• You want to have more than one deck of cards available during a poker game in case a card is damaged during play. Professional cards usually come in sets of two decks. You should always have at least three sets of cards in the room. Superstitious poker players will ask for deck changes as well as entire set-up changes.
• Roulette and slots cost the player more - house advantages of 5.3% for double-zero roulette and 5% to 10% for slots - while the wheel of fortune feeds the casino near 20% of the wagers, and keno is a veritable casino cash cow with average house advantage close to 30%.
• Each poker table at a casino poker room will typically have two decks. One is being dealt for the current hand and one is being shuffled by the auto-shuffler so it is ready for the next hand as soon as the current hand is over.

Cards expand after they are first used. 6 Really, really used decks look about like 8 fresh casino decks(or 6 casino decks, look like 8 used decks). Have you ever seen a deck of jailhouse cards? They look like an accordian. You should only worry about this, if you practice alot with real decks.

I was very bored today.
Poker traditionally has to be played with one deck. When you have more than one deck, the entire face of the game changes - more hands become possible, the probability of some hands changes drastically, and so on.

Do Casinos Use More Than One Deck In Poker Room

To demonstrate this, I decided to analyze poker with two decks of cards. As I calculate it, this is the correct ranking of hands:
Royal flush
Five of a kind
Straight flush
Flush with two pair
Four of a kind
Flush with one pair
Flush with no pairs (1)
Full house
Unflushed straight
Three of a kind
Two pair
One pair
High card
Note 1: You could, if you liked, join a flush with one pair and a flush with no pairs. Then, a full house would beat them. Flush with two pair is rare enough that it should stay separate, though.
All ties are handled in the same way they would be in normal poker.
Some notes:

• I tried to stick to the framework of basic poker hands as best I could. Because of this, five of a kind and flushes with pairs seemed like necessary additions. You could add all kinds of other spiffy hands if you wanted to (i.e. does having a suited pair make it better?), but that's beyond the point of my analysis.
• The Royal flush being top dog seemed like something players would expect, so I included it. If you preferred, you could consider the Royal to be a straight flush, with five of a kind being better. As long as the Royal flush is considered separately, however, it wins: there are 128 Royals and only 728 fives-of-a-kind.
• With five decks, the Royal flush gets dethroned as the best hand, because a flushed five of a kind (with only 52 possibilities) would be king. I'm not sure how adding more decks would affect this, however.

For the curious (and peer review), here are my actual calculations for each hand. 'C' means combinations, e.g. 8C3 is the number of combinations for drawing 3 items out of a list of 8, derived from the formula nCr = n! / ( (n-r)! * r! )
Edit: I forgot to account for flushed vs. unflushed pairs. Embarrassing! The new numbers are correct.
Royal flush:
4 different suits to flush in
2 different ways of getting each card in the royal flush
2
2
2
2
128 different Royal flushes
Five of a kind:
13 different ranks
8C5=56 different ways of getting five cards of that rank
728 different fives-of-a-kind
Straight flush:
4 different suits to flush in
9 different high cards (since Ace high gives royal flush)
2 different ways of getting each card in that particular straight flush
2
2
2
2
1172 different straight flushes
Flush with two pair:
4 different suits to flush in
13C2=78 combinations of ranks for pairs
11 different ranks for fifth card
1 combination for first pair in suit
1 combination for second pair in suit
2 cards possible for fifth card in given rank
6884 different flushes with two pair
Four of a kind:
13 different ranks for four-of-a-kind
12 different ranks for fifth card
8C4=70 combinations for four-of-a-kind
8 different cards of rank for fifth card
87360 different fours-of-a-kind
Flush with one pair:
4 different suits to flush in
13 different ranks for pair
12C3=220 combinations of ranks for extra cards
1 combination for pair
2 ways of getting each extra card in chosen rank and suit
2
2
91520 different flushes with one pair
Flush with no pairs:
4 different suits to flush in
13C5=1287 combinations of ranks for five cards
2 ways of getting each card in chosen rank and suit
2
2
2
2
164738 different flushes with no pairs, including straight flushes
Subtract 1172 straight flushes
163566 different flushes with no pairs or straight

