On my last post on Continous Shuffling Machines (CSM) I said that CSMs are the card counters’ enemy. What I didn’t mention though is that CSMs actually, in a way, work in favor of non card counters. It seems stupid then for casinos to install CSMs since the large majority of blackjack players are in truth not card counters and just plain straightforward old fashioned blackjack players.

So does this mean that casinos are freely giving the ordinary player a better chance at winning? Are casinos really willing to give away their money or is this an oversight on their part?  Today’s post will try to explain why CSMs are supposedly beneficial for non counters and why it really isn’t in the end.

According to an article written by Michael Shackleford using a CSM actually lowers the house advantage. This is true for the simple reason that compared to games that use cut cards, CSM games on the average have more tens (10) in each hand. If you’re confused as to why you only need to remember that the discarded cards are mixed together with unplayed cards when using a CSM. This means that the 10s that otherwise could have been among the discards are placed back with the rest of the cards so that the chances of being dealt with a 10 is greater than if the 10 wasn’t placed back. Because of that fact the probability of getting a blackjack actually increases or, expressed in another way, the house advantage actually decreases by using a CSM.

So just how much does the CSM affect the house advantage. Michael Shackelford gave the following table relating the number of decks used and the effect of the CSM on the house advantage.

Reduction in House Advantage with the Use of CSM

No. of Decks        Reduction

1                  0.113%

2                  0.063%

4                  0.034%

5                  0.028%

6                  0.020%

8                  0.014%

It can be noted that the reduction in house edge is greater with a fewer number of decks. This isn’t surprising since we all know that the more decks used the higher the house advantage always is.

Despite this fact though casinos still cannot be called stupid because  another characteristic of the CSM effectively neutralizes the positive effect for players. As the name of the machine implies the one thing it does is to continously shuffle the card for the dealer. This means no manual shuffling and thus less work for the dealer and the increased ability to deal a greater number of hands for a given time. In fact the CSM increases the number of hands dealt per hour by as much as 20%. This means that if you are an ordinary player you’ll be playing games each hour and thus lose more money quickly. Unless you are a really good professinal player you are expected (and statistics back this up) to lose money in the long run. The faster you play the faster you’ll lose money. This means that the very small advantage that the CSM actually gave you is more than made up for by the fater rate at which you’ll be losing money.

In the end CSMs really are disadvantageous to both card counters and ordinary players. The only positive side of CSMs are seen by casinos as their profit rise by the minute.