Lucky players vs advantage players
AnIrishmannot2brite said:
A friend of mine turned 21 some time ago. A cute petite blond. Her parents gave her a trip to Atlantic City and some money which she changed into twenty dollar slugs by mistake. She really wanted quarters. Being a little naive and not too bright she slipped the twenty slug into the only machine that would fit it and hit something like three sevens or so on her first try.
Huge payout. Then she got lucky again. Made the local newspapers not only in New Jersey but back in New England too. Was a public relations coup for the casino and I forget who else. Certainly exciting.
OK so in an analogous situation how might strong blackjack players help the casino?
If there are enough ploppies constantly "donating" their hard earned money you'd think a few winners would actually encourage more players to join the game. More players (even would be counters) equals higher casino profits.
So at what point does the casino allow successful play before backing someone off?
I'd think that short of being cleaned out the house would actually make money off of these players through favorable discussion and word of mouth advertising.
Though some casinos are pure sweat shops and hate it if anyone walks out with a cent left in their pockets, most casinos do like lucky players. Some wins a huge slot jackpot and as long as the casino figures that person is not a slot cheat, the casino loves it. Publicity will bring more slot players into the casino, some message boards will say that this casino has loose slots and the casino knows that their slots are programmed to give them X amount of profit. The lucky player wins, becomes a shill for the casino, more people lose money in their slots and the casino and lucky player are happy.
A lucky blackjack player is somewhat different but might land up with the same casino loving results. First off, more casinos sweat blackjack than casinos that would sweat slots. They know if their slots are programmed properly, they can not be beat, but they also know that blackjack can be beat. So some non advantage player wins big in blackjack. The casino has someone evaluating his play and in the case of a high roller on a roll, they have had several people give their opinion on his play and often the opinion of a computer program. In the non sweatshop casino, if all have determined that this guy is playing at a disadvantage but is just lucky, they will treat him very nicely and want to get him back to the tables to lose his winnings back to them.
But, if he were an advantage player who plays big and their people did not realize this to after they took the hit, this means they do not want the public to know that X casino is poor at recognizing advantage play. They do not want him returning to their tables. They feel that he embarrassed their staff in fooling them and instead of publicity, use the backoff.
A short story about a rare event:
Quite a few years ago, I found a double deck table in a Vegas casino where I could see the hole card of the regular dealer perhaps 75% of the time and the hole card of the relief dealer nearly as much. So I played for hours flat betting my then max bet and not counting. A tremendous session and they did not pull either dealer for several hours but at one point began changing cards on me, sometimes mid stack. The pit would stand near the table and actually look through the discards mid stack probably looking for marks and doing a count (he did check both sides). I am sure they determined that I was not counting or marking cards. Later a man introduced himself to me as the assistant casino manager and I figured the boot was coming but instead he offered me a suite which I turned down saying I was staying elsewhere. He then offered a limo to take me to my hotel and bring me back, which I also refused. I did accept a nice dinner and the introduction to a host for a return trip.
After three hours of deck changing I did find a new dealer coming in. I could not read this guy and thought it would look strange to begin counting and spreading after hours of being a flat bettor. Played a shuffle and began looking at my watch over and over again. Lost a little money back and told the pit (he was within touch of my right shoulder talking to me constantly), that I feared my luck was changing, had to meet my wife, and would be back for dinner. Not exactly a lie. My luck changed because I no longer was lucky enough to sit at a table with a readable dealer, I did meet my wife and we went back there for dinner, but even after a shift change I did not play.
My guess is they never figured anything out as I would return there looking for my two favorite dealers till they eventually moved on.
Never took them up on the room offers because of what I was doing there but for a period of time that host was calling me monthly and offering some of their better rooms, airfare, limos and other incentives.
ihate17
