Single-deck blackjack with traditional rules in Las Vegas has indeed gone the way of the dinosaur. Just three casinos still offer it. El Cortez in downtown Las Vegas has six tables, the Western (8th and Fremont, four blocks east of the Fremont Street Experience) has one table, and the Four Queens has two tables.
"Single deck" that pays only 6 to 5 should not be considered real blackjack; it is a sucker game that should be avoided, along with other mutations that have popped up in recent years. For more information on these games, visit BJ21.com's Blackjack Games to Avoid: www.bj21.com/bj_reference/pages/41143.html"
Even though it has the 3-2 payoff, I don't recommend playing single deck at the Four Queens because it uses a cut card (believed to be the only casino in Nevada to do so on a single deck). This creates a phenomenon known as the "cut-card effect." When the cut card appears, it signifies the last round of play and causes the dealer to shuffle (after that round). This means that the shuffle is timed after an approximate number of cards are dealt, instead of after a specified number of rounds. Using a cut card favors the house in terms of expectation -- negatively affecting both card counters and non-counters, regardless of their skill levels or betting strategies. A player who plays a game with a fixed number of rounds will do better than he will in the same game with a cut card.
In Laughlin, the Riverside has 19 traditional single-deck tables, and three other Laughlin casinos have two single-deck tables each. Mesquite's four casinos all had at least one single-deck table until 2006, when all Mesquite casinos except Eureka removed their single-deck games. Eureka still offers one single-deck table.
Traditional single deck is the predominant form of blackjack in the Reno area (including Carson City, but not Lake Tahoe), and in Wendover.
Some casinos restrict doubling down on their single decks to two-card hands of 10 or 11. This rule is acceptable on single deck but not on any other form of blackjack.
For detailed information on blackjack games see Current Blackjack News at www.bj21.com/ads/cbjn1.shtml".
Al Rogers is general manager of Stanford Wong's Pi Yee Press, which publishes the monthly Current Blackjack News, and is also the operator of popular advantage play websites www.BJ21.com and www.SharpSportsBetting.com. He was a professional blackjack player for three years and is still active as a player of casino games in which he can gain a mathematical advantage.
