Blackjack Card Clumping

What is Blackjack Card Clumping, and how can I avoid it? When any new cards are bought into play, usually a six deck shoe, and at the beginning of a new round of play, the manner in which they are shuffled may cause these cards to get clumped together. This effectively results in cards of a similar suit or denomination getting clumped together within the shoe. This will result in the cards not being dealt in a random manner.

Where clumping occurs, it can have the effect that when new cards are brought into play, the house will have an increased advantage caused through inadequate shuffling of the new decks. Now different casinos will have different methods on how they shuffle their decks. So it can’t be said that clumping occurs at every casino.

Some unscrupulous casinos in the past have been accused of deliberately clumping cards to avoid card counters. This is because card counting solely relies upon the random order of cards. A disproportionate amount of high or low cards as a result of clumping will totally obliterate the counting process, rendering the card counters activities useless. Any casino that deliberately clumps cards is referred to as throwing in a ’slug’.

If you are in any doubt as to whether card clumping has occurred, the best approach would be to avoid playing a Blackjack table for the first four or five shoes of a new shift at a casino.