I'm a relative newbie here, but do read far more than I post. And thanks for a great site! Please don't think the following is just a slam by a disgruntled loser, because I really didn't lose at this casino.
I play in Louisiana casinos; generally the Lake Charles area. At one casino (no names - no hard proof), I will sometimes take a break from VP and play Let It Ride for a while. Terrible odds, just mindless entertainment.
At one session, full table of players, no one was hitting. Nothing but low cards with a 10 or face sprinkled quite infrequently. I just chalked it up to variance, because, with Shufflemaster, it's got to be legit, right?
Then I noticed the dealer. Very personable woman, but everytime she scooped the cards up at the end of a hand, she worked what few faces and tens there were to the bottom of the deck. As people were placing their next bets, she went through the motion of hand shuffling the deck before placing it in the Shufflemaster. But she was only shuffling the top two thirds of the deck. It looked like the whole deck was being shuffled, but it was obvious if you watched very closely, the bottom third or fourth was not. Then into the machine it went (of course, there's the other deck already in there for the next round).
This disturbed me, but still, with Shufflemaster shuffling I thought it didn't make any difference. But back home, I googled some Shufflemaster forums and there seemed to be a big debate going on about how thorough the shuffle really is.
What to do in this situation? Continue to moitor? Say something? Go to the State? Don't play at this casino? I had a real dreadful feeling that this was not the actions of one individual; that it might be company policy. I'm not sure casinos really like Let it Ride because the hourly handle is probably lower than other table games. I'm convinced casinos would really rather have nothing but slot machines anyway. This one had even removed one of their Let it Ride tables.
Also, any thoughts on Shufflemaster?
If you think they're cheating...
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- Video Poker Master
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Personally I dont like them. We used to play Caribbean Poker and Let It Ride with cards being shuffled by hand and we would win a good amount of the time-however when it went to the Shufflemaster-forget it!
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- Senior Member
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{Personally I dont like them. We used to play Caribbean Poker and Let It Ride with cards being shuffled by hand and we would win a good amount of the time-however when it went to the Shufflemaster-forget it! }
I never play Let It Ride or Three Card Poker anymore for this exact reason. I used to play on a regular basis and really liked playing but quit a while back because of the Shufflemaster. No question about it, the games did get tougher when they started using the machines. Getting a no-brainer was very rare. The casino said it was because there were 20 money cards (A,K,Q,J,10) and 32 lower value cards and with the Shufflemaster they were getting a better mix than the hand shuffle. All I know is I don't play anymore.
I never play Let It Ride or Three Card Poker anymore for this exact reason. I used to play on a regular basis and really liked playing but quit a while back because of the Shufflemaster. No question about it, the games did get tougher when they started using the machines. Getting a no-brainer was very rare. The casino said it was because there were 20 money cards (A,K,Q,J,10) and 32 lower value cards and with the Shufflemaster they were getting a better mix than the hand shuffle. All I know is I don't play anymore.
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- Video Poker Master
- Posts: 1625
- Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2006 5:20 pm
I feel your pain pokherguy! Now its VP for me!
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- Video Poker Master
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- Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:54 pm
I feel your pain pokherguy! Now its VP for me!
I got some for-real VP in today, and wished afterwards that I'd taken my chances on Let It Ride and the ShuffleMaster instead.
I got some for-real VP in today, and wished afterwards that I'd taken my chances on Let It Ride and the ShuffleMaster instead.