Picture this, single deck blackjack game in a Nevada casino. A little more than halfway through the deck. The dealer shuffles, a little early, normally they do it with a third of the deck left. Nothing too strange at this point. The hands start coming out. There are almost no high cards. It is very unusual for there to be no tens dealt when they make up 16 of the 52 cards. A couple of hands later, a couple of tens come out and the players make decent winning hands. The dealer reshuffles. By this point my boyfriend whispers to me to watch the shuffle. It took me a couple of shuffles to realize what was going on. At first it just looked weird, but I didn’t catch the cheat at first.

The dealer rippled the cards like she was shuffling, but they weren’t really mixing. Then she’d pretend to cut them, but put the same half back where it originally was. So almost all of the tens were at the bottom of the deck (which never gets dealt). If you know anything about blackjack, the tens are pretty necessary to get good hands . Without them, getting blackjack (10, A) is impossible.

All of the players got really horrible hands except one older Asian lady at the end of the table. At the casino we were at, there’s a side bet called royal match. If your first two cards are of the same suit you win 3 to 1. Some people try their luck and bet that their third card is the same suit as well. It is very rare that people get all three. This lady was hitting it nearly every single time. She was also overeager to cut the cards. Either she was on to what the dealer was doing, or they were working together to screw over the casino/other players.