The discount is only downside protection, it does not change the odds. The changes that mattered were playing with a hand-shuffled six-deck shoe and the right to split and double down on up to four hands at once; and double a "soft 17". These changes essentially made the game 50/50. Still, an incredible amount of luck, though he was playing $100,000 a hand, so when you have an amazing split, split, double, double hand it adds up. The key factor here was once he was up, he basically could keep going, because statistically odds were even.
The fact that he insisted on a 6 deck shoe seems to suggest that he was, in fact, counting cards. I was under the impression that standard casino blackjack shoes were 8 decks (machine shuffled).
He may not have played as a standard card counter would (as that would make him more detectable), but he still could have made riskier plays when the shoe was "hot" to give him a slight edge over 49.75-50.25
And whether a game is machine-shuffled or hand-shuffled will usually depend on the min bet. The higher the minimum, the more likely the table is to be hand-shuffled, and the lower tier the casino, the lower that minimum is likely to be. For example: the Wynn Las Vegas' $100 min table is machine-shuffled, while Harrah's Lake Tahoe $100 min table is hand-shuffled.
My understanding is that the 6-deck shoe confers a mathematical advantage, not simply a card-counting advantage, over an 8-deck shoe. If you use the calculator here you will see that it improves odds even under basic strategy play:
http://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/calculator/
