I know I've seen the website for it more than a few times but cannot for the life of remember what it is. I thought it was wizard of odds but couldn't find it there. I'm going to a different town and want to know the table rules before I go (h/s on 17, 2:3 vs 5:6 payout etc, surrender). Does anyone have the link available for the like master list of table rules? I'm heading out tomorrow so any later than that I'll end up just calling ahead and asking, but figure maybe someone would have it handy so I can bookmark.

Hi guys, I've looked everywhere and I can't seem to be able to find the current rules for Blackjack at the Crown Casino.
For eg. How many decks? Dealer stand on soft 17? Double after split? etc etc.
Also which blackjack variants are available? I've read about some posts saying only BJ PLUS is available with the standard BJ only at $50 tables.

Looking for a casino that's within a five to six hour drive from NYC where the blackjack tables have favorable odds. Specifically looking for ones that play by the following rules:
Blackjack pays 3:2
Two decks
$10 minimum bet
$400 or more maximum bet
Doubling–down after splitting
Doubling–down on nines
Splitting twice
Doubling–down after the second split
Other than Indian reservations or random casinos here and there, if you're familiar with any specific casinos in Atlantic City that offer these types of rules please shout 'em out.
​
EDIT: Obviously when I say doubling–down on nines I'm including doubling–down on tens & aces too. Some casinos I've been to do not allow doubling on anything other than a ten or an ace so I thought I'd make a point of asking about nines or below.

I'm looking for something like Bravo Poker except for blackjack.
So, preferably it would be live updated, but as long as it is recent that works too.
I tried looking up different lists online, but I am getting very conflicting results.

So, this 'blackjack' is played with a single 6-sided die. Here is how a game goes:
Dealer rolls for player until the player has something over 15.
Dealer then asks whether to hit or to stay.
Player chooses which, trying to get close to 21.
Dealer then does the same, and aims to beat the player. Dealer does not necessarily stay on 17/18.
I've had a nagging feeling in my head that this is exploitable somehow. Right now, my strategy is to hit until 18 or over and then stay. Can the math-wizards out there help me out finding a better strat?

Basically above. I’m just curious about the house rules, and if any differ from typical casino rules, etc. Thanks! If it makes a difference we will be on the Celebrity Infinity.
Edit: I should be more specific. Rules like:
Dealer hit on soft 17
Restrictions on doubling down/splitting
How are the cards dealt? ie, Hand dealt, shoes or continuous shufflers

Hi, first thread, although I've been reading this sub a lot, learned Basic Strategy and the Hi-Lo system.
So I decided to give it a shot yesterday.
​
I found out that the local Casino has two kind of tables, one with a 3 and the other with a 7 bucks minimum bet.
Of course they use a Sabot in the latest, and the first one uses a CSM, I didn't carry too much money so I chose this one and played about an hour.
​
I talked with the croupier a couple times between hands and got some info like:
- I could only double with Hard 9, 10 or 11's. Never on Soft Hands. (Is this a common rule?)
- Of course counting was not useful(I didn't speak about it, obviously, but noticed).
- Basic Strategy kind of worked.
The interesting part was that they said that from their own experience it didn´t matter that much. Like the odds says if there were too much 10's on the table there wouldn't be another one if you hit once more, something like that.
I didn't trusted them that much, because I had the BS chart all over my head.
- Maybe the most important part was they way they dealt cards, I never thought they would deal one per player, and one for them, until everyone on the table had 2 and the croupier 1, so you can keep hitting and then after all the players ended their play then the croupier gets his second card and keeps hitting until 17, I never expected that.(I think this changes everything for the player, since the croupier latest cards aren't decided until everyone ends their plays)
They said people in groups helps each other, and often the last player on the left keeps hitting so he and the dealer go over 21 sacrificing himself! WHAT WERE I LISTENING?!
- Finally, they said sidebets were the way people played the most there, even betting more than the main bet. I don't learn that yet. I'd like to btw.
​
Anyways, I noticed I lost and got money back really often during that time, but never earned more than I brought, in the end I lost. But I was satisfied and want to come back, and I'll really win next time.

