Counting Cards at Live Dealer Casinos

Can you count cards playing blackjack at live dealer casinos?

Every one knows you can't count cards playing blackjack at RNG casinos. There's simply no point as each deal is from a full re-shuffled virtual deck. But what about live dealer blackjack. Here there is no virtual deck, but rather a real live dealer dealing real cards from a shoe of (at most lived dealer casinos) 8 decks.

No reshuffle each deal. So can you sit at home with your iPhone card counting app and easily count the cards and take the casino for millions? Not surprisingly the answer to this question is no. And the reason for this is as follows.

The basic premise of any blackjack card counting method is that a high card rich shoe offers favorable odds for player, due to more pat hands being dealt as well as dealer busts on forced hits. Counting methods, like the much discussed Hi-Lo, are simply means to effectively ascertain the extent to which the remaining shoe is rich in high cards. You can read more about the Hi-Lo method at our blackjack card counting page.

In order to effectively apply the method you need to establish a positive count towards the end of the dealt shoe. Why can't you do this at live dealer casinos? Well quite simply, when playing live blackjack, the casinos re-shuffle about 4 decks into the 8 deck shoe precluding the possibility of establishing an effective count.