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Comment by gexla | Hacker News Reader

There's no skill element if there's a house edge. The house edge is how the casino makes money. If there's no house edge, then you're essentially renting services from the casino to run a sort of player market. For example, with poker, the casino takes a percentage of the pot, which is known as the rake.

One possible exception of the above is that at times you may get favorable rules from the casino where you can get a small edge with certain games. One example is blackjack. Perfect play of blackjack does require skill, but perfect play is a ceiling. There is effectively no ceiling (no perfect play) with a game such as poker.

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Don't casinos ban players who for example know how to count cards? This would imply that skills may trump the house edge, and thus a bot that would know how to stop (ie how to hide their skill) could stay ahead.

They do in the games where you're playing against the casino (blackjack). However, counting of cards isn't illegal so they ban you for playing too well. In poker the players play against each other and there is no risk to the casino's money.

Blackjack is an oddball game which involves skill and chance. But chance dominates such that it's still likely considered a game of chance.

Skill in blackjack is to play a perfect game. That is, you don't make errors. Counting cards may be considered part of playing a perfect game.

The rules of Blackjack set the house edge. In some cases, a perfect game (including counting cards) could elevate the player such that the player has a small edge. In that case, the player may come out ahead and the casino may eventually stop working with that player. It's rare that a casino hands this to the player as an option though AFAIK. I have heard of casinos negotiating rules with "whales."

Usually, a perfect game won't elevate a player above the line of house edge. Among the rules which narrow the edge is shuffling with multiple decks of cards. If the casino is using multiple decks, then card counting is useless.

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