Casino Cheats

[Tex]

I have been looking through old posts, and couldn’t find anything that addressed this. So sorry if I’m posting too often.

I finished A Man For All Markets (Edward O. Thorp’s autobiography) and the stories of “Casino Cheats” (crooked dealers and cheaters working for the casino) are interesting, as opposed to the “Player Cheats” (what you normally think of as a cheater).

I’m expecting the “good old days” to obviously be different from back in the ‘60s and ‘70s compared to today with corporate lawyers and accountants doing basic risk analysis and cost benefit analysis to figure out real quick some of the stupid (and sometimes ingenious) ideas they came up with just didn’t pay out well enough to still do it.

But... I have wondered if there are some shenanigans still in places.

I wonder if there are casinos that help themselves sometimes with miscounting dealers or artificial ploppies?

I haven’t played in Vegas or Reno, but I wonder if this is more a problem there where there is probibly a deeper institutional memory of cheating than my home casinos in Louisiana?

 

[johndoe]

I think the cheating that occurs is fairly subtle. Preferential shuffling probably happens quite a bit, and if some peg you for an AP they might simply refuse to cash your chips. I think short decks or other card manipulation is likely exceedingly rare.

 

[Rebecca C]

What are artificial ploppies?

 

[sagefr0g]

What are artificial ploppies?

shills maybe?

 

[JohnCrover]

An artificial ploppie, in my opinion, is someone who poses as a normal gambler but it being used to steer cards away from the players.
Here's one method of how an artificial ploppie can be used: There's three players at a blackjack table, seat 1 , 2, 3. Seat 2 is betting heavy. Seat 1 does whatever, seat 2 gets a hand, let's call it 18. Seat 3 gets a hand and does whatever. The action is now on our artificial ploppie. Our artificial ploppie has 12 and dealer shows a 3. The artificial ploppie makes a hand signal as if he's going to hit, the dealer puts his hand on the card to deal it to him from the shoe. The artificial ploppie the interjects "No, no , no, wait!" The dealer says, "Okay sir." What the big better doesn't know is that the cards have microscopic dents on the back of the cards that only a trained hand can identify. When the dealer said, "Okay sir." The dealer is telling the player to stand because the dealer felt that the card was favorable for the house. If The dealer were to say, "Take your time sir" then he is signaling the player to hit and take away the unfavorable card so that the dealer has the best chance to beat the big betters 18. The same concept can be applied to many different scenarios. Another example: Seat 1 is the artificial ploppie, seat 2 is the big better or the target. Artificial ploppie gets soft 18, the big better gets an 11. Dealer shows a 6. We know that the big player is going to double here so the job of the artificial ploppie is to steal the 10. The artificial ploppie says, " I think I want to double." The dealer puts his hand on the card, ready to deal it to him, and then the dealer gets the indent on the back of the and deciphers its value. The ploppie pulls his chips back in hesitation. If the dealer says, "I don't know. It's up to you man but I think it might be a good idea. The book says to do it." Then he doubles and takes the 10. If the dealer says "You know, the book says to do it but I don't do it myself then the player stands and lets the 11 double to a card they know is not 10 value.
Edit: Should I delete this post? I don't want anyone getting ideas.

 

[Tex]

yes, my attempt to play with words would be that an artificial ploppy would be a shill. They seem to gamble forever, against play that is the most basic of strategy. There are two players I can think of in Shreveport who are ether some shills, or some form of security, or are the worlds best bank rolled losers. And they both are fixtures in one casino.

The times I’ve had them play on my table they have burned great decks so bad it’s almost comical, if they hadn’t been money games. One time you could see the dealer was flustered so bad he looked like he almost asked the shill to go away.

When I noticed them in the past, I hadn’t heard the levels casinos had gone to in the “good old days” to juice games that should have already been profitable to them to start with.

And I have no proof that these two were actually effective at destroying a good deck, but it did seem to goo from good games to pure crap once they sat down.

The other thing I noticed was that their play was so bad it would get most of the other players noticing how poorly they bet and the other non shills would walk away. I now wonder if they may not have been actually cheating, but they were sent in to kill a hot deck so the table would clear out and the deck could get really reshuffled.

 

[JohnCrover]

yes, my attempt to play with words would be that an artificial ploppy would be a shill. They seem to gamble forever, against play that is the most basic of strategy. There are two players I can think of in Shreveport who are ether some shills, or some form of security, or are the worlds best bank rolled losers. And they both are fixtures in one casino.

The times I’ve had them play on my table they have burned great decks so bad it’s almost comical, if they hadn’t been money games. One time you could see the dealer was flustered so bad he looked like he almost asked the shill to go away.

When I noticed them in the past, I hadn’t heard the levels casinos had gone to in the “good old days” to juice games that should have already been profitable to them to start with.