Were playing 6 deck blackjack. Rules are a natural pays 3:2, you can double down or split on anything, split aces only get one card each, no surrender, insurance offered, dealer hits a soft 17.
I'm more interested in the percentage the casino makes opposed to the actual amount. Id like to hear people's thoughts on different scenarios, such as "one person playing against the dealer alone using perfect basic strategy" or "random people are walking in and out all day, some of whom know how to play, some of them only know the game is '21'?" I'm more interested in what a blackjack table makes as a percentage of dollars bought in with the "random people all day scenario."

Imagine you are a gambler enjoying a night at the casino. You decide to play Blackjack. Your hand is a ten and the dealer shows a 7.
"I would like to hit."
"No sir. You are only allowed to stand or surrender."
"That's not the rules of the game. Aren't you regulated?"
"Due to the votality your hand represents to the Casino, sir, you are only allowed to stand or surrender. These are extraordinary times."
"...are you only allowed to stand or surrender?"
"No sir. In fact, we may double down."
"Wait. What? You are the dealer, you can't put more money in that I didn't put in. That money doesn't even exist on the table!"
"Sir, you have a gambling problem. We might have to report the commission on you for attempting to hit with your hand because your friend told you that you should."
"Wait, are you trying to make me fold?"
"Sir, we reported you to the newspaper for being a degenerate."
"You guys are crazy!"
"Sir, we have decided that in order to protect your interests, you have decided to surrender."

Hi all, thanks for the time and info.
I've saved up 500 for a ten dollar table at a real casino. Atlantic City is our usual go to, we haven't been there in 3.5 years. What are the best or at least decent casinos @ AC to visit for Blackjack? 75% pen would be nice, I'm not sure what the scene is like these days at real casinos regarding penetration. But that's what I've been practicing on for months on a free app.
Any other places near NYC would also be appreciated, so I can look them up.
Thanks.

Not my OC but I found this in the comments on a Barron's article and found it a good and amusing description:
Imagine you are a gambler enjoying a night at the casino. You decide to play Blackjack. Your hand is a ten and the dealer shows a 7.
"I would like to hit."
"No sir. You are only allowed to stand or surrender."
"That's not the rules of the game. Aren't you regulated?"
"Due to the volatility your hand represents to the Casino, sir, you are only allowed to stand or surrender. These are extraordinary times."
"...are you only allowed to stand or surrender?" "No sir. In fact, we may double down."
"Wait. What? You are the dealer, you can't put more money in that I didn't put in. That money doesn't even exist on the table!"
"Sir, you have a gambling problem. We might have to report the commission on you for attempting to hit with your hand because your friend told you that you should."
"Wait, are you trying to make me fold?"
"Sir, we reported you to the newspaper for being a degenerate."
"You guys are crazy!"
"Sir, we have decided that in order to protect your interests, you have decided to surrender."
Article is shit but here it is: https://www.barrons.com/articles/demand-for-diesel-is-rising-what-that-says-about-the-economic-recovery-51613066791

1What retiring early is like

It's fucking great.
I wake up happy, I do pretty much whatever I want during the day, I go to sleep happy.
I indulge my limited passions and hobbies, I plunge down fascinating rabbit holes of knowledge, I bugger off to places for months at a time (harder with Brexit, you xenophobic malcontents), I spend time with people I want to. I feel smug.
I don't have an alarm waking me up, I don't need to take any shit off anyone, I don't burn 90 mins a day on a loud bus screeching stop announcements at 90db in my ear.
In the summer I sometimes pop over to the local greenery, have a pint and meal, read a book, soak up the sun. Great stuff.
My phone is always on silent. It can wait.
People occasionally ask me “what I do all day”. If your imagination is so limited, living in such an incredible time, with so much at your fingertips, that the question even crosses your mind, then carry on working and bitching about it, you don't know how to be happy.
“Scipio used to say that he was never less idle than when he had nothing to do “ - Cicero, On Duties.

2How to get there

2.1Difficulty modes

2.1.1Easy mode: Get free university education, get a good job, buy a cheap house

Not too difficult if you were born in 1972. Easy mode is now disabled in the UK. Maybe available in foreign versions of the game, such as in Greece or Denmark.

2.1.2Medium mode: Don't have kids

I swear to god, I have been pretty lucky not to accidentally father a crotch goblin, and believe me, little Goocho often vetoed my brain. Use contraceptives. Notice how all the shit hole countries don't give women control over their reproduction.
If I had foolishly crapped out a kid, I would have had to work another 10 years at least I reckon. Ugh.
Borrow kids to play with them, and return when they start crying.

2.1.3Hard mode: Have kids

Look, if you are spending 100k or whatever to raise a kid I don't know what to tell you, at least you got laid eh?
I hope you enjoy working like I didn't. Seriously, if you have a job you like, great stuff, things will be much easier for you. The impetus to leave it won't be so great. The point of all this is to be happy after all!

2.2Control your costs

Filling your house full of nonsense is consumerism at it's worst.
I practice a kind of minimalism. So I don't own a freezer, a cooker or a dish washing machine. Guess what? They will never need repairing or replacing! But I do own an amazing OLED tv, a solid speaker system, loads of films and books. Minimalism is a whole other subject, and attracts the mentally ill who take it to extremes. Spend money on a decent mattress you fools.
Subscriptions are death by a thousand cuts, and will weigh you down. However Netflix and Amazon Prime are great. Shades of grey.
Screw charities, charity workers get paid salaries and you are supposed to give for free? Nope. Begging scum. “it is only the price of a coffee”, bitch please, I pay 10p a cup for my lovely coffee.
Pay your taxes. Don't be a leech on society.
Live in a small house.
Aldi is great.
If you don't get married, you can't get ruinously divorced, .
Insurance is generally a scam, if you are drunkenly fucking up so regularly than you need your phone insured, sort your life out.
You really need that car? Hmmm. If you are driving to the supermarket and paying for the gym, you are an idiot. Those two cancel each other out.
Only unhappy people play the lottery.
Buy a decent phone for £200, pay £5 a month for service. You think iFruit users will look down upon you? Comparison is the thief of joy.
DIY accomplishments are mentally rewarding, great exercise and cheap – or you can throw money at a problem to make it go away, this is the point of money after all, we sell and buy time with it. Before I buy anything big, I ask myself, is this worth x days sitting in an office for​?
Spend your money how you like, I am not your mum.
Enjoy what you have.

2.3Plan a little

Write down (don't guess) how much you spend a month over a couple of years.
For investments, assume inflation cancels out general increase in non distributing equity value. This is all a rough guessing game anyway, don't pretend it isn't.
I think there are two ways to look at when you can stop working:

2.3.1Cash drawdown per month until death

If you assume you are going to die around 85 (actuarial tables available online), divide your cash + private pension wealth + state pension amount will pay you until age 85 by the number of months left to live, this tells you how much you can spend a month before you die. Sounds like enough? Investment appreciation means you might have more than that.

2.3.2Cash dividends per month

You have a lumpsum of wealth. Flexible uk pension rules means you no longer need to take the annuity gamble. 4% returns a year seems conservatively doable. Can you live on that? Means you die with a load of cash. Stash it in your silk lined coffin.

2.4Play it safe, but not too safe

Assume laws and taxes will change. Don't count too much on that state pension.
If the NHS falls ill itself, you might need some cash to go private. Good luck getting that hip surgery in the next 12 months post covid!
If the stock market takes a 10% dump, you must still sleep soundly. Don't live too close to the edge.
Assume and hope your parents will spend all their wealth on themselves, having a happy end of life in an old folks home. Points off as a human being for relying on your parent snuffing it for free money.
What if your body conks out and you start shitting yourself and have to pay 4k a month to be served Dickensian gruel in a nursing home? Trust in the societal safety net? Work another 5 years just in case? Keep a cyanide pill by the bed? Sell your house I guess? I'm rolling the dice on this one. Maybe dancing in VR and these 50 degree Victorian terrace stairs will keep me fit (or kill me).

