John Brokopp has a new column about casinos barring blackjack players:
Is banning highly skilled blackjack players fair? (Archive copy)
Is banning highly skilled blackjack players fair? (Archive copy)
Newspaper article on barring blackjack players
- Thread starter KenSmith
- Start date
To put things in proper perspective I think it is only a US problem.
Just about everybody else use the CSM and not the shoe equipment.
This brings me to the question why your casinos are still not using the CSM everywhere in the US as this “problem” as the casino sees it could be eliminated. It could be that there is the perception among players that the CSM is a money sucker but the number of AP amongst the general public is very miniscule. Perhaps the casinos are still making good money from bad wannabe AP players and other beginner players.
Since the new RFID chips can catch card counters I imagine the card counters would have less territory to operate from.
In this computer age when businesses are using computers everywhere to maximize yield the card counter is the person they don’t want period. It just stand to reason that they would prefer a person playing with a 5 or 10% house advantage than someone playing with a minus 1% advantage.
Just about everybody else use the CSM and not the shoe equipment.
This brings me to the question why your casinos are still not using the CSM everywhere in the US as this “problem” as the casino sees it could be eliminated. It could be that there is the perception among players that the CSM is a money sucker but the number of AP amongst the general public is very miniscule. Perhaps the casinos are still making good money from bad wannabe AP players and other beginner players.
Since the new RFID chips can catch card counters I imagine the card counters would have less territory to operate from.
In this computer age when businesses are using computers everywhere to maximize yield the card counter is the person they don’t want period. It just stand to reason that they would prefer a person playing with a 5 or 10% house advantage than someone playing with a minus 1% advantage.
Wealthy, high-level bettors do not like playing with CSM's. Seeing a CSM at a blackjack table is like seeing a hot-air hand dryer in a restroom instead of paper towels- cheap, chintzy, and they really don't care if you wash your hands or not. That's why you'll never see CSM's in high-limit pits or in casinos marketed to an upper-class crowd. Dealers also dislike them and they probably cause repetitive-motion injuries from the constant dealing and no shuffling. Our personal injury lawyers can take money out of a casino a lot quicker than any AP can!
CSM's seem to be disappearing faster than they appear in US casinos and I think we'll eventually be rid of them. RFID and similar devices are catching on, but I really do think the casinos are more interested in using them for marketing than for counter-catching. And casinos relying on such technology opens up more ways for AP's to make money.
CSM's seem to be disappearing faster than they appear in US casinos and I think we'll eventually be rid of them. RFID and similar devices are catching on, but I really do think the casinos are more interested in using them for marketing than for counter-catching. And casinos relying on such technology opens up more ways for AP's to make money.
Yeah really.
Making $25/hr over 10 casinos.
86ing a guy? What's that about? Why not let him come back if he really wants?
Anyway that's more like how I perceive casinos when they identify a counter - they don't care about lifetime win/loss, bet size or anything. They want u gone!
One more example to consider sacrificing possible win rate, using camo or whatever for possible longevity I guess.
Wonder what he did wrong - guess we'll never know.
Making $25/hr over 10 casinos.
86ing a guy? What's that about? Why not let him come back if he really wants?
Anyway that's more like how I perceive casinos when they identify a counter - they don't care about lifetime win/loss, bet size or anything. They want u gone!
One more example to consider sacrificing possible win rate, using camo or whatever for possible longevity I guess.
Wonder what he did wrong - guess we'll never know.
