I was the poster, and my question was not "implied." I asked why
you didn't go to Gaming Control and file a complaint. I have
considered your response, below, and found it a bit curious (in my
view) for the following reasons:
First, the surveillance cameras are ABOVE the tables, looking for
the most part straight down. You and the other bettors, on the other
hand, see everything from a predominantly horizontal angle.
Therefore, a stack of chips (chips stack vertically, right?) might
block the view of some or most bettors, but can't block the view
from cameras directly above. As I said earlier, it is likely that
the cameras were able to "see" the dice.
Perhaps. But the camera would have had to be DIRECTLY above, not
just the table, but the spot where the dice landed. The inner wall
of the table and the dealer's body were on one side, the several-
inch-high stacks of the dealer's "working chips" directly on the
other side, and the boxman, chip stacks on a third side. The only
direct view was downward from the end rail. In any case, we felt
that the stickman would not have done this little trick unless he
KNEW that the dice had landed in a "blind spot"; otherwise, why
would he do something like that on videotape? The obvious answer was
that he was familiar with the "blind spots", was prepared to miscall
the dice if they landed in one of these spots, and took advantage
when that did indeed happen. The "giveaway" was the dealer hitting
the dice wuith his stick; a pass line decision is supposed to be
brought undisturbed to the center of the table so all can see
(including the camera).
The fact that we were all but dragged out of the casino rather than
anyone listening to our complaints gave us pause. All three of us
loudly, vociferously, and repeatedly demanded to speak to a Gaming
representative. We were told "you have nothing to talk to Gaming
about" and when we persisted, were told that we would be ejected as
being disorderly if we continued to press the issue.
My personal take on what Gaming would have done is: nothing, since
for twenty years I have been reading in the papers about how players
bring legitimate grievances before Gaming and they are dismissed out
of hand, almost without exception, regardless of the merits of the
case. IMHO the "Gaming Control Board" is nothing but a casino
lapdog, a rubber-stamp pseudo-watchdog in this casino-owned state.
Second, you have described how you spend several hours each week
driving around to pick up bounce back from various casinos. You have
also mentioned that $30/hour is a reasonable "earn" from your VP
endeavors. I agree, that is the figure I myself use when deciding if
something is worth my time. So, if as you say, THOUSANDS of dollars
were at stake on the craps roll in question, it should have been
worth the hour or so of your (and your friends') time it
would have taken to file a complaint with Gaming.
COLLECTIVELY, thousands of dollars, the wagers of over a dozen
people. MY bets on the table at the time were something like $60. I
doubt that I could have recouped the lost wagers of the OTHER
players!
When I filed my complaint, I did it by e-mail--didn't even have to
go there in person! It took me maybe twenty minutes to compose the
e-mail, and maybe an hour additional in follow-up
communications. In my case, the hour and twenty minutes netted me
$4000 in Dillard/Macy's merchandise. It seems to me that in your
situation you should have at least made the effort!
Keep in mind that the evidence that would support our claim (in the
absence of which it would have been our word against the casino's)
was in the custody of the casino against whom we would have to make
our claims! It would have been easy enough, if the tape DID contain
evidence that the casino had in fact cheated us, for the tape to
be "lost", "accidentally erased", "unable to be located", etc. This,
coupled with our strong feeling that the video cameras would not
have seen the spot on the table in question (as I explained above),
made us feel that it was a hopeless task to try and recover our
money; furthermore, two of us were so thoroughly disgusted with the
whole incident that we simply didn;t want to have anything to do
with that casino again--even to file a claim against them (which we
all felt would be dismissed).
It is truly difficult for me to accept that you and your friends
didn't follow up with Gaming Control, considering the small time
investment and the large loss. Plus the possibility of seeing the
casino "punished" for its crime!
Any further explanation would be most welcome!
Well, since it was a subjective evaluation, you probably don't agree
with it. The fact of the matter was, being so blatantly cheated,
then roughed up and thrown out of the casino when we protested,
didn't give us the impression that the casino was afraid of
retaliatory action, by us or anyone else. So we decided to just go
on to better things rather than spend more time, effort and
annoyance pursuing what we felt would be a losing cause; not just
David vs. Goliath, but david vs. Goliath and A Dozen Lawyers.
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, bjaygold@a... wrote: