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Blackjack dealers are all highly trained. Before they can ever deal a hand of blackjack, blackjack dealers must complete a Casino Games School. These schools are fairly expensive and there is no refund if you do not pass. Needless to say, by the time a dealer winds up behind a blackjack table he or she is an expert at dealing the game.
Sometimes, however, an inferior dealer can slip through the system. It doesn’t happen very often, but it happens. Such was the case in a popular Atlantic Casino. The sloppiness of one dealer cost the casino a lot of money.
The dealer in question had a bad habit of revealing his hole card. The main reason was because he lifted the top card too high whenever he needed to peek. Not every player at the table could see the hole card. In fact, the slip was only visible to the player sitting in the Third Base seat. This is the seat which is to the immediate right of the blackjack dealer.
At first, only a few people knew about the dealer’s weakness. These players, quite obviously, were very eager to play when this dealer was working. They learned his schedule. Arguments broke out over who would get to sit in Third Base. Eventually, the few players who knew about it reached an agreement. They could all play as long as the person in the Third Base seat was able to signal them regarding the dealer’s hole card. The blackjack players all got together and devised a system. For several weeks, life was golden as the players won massive amounts of money at the blackjack table.
One day the dealer simply disappeared. He was never spotted in that particular casino again. A few of the players searched the other casinos of Atlantic City but could not find him there either. One day, the player who had served as the Third Base blackjack player was sitting in a different casino having breakfast. Two pit bosses walked in and sat down near his table. They started to talk about something which immediately got the blackjack player’s attention.
“Did you hear about what happened over at the Taj?” one of the pit bosses asked the other. “It was pretty wild. Some dealer got caught revealing his hole card to a group of players. They must have all been working together. The state commission had the dealer arrested and he’s still in the county jail.”
“What happened to the other guys? The players?” the other pit boss asked.
“They are still looking for them. I think they caught one. Anyway, it won’t be very long. The reason I found out about it is because the authorities brought us pictures of them from the Taj security cameras. They had us program them into our facial recognition database. If one of them shows up, we call the heat.”
The blackjack player sat there listening and suddenly lost his appetite. Quickly, he paid his bill and headed for the parking garage. He was at the doors of the casino when two security guards stepped into his path.
“Mr. Roberts?”
The blackjack player froze.
“Please come with us. Some gentlemen from the state police would like to speak with you.”
All of the players involved were eventually arrested and charged with organized crime. Even though they did not know the dealer and were simply taking advantage of the dealer’s weakness, the elaborate signals they devised were enough to send them to jail for some time.
If you run across a dealer who is doing a poor job of dealing the cards and revealing information, you might want to think twice before you try to take advantage of it.
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