is the casino’s and sometimes the advantage is the player’s. But the odds are more often for the casino. That’s fine. However, by preferentially shuffling, the casino removes those times that the advantage is for the player, altering the house edge. In essence, the casino is removing tens and aces from play. The odds of the player receiving an ace or a ten are less than advertised by the rules.

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger