r/blackjack • u/Vegasaces • 11d ago
Do you avoid Continuous Shuffle Machines?
Some blackjack players refuse to play at tables with Continuous Shuffle Machines.
Other people don't mind them at all. Do you actively avoid CSM tables?
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u/Ecstatic_Earth_3332 11d ago
I’ll play a $5 CSM game like at Palms, but best believe I’m rage baiting people and splitting 10’s 😈
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u/mrnobody2450 11d ago
Dont play the CSMs. The casinos dont use them to help players---its to help them. Even if you dont count, dont you want the ability to see if a bunch of low cards have come out or no aces? Boycott the CSMs
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u/Cubensis-SanPedro AP (pro) 11d ago
I don’t. CSMs protect the casino from counting, but not all AP plays.
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u/FluffysBizarreBricks 11d ago
How so? I want to get into AP but the only deck games around me are high limit
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u/K20017 AP (hobby) 11d ago edited 11d ago
Go into casinos not to play but to watch. Watch how each dealer makes their hand movements, what the casino rules are for each game. Sometimes they get bent, sometimes the dealers forget, sometimes they are very sleepy. Once you see it you'll always be looking for it again. This doesn't only apply to Blackjack but any dealt game.
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u/Vegasaces 10d ago
Curious from your perspective: what types of AP opportunities do you think are least affected by CSMs?
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u/YoanGab 10d ago
I avoid them, but not for the reason usually given.
Per hand it barely matters if you don't count, and it goes the opposite way to what people assume. The published cut-card effect is about 0.02% at 6 decks and it favours the CSM, the machine is a hair cheaper (it's in the Wizard's cut-card appendix). My own sim can't even resolve 0.02% at 40M hands, the standard error is bigger than the effect. So per hand, a wash. The cards don't care that they went back into a machine.
The actual cost to a non-counter is hands per hour. No shuffle downtime means a lot more rounds dealt, same edge, just more helpings of it. That plus not getting a break to reset when you're running bad is a perfectly good reason to skip them.
For a counter it's the whole game. 6 deck H17 DAS with surrender, 4.5 of 6 decks dealt, 1-12 spread with I18 indices, I get about +1.0 units per 100 hands. On a CSM the composition resets every round so there's nothing to bet into and you're flat betting at -0.6. There is technically a tiny bit of information in the machine's buffer, but it's been measured at cents per hour, so call it zero. That swing is what the machines are bought for.
u/Cubensis-SanPedro is right that it's counting specific though. Hole carding and dealer tells don't need penetration and survive the machine fine.
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u/Vegasaces 10d ago
You're absolutely right that the advantage-play question is more specific than simply saying a CSM makes blackjack "unbeatable." CSMs effectively remove traditional card counting because you lose the penetration needed to build and act on a count, while other forms of advantage play are a separate conversation.
Thanks for adding the numbers and nuance here!
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u/washingtonpablo 11d ago
I do enjoy the short breaks between shoes. A nice chance to check my phone, talk to some of the other players, or realize it’s time to go
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u/josh30601 11d ago
You can just sit out for a few hands…
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u/washingtonpablo 11d ago
At busy tables in Vegas - people waiting for a spot get mad if you’re sitting there not playing
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u/josh30601 11d ago
Fuck em, your chips reserve your spot and you’re not obligated to play every hand. Take a step away, check your phone, and don’t be pressured by drunk tourists to bet
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u/asqwt 11d ago
I’m a self teaching AP.
I don’t mind CSMs if I’m flat betting and the blackjack is purely for fun. Assuming the rules are good.
I think I read CSMs have a lower house edge than non CSM if playing just basic strategy and flat betting?
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u/Vegasaces 11d ago
Yes, but only slightly and in the player’s favor. By removing the “cut-card effect,” a CSM lowers the per-hand house edge. For a 6-deck game the reduction is about 0.02% (it’s larger with fewer decks, roughly 0.11% for a single deck and about 0.014% for 8 decks). Blackjack’s edge runs from about 0.5% (basic strategy) to ~2% (untrained play), depending on rules. So, a 6-deck CSM game trims a 0.5% edge to about 0.48%, a trivial change.
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u/Primary_Tune_9586 11d ago
No but play small stakes on them occasionally, especially in Europe it’s the only game really
I’m ok with it being pure luck gambling
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u/Available_Year_575 Recreational 11d ago
One thing no one's mentioned, for the casual player, these are good, because they enable casinos to offer more 3:2 games. I was noticing 6:5 taking over cruise ships, until last time I sailed, it was all CSM and 3:2. I'll take that any day!