And I have no proof that these two were actually effective at destroying a good deck, but it did seem to goo from good games to pure crap once they sat down.

The other thing I noticed was that their play was so bad it would get most of the other players noticing how poorly they bet and the other non shills would walk away. I now wonder if they may not have been actually cheating, but they were sent in to kill a hot deck so the table would clear out and the deck could get really reshuffled.

Your explanation makes no sense, in my opinion. The casino will never want people to leave a table for one, second, you can't kill a "hot deck" unless you straight up told the dealer to break the shoe and give you a new deck. It seems as if you're under the impression that bad players negatively affect the win rate of other players, which is incorrect.

 

[Tex]

I have no idea how these two work, all I know is that they play very poorly, there always seemed to be one or the other around, they alway seem to be loseing and they always seem to be at the scene of the crime when a good deck would go bad.

I also understand that mathmaticly there is no significant difference between playing with a player who plays poorly, but there can be psychological effects that may scatter players from one table to another. If someone is splitting tens for example, most ploppies would notice that and start to focus on that, if that happened 3-4 times in ten mins on a ten heavy deck, it might result in everyone but the shill going to a different table, the shill then leaves the table, and the dealer shuffles the deck a lot and now the spooked ploppies return. Now the casino has a fresh deck, a walking scare crow who doesn't even need to play too spook the regular players of the last table should they want to try that stunt again and nothing “illegal” was done.

It also could be used against AP players where they notice more about these players and they lose counts, or if they are the only ones hanging on to a +20 shoe when everyone else scatters, or who knows what.

In a place where every element of the game is highly scrutinized, I have no doubt psychology is being looked at, and I would not put it past a casino to use psychological warfare to their advantage.

I don’t know that that is the case, but I do find it strange that on any given weekday, you can walk into a B-C grade casino, and there will be one of two guys somewhere on one casinos floor.

And I don’t know if these two are still there, I haven’t been back in 4-5 years, because when I was going... mon-Thur, midday, with a couple of bucks, they started to only have 6-5, hit soft 17, 6 deck, $10-500 tables open. And the place seemed like it was being used as a container for all the depression in the state.

 

[JohnCrover]

I have no idea how these two work, all I know is that they play very poorly, there always seemed to be one or the other around, they alway seem to be loseing and they always seem to be at the scene of the crime when a good deck would go bad.

I also understand that mathmaticly there is no significant difference between playing with a player who plays poorly, but there can be psychological effects that may scatter players from one table to another. If someone is splitting tens for example, most ploppies would notice that and start to focus on that, if that happened 3-4 times in ten mins on a ten heavy deck, it might result in everyone but the shill going to a different table, the shill then leaves the table, and the dealer shuffles the deck a lot and now the spooked ploppies return. Now the casino has a fresh deck, a walking scare crow who doesn't even need to play too spook the regular players of the last table should they want to try that stunt again and nothing “illegal” was done.

It also could be used against AP players where they notice more about these players and they lose counts, or if they are the only ones hanging on to a +20 shoe when everyone else scatters, or who knows what.

In a place where every element of the game is highly scrutinized, I have no doubt psychology is being looked at, and I would not put it past a casino to use psychological warfare to their advantage.

I don’t know that that is the case, but I do find it strange that on any given weekday, you can walk into a B-C grade casino, and there will be one of two guys somewhere on one casinos floor.

And I don’t know if these two are still there, I haven’t been back in 4-5 years, because when I was going... mon-Thur, midday, with a couple of bucks, they started to only have 6-5, hit soft 17, 6 deck, $10-500 tables open. And the place seemed like it was being used as a container for all the depression in the state.

What you're describing sounds incredible far fetched and I'm sure any experienced player will tell you that if they decide to chime in. The most likely scenario is that they were 2 problem gamblers.

 

[Rebecca C]

What you're describing sounds incredible far fetched and I'm sure any experienced player will tell you that if they decide to chime in. The most likely scenario is that they were 2 problem gamblers.

Far fetched is right. Why would casinos want to antagonize their stupidest customers; the ones who think other players somehow magically affect them?

 

[Dummy]

I answered yes because I have seen casino cheating in the last 10 years at at least 1 place. I don't think the casino was in on the dealers cheat because they gave me +EV options for the first two attempts by the dealer. But after going on his break the dealer misdealt after I got a BJ again and the casino called it a dead hand instead of giving the usual options. That was the point when the casino decided to join the dealer in his attempt to cheat me. I knew that indicated it was time to leave. So I left. I should have left earlier.

 

[xengrifter]

I wonder if there are casinos that help themselves sometimes with.... artificial ploppies?

How might that work?

What are artificial ploppies?

shills maybe?

Artificial shills - androids, like in Westworld - Stepford Shills.