Feeling charitable? Think again

Strategy cards. The golden crutch of the uninitiated blackjack hopefuls. The magic ticket for the disillusioned. The backup plan for the masses. Everyone who’s ever been in a casino knows you can always rely on trusty strategy cards to help you through the tough situations – even if you foolishly choose not to listen.

That, I never understood. Consulting a strategy card and then doing something else. It’s like directly refusing to acknowledge probabilities. Doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, a recent debate surfaced that intrigued me. You might know the cheat card like the back of your girlfriend’s ass, but does it make sense for you to “enlighten” others in the casino? Believe me, I can understand the desire. Every time I overhear some electronics employee talk about a television or blu-ray player to a potential customer, it takes all of my self-control to avoid strangling the guys for the false, misguided and deceptive sales pitches. Lord knows I could’ve stopped dozens of Monster HDMI cord sales, but I digress.

Here are a few arguments for and against handing out cheat cards like they were slices of chocolate cake in an office.

1) It hurts the game. What? How could it hurt the game? Well, think of it this way. The fewer people that actually know how to get the best of the blackjack dealer, the more money the casino makes. The more money the casino makes, the more inviting they make the game for others. Now, this can only stand to help the small minority who are doing their best to exploit the game amid a sea of double down suckers. But if more people (hell, even 2% more) had access to information that would be them better, and the patience to adjust to what they’re saying, that likely would result in less money to the casino, and thus a probably adverse reaction against the game – ultimately hurting the small minority. A stretch perhaps, but a believable course of events nonetheless. We all know (those of us who aren’t idiots) that the average players’ bad play doesn’t really affect us. But if everyone played smart, the casinos just wouldn’t be able to sustain or justify offering blackjack anymore.

2) It would help the game. The feeling here goes: If more average players knew more, games with worse rules for the players would be less busy. Complaints against crap like H17 tables would skyrocket. This could shoehorn the casinos into offering better rules on a more consistent basis for the players, and ultimately help the game. Many experts believe casinos are getting away with much more now than yesteryear because players know much less about the game than they did a few decades ago.

My thoughts? Why draw attention to yourself. Neither 1 nor 2 will happen overnight, so neither are likely to affect you at all. But if you start giving advice to other players, whether it’s “allowed” or not, you put a target sign on your head. And who the hell needs that, right?