A.P Heat

The rumor of the death of table games has not been exaggerated, at least in Nevada. For many years the slow creep of slots into the real estate once held tightly by tables was barely noticeable. But, beginning in 2007, at the peak of the housing crash and beginning of the financial collapse, table games have taken a huge hit. The future of table games in unclear. Certainly baccarat has a bright future. Roulette appears to be a stable fixture. Beyond that, it is not clear if any game, including blackjack and craps, will survive the decimation.

Earlier this month I was in Las Vegas presenting my Advanced Advantage Play seminar with Bill Zender. The day before the seminar, I walked into severalcasinos on the Las Vegas strip. What immediately got my attention was a visually apparent increase in the number of table games. During the seminar, I asked the group if my observations had any merit. Several participantsconfirmed that there was an increase in the number of table games at their property. Time for a survey!

During a recent trip to Las Vegas, I saw a new (to me) blackjack side bet in a downtown casino called Golden 21 (G21). What struck me as immediately suspect were events listed in the pay table corresponding to the player getting an unsuited blackjack, a suited blackjack or a suited A/K. Wagers based around blackjacks are usually very vulnerable to card counting. However, in the case of G21, there are also events in the pay table paying if the hand is a straight (consecutive ranks) or a pair, so the most obvious vulnerability was certainly mitigated.

I have been trying to get a sense of the landscape of casino proprietary table games across the United States. I’ve examined CEC’s database of table games in this post. I’ve done a casino-by-casino survey of Las Vegas casinos in this article.  I researched the approved table games by state in this post.

The Field Gold 21 (FG21) side bet is one of the more popular side bets available for blackjack. The company that owns it is Fair Trade Gaming, and it is also listed on Shuffle Master’s website. I recall seeing this side bet for many years, and I never thought twice about it. That’s the way it is as a low-level AP. Without the right mindset, it’s easy to overlook what’s right in front of your eyes. The best APs, however, creatively consider every opportunity.  After looking at every other major blackjack side bet, this one finally came to the front of the queue.

Ultimate Texas Hold'em (UTH) is a rich source of advantage play opportunities. This post considers yet another possibility: when the player knows one of the two cards he will be dealt in advance of placing his initial bet. I often refer to this knowledge as "top carding," though the known card can be either player card. Knowledge of one player card can be gained, for example, by edge sorting, accidental exposure, card location, skilled cutting, shuffler issues, incidental marks on the cards and outright cheating. Whatever the means, the edge the player can get is extraordinary.

Back in 2012, I was very fortunate to be able to speak at the annual convention of the Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club. There was an expo associated with the convention, where people were selling casino collectibles of all sorts. My interest was in obtaining a collection that had a single card representing each distinct design used by each U.S. casino, as well as casinos worldwide.

I recently learned about the Deuces Wild (DW) blackjack side bet from a thread started by a quizzical poster on the Wizard of Vegas message board. This side bet is trivial to describe. The outcome for DW is completely determined by the initial two cards the player is dealt. DW wins if one of the player's first two cards is a deuce, otherwise it loses. If the player's winning hand is 2/X, then the winning payout is based on the rank of the card X. This post presents DW dealt from a six-deck shoe.