Cards in Blackjack
Written June 3, 2008 by Jack Jones
There are readers who have plenty of questions dealing with cards in a blackjack game. We wanted to make sure that we cleared up all of these questions and then some so you can have some piece of mind at the tables.
When the decks are placed on a game, do pit bosses check them beforehand to see if they are all there?
Of course they are checking them before they shuffle the cards up and deal. There is no way that the casino would take the chance for the Gaming Commission to come in unannounced and then take a look at a table that is playing with a deck that doesn’t have the correct number of cards.
The process starts with a games supervisor inventorying the cards, making sure he doesn’t make the mistake of leaving any cards in the box. It can happen, especially when a new deck is being hustled into the game. Thought it’s uncommon, players should make sure all of the cards on on the table when a new deck is spread across the table. Aces and Kings are the ones most likely to get stuck to the jokers that are left behind, and those are important for you, the player, in making your hands.
The pit boss will then skim through the entire deck to make sure every card is there and then will check for manufacturing defects like discoloration and uneven borders. When the pit boss is done he spreads the deck out across the insurance line, so the dealer can double check the number and quality of the cards being introduced.
Do they check them when they come off the game?
Once the cards are taken off of the table they are always counted to make sure each of the fifty-two cards are coming off of the table. There are a few casinos out there who are even more worried about missing Aces and will also count down the Aces separately, since a cheater would most likely remove an ace.
There is even a casino I saw that had their dealers sort the cards and reconstruct them into the order they were in when they came out of the box every time they left the game. The dealer coming in as a replacement had to bring in his or her own cards.
The final step in the inventory process involves writing something on the inside flap of the box. The information that is usually required is: the date, the table number, dealer on the game, the time the cards were taken off of the game, and the pit boss’s initials. This way if there ever is a dispute on the game, that documentation, along with the eyes in the sky will go a long way in resolving it and maybe finding out who was cheating the game.
When a pit boss changes decks, why does he replace a red deck with a blue one?
When replacing decks on a live game, there generally isn’t a choice of which color to use. You replace decks with the alternate color the casino uses in order to nullify any attempt by a charlatan to hold out cards from the old deck.