Two changes have overrun blackjack tables that are disadvantageous to the player. They are continuous shuffling machines and modified blackjack payouts. Neither are particularly new. Continuous shuffling machines were developed and deployed for the first time almost 10 years ago. And casinos routinely review the rules of blackjack to continue to give to maintain a house edge (which is casino speak for the profit margin built into games).

As a resident of Vegas, and frequent blackjack player, it was years before I ever bothered to learn basic strategy. I would lay down my money at the blackjack table and play using a rudimentary sense of the rules and a weak instinct for "the right move." Over the years, I picked up basic strategy by playing next to players who were more disciplined and better educated at winning than I was. So before I ever picked up a book on basic strategy, I had a decent sense of how it worked.

Casinos know better than anyone how changing the rules of blackjack will affect your odds of winning. The house edge is built into the rules of the game deliberately. So although 21 is one of the rare games where the house advantage is not fixed, casinos continue to find a way to tweak the rules of blackjack to keep their house edge intact.

What is the house advantage? Simply put, it is the profit margin built into the casino's gaming operations to make sure they make money. Most casino payouts pay less than true odds (the probability of an event occurring) so that the casino ensures its cut. The most often used example is the roulette wheel. American roulette has 36 numbered spaces plus zero and double zero. Therefore, your true odds of number 15 being the next number is 1/38.