Other comments on this actually interesting thread:

1. Plenty of doctors and lawyers and executive enjoy playing for significnat money, even knowing that they will be long-term losers. I've seen plenty of them in Atlantic city, including an accountant on a hot streak who turned $1000 into $36000 in one shoe of blackjack playing solo against the dealer. The scary thing is that after getting up to $36k, he was up $2000 for the night. Again, this was an accountant. They enjoy the gamble and the rush it gives them.

2. The point about $100 BJ being better for the players than $100/200 poker is true. If they can't play poker well, but they insist on playing high stakes for fun, they keep their cost down by playing a game like blackjack.

3. Most folks do NOT play to anything like 10% disadvantage at blackjack. It's hard to hit -10% without intentionally trying to lose. Many deviations to Basic -- the most common ones, in fact -- are not that harmful. People routinely get chastised for not hitting hard 15 or 16 against a dealer T, when it really makes little or no differnce what they do. It's a high-percentage loser either way, and the difference is very tiny.

4. On people knowing better: years ago, I deal with a major published author of a book on blackjack who was convinced that he was reading tells from blackjack dealers who were checking for blackjacks using a hole-card reader system at casinos in Atlantic City. He did not understand how the readers worked, and thought that the dealers would know know, when there was no blackjack, whether the dealer held a stiff or not. They dealers could NOT. I knew this because I had used the card readers and had trained people to use them. It took me a long time to explain to him how and why they worked, after which he realized that they dealers really had no knowledge of the down card. Meanwhile, during those same weeks, he had been playing, 'reading tells,' and compiling data to evaluate how well he was reading the tells. Incidentally, his numbers were pretty good -- but within variance. On days that he was running bad, he critized his skill at reading the dealer. People can convince themselves of anything as long as they think it's possible!

5. On the fairness of Party BJ: I would trust Party as much as any major house in Vegas, and vice-versa. I would worry about smaller houses in Vegas before worrying about Party, and I have doubts about smaller BJ sites online, as well. No sizable gambling organization risks their good name (and enormous profit flow) on attempts to juice their game by cheating. If they want more juice, they just add an unfavorable rule for the player. The only places that cheat are those that get so little business they have nothing to lose, so they just try to tap out whoever they can entice to walk in.

6. Aren't I a windbag?