Well, there you go. It's like I have perceived it all along. Defying all reason, they don't want to let a small-time AP play, because they want it all. Someone should remind them that hogs get fat, but pigs get slaughtered. It makes me want to beat them even more, and I'm sure it has that effect on a lot of other APs. They deserve to be beaten and beaten good. They often make their living off the addictions of their patrons. I know for a fact that countless people lose their life savings in Las Vegas casinos--simple people, unversed in the ways of casino gambling, who didn't realize how much the odds were stacked against them. Simple people who thought their native smarts and the favor of the good Lord would surely make them winners. They didn't realize that they were playing in the very bowels of hell and their chances of coming out of it unscathed were somewhere between slim and none at all. I don't have the slightest remorse for taking advantage of the casinos. I won't cheat, but that is less a moral issue than a desire to stay out of jail. The things a casino does to lure its victims to utter financial ruin are tantamount to cheating IMO in every sense of the word, and they deserve the same in return. Take for example the way they use computers to tease slot players that they just missed a jackpot, encouraging the unsuspecting who think they are playing a completely random game of chance. "Jackpot above-the-line, jackpot above-the-line, jackpot on-the-line"--oh! I just missed it. Little do they know that the law does not allow them to show "jackpot on-the-line, jackpot on-the-line, jackpot above-the-line." Even the law draws a line as to how much they can bait their customers. The AP is truly like the poet Dante, who entered the very gates of hell and lived to tell about it. Never, never feel bad when you get the best of a casino. All of us together are not even making a dent in their profits and yet they want even more. Greed is what I call it. Pure, unmitigated greed. With all its refinements and public relations, that's what your local casino stands for. Make no mistake about it.
Last edited:
Well guess what, life's not fair! I know it's frustrating getting tossed but I'm going to play devil's advocate here and take a look at it from the casino's side. It's not the individual counter they are worried about but the collective of us. While one guy making $300 won't hurt them 1000 of us will and on top of that AP's are taking away seats from ploppies and addicts and consuming comps. Imagine if the casinos took no counter measures what so ever and simply allowed counting openly. How long would it be before AP's would be occupying every spot on the table? I would show up to the El Cortez from 9-5 and play their single deck game spreading from $25 to $5000. Colleges would be offering PHD's in blackjack. They see the little guy if he keeps winning becoming a large bettor so they are nipping the problem in the bud.
From my experience CSM use is growing. What I find is the casinos start out with a few of them to test them out. Quickly see they are much more profitable and then they start to spread like cancer. There is never a shortage of people playing on them in any casino. Yes high roller rooms are different but I'm talking about the main floor with a never ending supply of ploppies who simply are unaware of any difference in the games rules, number of decks or care how a game is shuffled and dealt out. They are just there for the action of blackjack. What I find is a lot of casinos are putting in mostly CSM's and keeping a few shoe games around with larger table minimums to please some of those more regular customers who might care. This way the casino wins both from uninformed casual playing ploppies while catering to their regular addicts.
WOW...my main playing grounds.he's the only one ive heard of being banned.have a friiend whos a dealer thier[3 yrs]and tells me he's never heard of anyone banned because of BJ I'd say this is the first person [in the last 3yrs at least]to recieve this treatment..I'M a little apprehensive about playing thier as often as I do after hearing this news.There are only a handful of casinos in the area that are within reasonable drive time so I'm guessing that he was observed way to many times [cashing in at the cage?]
I've been banned from the Blue Chip casino. And no, the article is not about me. But like the guy in the article, I am banned from setting foot on the grounds. I was playing ten dollar tables at the time I was asked to leave, although I have played bigger stakes there before. I think I made the mistake of staying there too long and table hopping too often.
So far, this is the only casino I'm banned from.
I wrote about this before in a response to the following thread:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=3117
Well I assume you caused them no trouble when barred from BJ - I still don't get arresting you for tresspassing if you ever showed up again. I mean why piss someone off that much if you don't have to.
Anyway I was wondering if they had the RFID chips at the time you played and whether they were combined with some card-reading system that would allow the casino to know positive shoes. Like were you ever maybe preferentially shuffled in positive shoes?
I mean even if the chips are RFID they still have to correlate increases with a count and RFID chips alone wouldn't do that, right? They're not putting those chips in the cards themselves yet are they? Even if they do put one in our passports these days lol.