Do Casinos Use More Than One Deck In Poker Tournament

Full house:
13 different ranks for three-of-a-kind
12 remaining ranks for pair
8C3=56 combinations for three-of-a-kind
8C2=28 combinations for pair
244608 different full houses
Unflushed straight:
10 different high cards for a straight
8 ways of getting each card in the straight
8
8
8
8
327680 different straights, including straight flushes
Subtract 1172 straight flushes
326508 different unflushed straights
Three of a kind:
13 different ranks for three-of-a-kind
12C2=66 combinations for ranks of extra cards
8C3=56 combinations for three-of-a-kind
8 different cards for fourth card
8 different cards for fifth card
3075072 different threes-of-a-kind
Unflushed two pair:
13C2=78 combinations of ranks for pairs
11 different ranks for fifth card
8C2=28 combinations for first pair
8C2=28 combinations for second pair
8 different cards of rank for remaining card
5381376 different hands with two pair
Subtract 6884 different flushes with two pair
5374492 different unflushed hands with two pair
Unflushed pair:
13 different ranks for pair
12C3=220 combinations of ranks for extra cards
8C2=28 combinations for pair
8 different cards for each remaining extra card
8
8
41000960 different hands with one pair
Subtract 91520 different flushes with one pair
40909440 different unflushed hands with one pair
High card:
13C5=1287 combinations of ranks with no matches
8 ways of getting each card
8
8
8
8
42172416 different hands that do not contain a pair, three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, or five-of-a-kind
Subtract 327680 different straights (including straight flushes)
Subtract 163566 different flushes with no pairs (not including straight flushes)
41681170 hands that contain no other hand

I was very bored today.

I'll say! This reminds me of some of the stuff that floats around the internet. It's entertaining, but always leaves me thinking 'Somebody has a lot of free time.'

i.e. does having a suited pair make it better?

Yes.
It's no different than the suited five of a kind in five deck poker that you mentioned.
Similarly, many Black Jack side bets pay X for specific cards, but pay more if they are suited.

i.e. does having a suited pair make it better?

Yes.
It's no different than the suited five of a kind in five deck poker that you mentioned.
Similarly, many Black Jack side bets pay X for specific cards, but pay more if they are suited.
Well, the flushed five of a kind is a special case: it's a flush, and it's five of a kind. Same with a straight flush (or for that matter, a Royal) in normal poker. You certainly could say that suited pairs are better, but keep in mind that there's a difference between, say, a suited pair of aces, and a flush with a pair of aces.

I didn't check all of your figures, but I disagree with your Two Pair / Three of a Kind result:

Three of a Kind
trips ..... combin(13,1)*combin(8,3) = 728
kickers ... combin(12,2)*combin(8,1)*combin(8,1) = 4224
total ..... 728 * 4224 = 3,075,072 (this agrees with your total)
Two Pair
pairs .... combin(13,2)*combin(8,2)*combin(8,2) = 61152
kicker ... combin(11,1)*combin(8,1) = 88
total .... 61152 * 88 = 5,381,376 (this is much higher than your total)

The above Two Pair figure does not subtract the counts for suited Two Pair hands if they are deemed to be higher in rank than other Two Pair hands. Nevertheless, the figures show that Three of a Kind is still a better-ranking hand than Two Pair.

Yeah, that looks right. I'm not sure where my mistake was, but it seems to be in punching numbers into my calculator. How I made the exact same mistake more than once is a bit weird, but whatever. I'll change it.

Yeah, that looks right. I'm not sure where my mistake was, but it seems to be in punching numbers into my calculator. How I made the exact same mistake more than once is a bit weird, but whatever. I'll change it.

I think you missed the last factor of 8, which corresponds to the suit of the kicker. You listed it, but forgot to include it in the calculation.Wizard
Administrator
I have a table for poker combinations with 1 to 8 decks here. Scroll down to 'Multi-Deck Probabilities.'The Casino I work at is getting a 6 deck Texas Hold'Em table game next month. 5 of a kind suited is the best hand. It's called Texas Shootout. It's reviewed on the Wizard of Odds site and looks pretty cool.

The Casino I work at is getting a 6 deck Texas Hold'Em table game next month. 5 of a kind suited is the best hand. It's called Texas Shootout. It's reviewed on the Wizard of Odds site and looks pretty cool.

Here's the Wiz's page on it: http://wizardofodds.com/texasshootout
Looks kinda interesting.
Where do you work?

Do Casinos Use More Than One Deck In Poker Real Money

On a side note: Would that be advertising? Nah. I'd bet that the Wiz wouldn't want you to mention your casino in every post, but since this is tied to the thread's topic, I doubt he'd mind a quick plug.

Do Casinos Use More Than One Deck In Poker Tournaments