At least one of these conspiracy theories appears well-founded in the engineering of the most popular shuffler used to deal Three Card Poker, the Ace shuffler. In particular, after years of APs being bashed on the rocks of Three Card Poker hole-carding, all sorts of conspiracy theories about the shufflers were put forward.

On the other hand, APs have theorized some shufflers may actually bias a game against hole-carding, while leaving the overall game fair for the non-advantage-player. Other issues with automatic shufflers have come to light over the years, some of which have allowed APs to beat these machines outright. These ergonomic factors help create hole-carding opportunities. Mostly, the issues have to do with the mechanics of how the dealer grabs the cards from the shuffler, or how the shuffler is placed on the table. As I show in this post and this post, issues with shufflers persist. The history of automatic shufflers has been the history of APs finding ways to beat them.

Instead, as a young card counter, I dutifully spread my bets with the count, while being completely oblivious to the outrageously high edge I could have obtained. If I had any sense at the time, I would have pummeled the thing. Clumps of cards fell through the process virtually untouched. As you may expect, the thing was awful at its job. This one had metal arms that attempted to duplicate the physical act of shuffling like a human might do. Back in 1997, during one of my early outings as a blackjack card counter, I saw my first automatic shuffling machine.

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