Situation
Hold’em. Instead of burning three cards, the dealer burns four cards, and then deals out the river. The players notice this has happened and agree that the dealer accidentally burned twice on the river. However, the dealer smashed the burns into the stub and they are not retrievable.
A.I. Floor Decision
In this situation, we have established that it was a dealer error that caused the extra card to be burned. However, since the cards have already been mixed into the stub and are not retrievable, there’s nothing we can do to reverse the situation.
Ruling: The hand will continue as is, and the river card dealt will stand as the river card.
Reasoning: The purpose of the burn card is to protect the integrity of the game by ensuring there’s no card visibility or marking. An extra burn card does not directly influence the game results since it’s completely random, and the used card was not destined to be part of the game play, it’s seen as a card out of play. Yes, the error may have indirectly affected the outcome of the game but in a way that’s impossible to quantify or correct. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a harmless mistake that doesn’t affect the integrity of the game. Future, I would advise the dealer to take more care when burning and dealing cards to prevent such errors in the future.