Somewhere along the way... I lied. I stated in a post along the way about the casinos spending at least 10 times what they potentially would lose to card-counters in doing various countermeasures because "It's the principal of the thing that absolutely no one should ever win a dime out of us and we (the casinos) are willing to spend 10 times whatever amount that they could even take in countermeasures". At least I stated that ratio was not neccessarily an accurate ratio and "off the top of my head" in order to make a point.
In a publication known as "Casino-ology" by author Bill Zender that I was pouring over, I picked apart some of it to see that this number works out to MUCH higher than that. It's more to the tune of 100 times what any counters could possibly extract, other than organized teams playing for incredibly high stakes... and GUESS WHAT KIDDIES!? There's not too many of those around with 2-3 million backing them up to work with... just not something you see everyday.
The whole "witch hunt" to go after those evil counters that are "taking the casinos"?---Uhm, statistically less than 1% of all blackjack players are counters and out of THESE only about 1% of those are successful in the long run/long term. A prime example of this was a conversation I had with someone that I overheard talking and sparked up a conversation with in Atlantic City sometime back in which he boasted of being a counter to me and talked on about his play, his range of games, etc. and I posted about that conversation on here calling him "another lamb to the slaughter", which caught some ridicule toward me as if I was being overly critical and perhaps "picking on a basic hi-lo system", etc. but it was much more than that, involving his bet spread and practices and the variety of games he was willing to play.
There are many factors to this and reasons that I shall only briefly touch on. You should obtain this publication and read it! ESPECIALLY if you are a casino employee (which he goes into great detail just how many of them lurk these blackjack sites, hoping to turn out AP's, ID them and push them toward giving up information). Some of the reasons casinos "shoot themselves in the foot" are as follows:
HANDS PER HOUR and how cutting off a large percentage of the shoe loses 5-6 hands per hour for every additional 1/2 deck cut off. This adds up to a phenomenal amount of money to lose annually and across the board that out of your patron base that has one or two people that (if they are lucky) will make a whopping $35 an hour at the tables. The hands per hours lost tablulated up can add up to hundreds of thousands annually! A medium sized casino is apparently willing to lose $700,000.00 per year to prevent like...4 guys from taking down $20,000 a piece. That is just this ONE practice... there's more!
NOMIDSHOE TABLES seem like a GREAT idea to prevent those evil "wongers" from "wonging", right? WONG!...er..WRONG! By cutting players out across the board from playing you lose hands per hour, once again. A player that WOULD have jumped in that is not a counter in any way, shape or form is excluded from play for let's say... 14 minutes, until the shuffle. A spot at the table that would have had hands playing is empty, costing the casino because that potential player is just standing there and not playing. It's not much--perhaps the house advantage of a series of minimum bets even but those nickels and dimes add up FAST and this adds up to more hundreds of thousands in lost action annually!
RULE CHANGES that increase house advantage, now THAT's a sure fire way to increase the casino's take! Uhm....WRONG! For example, a recreational player strolls up to a single deck blackjack game that pays 6 to 5. After a while he realizes he is being duped and "gypped" when he gets that lousy 6 bucks for his 5 dollar bet on the blackjack. Many players not too savvy with odds hear "6 to 5" instead of "3 to 2" and since 6 to 5 is a higher number they think this is GOOD! UNTIL... Many players have walked out of casinos never to play there again over such things. The casino lost years of gaming potential out of this one player over gouging up the house advantage. The increase of house advantage does not compensate for the loss of potential business.
Will Harrah's implementation of hitting soft 17 (which adds the slight casino advantage of .22%) increase revenue enough to compensate for the players lost that will play another casino in order to have a dealer that stays on 17's? Have enough players lose hands because of this rule and you will lose business... they will go elsewhere. Brilliant move, DUMBASS... you hedged up your profit margin but lost enough gross business that this move costs you a lot of money!
RIDICULOUS SHUFFLES to thwart those evil shuffle trackers! Heck of a brilliant move, right? WRONG! Shuffle trackers are so far and few between it's ridiculous... there may only be a few people in the entire world that can do this truly consistently and accurately enough to have it be profitable. You make a ridiculously long, elaborate and difficult shuffle and take away....you guessed it! Hands per hour.
Wait! I know! Let's put in some continuous shufflers and automatic shufflers! Brilliant, right? WRONG! You are "putting out the word" to your player base that you are altering the game to be more in the way of unbeatable and even the novice, tourist and recreational players will "fear the machinery" and more likely shy away from that game. Even if they play all that has to happen is a normal, typical losing streak and they will assume "the evil machine is rigged against them" with this making them more likely to walk at the drop of a hat, meaning... you guessed it!...Less play/less hands per hour.
Why would casinos think up really stupid things that ultimately and in the long run cost them money? Why would they "shoot themselves in the foot" financially? That's easy! The honchos, the big wigs are all mapping out strategy and come up with an idea... everyone agrees because if you don't you are not a "team player" amongst the group of suits that make up the "powers that be". Other casinos follow suit because "If they're doing it... it must be right!" and follow suit! Add in outside companies that sell technology, equipment, etc. to casinos that use the right BS sales pitch to sell them CSM's and such and as part of their sales pitch say that "We are making and/or saving you money from those evil AP's" (instead of losing huge amounts in lost business in the overall aspect of it all and spending huge dollars on expensive countermeasures to do it)... and you have a "witch hunt" that makes what they did in Salem look lame and it's costing the casinos millions to avoid losing a few thousand here and there!
