Two things really get me about blackjack: first, people think that other people playing wrong hurts them; second, people think they can “mess with the system” to turn around a “bad streak”. The idea of “random” is a difficult one for humans, I guess, or at least for gamblers, who expect to come out ahead in a game with a house edge.

Whenever I see someone talking about someone else’s play ruining the hand, or the shoe, or whatever, I have this inner Bob the Angry Flower shouting “NO! WRONG! TOTALLY WRONG! WHERE DID YOU LEARN THIS?”

Actually, the funny part of it all is when people are losing, they think that they can fool probability by doing stupid shit like splitting tens and refusing to hit 14 against a 10. I could retire on the amount of money that one idea has made for the Pokagon band.

Filed under: Casinos