[autumn]

"....four destinations in the Chicago area...

The casinos surveyed were: Argosy's Empress Joliet, Grand Victoria Elgin, Harrah's Joliet and Hollywood Aurora.

Only one property, the Grand Victoria, has $5 minimum tables, available usually until 4 pm. Hollywood and Empress have a $10 minimum while Harrah's goes with $15.

All of the casinos deal out of six-deck shoes with the exception of Hollywood, which only offers them in the high limit room while utilizing the less player friendly eight-deck variety everywhere else.

Chopping two decks out of play after the shuffle is the norm at Empress and Harrah's, while Hollywood goes a little deeper with one and one-half to two decks. The Grand Victoria is the most generous of all with one and one-half decks, a player advantage.

The Grand Victoria has one major drawback: The dealers hit soft 17. So does Hollywood, although not in the high limit room. The dealers at both Empress and Harrah's stand on soft 17 which is a big plus for players.

None of the properties in Northwest Indiana hit soft 17.

All of the properties allow players to double down on any two cards, split any pair and double down after splitting. The option known as surrender, whereby a player can salvage half his bet before a hand is played out, is not offered anywhere.

Nor do any of the Illinois properties offer the new betting option, Casino Surrender, which is in use at the Blue Chip Casino & Hotel in Michigan City.

When it comes to splitting aces, however, give the edge to Harrah's, where they will allow you to split them up to three times. All of the others let players do it only once, which means if you draw a third ace on one of them you're stuck with a 12.

Automatic shufflers speed up the game by eliminating the break players get while waiting for the dealer to shuffle. Dealers shuffle the cards by hand at both Grand Victoria and Empress – advantage player. Hollywood uses automatics at eight of its 14 tables but none in the high limit room. Harrah's has four automatic shufflers.

Continuous shufflers not only keep the game going non-stop, they eliminate any edge a studious player may get by keeping track of the dealt cards. Harrah's has five tables with this technology, something serious players like to avoid.

CASINO NEWS: For the second consecutive year the Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin was one of only 10 casinos in North America recognized in the industry's annual "Best Casino Promotions" competition. The Grand Vic won the award for its quarterly "Exclusive Renewal Cash Giveaway"...."


Any comments on this? I found it interesting that in some the dealers can hit on soft 17...

[DeepBlue]

Very interesting statistics indeed, and it's strange to see how some casinos run the game in a way to give the player an advantage, whereas others, as you would assume, play things to their advantage.

Any ideas why the automatic shufflers are a disadvantage? I've no ideas, as I thought the idea of shuffling was to mix the pack up, which is the same thing an automatic shuffler will do, albeit a little better.

[BigAl]

Very interesting indeed - I wouldn't have thought that a casino would wanna give any kind of advantage to the players over the house?

Then again, I suppose happy punters are returning punters, so the slightly higher chances of winning might pay off for them in the long run.

[louis]

I guess though, a higher probability of winning will get the punters in - people have read that report already and gone on the basis they have a 0.2% greater chance winning in such a such casino over another!

They will always come back though, and at the end of the day, casinos arent going out of business are they?

[DeepBlue]

Hehe, they are flocking in their droves as we speak, whilst others are wondering why they haven't won anything more than usual.