In a publication known as "Casino-ology" by author Bill Zender that I was pouring over, I picked apart some of it to see that this number works out to MUCH higher than that. It's more to the tune of 100 times what any counters could possibly extract, other than organized teams playing for incredibly high stakes... and GUESS WHAT KIDDIES!? There's not too many of those around with 2-3 million backing them up to work with... just not something you see everyday.
The whole "witch hunt" to go after those evil counters that are "taking the casinos"?---Uhm, statistically less than 1% of all blackjack players are counters and out of THESE only about 1% of those are successful in the long run/long term. A prime example of this was a conversation I had with someone that I overheard talking and sparked up a conversation with in Atlantic City sometime back in which he boasted of being a counter to me and talked on about his play, his range of games, etc. and I posted about that conversation on here calling him "another lamb to the slaughter", which caught some ridicule toward me as if I was being overly critical and perhaps "picking on a basic hi-lo system", etc. but it was much more than that, involving his bet spread and practices and the variety of games he was willing to play.
There are many factors to this and reasons that I shall only briefly touch on. You should obtain this publication and read it! ESPECIALLY if you are a casino employee (which he goes into great detail just how many of them lurk these blackjack sites, hoping to turn out AP's, ID them and push them toward giving up information). Some of the reasons casinos "shoot themselves in the foot" are as follows:
HANDS PER HOUR and how cutting off a large percentage of the shoe loses 5-6 hands per hour for every additional 1/2 deck cut off. This adds up to a phenomenal amount of money to lose annually and across the board that out of your patron base that has one or two people that (if they are lucky) will make a whopping $35 an hour at the tables. The hands per hours lost tablulated up can add up to hundreds of thousands annually! A medium sized casino is apparently willing to lose $700,000.00 per year to prevent like...4 guys from taking down $20,000 a piece. That is just this ONE practice... there's more!
NOMIDSHOE TABLES seem like a GREAT idea to prevent those evil "wongers" from "wonging", right? WONG!...er..WRONG! By cutting players out across the board from playing you lose hands per hour, once again. A player that WOULD have jumped in that is not a counter in any way, shape or form is excluded from play for let's say... 14 minutes, until the shuffle. A spot at the table that would have had hands playing is empty, costing the casino because that potential player is just standing there and not playing. It's not much--perhaps the house advantage of a series of minimum bets even but those nickels and dimes add up FAST and this adds up to more hundreds of thousands in lost action annually!
RULE CHANGES that increase house advantage, now THAT's a sure fire way to increase the casino's take! Uhm....WRONG! For example, a recreational player strolls up to a single deck blackjack game that pays 6 to 5. After a while he realizes he is being duped and "gypped" when he gets that lousy 6 bucks for his 5 dollar bet on the blackjack. Many players not too savvy with odds hear "6 to 5" instead of "3 to 2" and since 6 to 5 is a higher number they think this is GOOD! UNTIL... Many players have walked out of casinos never to play there again over such things. The casino lost years of gaming potential out of this one player over gouging up the house advantage. The increase of house advantage does not compensate for the loss of potential business.
Will Harrah's implementation of hitting soft 17 (which adds the slight casino advantage of .22%) increase revenue enough to compensate for the players lost that will play another casino in order to have a dealer that stays on 17's? Have enough players lose hands because of this rule and you will lose business... they will go elsewhere. Brilliant move, DUMBASS... you hedged up your profit margin but lost enough gross business that this move costs you a lot of money!
RIDICULOUS SHUFFLES to thwart those evil shuffle trackers! Heck of a brilliant move, right? WRONG! Shuffle trackers are so far and few between it's ridiculous... there may only be a few people in the entire world that can do this truly consistently and accurately enough to have it be profitable. You make a ridiculously long, elaborate and difficult shuffle and take away....you guessed it! Hands per hour.
Wait! I know! Let's put in some continuous shufflers and automatic shufflers! Brilliant, right? WRONG! You are "putting out the word" to your player base that you are altering the game to be more in the way of unbeatable and even the novice, tourist and recreational players will "fear the machinery" and more likely shy away from that game. Even if they play all that has to happen is a normal, typical losing streak and they will assume "the evil machine is rigged against them" with this making them more likely to walk at the drop of a hat, meaning... you guessed it!...Less play/less hands per hour.
Why would casinos think up really stupid things that ultimately and in the long run cost them money? Why would they "shoot themselves in the foot" financially? That's easy! The honchos, the big wigs are all mapping out strategy and come up with an idea... everyone agrees because if you don't you are not a "team player" amongst the group of suits that make up the "powers that be". Other casinos follow suit because "If they're doing it... it must be right!" and follow suit! Add in outside companies that sell technology, equipment, etc. to casinos that use the right BS sales pitch to sell them CSM's and such and as part of their sales pitch say that "We are making and/or saving you money from those evil AP's" (instead of losing huge amounts in lost business in the overall aspect of it all and spending huge dollars on expensive countermeasures to do it)... and you have a "witch hunt" that makes what they did in Salem look lame and it's costing the casinos millions to avoid losing a few thousand here and there!
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