Question of the Day - 17 April 2009

According both to the casino-supply company that we consulted and to some casino floor personnel to whom we've posed this inquiry , the average lifespan of a deck of casino cards is generally eight hours or less, depending on certain variables, including what game they're being used for and how careful the players are. Calls to some specific casinos revealed the following:

• Bally's generally changes decks once per shift (i.e., every eight hours), although in games where they're handled more by the players, like poker and pai gow poker, this increases to once every four hours.

• Bellagio changes cards on the main casino floor at least once every shift, but more frequently if any card in a deck in play is seen to be bent or marked. In the poker room, we were informed it could be anything from every two hours to two days, depending on how much and how carefully they're handled by the players.
• At Binion's we were told that the poker room changes the cards when they have a problem (bent, marked, soiled by a spilled drink. etc.) or if a player requests it. For tournaments, they try to change the deck at every new level. Table layouts are changed as needed. The 21 pit changes a single deck every two hours and a shoe every eight hours. The dice pit changes the dice every shift.

And the very helpful buyer at Bellagio, which has well over 150 table games, excluding the poker room, informed us that he has a weekly order for 60 cases of cards, meaning he has 8,640 new decks on hand.

And some more great feedback right from the horses's mouth -- many thanks for this one! "I'm a floor person at another downtown casino. We change cards on shoe games once a day and every 2-4 hours on pitch games or as needed by condition. A typical weekday we go through about 175-200 decks. On the weekends it's more like 250-300 decks." Some clarification on poker decks from a reader: Poker rooms change decks every level in tournaments, or when requested by a player in cash games but the deck is not removed from play. They change from one color to the other and the deck being removed is used again on the next level. Poker decks are plastic and the two weeks is about right for a deck to actually be taken out of play and removed from the poker room.