A.P Heat

King’s Bounty (KB) is Shuffle Master's answer to Galaxy Gaming's Lucky Ladies (LL) blackjack side bet.  Both wagers pay based on the player’s two cards totaling 20. Both side bets have a special payout for a matched pair. In LL, this pair consists of two Queen of Hearts. In KB, this pair consists of two King of Spades.

This post considers the blackjack side bet called "20 Pays" (20P). As the name implies, this wager wins whenever the player's first two cards total 20. In that sense, it is similar to both Royal 20s and Lucky Ladies. What makes this side bet unique is that it also pays if the player's first card is a Jack, Queen or King, when the second card is not ten-valued.

In this blog post, Stephen How described the new Shuffle Master game Raise it Up Stud (RIUS). Stephen was the mathematician for the game and stated that he recently saw it at Pala casino. As far as I know, Pala is the only casino currently hosting RIUS. It will also be shown at G2Ethis year.

Last week I attended and presented at the Cutting Edge Table Games Conference at Paris Casino in Las Vegas. The turnout this year was strong and the number of vendors who showed off their games spiked up significantly. Along with SHFL and Galaxy Gaming, there were more than 20 other independent table game inventors showing their games.

I recently became aware of a blackjack side bet that is popular on the Gulf Coast and has a significant number of placements elsewhere:  the “In Between” bet (IB). It is very sexy to analyze games that have substantial advantage play issues. Exposing big threats elicits page views. I enjoy busting games.

The table game Racing Card Derby (RCD) is meant to be dealt from a single deck of cards. I explored the “what if” of card counting RCD if dealt from an eight-deck shoe in this post. Card counting works on most games whose probabilities change as cards are dealt from a shoe.

The winner of the “Best New Table Game” prize at this year’s Cutting Edge Table Games Conference was Pick ‘Em Blackjack. This side bet consists of three wagers the player can make in addition to his ordinary blackjack wager. These wagers are:

One of the original blackjack side bets is the Insurance wager. This side bet pays 2-to-1 whenever the dealer’s hole card is a ten-valued card, otherwise it loses. This side bet is clearly countable by keeping track of the number of ten-valued cards relative to non-ten-valued cards. The only reason it has not been crushed by APs is because of two limitations on this wager.

I've been collecting table game icons for several years. My collection dates back to G2E, 2005, when I made sure to get every rack sheet I could find. My collection now has over 200 icons. Late last year, I created a video showing off my collection. I've used that video at several conference talks to illustrate the problem of game protection in the face of an onslaught of new games.

Things are really mixed up. At least, they should be. I’ve been thinking about commonalities between recent successes that some players have had against casinos. While the cultural and casino industry obsession with card counters is not fading, the powerful methods advantage players and cheaters use to beat the house continue on in relative obscurity.

Suppose the world’s greatest blackjack card counter heads out to a casino to pursue his chosen vocation of beating the house. Our hero sits down and starts to count. After a few hands, he realizes that the casino doesn’t care: he is free to count the day away, playing and spreading his bets however he likes.

Over the last few years I've analyzed, played, written and spoken about scores of proprietary games with vulnerabilities to card counting, hole-carding and other straightforward advantage play techniques.

The Ace automatic shuffler has many game security problems, the most serious of which is its propensity to encourage hole-card exposure by even highly trained dealers. (See my blog post "Little Ace of Horrors.") After many years of fighting that battle, Shuffle Master finally gave up the cause.

In recent years there has been a steady rise in the adoption of new table games. When a new game arrives, the staff is often unfamiliar with the rules, procedures, and basic methods of protection for that game. Thus, most casinos attempt to follow the rules and procedures as written without understanding the “whys” of the procedures. Over time, certain parts of that procedure may get sloppy.