Comment Dealer's Perspective (Score 1) 427
As a Blackjack dealer in a small casino, we (dealers) know who all the regular counters are. The casino laws here (not the US) are fairly archaic, and casino's have been sued for banning counters.
As far as most of us are concerned, and this goes right from dealers up to pit bosses, to shift managers, we don't really care about counters. They are generally aren't going to win a lot more than a lucky player anyway. (And yes, it's very clear the difference between a 'lucky' player and a counter).
Unless you have a high proportion of counters to regular punters, the counters are nothing much to worry about. And quite often a strong dealer will scare them away. There are quite a number of counters (and regular punters too) who can be scared off by a strong dealer.
Quite often I will have these guys leave the table as soon as I come on. And it happens with a number of dealers at the casino I work at, and I've seen it happen at other casino's too.
The average casino punter is a complete moron, which also kills much of the counters' edge, as a table full of idiots can easily counter-act a good count. It is very rare for a counter to come across a dead table for them to play alone at.
I think that if casino's just trained their dealers to be good at what they do, to not make mistakes, to be a 'strong' dealer, then card counting loses quite a bit of its edge.
Counters also take a _long_ time to build up their skill enough to be able to make a living off it.
Quite often they will lose tens, maybe hundreds of thousands before this happens.
Counters also never play on 'continuous' shuffler machines, they will only play on manual shoes, where the cards only get used once before reshuffling. The machines just feed every card back into the useable deck, making it impossible to count.
The casino will always have the edge, or it no longer becomes profitable.
A lucky bacarrat player can easily take home a ton more money than a blackjack counter.
A bacarrat counter, even more.
On a side note, Blackjack is boring. Roulette can net you a truckload more cash if you know what you are doing. As can craps. And both these games are a lot more fun to play, albeit more expensive.
The casino will always have the edge, the most you can hope for is to get a lucky run, and walk away at the top of the cycle.
The only real winners are the casino, and those who never go in at all.
And despite what most people think, the gaming industry is one of the most highly regulated industries. You can barely breathe wrong without being done for it by the appropriate authorities.
Plus, here at least, casino's are required by law to return a fairly substantial amount of earnings back to the local community, usually in the form of a community trust, or community grants.
As far as most of us are concerned, and this goes right from dealers up to pit bosses, to shift managers, we don't really care about counters. They are generally aren't going to win a lot more than a lucky player anyway. (And yes, it's very clear the difference between a 'lucky' player and a counter).
Unless you have a high proportion of counters to regular punters, the counters are nothing much to worry about. And quite often a strong dealer will scare them away. There are quite a number of counters (and regular punters too) who can be scared off by a strong dealer.
Quite often I will have these guys leave the table as soon as I come on. And it happens with a number of dealers at the casino I work at, and I've seen it happen at other casino's too.
The average casino punter is a complete moron, which also kills much of the counters' edge, as a table full of idiots can easily counter-act a good count. It is very rare for a counter to come across a dead table for them to play alone at.
I think that if casino's just trained their dealers to be good at what they do, to not make mistakes, to be a 'strong' dealer, then card counting loses quite a bit of its edge.
Counters also take a _long_ time to build up their skill enough to be able to make a living off it.
Quite often they will lose tens, maybe hundreds of thousands before this happens.
Counters also never play on 'continuous' shuffler machines, they will only play on manual shoes, where the cards only get used once before reshuffling. The machines just feed every card back into the useable deck, making it impossible to count.
The casino will always have the edge, or it no longer becomes profitable.
A lucky bacarrat player can easily take home a ton more money than a blackjack counter.
A bacarrat counter, even more.
On a side note, Blackjack is boring. Roulette can net you a truckload more cash if you know what you are doing. As can craps. And both these games are a lot more fun to play, albeit more expensive.
The casino will always have the edge, the most you can hope for is to get a lucky run, and walk away at the top of the cycle.
The only real winners are the casino, and those who never go in at all.
And despite what most people think, the gaming industry is one of the most highly regulated industries. You can barely breathe wrong without being done for it by the appropriate authorities.
Plus, here at least, casino's are required by law to return a fairly substantial amount of earnings back to the local community, usually in the form of a community trust, or community grants.
