2d. Re: Detained/Questioned at LV Fitzgeralds for Checking Out VP Pay Sc
Date: Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:46 pm ((PDT))I also advise ALL knowledgeable players to program this number in
his/her cell phone: (702) 385-5454. The number is for Bob Nersesian,
an attorney who has represented numerous skilled players in cases
against casinos. Don't think that just because you aren't cheating,
or breaking any laws, that you can't be detained against your will.
Ask any skilled BJ player that's been around for a while and I'm sure
you'll get some enlightening responses about how casino management
handles players who they perceive to be a threat to their bottom
line.
Some good advice in the above post about avoiding problems when you get "heat", and how to put the "heat" back on the casino, where well-trained security personnel will know how far they can go before they become defendants in a civil suit or perhaps even a criminal court.
I don't know if there's any way to get a copy of a security tape of how one is handled, but that would certainly be a nice piece of evidence in one's defense, and in support of any action one takes against the casino. I would think that a casino's "inability" to provide such a copy if subpoenaed would create an element of anti-casino suspicion if a jury trial occurred.
Certainly in NV, the law permits them to bar anyone from the casino. In NJ, on the other hand, they change the rules - with blackjack, they can change the table limit (minimum and maximum both, usually so that one is twice the other) at any table you sit down at and change how deep they deal into the shoe, making the game unbeatable.
With VP, they change the paytables - as we all are very much aware.
Personally, I'd rather have the games stay good for the community of knowledgeable players, and take my chances at personally being barred.
Although I've heard (MANY) reports of rough and sometimes just scary treatment for blackjack players, my personal experiences have been not that bad -- usually a pit boss comes up behind me unexpectedly (and I immediately know what's coming) and asks to talk to me. They take me aside and ask me not to play blackjack at their casino anymore. They usually tell me I'm welcome to stay there and play any of their other games (thanks, but no thanks). I have had my room and food comp revoked on the spot as part of this routine.
The worse I encountered was Barbary Coast, where the pit boss simply came up IN the pit, not behind me, and pushed my bet off the betting spot and said "that was your last bet". When I asked what the trouble was, he just repeated himself, and that was it. The best was at Westward Ho, where the pit boss actually made you feel good about it: "We're just a little place, and you're too good for us; we can't handle players with your skill".
Interestingly, they've always managed to identify me in the middle of a losing session - perhaps coincidence, but when you are winning slightly over half the time, after five or six barrings in a row all at losing sessions, you start to wonder.
In England, where the clubs are private, you join, wait 48 hours, and then return to play. I played my first session (and lost), and I was informed when I returned on a second evening that "my membership had been revoked". No further explanation, and a huge hassle to try to get my ten-pound membership fee returned.
To some extent, the "cat and mouse" was fun for a while, but to some extent, after ten or fifteen years of it, it was the reason I gave up blackjack and switched to VP and live poker.
Plus, the anti-card-counter technology has become so much more advanced. Not only the ability to photo you and use computers to identify you even in disguise with facial recognition algorithms (I never got to the point where I tried disguises myself), but I've heard they can zoom in on your play, put the cards and the amounts of your bets into a computer, and in pretty short order someone who is essentially a clerk entering data, with no knowledge of the game, can have the computer kick out the probability that you are card-counting.
Certainly the technology is there to track every play made at VP and to do a similar analysis, rather than just look at the percentage the house is keeping of your coin-in, and using that to decide how good you are. The casino could use this data to bar the very advanced player who always has a positive expectation, to reduce comps to the marginal player who needs comps to have a positive expectation, and to roll out the red carpet for the saps who will play anything as long as you make them feel important and give them free "stuff".
Now VP is starting to become less and less worth the hassle too, with diminishing cash back and a limit to how much value I can extract from comps. At live poker I am still welcome (here fishy fishy). If only I could be a consistent long term winner at live poker.
--BG
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