Pit bosses are a pest

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Pit bosses are a pest

August 13, 2015

Dealer mistakes are very valuable to the blackjack player who uses basic strategy and loses at a rate of about 0.5%, or one bet in every 200. I've gone into more detail on this subject on my Casino mistakes page, but suffice it to say here that just one push that the dealer mistakenly pays as a win can rebate you the entire house edge of three hours' worth of play on a busy table.

I was playing some low-stakes blackjack for fun the other day. One of the pit bosses - the casino personnel who patrol the tables as back up eyes and ears for the dealers - started hanging around my table, evidently in a bad mood as he immediately criticised the dealer for not having her chip tray laid out as it was apparently supposed to be. The dealer wasn't best pleased with the unnecessary interference; having told him she'd found the tray as it was and hadn't wanted to interrupt play, she just carried on dealing. The pit boss, it seemed with nothing better to do, carried on hanging around the table like a bored vulture.

At one point, I received a pair of twos against a dealer two. Both hands ended up with multi-card totals of 18, and when the dealer drew to the same total I was looking at a push on both hands. However, the dealer paid my left hand bet. I could see the pit boss watching, so I took the paid winnings whilst mentally preparing myself to have to give them back. Sure enough, the pit boss grumpily told the dealer she'd paid a push. She was in a bad mood with him, not unreasonably, and actually remonstrated that my hand was actually a 19, a mistake she went on to amplify by pointing to the other hand, the one she had correctly not paid. However, after a careful count the correct total was established and I handed back the chips. I could have made a big play of not knowing what was going on and being disinclined to hand over apparent winnings, but this didn't seem a pathway to a favourable outcome given the clear circumstances, so I let it pass.

This was the first time of many such occasions of dealer mistakes when I've had no choice but to give the money back.

Of course, it's quite possible that the reason the dealer miscounted was the presence of the unpleasant pit boss - without him being there to pick up on the mistake she might not have made the mistake to begin with. And of course, payment notwithstanding, it's always encouraging to see dealers making mistakes. I'll take both that conjecture and that philosophical musing as compensation for failure to secure a rebate substantially in excess of the house edge of my evening's play.

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