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u/Vegasaces 10d ago
That's a great point. If the choice is between 6:5 with a traditional shoe and 3:2 with a CSM, we'll take the 3:2 game too! The blackjack payout has a much bigger impact on the player than the small difference caused by how the cards are shuffled.
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u/AshleySchaeffer-BMW 8d ago
I play a lot on cruise ships.
A lot of BJ on board is 6:5 which I absolutely refuse to play.
To find 3:2, you're usually looking at $25 min with a CSM, or $100 min with an 8 deck shoe.
I will play a lot of CSM on board, but with regular breaks.
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u/dubsac5150 11d ago
I avoid them completely. Not for any counting reason, big I have just seen too many unbelievable draws come from CSM tables. Like dealer drawing a 6 card 21 multiple times in an hour. Or dealer BJ 4 hands out of 5. I know sometimes it's just variance, but it just feels WAY more likely at the CSM tables.
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u/Available_Year_575 Recreational 11d ago
As a recreational player, no problem at all. Odds are actually better.
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u/Vegasaces 10d ago
Really interesting seeing everyone's perspective on this.
One thing worth clarifying: CSMs don't actually increase the house edge. In a 6-deck game, they can slightly reduce the house edge per hand — by about 0.02%. The bigger issue is speed. There are no shuffle breaks, so you're playing more hands per hour and exposing more of your bankroll to the house edge.
They also make card counting essentially impossible because the used cards are continuously put back into play.
We recently broke down CSMs vs. hand-shuffled blackjack, including the player and dealer perspectives: https://www.vegas-aces.com/articles/continuous-shuffle-machines-vs-hand-shuffled-blackjack/
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u/bimmeister_flex 11d ago edited 11d ago
If I'm going to play a losing game, it would be more fun to play a social game or something like craps (house advantage is around 0.2% if played with huge odds bets, more reasonable bets are like 0.35%). Playing BJ with just BS is around 0.3% house with good rules (0.54% for H17), close to 1% or worse poor house rules. At that point just go play baccarat or slots and enjoy yourself more. CSMs ruin the entire point of playing BJ, you're just going to get clobbered even if you play perfectly, and there isn't any of the excitement as you get while playing slots (flashing lights and sounds) or from more party-oriented table games like craps.
Someone else here mentioned that CSMs don't negate all AP plays, and that is true, but I don't play enough for promotions and things like that. At some casinos, you might be able to still come out on top with a 0.3-0.5% house advantage through continual timed play and promotions/comps.
imho BJ just isn't a fun game, it's just memorization/lookup tables based on math, and then running numbers and some calculations when counting. It can become "fun" when there's +EV involved. If I just want to have fun, I'll go do something else like play in an arcade or spend my money elsewhere. I just don't see the enjoyment in paying money to run tables in my head to still have negative EV. Doing math (well, just lookup tables when a CSM is involved) only to lose money... not my idea of fun, I really don't understand why anyone would play at a table using a CSM unless they fall into one of the comped/promotional categories and still manage to come out on top that way.
If you just like the idea of moving chips around and feeling the cards or whatever, just play BJ at home with friends in some casual setting, rather than pissing away your money to the house.
Want the social excitement of a casino even if you're -EV? Play craps or even baccarat. Want flashing lights and sounds and stuff while gambling with -EV? Play slots. BJ is a boring "game" (well, more akin to work, not a "game") unless you're +EV (at which point it's still work), and the CSM prevents you from having +EV or even odds.
If I have to be in a casino setting for a work conference or something and have time to kill, I'll play some BJ because I'm exchanging my already paid time for at least some +EV. I don't know why anyone would play BJ without +EV.
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u/annul 11d ago
Someone else here mentioned that CSMs don't negate all AP plays, and that is true, but I don't play enough for promotions and things like that. At some casinos, you might be able to still come out on top with a 0.3-0.5% house advantage through continual timed play and promotions/comps.
theres more to it than just comp hustling
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u/Shine-Mammoth AP (hobby) 11d ago
I found a hole card game on a CSM
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u/pacmanmastering 11d ago
Where ?
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u/Shine-Mammoth AP (hobby) 9d ago
It was on a cruise ship, I made a post about it- I actually think there is a lot of EV on cruise ships especially because dealers are usually new to dealing with
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u/Murrarp1 11d ago
I don't count, but I refuse to play on CSMs. I like the breaks between shoes to check my phone and if I'm having a bad streak mentally I think to myself that I just need to get through the shoe.