From Las Vegas Advisor www.lasvegasadvisor.com
Q:
You have probably answered this before, but I was curious. I see the playing cards in gift shops that are marked "played in a casino" or something similar. Sometimes they give them out when you sign up for a player’s card. So how long does a deck of cards last in a casino? How old are they when they are removed and sold?
A:
Sometimes we wonder if we’ve run out of new QoDs, when all we receive is questions we’ve already addressed, but then we get surprised and find a whole batch of interesting new queries in the "in" box. Today’s query we have actually answered before, but it was a while ago, so here’s that information again for everyone who missed it the first time around.
According both to the principal casino-supply company, and to various casino-floor personnel to whom we posed the question, the average lifespan of a deck of casino cards is approximately eight hours or less, depending on certain variables, including what game they’re being used for and how careful the players are. Calls to some specific casinos revealed the following, which presumably holds true today, since :
•Bally’s generally changes decks once per shift (i.e., every eight hours), although in games where they’re handled more by the players, like poker and pai gow poker, this increases to once every four hours.
•Bellagio changes cards on the main casino floor at least once every shift, but more frequently if any card in a deck in play is seen to be bent or marked. In the poker room, we were informed it could be anything from every two hours to two days, depending on how much and how carefully they’re handled by the players. The buyer at Bellagio, which has 150+ table games, excluding the poker room, informed us that there was a weekly order for 60 cases of cards, or 8,640 new decks.
•At Binion’s we were told that the poker room changes the cards when they are damaged in any way (bent, marked, soiled by a spilled drink. etc.), or if a player requests it. For tournaments, they try to change the deck at every new level. Table layouts are changed as needed. The 21 pit changes a single deck every two hours and a shoe every eight hours. The dice pit changes the dice every shift.
•The poker room at what was Fitzgeralds when we first answered this, now the D, informed us that cards are changed once a week, while the dice pit changes dice every eight hours. Table layouts are changed only as needed. As far as blackjack’s concerned, cards, are changed every 24 hours in the 8-deck shoes, while 6-deck shoes are replaced every six hours.
•A floor person from another downtown casino, who opted to stay anonymous, wrote in to inform that at their property, cards on shoe games are changed once daily, while on pitch games it’s every 2-4 hours, or as needed by condition. They explained that on a typical weekday, go through about 175-200 decks, while on weekends it’s more like 250-300 decks.
•A poker-playing reader also wrote in with some useful clarification: "Poker rooms change decks every level in tournaments, or when requested by a player in cash games, but the deck is not removed from play. They change from one color to the other and the deck being removed is used again on the next level. Poker decks are plastic, hence more durable, so two weeks is about right for a deck to actually be taken out of play and removed from the poker room."
•Used casino dice are another souvenir you may find in the gift shop and in addition to the information we were afforded above by individual casinos, there was a report commissioned back in 2003 by what was then Paulson Gaming, now part of GPI, the biggest casino-supplier in the world, according to which a stick of dice (two and one-half pair) does not remain in play for more than eight hours in a busy casino while, in order to maintain their appearance, the table layouts are replaced by casinos on a regular basis, which is generally within 60 to 150 days.
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