Dealers simply did not have time to be thorough. There are still some live casinos, however, where dealers shuffle by hand. This is mostly found in smaller casinos. There are various methods for shuffling the cards by hand in blackjack but a casino usually has guidelines that they expect their dealers to follow. Shuffling a deck of playing cards is usually the first step to playing any card game. There are several different ways to shuffle cards, from a simple overhand shuffle to the more advanced Hindu shuffle or riffle shuffle. If you want to know how to shuffle a deck of playing cards like a professional, just follow these easy steps. How to shuffle chips. Master the art of shuffling chips with just a little practice and amaze all the players at the table! Being able to shuffle the chips properly is a sign of being an expert player. The guide given below will explain how anyone can shuffle chips easily: Begin with making two different stacks of the chips.

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For those who don't understand what you're asking, there are new machines that take the blackjack discards and place them randomly back in the deck after each hand. If you are using basic strategy, then the shufflers actually lower the house edge slightly, due to the omission of the cut card effect. It is my understanding that they do provide an honest random shuffle. However, the shuffling machine allows the dealer to waste less time shuffling and spend more time dealing. This means you will spend more time playing, and thus more hands for the house edge to grind you down.
For more information on the mathematical effect of continuous shufflers, please see my blackjack appendix 10.

Most online casinos shuffle after every hand. Others shuffle at random times but do not indicate exactly when to the player. I have noticed Microgaming casinos flash the word 'shuffling' about one hand in four.
However, if you track the cards between these announcements you will sometimes see the same card twice, which is impossible in a single-deck game, assuming you believe them about when they shuffle. As far as I know, they actually shuffle after every hand, but for reasons I do not understand, only indicate a shuffle occasionally. If I remember correctly, Cryptologic casinos do indeed indicate when they are shuffling their eight-deck shoe.

I know that one software company randomly picks two cards in the deck and reverses them, and repeats this numerous times. Since learning of this technique, that is also how I shuffle in my random simulation programs. As long as any method of shuffling is done enough times the deck should be properly randomized.
Manual shuffling is more vulnerable to a biased shuffle and consequently some players try to exploit this by shuffle tracking and card clumping. There are numerous ways an online casino might cheat, but a bad shuffle I don't think is one of them.

I first addressed this topic in my December 1, 2000, newsletter. For those who missed it I just added blackjack appendix 10 to my site, which explains the effect on the house edge under both a cut card and continuous shuffler game. To answer your question, no, the basic strategy does not change. Basic strategy is always developed based on a freshly shuffled shoe, which is always the case when playing against a continuous shuffler.

You’re right, the discards are not mixed among all the cards but can not be placed close to the top of the shoe. I don’t know the exact size of this buffer but it is about 10-20 cards I think. As a card counter it would probably be safe to use a true count from just the last hand played and off the top of a shoe. When converting to the true count you will rarely get anything far from +/-1. If you’re any kind of counter at all I would forget about playing against a CSM, it isn’t worth the bother.

The exact numbers would be difficult to calculate and I won’t get into that. However your speculation is right that the odds favor the dealer if he leaves a lot of high cards in the discard rack yet will put back into play a lot of small cards. This would be the same kind of thing as preferential shuffling, in which the dealer of a hand held game shuffles when the count is good but deals another round on a bad count. Preferential shuffling is something that definitely does happen here in Las Vegas so what you describe would not surprise me either.

I don’t know when they shuffle but I would speculate after every hand. From my blackjack appendix 10 you will learn that the player’s odds improve slightly if the dealer plays exactly n hands between shuffles (including one) rather than playing to cut card, finishing the hand, and then shuffling.

I would say about 1/3 to 1/2 of players would at least initially decline to cut. However if everyone initially declines somebody has to rise to the occasion and do it. Sometimes when players who refuse to cut will say something like 'I don’t want the blame for a bad shoe' or 'I’m unlucky.' I’ve never seen it put into words but there does seem to be a superstition that the cut is critical to the flow of the shoe, and thus the act should only be done by a competent cutter. Of course this is nonsense. For recreational play it doesn’t make any difference whom cuts or where they cut.

