I took a break from living in Ecuador this week to visit some places where casino blackjack is offered.
In Ecuador, El Supremo pushed through a public referendum about four years ago. In a close vote, casinos were banned. The last ones closed in March 2012.
Anyway, my first Uruguayan casino was in the Radisson Hotel in Colonia del Sacramento, an historic former fortress-town of the Portuguese across the way from Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Visit the Argentina forum later for my posts on casino blackjack in that country.)
There were only a couple of table games open -- the popular roulette -- when my new Israeli buddy and I entered the Radisson casino late on a Thursday night. Past the table games were plenty of slot machines, aka tragamonedas (coin swallowers), no doubt found in all casinos in Uruguay and Argentina.
Two casino bosses were chatting near a closed blackjack table when I approached. They told me the minimum bet was $10 for a hand of blackjack and only U.S. dollars -- not the UR peso -- were accepted for play. I went to the cashier cage and bought in for $100, which amount was then honored in chips at the now-opened blackjack table.
What ensued was my worst run of luck ever in a new-to-me casino in the first ten hands. The dealer won every bet excepting a couple of pushes. She never broke, she kept getting 20 or 21. With no one else playing, my $100 in chips vanished in under three minutes, even though I wagered the minimum table bet each time. Losing ten hands in a row in blackjack is not a rarity, but it's unusual in my experience for it to happen in the first ten hands.
With the chips now in the dealer's tray, the game had stopped. The Israeli fellow and I chatted for a few minutes -- he claimed the game, dealt from a dealing machine, was rigged although he had no evidence to prove his theory. He was waiting for his father and his father's supposedly super-wealthy friend to send him some money via Western Union, so he didn't play in the casino.
He asked me if I wanted to play roulette. We walked over to the roulette table and I asked about the table minimum there. It was $50 a spin. No thank you.
The Israeli had walked off somewhere. I wasn't about to play any table games where I would lose as much as $100 in under three minutes. My gambling was over for the night.
----
The next day, one of the Radisson staff told me there is another casino in Colonia with table games including blackjack. I plan to check on that next.
cccmedia on the road in Colonial del Sacramento, Uruguay
Playing Casino Blackjack in Uruguay
cccmedia wrote:The next day, one of the Radisson staff told me there is another casino in Colonia with table games including blackjack. I plan to check on that next.
cccmedia on the road in Colonial del Sacramento, Uruguay
The other casino, about four blocks from the Radisson, turned out to be slots-only -- so for a blackjack player, the Radisson is the only game in town.
Back there at the Radisson on Night 2, I had them open the blackjack table for me again and played the $10 a hand minimum.
This time, I won my first hand of the Uruguay trip, with a player blackjack, and then won the next several hands. I started to think I'd be back at break-even shortly. The dealer proceded, however, to win eight hands in a row, and within eight minutes of starting, my session was over at my pre-determined loss limit of $100.
The dealer's body language told me he was as frustrated as I was that it was over quickly. He had reported for his nightly shift and after waiting for who knows how long and then dealing for eight minutes he had nobody to deal to. Once again, I had been the only blackjack player in the place. If they want to keep their dealers busy, $10 a hand is a bit much for a player minimum. In the old days in Ecuador, $5 was usually the minimum in the fancier casino-hotels and a $1 or $2 minimum could be found in some of the less-classy places.
cccmedia on the road in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay
Outside of your disappointing gambling experience, what other news from Uruguay?
Interested to hear your take on the visit.
I'm heading back to Uruguay -- Montevideo and Punta del Este -- after one more day here in Argentina's capital where I'm finishing up a 9-day visit.
I'll post more about Uruguay and Argentina on their respective forums as I learn more, but on this thread, only about blackjack. Up next: blackjack in the capital of Uruguay.
cccmedia from Buenos Aires
My trip strategy of not losing more than $100 a session while leaving my upside unrestricted .. paid off at the first casino I visited in Montevideo. Over the course of 90 minutes, I won back most of the Colonia losses with a $171 win at table-minimum bets of US$6.
The government-owned casino at the Radisson at Plaza Independencia is a fancy place with first-rate air conditioning, something I would have enjoyed on hot-day visits to the Buenos Aires casinos last week.
They have liberal rules such as: split aces can be hit multiple times and double down allowed on any two first cards.
I drew a pair of 7's on the first hand, split them against a small dealer upcard .. and won both hands. The second 7 drew yet another 7, but the otherwise liberal rules did allow for a re-split. Nevertheless, after the Colonia train wreck, it was a pleasure to get ahead early and stay ahead the whole session at this casino.
They comped me to a free beverage, another benefit not seen in Argentina.
A pit boss who was roaming around even gave me a big smile when he saw that my buy-in chip piles had tripled in size.
cccmedia from Montevideo
After a meal break at The Manchester restaurant off Plaza Independencia, I taxied over to Casino Parque .. near Parque Rodó and the seaside Rambla riverwalk.
It's in a one-story red roof building that a passerby from out of town would never guess had a casino inside. There is no casino signage at all on the exterior of the building, possibly because it would clash with the verdant park across the street.
This casino had one blackjack table open. The dealer told me they never open the second table .. not on weekends -- this was a Saturday evening -- and not even during Carnaval.
The rules were nowhere near as liberal as at the government casino. Double downs are allowed only when the player's first two cards total 10 or 11. The minimum bet was US$9.
I lost five units during half an hour of blackjack, playing the minimum .. but had some wonderful experiences in and around the parque before and after the session. There's more about that on the Uruguay forum thread titled “Focus on Montevideo: The Rodó Park Area.” (Dedicated to you, Focus Properties.
)
https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=566108
The session at Casino Parque was marred during the last ten minutes or so by a local player who kept slamming the table any time he wanted a face card dealt to him. I've seen players in the U.S. who have adopted this bad habit. Unfortunately, if Mr. Slammer shows up at your table and it's the only blackjack table in the casino, your choice is to ask him to stop it, put up with it or leave the pit. I chose the latter rather than confront him or try to abide it further.
cccmedia from Montevideo
I visited the Casino Carrasco, named after the upscale sector where it is located and housed inside a 50-foot-tall domed structure attached to the back (non-waterfront side) of the Sofitel Luxury Hotel.
In spite of the hotel's middle name, the minimum bet limit at blackjack was lower at this casino than at the understated Parque Casino, namely 300 pesos or $9. A second table that opened during my visit took U.S. dollars only with a $10 limit. I played the pesos table and there were no other players at either 21 table. The whole casino had more employees than players on a late Monday afternoon.
The rules at Casino Carrasco are liberal -- double any first two cards, double after split. But split aces get only one hit-card per ace.
The main slots area connected with the casino is in another section of the building so you don't hear all the slot machine noises while playing blackjack, but they were blaring pop music into the table-games area. I put my earplugs in, only taking one out when the pit boss started chatting me up about where I was from and how El Supremo closed all the Ecuador casinos in 2011-12.
One one hand I played, the rookie dealer I had for most of my session hit my 16 with a 7 and didn't take down the cards. Finally, I gave her the (usually unnecessary) signal that I was standing pat and not taking another card. She then cleared the cards off the table. ”Nunca pido más una carta cuando tengo veintitrés,” I said to the pit boss. I never take another hit card when I reach 23.
Carrasco is way over on the east side of Montevideo, so not convenient to the other two blackjack places in town. The Sofitel is right at the beach, so a player might consider taking a break from play to watch folks flying kites and strolling on the rambla walkway.
cccmedia from Montevideo
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