funny thing today... ratholing
- Thread starter ohbehave
- Start date
It definitely depends on the amount your dealing with. During my good years I used to ask to be paid in black, claiming the chip piles gave me confidence. I would accidentally knock the stacks over and palm some to my friend as I was picking them up. He would go for a walk and cash them in or hang on to them and cash them in later. However in LV I would be forced to wait, many times up to 15 minutes, at the cage before they would cash my chips. The cage people would get on the phone, glare at me, hang up, apologize, get back on the phone and glare at me some more before finally cashing my chips. Not allot of fun but part of the deal. It was just the opposite in AC, they would cash me right out and tell me to have a nice day. Go figure..
This is a pearl of wisdom imo.
Ratholing seems very risky, because once caught, it could have compounding negative consequences. Also, the reward seems pretty small, because ploppies can win money too (in a session). The idea that one should rathole an amount greater than their win rate seems counter intuitive to me, because the sample size should be too small at any one casino to determine, with high confidence, that a player has positive expectation.
Ratholing seems very risky, because once caught, it could have compounding negative consequences. Also, the reward seems pretty small, because ploppies can win money too (in a session). The idea that one should rathole an amount greater than their win rate seems counter intuitive to me, because the sample size should be too small at any one casino to determine, with high confidence, that a player has positive expectation.
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no i mean after 30-40 hours TOTAL table time.
if you haven't picked up on some of this stuff by then, then I don't know how long it is going to take you! maybe 100 is a better estimate, but after 40 1 hour sessions, you should be hip to some of the routine transactions that go on, over and over and over again inside a casino. Cashing out chips, buying chips, checks play, "one black out," a big pile of chips sitting in front of you that is pretty large considering a small buy in. things like this. if you're a low roller, at some point you become a green chip player, somewhere between the two you will be playing at joints that sweat your action, and one session you too will have a cage call. maybe 100 hours in....
if you haven't picked up on some of this stuff by then, then I don't know how long it is going to take you! maybe 100 is a better estimate, but after 40 1 hour sessions, you should be hip to some of the routine transactions that go on, over and over and over again inside a casino. Cashing out chips, buying chips, checks play, "one black out," a big pile of chips sitting in front of you that is pretty large considering a small buy in. things like this. if you're a low roller, at some point you become a green chip player, somewhere between the two you will be playing at joints that sweat your action, and one session you too will have a cage call. maybe 100 hours in....
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I just cash them now and then
I play, depending upon the game, about a $50 minimum bet and never rathole anything but green.
Since my sessions are generally short in Vegas but can be much longer in Indian casinos, and at most I might rathole 6-8 greens in an hour, I find cashing no big deal. You color up some purple and black and go to the cage and add 3-4 greens to it in casinos that do not call the pit when cashing this amount. For casinos that do call the pit you just make an extra trip later.
If you are returning soon, you just cash in a few green before you ever play on your next visit.
If you played a marathon session and have 20 or more green pocketed over several hours you should not cash them at one time only because that would be an unusual transaction for the cage.
I know a casino that calls the pit on every $500 chip or every total of $1,000 or more. Just structure you cash out to fit into the way they do things. This same casino will not call the pit if I give them 8 blacks and 6 greens for instance.
Sometimes, just like you must rathole a chip or two at a time, you might have to cash them in a similar way. Cashing a few blacks, add a few greens. Walking by the cage and there is no line, cash 3 or 4 greens. No one will really notice. Believe me that if they bust your game for these kind of transactions they were already following your every move in the casino and were going to back you off anyway.
ihate17
I play, depending upon the game, about a $50 minimum bet and never rathole anything but green.
Since my sessions are generally short in Vegas but can be much longer in Indian casinos, and at most I might rathole 6-8 greens in an hour, I find cashing no big deal. You color up some purple and black and go to the cage and add 3-4 greens to it in casinos that do not call the pit when cashing this amount. For casinos that do call the pit you just make an extra trip later.
If you are returning soon, you just cash in a few green before you ever play on your next visit.
If you played a marathon session and have 20 or more green pocketed over several hours you should not cash them at one time only because that would be an unusual transaction for the cage.
I know a casino that calls the pit on every $500 chip or every total of $1,000 or more. Just structure you cash out to fit into the way they do things. This same casino will not call the pit if I give them 8 blacks and 6 greens for instance.
Sometimes, just like you must rathole a chip or two at a time, you might have to cash them in a similar way. Cashing a few blacks, add a few greens. Walking by the cage and there is no line, cash 3 or 4 greens. No one will really notice. Believe me that if they bust your game for these kind of transactions they were already following your every move in the casino and were going to back you off anyway.
ihate17
I concur with ihate17's advice.
Try this experiment. Play a few sessions on a card at one of the big chains, doing some discreet ratholing, win or lose. Keep detailed records of session results, as you should be doing anyway. Then, at the end of the year, request a win-loss statement. They'll give you a day-by-day breakdown of what they think your results were. What they say about some of your individual sessions may be comically inaccurate, but see if on average, they don't show you winning less and losing more than your true results.
