Jeff Ma wrote the awesome book Bringing Down The House with Ben Mezrich. Looking at him, you may remember his cameo in 21. Besides being a card counter for the MIT blackjack team Jeff has also been a part of fantasy sports (he used to appear on the MLB fantasy podcast) and got into sports in general.
This interview, from tech crunch, touches on his new book in addition to blackjack, sports and movies. It’s a nice view/listen. Enjoy.
I don’t know how this one slipped past me until today, but the headline says it all.
..6-5 games are “great” for tourists..
The exact quote is “The 6-5 games are “great” for tourists getting a feel for blackjack, Rubin says.” Rubin is “Max Rubin, a casino consultant and gambling book author.” It’s this attitude that angers people that pay attention to pay tables and such.
There is lots of great fodder in the article for me to spew anger at, but even in context there’s no way anyone can justify that 6/5 blackjack is better for the player than 3/2.
Like all casino games you just look for the slowest bleed and odds to maybe win a little. 6/5 blackjack speeds up the losses. Animal psyche will run away if it endures too much pain too quickly. Less people gambling less lead to $1 billion less in blackjack take for the Vegas casinos.
Time for the casinos to slow do the lust for money and get consultants that don’t look down on their core consumers.
This morning Vegas Tripping has an article that touches on a similar topic. As usual, a good read on VT.
Wizard of Odds just added a new blackjack basic strategy calculator. You can create your own blackjack strategy cards based on the following variables:
Number of Decks
Hit on Soft 17
Double After Split
Surrender
Dealer Peek
The number of decks only goes up to 4+, so I’m not sure if this calculator is perfect, but it’s a nice resource to use as reference and more accurate than generic cards.
Why aren’t there any (or many) $5 blackjack tables at the casino? That’s a common question I see on the message boards that I read. Common sense always lead me to believe there weren’t many $5 table because the casinos don’t make much money on them. I found some proof of this and thought I’d share.
The chart shows that a full $5 blackjack table only earns the casino about $42 an hour where a $25 table with only two people earns about twice and much.
I didn’t know the math, but this makes sense to me. Next time you walk though a casino and you see all of those almost empty $25 tables you know why they are there.
You can win a chance to play blackjack with comedian Judah Friedlander. Most people know Friedlander as the frizzy haired guy with the silly trucker hats from 30 Rock but he’s been doing stand-up for a while and been in quite a few movies. Check the contest details and see below for the details.
It was only a matter of time that one of the casinos in Atlantic City would reduce blackjack stakes to attract more gamblers. Resorts has decided to bring back $2 blackjack. Of course there’s a catch.
There is a catch to the $2 tables. Players will have to pay $.25 a hand to the casino. That fee will go towards offsetting the operating costs of running such a small stakes table. The casino is attempting to attract novice players with the low table limit.
I’m not sure how much that .25 cent per hand effects the house edge, but it seems as if it would wreck the players edge.
I tend to stay away from games with limits this low because the people that play this kind of game typically the players aren’t aware of the the proper strategy. I don’t see this having much of an effect on the bottom line of the casinos, but it’s worth the chance for Resorts as they try to avoid extinction.
Aenean dui quam, pellentesque ut, commodo ac, tempor aliquam, turpis. Etiam accumsan rhoncus nisi. Morbi velit enim, mollis et, elementum sit amet, egestas sed, diam. Curabitur scelerisque, nulla et facilisis fringilla, sapien elit auctor augue, at porttitor ipsum nibh faucibus ligula.
