For what it's worth, I have another comment:
Some of them take advantage of degenerate gamblers, but generally,
people play at casinos with full knowledge that they'll probably lose
and they still consider it worth it
I agree with you, but there is a big difference. Many people play the lottery when there is an overlay and most don't expect to hit the big one, but some person or some team does hit it, and they are national news and treated like champions. Nobody accuses them of stealing tax dollars or draining education budgets or using team strategies. Now look at what happens in a casino. Again, many people play progressives or promotions when there is an overlay (the casinos call this "advantage gambling" and treat it as a crime although it is not),
It takes two to tango. An advantage gambler treats negative machines
as, from the casino's standpoint, "advantage gambling," and, in
effect, "bars" the casino by not playing the machines, just as a
casino manager needs a good reason to have any machine that has the
potential for what is, from the player's perspective, "advantage
gambling." How is there a moral difference?
and again, since very few casinos actually operate at a loss, there are more loosers than winners, but in general people are willing to risk it for the chance of being one of the winners. The difference is that casinos treat the extra action caused by overlays as a criminal activity rather than as business promotion and treat the winners as criminals rather than celebrating those who win.
I disagree with your characterization of casinos as generally treating
advantage gamblers as "criminals." That's an occasional exception.
Usually, they either don't offer positive machines or, when the
positive machines cost them too much money, they take them out or
change them. That's no more treating advantage gamblers as criminals
than the advantage gambler is treating the casino as a criminal by not
playing negative machines.
When casinos aggressively go after winners and treat them as
criminals rather than winners, less people are interested in chasing overlays, casinos are perceived as poor losers, and business suffers, in other words it's a blight on the entire industry.
One area where you see the big difference is in the statewide and nationwide slot jackpots like MegaBucks and Wheel of Fortune. These jackpots are payed by the slot machine manufacturer and not the casino so casinos are always happy when they get hit and treat these customers like they should be treated rather than as criminals.
The biggest problem today is the "Losers Only" strategy employed by most casino floor management.
Who is that a problem for? If I ran a casino, the only way I might
try to improve on it is to welcome advantage gamblers so that, as soon
as they started playing anything, I'd immediately change it so that
they would leave, which might allow me to eliminate some payroll. I
don't see how it's either good business or good morals for a casino to
offer advantage gamblers something they want to play. There are
probably areas in which, to maximize its profits, a casino must offer
something that advantage gamblers would want to play and the casino
can add even further to its profits if it bars the advantage gamblers,
but what is the moral problem with that? If you ran a business, would
you regard yourself as obligated to do business with anyone who wanted
to do business with you, no matter how much any individual might cost
you?
Almost every casino takes an overall profit from their machines, but they should not brag about that. Imagine if every car dealer or real estate agent bragged about how all their customers were losers and about how much money they make just by being the middle man and convincing customers to pay more for a product they could get directly for less?
Casinos don't brag about their good customers being "losers." They do
just the opposite. They call them "good players."
Middle men only survive by convincing customers that their services have value, not by insulting them or pressing charges against those who get a better than average deal or sucking the blood out of the clueless or addicted or disadvantaged.
If sucking the blood out of the "clueless" is wrong, that settles the
question of what the right thing to do with mistaken meters is.
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Tom Robertson <madameguyon@...> wrote: