Harry, I really like your posts, and I got a good laugh out of this... You are right, of course. One thing however -- rather than thinking of advantage players like us as being, "blood-sucking fleas on the underbelly of the beast," I prefer to think of us as being paid shills who put our own money at risk to make the casino look like a fun place to play.
I can't tell you how many times I've sat down to play the one advantage play on a machine and then watch the rest of the bank fill up with video Keno, 8/5 DDB and 6/5 Bonus players. Sadly, the amount the casino loses to me is NOTHING compared to the revenues I bring in to them by attracting players who play losing games. I really believe that as long as we make the casinos "full and fun," they'll continue to put up with us.
Lainie
Lainie Wolf wrote:
Interesting persepctive and good food for thought. However, many of
Bob's posts undermine his premise. Here's what I mean:
According to Bob's premise, if you're making money from the
casino, the casino is your customer ...
Lainie, I hold some differences with this article as well, though not
on the same count as you.
You argue that there is fault in his definition of what a customer
represents when he claims, as a player with a profit expectation, that
"the casino is his customer".
Frankly, I read his general message as being "when you have a good
thing, don't mess it up by complaining unnecessarily -- and form your
expectations accordingly". I take that to heart because often I
complain about what I may have to put up with, without taking care to
remember what motivates me to tolerate that circumstance in the first
place. (I'm not talking about situations in the extreme, such as
restaurants that inflict repeated bouts of food sickness.)
He suggests, the balance running in favor of the player having a
profit expectation, that this player think of the casino as being
their customer -- shifting the expectation from one in which the
casino should be eager to please to one where the player should be
anxious to keep the casino "warm and fuzzy".
I can see that, but the "casino is my customer" paradigm stretches a
bit. It doesn't fit, in part for many of the reasons you cite.
Let's face it, we're talking a parasitic relationship here --
"blood-sucking fleas on the underbelly of the beast" is how I've heard
it put. The casino tolerates "advantage" players because it isn't yet
feasible (or at least economic) to identify such players and shed them
-- an attempt to do so in a wholesale manner risks clawing away the
casino's own viscera (profitable players) in the process.
But that's not to say that if a particular flea singles itself out by
being particularly irritating that the beast won't manage to flail
away at it. Thus Bob's message -- make a nice comfortable nest for
yourself and siphon away, and don't make an unnecessary pain of
yourself (even if the beast rolls over on you occasionally ;).
- Harry
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Harry Porter <harry.porter@verizon.net> wrote:
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