2.5Personal Story

Went to Uni, got a Computering degree, got a job I liked, autistic-ally worked at it, got paid lots of money, bought a house at 26 for 48k, parents threw in 10k to get rid of me, paid off the mortgage in 30 months.
After 8 years in said job, started to dislike it, took 6 months off work. Worked another 2 years before I got made redundant, 15k for doing nothing? Yes please!
Worked about half the time from age 32 to 46 as Contractor scum, in jobs I generally disliked or eventually hated. Had 2-3 years between jobs. Snatching retirement chunks from the future. I figured, why leave retirement until I am too old to enjoy it? Took around 3 months to get a new job each time, I didn't care, I loved not working!
Played casino blackjack for a couple of years for ~8 hours a week, made £12k. Shuffling machines have stopped all that now, was bored of it anyway.
Decided at 40 I had better get a pension, threw money at it when working.
So at 46, when I walked out on the pathetic management at my last gig (FIS Birmingham, you see when you are retired, you really don't have to give a shit!), I had worked for a total of ~15 years, thoroughly enjoyed not working and was sick of working.
At 47 I realised maybe I don't actually need another job? Started paying real attention to my finances.
At 48, I have 110k cash & 140k pension = 250k. 4% a year dividends = 10k a year. I can live happily on that.
£800 a month is enough. I spent £350 a month in December and January, had a great time. Will get a PS5 when available, boiler is bound to break eventually. It all evens out.
My state pension fortells a sickly £117 per week. Meh. Forgive me for not factoring that in too much. Who knows where I will be in 20 years? Hopefully sleeping in late without an alarm clock.

Hi, everybody. My name is Sid, and I’m an addict.
It took me a long time to accept that. But when you take a job in a casino just so that you can be there all the time and try to gain an edge, you’re an addict. It’s obvious even to me. More so to my family and friends, who I barely see anymore.
It’s not pills or coke, booze or heroin that I’m hooked on. I’m addicted to gambling.
The casino that made me so obsessed is not an ordinary one, though. It’s far from ordinary.
You don’t play for money at Fantasy Casino. You play for your dreams.
I hear you laughing.
But have you ever had a really, really great dream? One that got so good you snapped awake the second it started to get really excellent?
Well, imagine that times a thousand. Times a million.
A dream so real and so perfect that all of your fantasies become reality. Time stretches out. You feel like you are there forever. A lifetime passes before your return.
Infinite wealth, the ability to fly like superman, you’re surrounded by sex and beautiful people all day as you relax in a palace built to your mind’s most exacting specifications of perfection.
But then you wake up, and in an instant it is gone.
The power, the wealth, the endless sex and supernatural powers.
Everything is suddenly NORMAL again.
And so you go back to the casino.
I went back to the casino.
But the problem with gambling is that you don’t always win. And when you lose, suddenly the winnings are gone as well, vanished without a trace. All I knew was that I had to have that feeling again.
So I went inside the giant building and then followed the secret signs which led to a door that led to a staircase going downwards.
I went down the stairs and knocked on the door marked “Private” and waited for an answer.
“Password.”
The voice on the other side of the black door waited for my response.
“Seramth Gin.” I said the unnatural words carefully and deliberately, still not knowing their meaning.
A friend had told me the password, a fellow gambler who I would later find dead in his apartment. His corpse white, bloated, and maggot-infested.
His eyes were black and filled with blood which streamed from his eye sockets like tears. He had bit his tongue clean off and his fingernails were found lodged in various surfaces throughout his apartment. Like he had been trying to claw his way out of a steel box that only he could see.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. That was later. At this point I was still hopeful for another wonderful dream. Still thankful for his advice to seek out the place.
The door opened and I walked inside. It was the same as it had been the day before, only less busy at this time – still early afternoon.
I approached the table I had been sitting at the night before.
Poker – Texas Hold ‘em: Ten dream limit – the sign read.
The rules were simple. You got a stack of chips. If you doubled them, you received a dream. If you lost them, you lost a dream.
I wasn’t concerned about losing dreams yet, I still didn’t understand exactly what that meant.
When I lost my first stack of chips, I quickly bought in again. And again. And again.
Pretty soon I realized I had lost eight dreams with no winnings whatsoever. I was in a slump. A losing streak.
I decided to go home and count my losses. Literally, since I had no idea what that even meant.
As I got up to leave the table, the dealer looked at me. His eyes were remorseless and cold.
“See the cashier on your way out,” he said, handing me eight black chips.
I gulped and walked over to the glass window where the cashier sat waiting. Handing him the eight chips, he raised his eyebrows and clicked his tongue.
“That’s a shame. Hold out your hand please.”
Two men in black suits came up behind me suddenly and stood on either side of me, intimidating in their stature and demeanour.
I did as he asked and held out my hand with the palm facing up.
The cashier pulled out a strange-looking device from beneath the counter. It had a vial of vermillion-coloured liquid at the top that was attached to the rest of it which resembled a gun with a hypodermic needle at the end.
I screamed and tried to pull away, but the two men grabbed me and held my arm through the window. Thrashing and elbowing them, I tried to get away but it was useless.
The cashier injected the stuff into my veins quickly and it felt cold and slimy going through my system. I could feel it suddenly in my heart, turning it cold and then up into my mind and my lungs and all extremities causing me to shake and violently seize. I writhed on the floor, blood pouring from my ears and my eyes.
Finally the feeling settled down into a numbness that prickled the insides of my blood vessels. It wasn’t until later, once I realized what the casino really was, that I found out what they had done.
I went home with the certainty that they had injected me with something. If winning had resulted in the greatest dream I had ever had – essentially an almost never-ending fantasy – what would happen after a loss?
Nightmares. That was what it would be. I was sure of it.
I settled into bed that night and closed my eyes, drifting off to sleep quickly after such an emotionally exhausting afternoon.
As soon as my eyes closed, they opened again and it was morning.
It felt as if I had not slept at all. My mind was fuzzy and it was difficult to focus. My eyes wanted to close again but my alarm was telling me that it was time to get up for work, so I hit the “dismiss” button and hopped in the shower.
I threw on my clothes and went out the door. At work I noticed a few people looking at me strangely, but I didn’t realize until someone pointed it out to me that my shirt was on inside-out. At this point I was still working in an office doing commodities trading and such lapses were frowned upon.
If you couldn’t focus enough to put your shirt on properly in the morning, how could you focus enough to get the work done in such a demanding environment? Millions of dollars changing hands with each transaction meant that such trivial things were put under a magnifying glass and coupled with other subsequent mistakes each following day after that, I found myself in the boss’s office by the end of the week being handed my walking papers.
