One taco short of a
combination plate
21 July 2000
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
In all your years in the casino industry, I bet
you never heard of this type of superstitious
gambling. My brother-in-law brings a small
computer to his hotel room that has a software
program that tracks a person's biorhythms. He
then proceeds to ask dealers their birth dates,
runs back up to his hotel room, then plots the
dealers' emotional, physical and mental state.
Then he goes back to the casino and only plays
on a dealer's table if the software shows a
dealer in a down cycle. Beat that! James M.
You would think, James, that after 18 years in
the business I would have seen enough to have
seen too much. Then you come along with your
brother-in-law's nincompoop gambling theories.
My personal favorite was when a lady playing on
my blackjack game pulled out a Ken doll dressed
in black and whites that even had a bow tie
duplicating the one I was wearing. After every
hand I (the house) won, she inserted straight
pins into my likeness and started a voodoo
conversation with the doll. Here is proof that
evolution CAN devolve.
I believe that your brother-in-law, and others
who gamble with insane beliefs in the
paranormal, are a few Fruit Loops shy of a full
bowl.
Dear Mark,
Recently my wife won $1,125 on a slot machine
and a few hours later, in the same casino, I won
$1,260. I'm not complaining, but why did they
ask me for my social security number and have me
fill out forms and not ask my wife to do this?
Gary R.
Because your jackpot total was in excess of
$1,200. Anything above that and the casino
reports your winnings to the IRS. You can,
however, offset the taxes by reporting your
losses if you keep good records. Don't despair
if you didn't; that is, if you use a slot club
card. Because your play is tracked, the casino
should be able to provide you documentation
regarding the machines you have played and how
much you've previously lost.
Dear Mark,
Another gaming columnist recently advised a
reader that splitting 10s is always appropriate
when the dealer's up card is a 5 or 6. He was
using the advice of author John Scarne. You, on
the other hand, recommend never splitting 10s in
the standard version of blackjack. Whose advice
is right? Bill S.
Actually, I received this question via a
telephone call from Bill, as we both live in
northern Nevada and had access to the same
column. I must say, I, like Bill, was surprised
that the columnist used John Scarne as his point
of reference for blackjack hitting rules.
John Scarne's book, Scarne on Cards , was first
published in 1949, well before computers could
analyze blackjack with multi-million hand
simulations. Consequently, since 1962 when
Edward Thorp, the first blackjack specialist
using a computer (IBM 704), published his book
Beat the Dealer, no blackjack author recommends
splitting 10s-under any circumstances. Scarne
stands alone.
Also, since our conversation, I took Bill's
question one step further and ran a 20 million
hand simulation test using a piece of software
called BJ Trainer. The results clearly favored
leaving those 10s alone versus splitting them
against a 5 or 6.
Should a computer be trusted over a highly
acclaimed author like Scarne? Not always. I
don't have a baseball bat alongside my computers
ready to inflict a mortal wound for nothing. But
for crunching numbers to compare the variables
of blackjack, I'm in favor of using computer
results over advice written in 1949.
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