If u care to share, and fine if you don't, how long was "too long" lol? You ever get a "feeling" prior to being barred or was it a complete surprise? Was "table-hopping" more maybe wonging in or wonging out? You think table-hopping or playing too long was a larger factor. Did you ever jump bets? Use any camo plays? You win a ton lol? Hope you did. What pricks.
Sorry to ask so many questions. Just bull-s*itting. You don't have to answer a darn one lol.
Anyway I was wondering if they had the RFID chips at the time you played and whether they were combined with some card-reading system that would allow the casino to know positive shoes. Like were you ever maybe preferentially shuffled in positive shoes?
I mean even if the chips are RFID they still have to correlate increases with a count and RFID chips alone wouldn't do that, right? They're not putting those chips in the cards themselves yet are they? Even if they do put one in our passports these days lol.
If u care to share, and fine if you don't, how long was "too long" lol? You ever get a "feeling" prior to being barred or was it a complete surprise? Was "table-hopping" more maybe wonging in or wonging out? You think table-hopping or playing too long was a larger factor. Did you ever jump bets? Use any camo plays? You win a ton lol? Hope you did. What pricks.
Sorry to ask so many questions. Just bull-s*itting. You don't have to answer a darn one lol.
Well, I'm going to play the good guys' advocate, devil be damned.
I don't think they have a seating problem. Most the time I'm at the Borgata in AC they have an entire section closed down for lack of business, plus many tables in other locations not open. APs don't displace ploppies.
It's a fact that most would be counters don't make it, meaning that the casinos profit on the enterprise of card counting, unless you think the 1% that do make it, win more than the other 99% lose.
Now, spreading $25 to $5,000 is a whole other thing. We're talking about $300 winners. Of course, casinos should play particular attention to $5,000 bettors. It would be crazy to do otherwise.
The fact is you can make money counting, and no universities are offering degrees in it.
Casinos aren't nipping anything in the bud. For everyone they catch, a great many slip through the net, and still more are being created year after year. What they are doing is creating a nuisance without a payoff to speak of. Just think of all the counters who lack discipline and blow their advantage-earned cash on roulette, slots and other games. They now go to other casinos.
To me casinos are being short-sighted due to their greed. That's fine. After they back me off, I'll continue to go in disguise or on other shifts. Plus there are lots of other casinos to play at.
I don't think they have a seating problem. Most the time I'm at the Borgata in AC they have an entire section closed down for lack of business, plus many tables in other locations not open. APs don't displace ploppies.
It's a fact that most would be counters don't make it, meaning that the casinos profit on the enterprise of card counting, unless you think the 1% that do make it, win more than the other 99% lose.
Now, spreading $25 to $5,000 is a whole other thing. We're talking about $300 winners. Of course, casinos should play particular attention to $5,000 bettors. It would be crazy to do otherwise.
The fact is you can make money counting, and no universities are offering degrees in it.
Casinos aren't nipping anything in the bud. For everyone they catch, a great many slip through the net, and still more are being created year after year. What they are doing is creating a nuisance without a payoff to speak of. Just think of all the counters who lack discipline and blow their advantage-earned cash on roulette, slots and other games. They now go to other casinos.
To me casinos are being short-sighted due to their greed. That's fine. After they back me off, I'll continue to go in disguise or on other shifts. Plus there are lots of other casinos to play at.
I caused no trouble when I was asked to leave. I just left. The guy escorting me out told me I was being a gentleman about it. I have no idea if they have RFID chips. They never preferential shuffled on me. "Too long" was all day. Big mistake. I had no feeling that something like this was going to happen. Complete suprise. Table hopping" wasn't so much wonging in, but it was a lot of wonging out. There were times when I more than doubled my bet, like $10 on one bet then $30 on the next. But I didn't go as far as betting $10 on one bet then $100 on the next. I don't think I really used camo plays on this particular day. I only won $200 or $300 on this particular day, after being down earlier in the day, but I won $2000 on a previous visit.