Desperate for rest after days of not feeling any benefit from sleep, I went back to the casino.
They knew just by looking at me how to dig their claws in further. After a couple hours I had managed to win myself a dream.
They handed me the complimentary cocktail as they had the time before. I hadn’t realized the significance of it and still didn’t, despite the unusual vermillion colour of the drink. I swallowed it in one gulp and went out the door practically dancing and clicking my heels, ready to go home and feel rested again.
My dream that night was wonderful. Everything I had hoped for in many ways.
But not as good as the first time. I wanted that feeling back again.
Knowing that it was a dream the whole time and realizing that it was going to end seemed to shorten the fantasy, made it seem hollow and manufactured.
If I could win again maybe it would be like that first time, I thought.
The casino drew me in again and again. I found myself a zombie most days, exhausted, at my wit’s end. Ready to call it quits for good and say goodbye.
But then I would win again and it would all seem to be alright for a while.
My debt kept growing and growing with nearly every trip. The hypodermic needle would be plunged into my skin and every time they had to hold me down. Every time I would feel a little more empty. A little more hollow.
Waking up every day began to feel the same. Nothing had definition or purpose.
“You’re here all the time,” one of the goons whispered to me as they shot the needle into my vein the time after that. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? You should just get a job here and then at least you’ll be in on the secret.”
I applied the next day and got an interview with the boss. I would find out later that if you got someone to apply there you got a one dream bonus.
In his office, the well-dressed man was sitting behind a massive polished ebony desk. The room was adorned with paintings, sculptures, and other high-priced artwork. He had photos everywhere of himself shaking hands with world leaders, new and old, for hundreds of years.
His face never changed. Never aged.
“So, you want to work with us? Tired of dreamless nights without end? You want to have some relief, is that it?”
“Yes. Please. Anything. I’ve been coming here for so long and it’s an endless cycle. I want back what I’ve lost but I keep finding myself more and more in debt with each visit.”
“Ah, so do you understand it now, then? What the ‘injections’ are?”
It finally dawned on me, sitting there. Not injections at all. They weren’t putting something in us. They were taking something out. The vermillion-coloured liquid in the vials – our dreams.
“If I take a job with you, will the same rules apply? Will they still take my sleep, my rest, every time I lose?”
“Yes. We can’t have the employees living by different rules than everyone else. But we will give you an alternative injection, so that you feel well-rested when you come in for your shift.”
“I’ll do it. I need to rest. I need to get some meaningful sleep. My life has been miserable ever since coming here.”
“Well, I can’t promise that this will help,” he said, getting up from his desk with a hypodermic gun in his hand. The vial of fluid sitting atop this one was jet-black and looked evil and poisonous. He rolled up his sleeves as he primed it and I watched a few beads of it drip oil-like out of the tip of the needle.
“What the hell is that!? I don’t want that stuff in me!”
“But you need to sleep, my dear worker. I can’t have you passing out at the blackjack table like a narcoleptic! You agreed to this, after all. You wanted to rest, and the only way for that to happen is for you to have SOME sort of dream. Not everyone is as lucky as you, you know. To have that wonderful vermillion fluid in your veins. Some people come to us begging to take it from them. Some of our employees for example, the ones who do the recruitment for us, are full of this black stuff.”
“What?” I had gotten up from the chair and was backing away from him towards the door. But I found it was locked as he approached.
“First you have to tell me the password, Sid.”
“Seramth Gin.” I said the words that I had said every time to gain access to the casino, only this time I pictured the letters and rearranged them in my mind.
“Nightmares.”
He smiled as he injected me with the vial of black hate, and it went into my veins feeling hot and unpleasant. I began to sweat and the beads of it turned cold on my skin as I shivered.
I’ll sleep tonight. I might even wake up feeling rested. But as long as I live and work at that casino, I’ll be afraid to dream again. Because now my unconscious hours are occupied by the most terrifying experiences imaginable. Nightmares beyond imagining in their awfulness. That is my fate.
Unless… Just maybe, I can win one more time.
JG
TCC

Imagine you are a gambler enjoying a night at the casino. You decide to play Blackjack. Your hand is a ten and the dealer shows a 7.
"I would like to hit."
"No sir. You are only allowed to stand or surrender."
"That's not the rules of the game. Aren't you regulated?"
"Due to the votality your hand represents to the Casino, sir, you are only allowed to stand or surrender. These are extraordinary times."
"...are you only allowed to stand or surrender?"
"No sir. In fact, we may double down."
"Wait. What? You are the dealer, you can't put more money in that I didn't put in. That money doesn't even exist on the table!"
"Sir, you have a gambling problem. We might have to report the commission on you for attempting to hit with your hand because your friend told you that you should."
"Wait, are you trying to make me fold?"
"Sir, we reported you to the newspaper for being a degenerate."
"You guys are crazy!"
"Sir, we have decided that in order to protect your interests, you have decided to surrender."
there’s no cross posts or image posts allowed so this is from u/Palidor206 over at WBS, this is not mine