Jury rules against Caesars Palace and Griffin Investigations
This post is from 2005. It was written about events at the time and has not been updated since. For current guidance, see the card counting.
The James Grosjean and Michael Russo case against Caesars Palace and Griffin Investigations is done, and the jury ruled in favor of Grosjean and Russo, awarding $100,000 in actual damages. Caesars chose to settle with the plaintiffs before the punitive damage portion of the jury deliberations, but Griffin did not. The jury awarded an additional $25,000 to the plaintiffs from defendant Griffin for punitive damages.
For those unfamiliar with the case, Grosjean and Russo were legally hole-carding at the game of three card poker, and were detained by Caesars and accused of card-bending, based on their listings in Griffin Investigations subscription-based service for casinos. Griffin was found by the jury to have been guilty of libel and defamation for having listed the two as cheats with no evidence.
A Las Vegas Review Journal article about the case can be found here:
Archived article
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I was put on a data base for advantage players recently I believe it is called Oregon state surveillance or something along that line. It is a national data base. Does anyone know if you can do anything about that? Any thoughts out there? Thanks
Probably not much to be done. These databases are pretty much one-way. In my experience, once you’re listed, you’re listed. The good news is that virtually every pro I know has made a lot more money in the years after they were in Griffin than before. It’s not as fatal as it sounds.
Was flagged at the Borgata almost ten years ago & then Caesars. To this day I have played in most major venues & have not been escorted out. Although there are “lists” all over the country, some casinos are not as “tight” as others. Perfect example would be the Tribal casinos in CT. I spent 9 months in one of them going through the paces & took them for 250K. On top of that their comps at the time were great. I knew there were times when I was being run down, so I just took it easy. Aside from the discipline of tracking, you should always consider unit betting which will help disguise your edge.