That's a long time to wait for feedback, I know. For faster gratification, listen to what one PC says to another about your play as you leave. You might just catch something.
Certainly there's a risk of getting caught by the Eye if they have reason to be watching you, or do a tape review. So you want either to be smooth and nearly invisible, or to look like a ploppy. Ploppies rathole too, you know. The easiest and most natural thing to do, if the pit hasn't been watching your stack too closely up to that point, is simply to pocket a few chips quickly just before coloring up and leaving. From what I've been able to observe, it usually works just fine, and if you ARE seen, it looks just like a ploppy saving a few smaller chips to play with later.
Try this experiment. Play a few sessions on a card at one of the big chains, doing some discreet ratholing, win or lose. Keep detailed records of session results, as you should be doing anyway. Then, at the end of the year, request a win-loss statement. They'll give you a day-by-day breakdown of what they think your results were. What they say about some of your individual sessions may be comically inaccurate, but see if on average, they don't show you winning less and losing more than your true results.
That's a long time to wait for feedback, I know. For faster gratification, listen to what one PC says to another about your play as you leave. You might just catch something.
Certainly there's a risk of getting caught by the Eye if they have reason to be watching you, or do a tape review. So you want either to be smooth and nearly invisible, or to look like a ploppy. Ploppies rathole too, you know. The easiest and most natural thing to do, if the pit hasn't been watching your stack too closely up to that point, is simply to pocket a few chips quickly just before coloring up and leaving. From what I've been able to observe, it usually works just fine, and if you ARE seen, it looks just like a ploppy saving a few smaller chips to play with later.
lmao lol.
I have no "real-life" idea of course but I was wondering how, or not,
"9.5.5.3.3.2.2
Records to be Retained by Financial Institutions
Title 31 CFR 103.36
"...For each person that a casino knows who has bought in at, bet, or purchased chips, tokens, or plaques over $3,000, with one or more currency transactions in a single casino day, the record shall include the name, permanent address, SSN, or TIN of the person, and the currency amount and the casino license number of the casino employee preparing the record.
For each person that a casino knows has purchased or redeemed slot machine tokens of $3,000 or more, through one or more currency transactions in a single gaming day. The record shall include the name, permanent address, casino account number, SSN, or TIN of the person, the date, time, and currency amount involved, and the casino license number of the employee preparing the record. .."
might apply to some of you real-life guys.
I think it was some amendment to the original money-laundering act passed around July-Aug 2007.
I thought maybe Ken or Sonny or somebody may have brought this up a while back?
I just can't imagine i could no more walk up to a cage and cash $5K into chips any more than I could walk into a bank and ask for a cashier's check for $5K without ID.
Whatever, while one ratholes to perhaps merely evade the casino learning you are an advantage player, structuring cash-outs to evade stuff, giving rat-holed chips to friends to cash-out for you, one maybe also be committing federal money-laundering crimes.
If one, these days, walks up to a cage and cashes out $9K instantly, with no hassles, I can only imagine it's becasue they already know your name, address, and SS#.
Since I assume all you AP guys are honest tax-paying citizens, I guess it's a good thing the casino can't compare your reported earnings to the IRS to their own "win-loss" records lol.
Which, of course, also only makes me wonder how you real-life guys may or may not factor in paying taxes on winnings on their roll and how one goes about how that may effect risk to original roll lol.
Not expecting a public answer by anyone on that subject lol.
But I have wondered about, in theory of course lol, how an honest tax-paying AP guy might go about figuring either what to bet in the first place, assuming taxes, or, maybe, annually replenishing his roll by the tax amount etc. lol.
As if this cr*p wasn't tough enough lol.
I have no "real-life" idea of course but I was wondering how, or not,
"9.5.5.3.3.2.2
Records to be Retained by Financial Institutions
Title 31 CFR 103.36
"...For each person that a casino knows who has bought in at, bet, or purchased chips, tokens, or plaques over $3,000, with one or more currency transactions in a single casino day, the record shall include the name, permanent address, SSN, or TIN of the person, and the currency amount and the casino license number of the casino employee preparing the record.
For each person that a casino knows has purchased or redeemed slot machine tokens of $3,000 or more, through one or more currency transactions in a single gaming day. The record shall include the name, permanent address, casino account number, SSN, or TIN of the person, the date, time, and currency amount involved, and the casino license number of the employee preparing the record. .."
might apply to some of you real-life guys.
I think it was some amendment to the original money-laundering act passed around July-Aug 2007.
I thought maybe Ken or Sonny or somebody may have brought this up a while back?
I just can't imagine i could no more walk up to a cage and cash $5K into chips any more than I could walk into a bank and ask for a cashier's check for $5K without ID.
