Is insurance not offered when the dealer shows a non-Ace face card? He could still have Blackjack by having an Ace in the hole. Does he just not offer insurance but still check the mirror and end the hand if the hole card is an Ace?
I’m genuinely curious and it’s been years since I’ve been in a casino. It seems unfair that the dealer could be sitting there with Blackjack the whole time while the players could go on to split and double-down with no chance of winning. 
Yes, the dealer checks when he has a 10 showing, but does not offer insurance. If he has an Ace, the hand is over.
I almost never played single-deck. For one thing, my face was well known. Sitting down in a Reno casino I’d not been in for years, floorwoman immediately came over and told dealer to shuffle after every hand!
I was in it for fun as well as money and tried a few foreign casinos. Circa 1984 in Manila’s largest casino, I walked around the large circular Blackjack pit, counting each of the eight six-shoe games in progress. (Tables could be dropped out when their counts went quite bad.) The game was so excruciatingly slow that when I’d return to table #1, after visiting tables #2 to #8, the problem wasn’t that I’d missed plays, but that play hadn’t advanced! :smack: Hits were dealt face down and players would squeeeeze them into view slowly.
The tables at that Manila casino were full, so when an opportunity presented I’d have to bet on another player’s hand, betting more than him so I’d get to call the play. This was nerve-wracking since the players would groan if I did something nonstandard like hitting 15 when dealer had 7 showing! :smack: :smack:
No, no – I read it. I even repeated it: “…I’ve played at a dealt-down table…”
I’m saying that I disagree that at a dealt-down table, the player has no obligation to announce his own blackjack.
Casinos in Nevada cannot invent their own games and start using them. Every game must be approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission before being offered to players. Here is a PDF of the current list of approved games.
I’m claiming that when I played deal-down blackjack, the player’s cards were exposed if he stood on a hand, and only mucked if he busted. And I’m claiming there’s no discretion for the casino to do otherwise, unless there’s an approved variant of blackjack that allows it. And I’m claiming there isn’t.
Now, I may be mistaken on that last point, I admit, but I am not misunderstanding or failing to read your post.
And if he doesn’t have a mirror or secure way of checking, when the hand ends with his blackjack, the house does not collect any double-down or split bets, just the original wagers.
And actually, I didn’t make room for another very strong possibility, especially if you were playing late 70s/early 80s:
It was an illegal rule change, but the casino did it anyway.
My post discussed neither how blackjack should be dealt nor how it might be dealt nor how it might not have been dealt nor how the Gaming Commission required it to be dealt.
Instead I described how it actually was dealt at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas whenever I sat down circa 1979 and the pit boss came over and whispered to the dealer. Do you claim my memory is faulty?
What do online casinos do to limit the edge that players would gain from counting cards?
As I understand it most online blackjack games are the equivalent of a single-deck game where the deck is shuffled after each hand. No reason not to do it this way if the “shuffle” takes no time at all.
No.
I was simply pointing out that whatever those casinos did was extra-legal. It was not an established and approved procedure. It was an unsanctioned procedure. I’m sure it happened, especially given that at that time, casinos were not strongly held to the gaming rules. I’m just saying it wasn’t kosher, not that it didn’t happen.
You are correct that new games must be approved by the NGC before they are put on the casino floor; that process is done by the originator of the game. Once the game is approved any casino is permitted to use it, typically with some sort of fee arrangement with the inventor. The owner of the patent will provide casinos with a basic outline of dealing procedures but each casino manager will likely have some preferred method of card or chip handling or shuffle procedure that introduces small changes.
Dealing procedures are not required to be submitted to or approved by the gaming commission. I have written the dealing procedures for BJ, Craps, Pai Gow, and Pai Gow Poker for a few different casinos. I have also written the game description and mathematical analysis of a few games that were submitted to NGC. Dealing procedures and applications for new games are completely different animals.
Basic dealing procedures are fairly well standardized and dealers have little trouble moving from casino to casino but each place will have a few minor differences that change with each casino manager, and when some sort of unusual play is taking place those procedures are often changed on the fly, usually just for the duration of that particular play – things like burning some extra cards, changing the shuffle, not exposing some cards that are typically exposed, etc.
septimus gave a good description of some of the variations that pop up when there is some perceived threat of card counting. There is nothing illegal, extra-legal, or unkosher about those procedures so long as they do not change the nature of the game.
Specifically regarding the standard procedure for picking up the cards mentioned in the OP: With only one player and that player busts – the dealer will either take the player’s chips with his left hand and dump them in the rack and then pick up the player’s cards with his right hand OR first pick up the player’s cards with his right hand and use those cards to scoop up the chips and dump them in the rack. Then, with the player’s cards held in the right hand, thumb and index finger on top with the other fingers curled underneath, he will move those cards close to the dealer’s cards, use his thumb and index finger to pull the upcard off the hole card and use it (the upcard) to flip the hole card face up, then scoop up the hole card and place the whole stack face down into the discard box.
