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I was walking through the Wynn Casino blackjack pit areas and noticed that in none of them did they list the blackjack rules. There is no way to tell if the game is 6-to-5 or 3-to-2. I’m sure they would tell you if you asked, but it’s almost like they do not want people to know their bad rules. Is this legal? You would think that gaming would make them at minimum do this?
[Editor's Note: This answer is written by Arnold Snyder.]
This is nothing new. Gaming does not require casinos to post rules and payouts on blackjack games.
In Reno, it was always more common for casinos to post their BJ rules. I believe this is because most (not all) of the single-deck games were double on 10/11 only and dealer hits soft 17 – both uncommon in Las Vegas (up till 10 years ago or so).
But many casinos in Vegas do not list rules or payouts on their BJ tables. Often, you would learn if a game allowed resplitting of aces or doubling after splits by either asking or attempting to do it and seeing if it was allowed. Some casinos allow players to play multiple simultaneous hands, but the number of hands allowed is sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes up to six, but I’ve never seen that option listed on a table.
At one time, the Vegas casinos listed "unusual" rules -- like weird side bets -- since so many rules in Vegas were more-or-less standard. For example, they always used to put a sign on a table if BJ paid 6-5, just to keep players from getting PO’d at them. That 6-5 payout was considered too weird not to announce. I guess so many handheld and shoe games are 6-5 now that the casinos no longer feel any need to announce the short pay. I wasn’t even aware that Vegas casinos had stopped posting 6-5 payout alerts.
According to Stanford Wong's Current Blackjack News, Wynn has six double deck and a few dozen 6-deck games. The $50+ minimum 6-D tables pay 3-2 on naturals, but all the lower $10- and $15-minimum tables pay only 6-5. I guess they now feel that players accept 6-5 BJ payouts as normal, even on shoe games, so no need to post it. Those 6-deckers at Wynn with the 6-5 BJ payout have a house edge of close to 2% off the top.
And people wonder why blackjack has been losing popularity.