What are the odds of someone winning 25 consectutive hands in Blackjack with a 5 deck shoe??

Question

A casino in AZ and person wins 25 consectutive hands and no ties. This was a 5deck shoe.

Answer 1

let me tell you something even with a one shoe deck the greatest card counter in the world could not win 25 hands straight if someone won that many they are cheating or are extremely lucky

Answer 2

Blackjack odds are pretty unpredictable, as they play with usually 6 to 8 decks of cards and don't shuffle until they hit the cut card. Therefore, the odds theoretically change with each deal. There is no real betting strategy based on the chances of a winning hand, and hoping you will win eventually using Martingale (double up on a loss as the win pays even money) is the quickest way to bankruptcy court, as for example a run of 7 losses would mean paying out 2^7 (£128) to win £2 and cover the losses already made. The only betting strategy on BlackJack is to keep a count of the 10s and if there are a lot left in the deck and a lot of the low numbers have gone, bet big. As the dealer has to Hit on a total on 16 or less, you have a greater chance of him going bust. Apart from that, common sense should be used calculating the odds of your hand winning. For example, If the dealer is showing a low card, remember that a 14 for you is as good as a 17, as the dealer will need to keep drawing cards until he gets 17 or more. If a lot of low cards have gone, why should you risk going Bust, when there is a good chance that the Dealer will.

Answer 3

The exact answer depends on the rules and the player's skill. (It does not depend on the number of players at the table, and card counting will only help a little.) Playing perfect basic strategy, the player will win about 43.6% of the time and tie about 8.4%. So, the chance of winning 25 out of 25 hands is about 0.436^25, or about 1 in 1 billion. The chance of winning or tieing all 25 hands is about 1 in 13 million.

However, if you sit down and play blackjack, you may be playing much more than 25 hands, so in a single session of blackjack lasting a couple of hours your chance of winning 25 in a row could be 1 in 5 or 10 million, and your chance of not losing for 25 hands in a row could be as high as 1 in a million.

Although one in 5 or 10 million seems like a slim chance, I don't find the story unbelievable. There are thousands of blackjack tables in use every day. (Nevada alone has over 3000 tables.) There are probably well over 10 million sessions of blackjack played per year, so it shouldn't be too surprising that someone somewhere wins 25 hands in a row every year or so.

Answer 4

Let's get a couple of variables out of the equation first.Forget how many decks are in use or how many people are playing.It really doesn't matter when we are dealing with numbers of this magnitude..Furthermore,let's assume that we have an even chance of winning each hand...[which we don't] OK... That conservatively leaves the probability of 25 consecutive winning hands at 1/2 to the 25th power.The answer is somewhere over 33 million to 1.I've played the game a trillion times and have never even lost anywhere near that many in a row[which,sorry to say,have better odds of occurring.My humble opinion is that it has never happened.Sounds a lot to me like the 4 people who claim that they were each dealt perfect hands in bridge.Meaning that each players 13 card hand consisted of all one suit....Impossible."The Amazing Randy" says it has never happened.I trust him.

Answer 5

Do you have any idea how many players there were? It makes a difference. The chances are something like 1 in a Mil for two players. Six players, the odds are astronomical. I am assuming that it is only two players since in 25 hands all cards would be exhausted.

Answer 6

Assuming they did not shuffle the deck at all and the player played with a 1% edge, such as with card-counting (very hard in a 5-deck shoe) and disciplined hit and stay policy, it would be .51 to the 25th power or 0.000000048893868758223400000; in other words ---- ZILCH in the real world.