Blackjack FAQ answer

I was reading the blackjack FAQ on wizardofodds, and I had a problem with this question/answer.

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This issue has bothered me for many years. In 1999, my father took me to Vegas for my 21st birthday. We were playing blackjack at the same table, I with roughly $25 in bets on the table, my father with about $40. The dealer had 20, but miscalculated and thought she busted. She paid us as if we won. Roughly 15 minutes later, three suits came down, put their hand on our shoulders, essentially appraised us of the situation, and mandated that we pay back the "winnings" or leave the casino. We decided to leave the casino, and gamble elsewhere that evening. Is that standard operating procedure or is this more the exception to the rule?

MIKE FROM BUFFALO GROVE, IL

In my opinion the two most sacrosanct things in gambling are no cheating, and honoring a bet. No expiration dates, no excuses, a gentleman honors his gambling debts. You didn’t say how many points you had. The right thing to do would be to return the winnings only if you had a 20, or the winnings plus the original wager if you had less than 20. If they were rude in the way they asked, I wouldn’t blame you for leaving, but I still would have paid. I’ve been asked this before, so I think that this is the standard operating procedure.

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My issue is, do you think they will come down and pay your winning bet when it is taken in error by the dealer? If yes, I think you're naive. If no, then your stance is just a freeroll for the casino. As someone that plays the poker table games where mistakes are more common (and often drinks while gambling), I'm 100% sure that I've had money taken from me in error at some point. I've never had anyone try to give it back after the fact. Any decent sized "bonus" wager is confirmed by multiple people, so we're talking about a run of the mill win. No way am I giving that back after the fact.

Hi BacksliderLV, and welcome to the forums.

I completely understand and "kind of" agree with Mike's (The Wizard) standpoint. In the spirit of gambling one should always honor their bets, win or lose. I do this with any person I've ever made a bet with, for either monetary value or other (possessions, bar tabs, etc, etc, etc). However, I've found that I personally have been wronged by many casinos, and that MOST (not all) casinos I've been to do not have the same spirit of the game. Therefore I would not have returned the money in your situation (would be different for me if I wanted to stay and keep playing there). If it's just a one off casino you'll never be back to then just leave with the money, because as you mentioned I can't begin to describe how many short pays to the players I've corrected in my career.

These will be wild estimates, but in my career playing (counting blackjack and other AP'ing for over 10 years) I'd say the following numbers feel about right... the number of miss-pays AGAINST a player are about 2-1 or 3-1 over the amount of mistakes for a player. I can't even begin to count the number of miss-pays I've corrected a dealer on against players. Some casinos I've been to I'm pretty sure were doing it intentionally because there would be one pretty much every round or every other round during blackjack. Again, not all casinos are like this, not all dealers are like this, and there are plenty of places that are "fair" and honorable... it's just been in my experience that there are MORE places that are not so fair and honorable, thus by "averages" I would take the miss-pays from casinos.

Next, gambling is a competition. The casinos know this. They bait players in by even saying "come take a shot at beating us!" You're not responsible if the other side makes a mistake. It's not up to you to teach their dealers how to deal their games or pay hands. If their training was insufficient then the burden and expense that comes with that should ALWAYS fall on the casino, not the players.

I have in fact seen a casino come down or call down and pay a player back after shorting them or taking their bets. I have also seen a casino come down or call down and ask for money back on an over pay. But overall in my career I definitely side with the players that the house shorts them more often and does not catch it / pay them back. So I completely understand if you're a casual player looking to just have fun and you're willing to accept the cost of the expense keeping any said winnings as such. After all, you're still not going to win money from them in the long run, so on that one particular hand let's pretend they gave you a discount/bonus. Even with all the bonuses you'll get in your lifetime if you're playing the game for fun then you're going to be a lifetime loser all the same.

I've found casinos are usually nice about situations like this. Rather than leaving in a huff, I'd have tried to score a buffet or a meal for my trouble.
You know you were overpaid, so you aren't being wronged.

If I realize an error, I slow the picking up of my chips until the cards are collected; after that, I just take it and shut up. I've actually had dealers wave me off when I try to point out a mistake; my guess is that they would get in trouble over it too, so they'd rather just ignore it.

I had a similar incident happen at a national chain a while back; I was playing a green plus progression of reds on top (add a red each win, remove a red each loss) at a 5$ table, only thing that's open. I get a BJ when the floor manager comes over, looks at what I'm being paid, and tells the dealer it's an overpay. They look at it; the dealer's confused, I'm waiting, and the manager removes a few chips from the payout: "It pays 3:4?" "This is a 3:2 table." "And that's less than even money." Manager takes another long hard look at it, and corrects it. ("Well, she's made a mistake like that earlier.")

A few minutes later, she comes back again, saying that the cameras caught an error and are asking me to voluntarily return 25$, which I absolutely do not recall happening, and would be fairly obvious if it did happen, since I was requesting all my pays same-color to manage the progression. The rest of the table immediately declares that to be ridiculous and advise I refuse. Manager says it was about 10 hands ago and she just wants an answer. I, fairly reasonably I thought, said that if I could view the footage and have the error identified from it, I would. She just shrugs and says she needs an answer to report back to them. I refuse, pending a review of the footage, and that was that.

Best part was, somebody started chasing me down when I left the table some fifteen minutes later. Expecting it to be somebody higher up or security regarding the alleged overpay, I decide to head for an exit first, instead of the cashier. Turns out, it was a host trying to give me a business card and an offer to cover dinner that evening.

I'm a strong believer that it's the responsibility of the casino to train and motivate their staff properly, and the responsibility of the staff to do their job properly. If they have failed at this and I can benefit, that's fantastic. I keep an eye on play to be sure I catch them when they underpay me, and to make a note of the circumstances when they overpay me. I consider this to be an essential part of making money as a blackjack player.

