One of last week’s most viral Vegas videos featured a guy dramatically revealing a tangle of sensors taped beneath the betting zones of a blackjack table stripped of its felt.

A.I. renders a visual of a blackjack dealer ripping off a blackjack player. (Image: Microsoft CoPilot)

“This is it right here, this is why I don’t gamble,” he declares in a clip posted by X user @JOKAQARMY under the title: “This is how they get you at these gambling tables.”

“So you want to play 21?” the narrator continues, mimicking a dealer as he places imaginary cards around the table. “Let’s put your cards here, here, here, here. And guess what?”

A still from the viral video proving that casinos are out to get you. (Image: X/@JOKAQARMY)

The video, which received more than 1 million views on just the day it was posted, purports to expose what the narrator thinks are a series of electronic contraptions used by casinos to rig blackjack outcomes.

“The table knows who got what!” he insists. “The card machine that’s distributing the cards gonna mix them around in that!”

At this point, he’s suggesting that the automatic shuffler rigs the cards to bust players — shades of the Mafia-tampered private poker games at the center of the NBA sports betting scandal recently busted by the FBI.

Of course, his claim collapses under the weight of basic blackjack mechanics.

Spoiler: blackjack is played face up. Unlike poker, everyone already knows who has what. In fact, there are no live games in a casino in which you play against the house with secret cards.

“Come on man, I’m not stupid!” the narrator claims.

Well…

Missed Perception

Casinos don’t need to cheat. They only need to exist. The odds are entirely stacked in their favor statistically — and legally.

The companies that own them (especially the corporate giants that have run every Strip property for the past 40 years) wouldn’t risk gaming license revocation, stock collapse and CEO prison sentences by cheating even a single player illegally when the legal way works so flawlessly on everyone.

Of course, they will risk all that to let an illegal bookie bet. (Sorry, Resorts World, Wynn Resorts, MGM Resorts International and, as of just last week, Caesars Entertainment, we digress!)

Seriously, expecting anything more out from a casino table game than a good time as you slowly lose your bankroll is hardly an exercise in strategic brilliance.

And, since the pandemic, the casinos’ legal edge has only increased with:

• 6/5 blackjack (now standard on the Strip) increases the house edge by 1.39% over the classic 3/2 payout.
• Triple-zero roulette adds 2.43% to the house edge over double-zero, and a whopping 4.99% over the now-extinct single-zero game.
• Higher table minimums ensure low rollers lose faster — with less play, less comps and less fun

“The only way to win money out of a casino is to own one,” Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying — except he didn’t. That’s another myth.

So What Was Under That Blackjack Table?

A topless RFID table advertised by the Macau company MacauMr. Because the cost of each table is so high (around $10,000), they’re primarily found in high-limit areas for the moment. (Image: MacauMr)

A Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) gaming table — a table wired with network of sensors and antennae designed to track chips, not cards.

RFID tables serve four very legitimate, non-sinister purposes:

• Player Rating Accuracy: Scanning chips to track wager amounts, hands played, and average bet size — replacing pit-boss guesswork with comp-worthy data.
• Security: Detecting counterfeit or stolen chips, mid-hand bet tampering, suspicious bet spreads, and dealer theft — all in real time.
• Operational Efficiency: Monitoring dealer speed, table productivity, chip inventory and profitability. Enables cashless play and analytics integration.
• Responsible Gaming Surveillance: Linking chips to player cards to flag excessive play and support problem gambling detection.

So yes, the table is secretly watching. But it’s secretly watching your bets, not your cards.

As for that guy’s claim not to be stupid… If you value holding onto your money, then whatever reason you happen to choose not to gamble in a casino turns out to be smart.

The post VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Casinos Rig Your Cards appeared first on Casino.org.