Jul
In some casino blackjack games there are complains for missing cards from the pack. Sometimes in 4 deck games the house can take certain cards as aces and tens out of the shoe. This is usually made after the decks are shuffled a few times and some rounds have been dealt. This is done by palming the cards when they are shuffled and hiding them (by the dealer). During the dealer’s break he disposes of the cards. Cheating like that you can see also in some players. In that case they are trying to remove from the deck the “small” cards, so they can have better chances to win.
The casino can find out about that very easy - by counting the cards. The player has to use statistical methods. This method is known as short shoe. If for instance, the dealer is dealing from a shoe that contains 4 decks, each of 52 cards. In 52 cards, there must be 16 valuable cards: the kings, queens, jacks, and tens. Based on that, in 208 cards the valuable cards should be 64. Casinos don’t remove aces because even beginners are counting those. Suppose the dealer takes out 10 of the valuable cards - some of each kind, not all queens or kings. Then the shoe is shortening from 64 to 54 valuable cards, and the 4 decks from 208 to 198 cards, respectively. The absence of these cards decreases the possibilities of the players and increases the ones of the house or the dealer. The ratio changes from the usual 144/64=2.25 to 144/54=2.67 and that gains more than 1 % for the house.
There is a way to find this out. You have to sit in the last chair on the right side of the dealer at the blackjack table. Bet a small fixeamount of money through the complete pack of 4 decks. After the dealer shuffles the decks and returns them into the shoe, you have to be ready to count. What you are interested in, is to find the numbers of valuable cards in the whole 4 deck shoe.
