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Baccarat is a purely mechanical game from the house perspective. Even if the dealer had perfect premonition and telepathy, the behavior of the house would not c

Baccarat is a purely mechanical game from the house perspective. Even if the dealer had perfect premonition and telepathy, the behavior of the house would not change. > Sun trained herself to identify aberrations along the left or right margins of the card backs, no wider than 1/32 of an inch, the Times reported. Also, the imperfection was 1/32 of an inch, not 1/32 of the card width. Though the wording is ambiguous; it may be that the margin was 1/32 of an inch, in which case the imperfections within the margin were even smaller.

EdHominem 10y ago
> Even if the dealer had perfect premonition and telepathy, the behavior of the house would not change. Yes, but we can't say nobody cheated before because they could have done it silently. All we can say is that nobody caught this method before. As for the house's motive, perhaps the hypothetical dealer is helping a confederate win in the same way as in this story, but just to a lesser amount. This also isn't the only card game this would work in. > the imperfection was 1/32 of an inch, not 1/32 of the card width. Right, I said it wrong but that's where I got 1/80th from. And yeah, it would be a fraction of a millimeter. But with proper technique (such as is used to check for marked backs anyways) of riffling through them, you'd see the shape move around. I also worked in something similarly finicky and know from experience that difference is easily within normal ability to spot. Anyways, the point is that there are two parties who are possibly hurt by marked cards - the house and its customers. The customers don't get the opportunity to inspect the game pieces so the responsibility should fall fully on the house. If they had skin in the game they'd try harder. But if they can rollback customer wins with it, it becomes a feature. Why look too hard, if at all?

EdHominem 10y ago

> Even if the dealer had perfect premonition and telepathy, the behavior of the house would not change. Yes, but we can't say nobody cheated before because they could have done it silently. All we can say is that nobody caught this method before. As for the house's motive, perhaps the hypothetical dealer is helping a confederate win in the same way as in this story, but just to a lesser amount. This also isn't the only card game this would work in. > the imperfection was 1/32 of an inch, not 1/32 of the card width. Right, I said it wrong but that's where I got 1/80th from. And yeah, it would be a fraction of a millimeter. But with proper technique (such as is used to check for marked backs anyways) of riffling through them, you'd see the shape move around. I also worked in something similarly finicky and know from experience that difference is easily within normal ability to spot. Anyways, the point is that there are two parties who are possibly hurt by marked cards - the house and its customers. The customers don't get the opportunity to inspect the game pieces so the responsibility should fall fully on the house. If they had skin in the game they'd try harder. But if they can rollback customer wins with it, it becomes a feature. Why look too hard, if at all?