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Online Casino Blackjack Cheating

The New Blackjack21-1

The American bosses needed a dealing system that would allow the dealers and Online Casino players to handle the cards as little as possible but wouldn't slow down the game. The Cuban dealers were becoming very adept at handling cards to help their pals. As an experiment, the bosses put four decks of cards in a makeshift wooden box with a roller inside to allow the dealer to slide the cards out one at a time very rapidly. The four decks were shuffled at one time and then locked into what became known as the shoe. During the play of those four decks, the dealer could touch only the top card with his finger. The cards were dealt face up so that the player had no reason to touch his cards either.

Game Cheating

Results were immediate. Former Casino bosses in Cuba have told me that cheating on both sides of the table, by the dealer and by the player, dropped sharply after shoes were installed. Cheaters posing as players, such as "hand muckers," "daubers," "benders," and "crimpers," were out of business. (Hand muckers conceal cards in their clothing or hands and switch them with the cards they get from the dealer to improve their hand or to give them instant blackjack. Daubers conceal a tiny bit of paint on a finger and dot certain cards, such as aces or 10s, so that they can be recognized when the dealer takes his hole card, which is face down, revealing the dot. Sometimes ultraviolet paint and treated sunglasses were used. Benders put a very slight bend on the corners of some cards, either high or low, depending on what they wanted to mark. Crimpers put a slight crimp on different areas of the cards to distinguish high or low cards.) But with the shoe the cards were dealt face up, so there was no reason for the player to touch them.
Dealers also found it much harder to make Myths in the club, because the only time they handled the cards was during shuffling, and then a supervisor was supposed to be watching. A 21 dealer still could reveal to an agent his hole card (the face-down card) by a secret signal, but now even that was harder. With face-up dealing, a supervisor could see each player's hand and could spot any erratic playing, one of the first hints of possible cheating.

Player’s Strategy

Let’s say that a player's two face-up cards show he has a hard 17, and the dealer has an ace or 10 face up. But then the supervisor notices that the player hits the 17 (calls for another card). Few players, even rookies, would hit a 17 against an ace or 10 showing unless; of course, they knew beforehand that the dealer had them beat anyway. Now if the dealer turns up an 18, 19, or 20, the supervisor had better start checking the game as if his own pay checks were at stake.
But perhaps the shoe’s greatest deterrent value was to discourage counters, who were beginning to harass casinos in droves shortly after a flood of count books hit the public in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Counting is a technique to beat the dealer in 21 and other card games by mentally keeping track of the cards that have been dealt out so that you'll have a pretty good idea of what's left in the deck and can bet. Most counters, even some top professionals, have enough trouble keeping track of a standard 52-card deck. The shoe, with a minimum of four decks, has proved to be too much for 99 in 100 amateur counters and many top pros.