funny thing today... ratholing

Without giving too many specifics I was able to rathole enough cheques in 2 hours today to make the pit think I only had a 1 unit win when in fact I had a 26 unit win. Suffice to say the way it happened was pretty sweet. How much have you squirreled away in one session?

re

100 units

A couple of units per hour, no more, no less

Guessing that this is a casino that you will be returning to and do not want to be showing a lifetime win in their computer.
If your game shows that you average making $50 per hour, do not rathole more than $100 per hour and do it even if you are losing.
I say this because ratholing too much can be often be spotted and might piss off the pit resulting in their crediting you with every chip they can not account for.
I also say this because if you have a big win, they know you had a big win so you can not hide it all, just a small percentage. You make up for this when you have a losing session by making your loss just a little bigger in their eyes.

Take a chip or two on your restroom breaks, pocket a chip or two when a new player comes in with chips, do the same when someone colors up, a dealer change or when everyone is occupied with something else. In most places, do not pocket black. Most casinos track black and higher chips carefully while really ignoring green and lower, so you pocket green.

ihate17

I agree. I stopped ratholing at one point because I didn't want to take too many. It was a session where the wins were steady from the start... was never down at any point.

The stack pretty much stayed the same size while there was a bulge growing in my pocket :laugh::laugh::cry:

They got me for 32 units last week so its payback.

On two separate occasions I was absolutely slaughtering a game so I had to start pulling black chips off the table. Usually I take about 10-20 units off.

Variance and ratholing have nothing to do with eachother

Sometimes you win big, sometimes you lose big, and many times you do something inbetween but overall you land up with a small advantage.
The ratholer will change that small advantage to look like a casino win in the eyes of the casino's computer.
What you do not want to do is rathole like crazy when you are having a big win. You will fool no one at all. If the pit has to order an extra fill because of you, you will piss them off. If they know you have ratholed a ton, they may wonder why and check your game out much more closely.

That is why I said earlier, win or lose, big or small, just take a few chips per hour in those casinos where you are somewhat of a regular. Do it every session. Change that $1,000 win into a $900 win and change that $900 loss into a $1,000 loss but do it slowly over time.

ihate17

My ratholing rate is based more off opportunity than how well I'm doing.

Lots of breaks from the table might result in more ratholing.

You don't think they noticed 25 chips were missing?

This seems crazy to me. You do realize one of the responsibilities of the pit is to keep track of the money. If you are playing a $25 unit and rathole 10-20 units as you say, you are taking up to $500 off the tables! This is excessive! Plus black and up is what they are supposed to track. Better to rathole 4 green than 1 black.

Ihate17 has it exactly right. My hourly EV or win rate is $25-$30. I rathole 2 green chip every hour. This makes me look like a $20-$25 hour long term loser. Thats all you need.

Do Not Rathole.

As if the Eye and the PIT cannot see what you are doing !

This gets you surveilled quickly - and when others "rathole" and they cannot discern who took the chips they relegate them to the known "ratholers", like you.

Ratholing is suspicious behavior as far as the Pit is concerned.

Normal ploppies may take chips off the table but they do not do it surreptitiously.

It also makes the pit critter's jobs just a bit harder and they resent you for it.

Do Not Rathole. At least wear your invisibility cloak when you do so. :laugh:

well, I do my ratholing during my "first negative count trip to the bathroom". If they can see what I'm doing, they may have bigger issues.

The bottom line is I'd rather rathole than inevitably get caught counting by my lifetime win. And if you make some non-counting plays, you'll win so fast you HAVE to rathole.

You just have your wife drop by every so often when the pitboss is near your table. Have her bitch that she lost all the money you gave her and needs more. Give her some chips and complain about her slot addiction. Odds are the PB will comiserate with you and not bother worrying about the chips gone from his table.

2X your EV

Rat 2X your EV and no more. That's all you need to do to make your W/L record look like an ordinary player. If you get caught doing this you could be screwed, so why do more than you need?

A question for the experts: When you rathole chips, how do you go about cashing them in later? Do you have a stack of black chips at home from various casinos?

i usually wait till i find a handshuffled 6 deck game with a complicated shuffle and take a few chips and head towards something stupid like the roulette table, end up taking a couple greens and a few white with me, most i might do is play a couple of white chips off but if they ask about the green usually say i lost it fast or something, works for me, end up spending a couple extra bucks but usually make my losses look huge instead of large wins

It was 19... somehow I colored up 6 units to the good on the table but the pit still had me down with only a 1 unit win. I had switched tables and rebought for different amounts a couple times so that may have thrown them off.

I actually agree with ihate17 on this one that it is better for the long run to take just a little more than your ev at each session rather than a bag of chips in the winning sessions. I got carried away with myself but the part I left out was the sweet part and I'd rather not go into that detail... just in case.

My sims show that an average blackjack veteran plays to about a -1.5% EV. If your own EV is +.75%, I think you should carefully rathole 3 times your EV per hour, so that your cumulative results are likely to look "normal" over time.

As for the house spotting this, one of my friends gets win/loss statements at the end of the year from all the local casinos he plays at. He also logs his ratholing total for the year there. Their win/loss statements match up pretty closely with his true result minus his ratholing total. Just one case I know of.

I also believe that you should rathole at about the same rate, no matter how you're doing. And rathole the smaller chips rather than the larger ones.

Thanks for the good advice, Renzey. My experience, too, has been that ratholing works, done right. As for what to do with the extra chips, JG advises keeping a chip inventory. Valuable for several reasons. Just pull them out and play them next visit. Or cash them a little at a time, if you need to. Or use them at another casino, if that's possible without creating a record.

Whats wrong with going straight to the cage? In my case I split the chips in 2 and went to 2 different cages but if you only take 2 or 3 units per hour its not that many so why not cash them right then?