Blackjack - Feel Cheated

[TantricText]

Hi, I do not think i have any avenues to go down or even if the casino is wrong in any sense but.........

Basically I was playing single hand Blackjack at Winner Casino (playtech operator). The Dealer received 7 hands of Blackjack within 21 hands being played, including 3 hands of Blackjack one after the other. So 1 in 3 hands, the dealer received blackjack.

Obviously im pretty wound up over this especially since I lost all my account balance.

Does this seem weird and out of order to anyone and if so, what can I do about it ?


Cheers

Phil

[Repro]

To give a reasonable answer i have to ask: Do you play there all the time or was it the first time ? If you play there all the time does this happen a lot ?

Once i got BJ 5 times in a row in the landbased casino. The dealer didn't call me a cheater though, just a lucky bastard

[sparkz]

The thing with online BJ is its never random as such.

What happens if say you bet $20. The moment you click deal it knows what the result will be.

For example it could of generated that for that hand you can win $20 max (so $40 total winnings). This means if you are dealt a total of 10 and double the card would be poor as it would exceed the maximum winning amount randomly selected for that hand. Whereas if you hit normally it could well give you 20 and you win .


I found this out a while ago which I explained somewhere.

At 3dice there was a software glitch when playing BJ. I can remember the exact incident but lets say the dealer showed a 7. I had a 10 and split. 1st hand I had 14 and hit, got a 10 and bust. Second hand I had 17 and decided to stick. The dealer turned over his other card.... it was a 9. He had 16 and then next card he hit was a 2 to make that 18 and beat me completely.

After that hand the software crashed or something. Upon reloading it I was told I had an unfinished game. Weirdly enough it put me back to blackjack at the moment when I had drawn 17 on the 2nd split hand.

I knew that on the previous hand I stood and the dealer took 1 more card which was a 2. So thinking if I hit and got that 2 I would have 19 and win. I hit and got something like a 5, bust. Then dealer turned over his cards.... 16 again, then he hit and got that 2 for 18.

Now as far as im concerned that hand was not going to pay me a thing. The rng as such had decided that if I took the split I was going to lose.


What I do believe is online BJ plays like a pub fruit machine. It of course has to pay to a legal limit. Usually the machine plays well if people have lost money on it. But if someone has just taken the jackpot and its paid its legal requirement it will just take your cash off you for little reward.


I think this apply's to BJ. There will be certain times where nobody is playing (i.e losing money) or when someone has won a lot from it thus the payouts wont be good.

I know at times I have lost 15 hands in a row or worse with the dealer getting BJ or 21 nearly every time.

You should really look out for things like if you have 20 and the dealer has 5 or 6 card 21, or if you get BJ and the dealer does also, they could be the times where nothing is gonna be paid out

[Repro]

That sounds a bit strange Sparkz... It SHOULD be completely random...

[sparkz]

That sounds a bit strange Sparkz... It SHOULD be completely random...

It should really yes but I just cant see it.

Lets say if it was random... someone did 1 mad bet and bet $5000, then had BJ, that would cost the casino $12500. If 20 or so people did that (or even won the hand normally) and there was no fixed payout percentage pre determining weather a win or lose was going to happen when a player clicks deal the casino would be in serious trouble.

That scenario could be down to luck of those 20 people but casinos surely cant have that risk. Therefore I think for them it would be a better option for fixed payouts. So the casino knows for definite they will only be paying a certain percentage of what has been put into the game by players.

Betting offices do the same on their machines, the second you hit deal it knows if you are going to win or lose.

Even many real casinos use some extra tactics to minimize profit loss. I read on some sites which recruit people to casinos that being a blackjack dealer means you have to be alert. It went on to say this is so the dealer can actually card count. So for example if they know its nearly all aces and 10's left in the deck they can just reshuffle and cut the cards again to prevent the player gaining the upper hand. There was some other stuff as well on there but I cant remember what it said.

[Repro]

In the long run the house always wins, that's how the games - including their RTP - are designed. They don't have to be afraid that people hit big sometimes, because over time they make a lot of money on the losing players.

Here in the landbased casino they have the "Million"-jackpot slots. The jackpot had been hit twice in 2 days and another (smaller) jackpot in the same time. This shouldn't be possible, because they are designed to pay a jackpot every 1,5 month (average). They told me the lifetime RTP on those slots went from an "expected 93%" to 97% because of that. Although they investigated for foul play - they didn't find anything - they told me they still made a nice profit and that they didn't really care. Maybe the next jackpot will hit in a month, maybe 5. who knows ?

Point i'm trying to make is that on the long run the casino doesn't bother if some people have major. If they trust their RNG they'll win anyway.

[daveboz]

Simple! Do not play blackjack online. We all know what you experienced and get the same feeling. Bottom line is, the house edge is more than 0.5%.

[Jufo]

Simple! Do not play blackjack online. We all know what you experienced and get the same feeling. Bottom line is, the house edge is more than 0.5%.

Well they are not allowed to do that because it is cheating. It might be possible to prove it with a large sample that the game is not fair/random and in that case they should be in trouble.

And to the OP, Playtech BJ is actually quite fair according to my long-term experiences. I have some rare wins and also some rare losses on it but in a long term it seems to even out to close to expectations. Microgaming BJ is a completely different story though. Avoid at all costs

[daveboz]

Yes that is true it seems to even out. I sometimes get the crazy wins like the dealer does.

[FreeDomme]

Yes that is true it seems to even out. I sometimes get the crazy wins like the dealer does.

The well documented volatility of Video Poker notwithstanding, you are a walking miracle. Perhaps now is a good time to study the game at leisure and become an authority of sorts; the kind that knew when to quit. Having played back five digits looking for six I can assure you it's an opportune time to reflect. The maths are not special this week.

Enjoy your wins! Giving them back would be...