14. Various Games Compared

Mathematicians have made exhaustive comparisons of vari­ous casino games and they have uncovered the remarkable fact —yes, you guessed it!—that the odds always favor the house. Without delving deeply into dismal decimals, Roulette, as played in America, with its 0 and 00 is stacked heavily against the player to the tune of about 51/4% while the Crap table, with slightly less than a 11/4% disadvantage gives him a much better shake.

We are speaking, of course, about the best-run Crap tables in the finest casinos. But the so-called "gyp joints" will find ways to chisel odds all along the line. In European casinos, the odds at Roulette, with a Single-0 wheel and other concessions to the player, are about the same as the odds in American craps.

With card games, such as Baccarat, Chemin-de-fer (or Shimmy) and Trente et Quarante (Thirty and Forty) the player gets still better odds. We won't go into those strictly European games except to state that anyone who wants to play them at Monte Carlo and such places can soon learn the details and play them systematically, as with Roulette.

But in America, as stated earlier, Black Jack predominates and you can only play it one way: Against the dealer. We've gone into the business of cutting down the odds in Black Jack. Now is the time to consider its crookeed aspects.

Cheating at Blackjack

A deft dealer can trim you at Black Jack more readily and more thoroughly than at perhaps any other known card game. His favorite way is to combine a "marked deck" with a "second deal." The marks don't have to be too elaborate, as values alone are used in Black Jack; no suits, except for bonus hands which are merely a side issue.

In dealing, the sharp watches the backs of the cards. When he sees one he wants, like an Ace, he keeps it on top of the pack by the simple process of dealing the second card instead. The art of "dealing seconds" as described in the book on "Card Sharps" requires long practice and a skilled, steady hand. But once acquired, a Black Jack dealer needs nothing else.

The dealer keeps the wanted card for himself, dealing it off the top on his own turn. He repeats this with other cards and always he can use the "second deal" to keep a good card away from a player who might need it. Or, he can hold back a card that he is sure will bust a player and deliver it with dire effect.

High-grade casinos, with, their steady percentage play, don't want such crooks on the premises. Great care is taken to keep marked cards out of such plush surroundings. That doesn’t matter, as a smart dealer can mark certain cards in the course of play.

Why should he do this when the house doesn't want it? Be­cause he may want to trim the house on his own. That's the bad feature about dice and cards as opposed to the Roulette wheel: The human element.

All the smart dealer wants is an occasional stooge at his Black Jack table. With marked cards and the second deal, he gives his confederate winning hands, going bust himself if occasion de­mands. In that case, an innocent player may run into a little luck without realizing it, if he happens to ride along.

Crooked Black Jack Joints

They say that whenever a dealer is suspected of cheating at Black Jack in Nevada, he is promptly discharged by the gam­bling house and given severance pay in the form of a one-way plane ticket to Havana.

That implies that such talents are in demand in the Cuban capital, which should not surprise anyone. Havana is the home of a lot of "hit-run" operations, including revolutions. If the tourist trade gets frightened away by a lot of galloping guerillas, the only way a gambling house can gain a proper profit is by grabbing it fast.

The fastest way with Black Jack is to employ an expert sec­ond dealer who knows his own deck. Not that it happens in Havana; it's only that it might happen almost anywhere, should circumstances so dictate.

Some gambling houses prevent crooked dealing in Black Jack by using two packs and having them dealt from a special box called a "shoe." The odds are the same but with two packs more players can participate and it's harder to guess what cards may be coming up.

This game, too, can be gypped by previously removing certain cards from one of the packs. Their absence is hard to de­tect even during a long play as duplicates of the missing cards keep showing up. As the proverb says, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." That goes for unwise players who patronize doubtful gambling establishments.

There are hundreds of pairs of phoney dice in the Radner Collection. Here the author is checking measurements on a crooked pair. Photo by Vincent D'Addario