Whatever, while one ratholes to perhaps merely evade the casino learning you are an advantage player, structuring cash-outs to evade stuff, giving rat-holed chips to friends to cash-out for you, one maybe also be committing federal money-laundering crimes.
If one, these days, walks up to a cage and cashes out $9K instantly, with no hassles, I can only imagine it's becasue they already know your name, address, and SS#.
Since I assume all you AP guys are honest tax-paying citizens, I guess it's a good thing the casino can't compare your reported earnings to the IRS to their own "win-loss" records lol.
Which, of course, also only makes me wonder how you real-life guys may or may not factor in paying taxes on winnings on their roll and how one goes about how that may effect risk to original roll lol.
Not expecting a public answer by anyone on that subject lol.
But I have wondered about, in theory of course lol, how an honest tax-paying AP guy might go about figuring either what to bet in the first place, assuming taxes, or, maybe, annually replenishing his roll by the tax amount etc. lol.
As if this cr*p wasn't tough enough lol.
some things are certain
for what it's worth:
http://www.bjrnet.com/articles/kellyfaq.htm
"Q7: How does taxation effect proper bet size?
A7: You should be sure to include the effects of taxation on your CE for they may be quite significant. Both your average win and your variance are reduced when your government reduces the magnitude of your results via income taxes due on wins and income tax refunds on losses. If you will be able to deduct net losses for income tax purposes (which is not necessarily possible in the United States, even for professionals) then the effect is to multiply your expected winnings E by (1-t) and your variance V by (1-t)^2 where "t" is your marginal tax rate. The net effect is to raise your optimal betting unit by a factor of 1/(1-t). Intuitively, a fraction "t" of every bet you make is not a bet by you, but by your government, so you must increase your betting unit until "your part" of the bet is optimal for you.
If your government does not allow income tax refunds on net losses, be sure to include that fact in your calculations! You will need to use your simulator, or approximations involving integrals of portions of a Gaussian bell curve to do this calculation. You must determine what the distribution of outcomes (i.e. profit) is for a calendar year's worth of card counting. Instead of averaging these raw values and finding their variance immediately, first subtract from all the positive outcomes the effect of taxation. Then compute the average and variance of all the values (including all the negative outcomes and adjusted positive outcomes) and plug the result into the formula for CE."
for what it's worth:
http://www.bjrnet.com/articles/kellyfaq.htm
"Q7: How does taxation effect proper bet size?
A7: You should be sure to include the effects of taxation on your CE for they may be quite significant. Both your average win and your variance are reduced when your government reduces the magnitude of your results via income taxes due on wins and income tax refunds on losses. If you will be able to deduct net losses for income tax purposes (which is not necessarily possible in the United States, even for professionals) then the effect is to multiply your expected winnings E by (1-t) and your variance V by (1-t)^2 where "t" is your marginal tax rate. The net effect is to raise your optimal betting unit by a factor of 1/(1-t). Intuitively, a fraction "t" of every bet you make is not a bet by you, but by your government, so you must increase your betting unit until "your part" of the bet is optimal for you.
If your government does not allow income tax refunds on net losses, be sure to include that fact in your calculations! You will need to use your simulator, or approximations involving integrals of portions of a Gaussian bell curve to do this calculation. You must determine what the distribution of outcomes (i.e. profit) is for a calendar year's worth of card counting. Instead of averaging these raw values and finding their variance immediately, first subtract from all the positive outcomes the effect of taxation. Then compute the average and variance of all the values (including all the negative outcomes and adjusted positive outcomes) and plug the result into the formula for CE."
I think people obsess over this stuff maybe a bit too much. I see all kinds of people sticking chips in their pockets. Maybe they get back up to where they started and want to stash the chips so they can't lose them or whatever. These people don't even know what ratholing is. They just know they can't lose chips that are in their pockets.
I just put chips in my pockets and don't worry about who the hell sees me. I just fit in with the crowd.
I just put chips in my pockets and don't worry about who the hell sees me. I just fit in with the crowd.
Exactly what I meant lmao.
Same thing goes, I think, more or less, for funding "travel expenses" etc from one's roll.
All you honest, tax-paying, rat-holing AP citizens out there, this would be the right approach.
Now you've made me ask QFIT if his stuff can calculate a different optimal ramp and/or roll based on this "marginal tax-rate", annual rounds per year etc, stuff lol.
Been trying for years to figure out something his stuff can't do lol.
Had a sore throat last week, played 1000 rounds on CVBJ, and it was gone.
Coincidence? I think not :grin:
Same thing goes, I think, more or less, for funding "travel expenses" etc from one's roll.
All you honest, tax-paying, rat-holing AP citizens out there, this would be the right approach.
Now you've made me ask QFIT if his stuff can calculate a different optimal ramp and/or roll based on this "marginal tax-rate", annual rounds per year etc, stuff lol.
Been trying for years to figure out something his stuff can't do lol.
Had a sore throat last week, played 1000 rounds on CVBJ, and it was gone.
Coincidence? I think not :grin: