Equipment and Procedures
Shuffling Procedures
When I first visited Las Vegas, in 1968, there were single-deck games that were dealt down to the last card before the dealer would reshuffle. How times have changed! Now even double decks have shuffle cards inserted at a half-deck to a full deck from the bottom. Now six-deck shoes with their shuffle cards placed about one deck from the end are by far the most common in Vegas and throughout the world. Shuffling machines that can handle up to eight decks are widespread and speed up the game, but they have made “clump” tracking (see tip #94, page 199) impossible for counters.
In Walter Nolan’s The Facts of Blackjack (1984), the “Bart Carter Shuffle” is mentioned as one of the ways a casino can negate the effect of counting. After about a deck of cards has been dealt from the shoe, those cards are shuffled and split into three separate stacks. These stacks are then inserted, at specified intervals, back into the remaining cards in the shoe. This variant reshuffling procedure allows cards already brought into play to appear in subsequent play, together with cards that are appearing for the first time from the shoe. The dealer has more opportunity to cheat when using the Carter shuffle, but players dislike it mainly because it interrupts the flow of the game. It simply looks too suspicious and consequently is used rarely nowadays.
Dual Discard Trays
There is no need for alarm if you notice some casinos using two discard trays. This practice was originally intended to thwart counters who practiced clump tracking and is still quite successful in that regard. In gathering up used cards, the dealer alternates placing them in one discard tray and then the other. The casino’s explanation for using two trays is that with six- and eight-deck shoes, a single pile of discards tends to topple over too easily. Dual discard trays do not significantly affect any counting system whatsoever. The ease with which a counter determines the TC (true count) is disturbed a little, but not by much.
“No-Peek” Devices
In order to increase the pace of the game, many casinos that do not allow dealers to personally peek for blackjacks when they have a T or Ace showing have installed small electronic devices into the tables in front of the dealers. These little “eyes” scan the hole card and up-card simultaneously. Whenever a T or Ace happens to be the dealer’s up-card, he simply slides the card into this gadget. If a T-Ace combination exists, a small red light comes on, indicating that the hand is over. If no blackjack is present, a green light allows the hand to proceed normally. Where no such devices exist, or where dealers are not allowed to peek at their hole cards when a potential blackjack is imminent, the time taken to play out each player’s hand is wasted whenever the dealer ends up with a blackjack. The no-peek device is simply a safeguard, designed to protect the casino from possible dealer-player collusion, while at the same time permitting play to continue in the most efficient manner possible. It also challenges card-counters to immediately tally up all of the cards on the table before the dealer quickly scoops them away whenever a red light indicates a dealer blackjack.
