Is this just unlucky coincidence or foul play?

**funky_seagull** · 2nd July 2008, 05:58 PM

I have just been playing live blackjack at a reputable online casino. And wasn't doing too bad. Then the pitboss comes on the chat and says that the webcam will need to go down for essential maintenance. Fair enough.

Anyway the video went off for a while and came back on some minutes later. And suddenly the dealer kept getting 21's and BJ's. Now I'm not really one to accuse anyone of cheating, but this seemed very fishy to me. I wasn't the only player there to pick up on this, other players were verbalizing concerns there was something dodgy about the whole thing and complained to the pitboss, who just told people to take there concerns to customer support.

I'm not going to accuse anyone of foul play, so I won't mention which casino it is, it is listed on this website as being accredited.

Does this sound strange to anyone else? The video going off for a while and coming back on again and the dealer pretty much constantly getting 21 and BJ.

Or am I and some of the other players being paranoid and we were just unlucky, and it was a normal fair game of blackjack where the cards where simply against us...

I mean is it possible to rig a game of live blackjack? If it is I can't see how it can be done, as one can never know for sure how many players will be in the game...

**D!G!TAL** · 2nd July 2008, 06:30 PM

I doubt very much it would be fixed, as you say they can never know for certain how many players would be playing.

I think it is a very unfortunate coincidence, not just for you but for the casino too- their image is worth a lot more than ripping off a few players for a few hands.

Besides, AFAIK a number of casino's use the same live feed so it would be highly unlikely that one particular casino could influence events in this manner.

Regards, e.

**funky_seagull** · 2nd July 2008, 07:29 PM

yeah thats what i thought. Although i'm not sure this livefeed is used by other casinos. I doubt the casino in question would be desperate enough to do such a thing. Maybe what they should have done is shuffled the cards in front of the camera when it came back on. To cover their back and alleviate players concerns.

I just wanted to see what anyone else thought. It is easy to jump on a casino when you have lost lots of money. Thankfully i didnt but one player said he lost $1000. But like you say a big casino would be silly to pull such a stunt for what must be pocket change to them. A bad reputation is far more damaging.

**Slotster!** · 2nd July 2008, 07:37 PM

Originally Posted by funky_seagull

Does this sound strange to anyone else? The video going off for a while and coming back on again and the dealer pretty much constantly getting 21 and BJ.

Have you got some proof/hand statistics on this?

If you can let us know the exact number of hands dealt/ratio of dealer wins following the 'shut off' - an accurate calculation/assessment can be made.

I'm not saying this is neccesarily the case here but sometimes, when you're losing, a situation can seem far worse than it actually is in reality; and often people scream 'rigged!'

Definitely an interesting one though - cheers for sharing!

**chuchu59** · 2nd July 2008, 08:00 PM

At a B&M casino, we the players would compromise and one or several players will skip a hand to change LUCK. Did you try to do that? This would also break their string of BJs if indeed the shoe of cards was fixed to serve these to the dealer with a full table.

**Westland Bowl** · 2nd July 2008, 09:00 PM

For live blackjack, I would expect the casino to do a fresh shuffle of the shoe every time they come back from "maintenance" or whatever. You not knowing if the cards are being switched during downtime or off-the-air certainly would make it suspicious if the dealer all of the sudden starts getting big breaks.

**james01** · 2nd July 2008, 09:28 PM

Did the number of players stay consistent the whole time?
And even if they did, there's no way to guarantee that someone won't hit when they're not "supposed" to, and that would throw the whole thing off.

Still, it's odd that they didn't re-shuffle in front of you.

**D!G!TAL** · 3rd July 2008, 02:30 PM

Originally Posted by funky_seagull

Maybe what they should have done is shuffled the cards in front of the camera when it came back on. To cover their back and alleviate players concerns.

They should have definitely done this- remove any chance for players to feel cheated. It's quite poor that they did not do this IMO.

**vinylweatherman** · 5th July 2008, 02:35 PM

Interesting points, but it was not that long ago when it was a PLAYER that had a fantastic run at live Roulette, yet it seemed the casino was highly suspicious that somehow the PLAYER had rigged the live roulette, and felt the need to investigate. In the end, the player was paid fully, and the casino accepted the player simply "got lucky".

Clearly, if even casinos feel the need to question such unusual runs of luck on live games, why would they expect the PLAYERS to trust them 100% when THEY have the run of extreme bad luck.

I also find it odd that an operator would take down the webcam for "essential maintenance" when there is a full table in play & everything is working fine. In business terms, this defies logic, however the real reason might be that the pit boss suspected something was up with too many players winning too often, and wanted to perform "essential maintenance" on the DEALER to ensure nothing "funny" was going on. They must have replaced the shoe of cards, but neglected to do so while "on air", thus making players suspect that the casino had installed a rigged shoe to get back some of the wins.
If all players are playing "perfect strategy", and none leave or skip a hand, it would be possible to construct a rigged shoe for this, but it would easily be ruined if any players deviated from the game plan, so the casino would not want to try this unless they were already rogue.
Another way to rig a shoe that would not be disrupted by players changing their play would be to load it with low cards at the front, giving the dealer a long term advantage, and making dealer 21's more frequent, and dealer busts less frequent. It could be worth analysing the cards played from the shoe once the live game came back on air, and see if it is loaded with low cards compared to the shoe beforehand.

**funky_seagull** · 7th July 2008, 03:36 AM

I have been back there and played a few more hands. I have found out the livefeed is based in Costa Rica. The dealers work long shifts but all said they enjoy their jobs. The hands I played seemed fair. The tables were a lot quieter than before. But the video going down didn't happen again. I can only conclude it was an unfortunate screw up. I will keep watching though, if it happens again then something's up...