High limit online blackjack

Examined dispassionately, gambling really is a strange animal. I remember when I used to play blackjack at my local casino and I'd take in $50 with the aim of doubling it. Sometimes I'd be successful and have the restraint to take my $100 and, as custom had it, put it towards the traditional next day ski excursion. Lift tickets on the casi' we'd call it.

The more usual scenario of course was a roller coaster of highs and lows over an hour or so of low limit blackjack, followed by a penniless exit from the tables lamenting what might have been. But even hit with a crushing $50 loss (big bucks back in the student days) there was always a strange acceptance that fair value has been obtained from the $50 investment; which in many ways is quite a ludicrous notion.

Are there any other products or services in the world that have you handing over cash only to have it vaporize before your eyes (assuming you lose) with nothing tangible received in return, without thinking you've been robbed? Aside from investments in equity markets of late and ponzi schemes I can't think of too many.

Of course this is an oversimplification of the act of gambling. The value to be had is the anticipation of a winning. The stirring of a very primal greed gene that lurks in most of us and that continually tells us that a dollar won is twice as sweet as a dollar earned. A member of Britain's House of Commons summed this up succinctly when proclaiming gambling as a principle inherent in nature. But a key component gambling is of course the belief of a fair chance of winning. Any excitement derived from a punt is severely dulled by any suspicion, justified or not, that you are playing against a loaded dice.

So how does all this relate to live dealer casinos? Well let me answer this with a hypothetical scenario.

Imagine you're a high roller playing blackjack online. Playing $1000 a hand you are dealt a pair of eights against the dealer's 5 up card. Consistent with blackjack basic strategy you split your eights, stump up the additional $1000 and play the first split hand. Your hit card on the first hand is a 2 for total of 10. Against the dealer's 6 your basic strategy chart tells you to double down so you do. Out comes a 7 for a total of 17. Playing the second hand you are dealt a 3 for a total of 11. Again basic strategy dictates a double down so you do and the hit card this time another 8 for a total of 19.

So there you are with a lazy $4000 now on the table and two reasonable, but very beatable hands going up against the dealer's 5. Now, at this precise point when you are sweating on the outcome of the game, adrenaline surging with a large sum of money at stake, would you rather the dealer's card be generated by a computer random number generator, or an actual dealer dealing from a real deck of cards?