My character has a base Luck stat of 5, so I figured that for gambling in NV this would probably translate roughly to the mostly rather rotten luck must of us have if we try real world/online gambling. Sure enough, slots, roulette, blackjack - I kept losing a lot more than I won.

Since I had a hard time finding any in-game items that increase the Luck stat I modded a business suit to first add +3 to Luck, and when I kept losing just as much I gave it a +5, figuring that having a Luck stat total of 10 (and I have checked under my status to see if the stat bonus is properly applied, it is) would surely mean that my character ought to be almost supernaturally lucky in the world of Fallout.
I just spent 20 minutes hitting the slots and playing blackjack plus a bit of roulette and left the casino with a few hundred chips less than I had when I went in.

What's going on here? Is 10 actually supposed to be the number where your luck is "normal" and the games are coded to real world standards (ie. a house edge around 0.50% or so for blackjack), and anything less than 10 in Luck means that you're unusually unlucky?

gambling with 9 luck earned me over 30,000 caps.

i guess im just lucky liek dat

Playing with five luck feels like "real world." Playing with 9 or 10 luck feels like cheating.

I would assume you actually have to know what you're doing when it comes to Blackjack, though. Randomly hitting "hit" or "double down" isn't going to net you much.

I wouldn't be surprised if the game was bugged and simply used your base Luck without factoring in outfit bonuses.

I had a thorough look at some blackjack strategy sheets some days ago, and while I may make a mistake on occasion (haven't printed it out and since I'm running the game in full screen I can't quickly switch back and forth between game and strategy sheet) I should mostly be following established guidelines.

Go to Las Vegas and put down some money on the tables. Watch how quickly you lose it all. In that sense, New Vegas is alot like Las Vegas today. Gambling is a gamble.

I think that each casino has its own payout percentage though. Don't quote me on that, I've just been noticing that I can win at one casino more often than the others... By huge amounts. Again... Do not take this as fact. I'm just stating what I observed.

I'm not trying to say you're a bad blackjack player. It was just a possibility I was exploring. Here's some major tips if you're struggling:

Aces are both 1 and 11.
When your first two cards equal between 8 and 11 then it's usually a good idea to double down. Especially with high luck.
If your cards equal anything over 16/17 then it's better to just hold.

every now and then after a win you get a message thats says your feeling lucky....thats when you max out your bets. I would guess if your luck is already high then you are always feeling lucky.

It seems that the Luck bonus from the suit just didn't "take" before for some reason, but I just tried it again and I was winning almost constantly in blackjack.