How Dealers Cheat:

All strategies in the world, even the best of them, provide very tight advantage for the player, and even a tiny interference can change the balance and ruin the whole play. Probably the rudest, but unfortunately quite common interference a player can encounter in a casino is a cheating dealer. Although it has been said that large casinos do not allow any cheating, dealers cheat even at the most prestigious establishments. Their cheating most probably is not authorized by the management and is done confidentially, but facts remain facts, and the best advantage players can fall into this trap. This page describes methods used by cheating dealers and calls you to play cautiously even at the most prestigious casinos.

The Sleight of the Hand:

Sleight of hand is the most common form of dealers cheating. They simply manipulate cards during the game using the same methods as card cheats at players positions. Actually, the position of a casino dealer is a dream of any cheat, because it opens a whole world of cheating possibilities. Unlike home games, a casino dealer is in charge of the deck all the time, and therefore can make his cheating 100% effective. Besides, he has some additional charges like managing the bank and watching the players, so he does not need any artificial excuse for ceasing the game or performing any physical actions.

Card Mechanics:

Card mechanics are based on bottom dealing and stacking the cards. Bottom dealing in its classical form means dealing the bottom card of the deck instead of the top one. Done properly, bottom dealing does not look any suspicious. An unprepared player will never detect bottom dealing by simply watching the cheat's hands. It will look like normal dealing from the top of the deck. Good cheats also can deal the second, the third or almost any other card at any given position at the deck. Bottom dealing is difficult to learn and requires some talent and a lot of practice.

Stacking:

However, the most important part of cards mechanics is stacking. Even dominating the art of bottom dealing perfectly, the cheat can not get any advantage dealing random cards from a different position of the deck. He must stack the cards the proper way, so he will always know what card he is dealing. The most common way of stacking the cards is selecting the desired hand from discards and putting it at the bottom of the deck. The deck is then false shuffled and all players are dealt random cards from the top of the deck, except the cheat, who deals himself the hand from the bottom, which was set during the stacking.

Conclusion:

As was mentioned above, most cheating dealers are very good at it, and detecting the cheating is not an easy task. However, a good player, especially a card counter, will soon note that the odds of the game are not what they are supposed to be. In such case, the player should not start any scandal. This will not do any good for him, especially if he can not prove that any cheating was done. He should simply leave the table and look for another one, with a more honest dealer.