For the beneit of other readers, my blackjack appendix 10 explains, the house edge in a five-deck game is 0.028% less if a continuous shuffler is used, as opposed to a hand shuffle. The difference between five decks and two decks, all other rules being equal, is 0.18%. So the two-deck game without a shuffler would be much better. Let’s compare a 5-deck continuous shuffler game to a 4-deck hand shuffled game. As my blackjack calculator show difference in house edge between four decks and five decks is 0.0329%. So the benefit of a continuous shuffler is worth less than removing a single deck.

I don’t believe it. Dealers are not the most skeptical group, often believing all the usual gambling myths. Usually the term 'house shuffle' refers to the way the dealers are supposed to shuffle. For example, shuffle twice, riffle, and shuffle again. In this context, she seems to be saying she could alter the shuffle to the player’s disadvantage, which I doubt.

Assuming this King was the bottom card and was left in the shuffler, it would have been in play in this first shoe (the cut was in rear portion of the deck). How much of an additional advantage did the house gain on me with this mistake?

Thank you for the kind words. I’m going to assume the dealer hits a soft 17, and double after a split is allowed. According to table D17 in Blackjack Attack by Don Schlesinger, removing one ten per deck increases the house edge by 0.5512%. Dividing that by six, for the six-deck game, the effect is an increase in house edge of 0.09%.

In a non-cut-card game, the house advantage is always the same for the non-counter. Clumps of high or low cards are just as likely to appear at the beginning of the shoe, as the middle, as the end. Just because the count is zero at the top of the shoe doesn’t mean you’ll have an exact balance of high and low cards. You seem to be suggesting that the cards are more clumpy at the end of the deck. However, if that were true, then the odds would change if the dealer dealt the cards in reverse order. Surely that is a ridiculous notion.

Let’s say the basic strategy player has 16 against a 10 late in the shoe, and hits. If the count were high, standing would be the right play, resulting in what would look like an error to a counter who was watching. However, if the count were negative then hitting would be all the better. In the end, it averages out, for the basic strategy player.

For reasons I explain in my blackjack appendix 10, the basic strategy player should prefer a game with a continuous shuffler, if his goal is to minimize the house edge. Aside from that, the house edge is not affected by penetration. I should add that with a shallower penetration there will be more time spent shuffling, and thus a lower expected loss on an hourly basis.

Casino Shuffling Techniques For Beginners

It’s pretty hard to prove that there’s a card mechanic at work unless you have hidden cameras on the premises in some fancy casino; and even then, you might not be able to see the moves. But if the mechanic detects any unrest, he’ll probably decide to put away his tricks until another day.

Palming a card during a shuffle is the classic mechanic’s trick. If you think that’s only done by hockey magicians at ladies’ aid benefits or children’s birthday parties, stay away from card games.

On the other hand, palming is a particularly dangerous trick because you run the risk of being caught with the evidence, well, in your palm. The dealer keeps a good card out by letting it rest in the palm of his hand as he shuffles. Then he slips it into his hand as he shuffles, then slips it into his hand during the deal.

More sophisticated are techniques (such as riffle-stacking) which depend on the card manipulator’s speed, counting ability, and finely developed sense of touch.

Good cards are pre-located by the shuffler, then slipped into the deck in whatever order and position he desires. Thus, the dealer will know that the fourth, seventh, sixteenth and twenty-first cards are aces. And he will know who’s holding them, even if it’s not himself.

Of course, he can deal all four aces to himself, if he wants to, by giving them positions in the decks that correspond to his turn at the deal.

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Another highly successful shuffling cheat is the fake-overhand shuffle. Because this move is so easy for an expert to execute and so difficult to detect, most good card players insist on classic shuffling with both halves of the deck down on the table.

In the overhead shuffle, cards are held in the dealer’s hand and fed into the other hand, supposedly interlacing them in the process. The mechanic can hold a desired card on top or bottom of the deck. Simply by feeling where that card is and not letting it interlace until the end of the shuffle.

Nevertheless, just because a dealer puts the deck down on the table to shuffle doesn’t mean he’s honest. In the push-through, for instance, just as the name suggests, the two halves of the deck. While the shuffler appears to combine them, are actually pushed through each other and wind up as two separate halves again, arranged, just as they were before.

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The dealer appears to push the deck together after a shuffle. But then cuts the cards by dividing the two halves that he has secretly been keeping separate all along. If you were sitting behind the dealer you would see the two halves of the deck interlaced. But not lined up, with some of the cards protruding at a marked angle to the others. In the casinos, from where the players sit, however, the deck looks squared.

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