newsletter - march 02

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TOURNAMENT TOUR - FEBRUARY 2002
I have just returned from a casino tournament tour on the East Coast of
Australia. This was quite a disastrous tour for me, and if you were ever
thinking of quitting your day  job and joining the tournament circuit,
click on the link below to my tournament diary and you may change your
mind.

http://www.blackjack.iinet.net.au/tournament_diary.html

Oh well.  There are always the bigger money tournaments towards the end
of this year.

THE BEST AND WORST CASINOS IN AUSTRALIA
While at some of the casinos on the east coast I also checked out the
current blackjack rules and conditions. As a result of this (and
valuable contributions from Blackjack Australia visitors on casinos I
couldn't get to) I have finally updated the website.  The site now has a
page dedicated to each casino with contact details, blackjack rules,
basic strategy, table limits and current penetration.

You can visit the website at http://www.blackjack.iinet.net.au and make
your own conclusions as to which are the best and worst casinos in
Australia for card counters. If you would like my opinion though, I
would forget about card counting at Reef, Lasseters, MGM Grand,
Townsville, and both of the Tasmanian casinos.  Although the rules at
some of these casinos may be favourable (the Tassie casinos have the
lowest house edge in the country), they all are so small that it is easy
for a card counter to be noticed, and to be subsequently barred.

I would also add Burswood to the list of casinos to avoid.  Although
size is not an issue here, the introduction of Continuous Shuffling
Machines last year makes card counting impossible.

If any of these are your local casinos, you would be much better off at
one of the online casinos.  During this month, Golden Riviera Casino
(one of the paying sponsors of our site) is offering US$100 free with
your fist deposit of US$100.  Conditions do apply, but with cautious
betting, it is easy to take advantage of this almost AU$200 freebie.
Click on the link below to sign up:

http://196.22.166.226/goldenAffiliates/new/goldenclick.php?btag=graff598

Card counting is still viable at the remaining casinos, although
opportunities are limited to a great extent by the poor penetration at
Star City (currently as bad as 60%).  Crown has excellent penetration,
although it has no $5 tables and a nonsmoking policy that is poorly
enforced.  I am a big fan of the 6 deck games in the Queensland casinos,
and the large number of tables at Treasury in Brisbane makes it a little
easier to play without heat from the pits.

The Verdict
The Worst: Burswood Casino (CSM's don't even give the card counter a
chance)
The Best: Conrad Treasury, Brisbane (Plenty of $5-500 tables and
favourable rules.)

NEXT ISSUE
In the next issue I hope to provide some statistics on blackjack
sidebets that are on offer around the country, and also to provide some
statistics to prove just how bad the payouts are for the game of
'Pontoon' or '21'.

I also welcome any feedback and suggestions for future editions.

Regards

William Swaffer