Cards are picked up in a specific order so it easy to run the cards back out if the player should dispute the hand. Some casinos might have the dealers pick up all the players’ hand first, then set those cards on top of the dealer’s cards rather than using them to scoop up the dealer’s cards; this results in the dealer’s hand being on top of the discard stack and is preferred by some casino managers, but it is the exception, not the standard method.
So, in general, yes, the dealer’s hole card does typically get exposed (briefly) when a single player busts, but it is not mandatory, and that procedure can be changed at the will or whim of the supervisor of the game since it does not alter the basic nature of the game.
Apart from your own experience, do you have some cite for the proposition that the kind of dealing change discussed here is considered to not affect the basic nature of the game?
Because I disagree. A player with blackjack facing a dealer with blackjack is a push. Yet under the system septimus described, that player loses his table bet the moment the dealer discovers her blackjack.
This is an alteration of the basic nature of the game. So I’m curious to read whatever authority or citation you can provide to help me understand this seeming contradiction.
Other than four years as a full time professional blackjack player, 22 years working in Las Vegas casinos as a dealer and in casino management in positions such as Pit Manager and Director of Table Games and as Surveillance Supervisor, having written both dealing procedures and applications for new games, numerous encounters with Gaming Agents both in the casino and in court during cheating hearings, and taking the Gaming Law course at UNLV taught by the author of the text book, no, I have encountered no evidence that your supposed regulation exists.
In the real world, a player with a blackjack turns it up.
I haven’t proposed the existence of a different regulation. I’ve proposed that under the language you quoted – changing the basic nature of the game – the procedure described above would not be permitted.
So far, your post is your cite. You sound authoritative, to be sure. But your post comes down to, “I know a lot, so trust me.” Isn’t there any other source?
I’m afraid I confused myself somewhat describing that Sands “dealing down” procedure. :o Unlike more recent procedures (where at least some casinos don’t expose Dealer blackjack until the end of a hand) blackjack was turned up right away, so my comment didn’t apply.
However the situation I conflated that with was as bad in terms of protecting players:
IIRC (and I think I am recalling correctly now :o 
), when the dealer finished with a total of 21 exactly using three cards or more, he collected the bet and face-down cards from each player who had stood pat on two cards “knowing” they couldn’t have 21. (Again, this applies only in that rarely used “dealing down” procedure.)
Sorry for the confusion.
Ok. I’ve seen something similar done - in fact, at the Sands, before they blew it up. Your revision makes all the sense in the world, because there’s a definitive choice the player makes. In other words, what you described before had the player losing his table wager with potentially no move at all on his part.
What you describe now is the player taking the initiative to stand pat, by hand signal or placing his wager on his cards. THAT covers the casino (and the player).
I can’t say I ever was a professional, but I have spent thousands of hours at blackjack tables on and off the Strip. I didn’t mean to be rude but your first description didn’t make sense to me.
If a table is dealt down, what happens if a player, of his own initiative, turns his cards face-up, or otherwise communicates them to the other players?
As a dealer and player of more than 30 years I have never seen or heard of a dealer refusing to show his hole card. In my experience the only card which is not shown is the burn card and some casinos will allow that to be shown as well.
As for the peek (the prism or mirror which identifies blackjacks), in most situations the dealer only knows whether or not he has a BJ when he peeks. If there is no BJ the dealer does not know what card he has. You can tell when this is the case because the 10 value cards and the Aces have a mark on the corner, 2 thru 9 do not.
As for dealing down, in the early days, up until say the advent of Atlantic City gambling, almost all blackjack was dealt by hand and except for the Las Vegas strip there were no shoes. As casinos became more afraid of counters they instituted measures to protect themselves, hopefully without losing any customers. At that time all cards were dealt down (except shoes) and ultimately all cards were exposed before a new hand was dealt. A player playing 2 or more hands had to play them one at a time, not seeing second or later hands until the first was completed. At some point it became obvious that allowing players to touch their cards was a needless risk and all cards were dealt face up on shoes and double decks. I have never seen a blackjack game where cards were not turned over in any situation other than a misdeal. Indeed with all of the gaming regulation in effect it would probably be illegal to fail to check each hand for a winner.
I am no longer in the business so my current information is scant but variations in rules are a constant, but dealing cards down slows the game down drastically and allows the player to touch the cards, two things that would be extremely unlikely to be approved by any casino as a regular practice. Even so all cards would almost surely be exposed on every hand. (Even in fact where a player breaks and throws his hand at the dealer, the cards would be recovered and placed properly before being set in the discard rack, so the sky (surveillance) can see everything that is going on.
Sorry, did not realize you were distinguishing between “dealing down” (which I have never seen or heard of but do not dispute the occurrence) and face down blackjack. I must agree with Turble however in all respects. Nevada Gaming Control might suggest changes in a casino’s procedures but only because they were a threat to the bankroll not because they could potentially make it more difficult for a player to count. As far as BJ vs Bj is concerned, if a dealer swept up a player’s hand and he claimed to have a BJ for a push, the cards would be run back to see if the claim was accurate and if so his money would be returned. In most states outside of Nevada the various gaming control authorities require a casino only to deal the games in an approved manner and consistently with the casino’s own internal controls. That is, they cannot, in my experience, make procedural changes on the fly as they may in Nevada.