As Romes said, dealer errors against the player are a lot more common than dealer errors in favour of the player. If you are a BS player relying on the efficiency and honesty of the dealer then the 0.5% HE you think you're playing against is in reality a HE of between 1-2.5%.

Being in the UK (where the majority of casinos exclusively use CSMs) learning to identify weak dealers and develop methods of increasing the chances of them making errors in my favour is essential to my game. Having recently returned from a trip to Vegas I was surprised that out of the hundreds of hands I played I only benefited from 1 dealer error. If my limited sample size is reflective of Vegas dealers then they are much better trained than the staff in the little Casinos I frequent here in the UK. I consider a weak dealer to be one that benefits me with an error on average once in every 50 hands, and a strong dealer one that takes more than 200 hands.

If the casino made a fuss and asked for the chips back I'd put my shocked face on and ask to see the evidence, and on being shown it pay them back. This is mainly to protect my reputation as I wouldn't want my card being marked.

Casinos want to take as much money from you as they can without getting themselves sent to prison. The player should reflect this attitude.

In playing and managing for many years, I have had this situation of being approached on the floor and asked to pay back a mistake occur several times. Each time was for a disputed amount of hundreds or thousands of dollars. When the casino makes the decision to ask a player for the money back, they are prepared to show the video to the player. A player that didn't realize this mistake isn't likely to just turn over a thousand dollars on someone's say so. There is a reasonable expectation to be shown the mis-payment.

So it surprises me that a casino would make this decision to handle it this way for the amounts of $25 and $40 stated in the original post.

Quote: BacksliderLV

My issue is, do you think they will come down and pay your winning bet when it is taken in error by the dealer? If yes, I think you're naive..

I think youre the one who is naive. Do you think if surveillance calls down and say "Hey, dealer on this game made a error and owes the player X" the Floorman goes "Lol Nah" ?

I agree with Mike's response. Its all about the honor system.

I've dealt table games in Vegas, mostly blackjack and craps. Have had floor people ask a player for money back. Person almost always would ask to see the video, floor person would always say no -- either pay it back or GTFO. I've also had floor people tell me to give someone money because they were shorted or some mistake was made earlier. This is in reference of surveillance spotting the error and calling down. But if the floor saw the mistake himself (at the time) he'd just correct it then and there.

Plenty of times I had realized I made a mistake after the fact, like a hand or so later, and basically thought screw it. If I overpaid the guy, good for him. If I underpaid the guy, oh well. If it was a game like blackjack, then I'd perhaps try to figure out a way to overpay him (and make him even) later on. On a game like craps, I'd just tell the boxman I underpaid guy X and I'm gonna give him $Y now.....most of the time the boxman is off in la-la land and doesn't care. But if the player was an a**hole, no way.

I have had lots of dealer errors against me corrected by the pit boss.

Quote: RS

I've dealt table games in Vegas, mostly blackjack and craps. Have had floor people ask a player for money back. Person almost always would ask to see the video, floor person would always say no -- either pay it back or GTFO.

Of course the person would almost always ask to see the video. If the player honestly didn't know there had been a mistake, his response is going to be "show me".

"either pay it back or GTFO" is one hell of a way to do business. Take the advantage player or card counter aspect out of the equation. Player is flat betting $500 or $1000 per hand, maybe playing multiple hands. Dealer makes a mistake paying a pushed bet. Floor person comes over and says 15 minutes ago we made a mistake and paid you on a push, you owe us $500. The player, not knowing or remembering the situation asks to see the video and is told "No. Take our word for it or get out".

So the casino losses a relatively high stakes losing player, because of their mistake? This highlights the difference between when real casino guys ran the casinos. This is just bad business practice. The fact is that this player, a losing player is going to lose that $500 back a hundred times over, if the casino will only let him. This is a quintessential 'cut off your nose to spite your face' reaction.

What's the procedure for a player viewing the video? Can they send it to the floor to be seen, or do you have to go into the scary security office to see it?

Quote: billryan

What's the procedure for a player viewing the video? Can they send it to the floor to be seen, or do you have to go into the scary security office to see it?

Years ago I was taken to a security office to view the footage. Not the surveillance room, but a security office, where the video was shown on a monitor. This was on the East Coast. Today, they certainly ought to be able to send that video to a monitor right in the pit, or even a tablet type device that could be brought to the table, if they wanted to.

It is in no way unreasonable for a patron to want to see the video. Take it out of the blackjack table context. Do you think it would be acceptable for a casino representative to approach a machine player and tell him the machine over-paid him 20 minutes ago and he owes $20? Since most players play so quickly they don't even know what they got half the time, no player would accept that, without seeing proof. Is the casino rep going to say "you pay me $20 or get out."

The fact of the matter is that employee error is part the cost of doing business.

I once had a Sands Bethlehem security guard chase me down in the parking garage as I was walking to my car. He explained that the table manager wanted to see me. Turned out I’d been underpaid $875 on one of my roulette winning spins. The camera had caught it but I’d walked away before they alerted the manager

Quote: michael99000

I once had a Sands Bethlehem security guard chase me down in the parking garage as I was walking to my car. He explained that the table manager wanted to see me. Turned out I’d been underpaid $875 on one of my roulette winning spins. The camera had caught it but I’d walked away before they alerted the manager

I was playing blackjack there once. I took about a 15 minute break. I was going to leave all of my chips there but as I walked away I grabbed my green and left the red. When I came back they were gone. I asked the pit boss if she locked them up. She looked at me weird. After a brief moment of hoping I wasn't losing my mind, I said I left about $60 in red chips and the dealer marked my spot. She reluctantly called security and then told me they were looking at it. About 15 minutes later 2 suits came up to the table and asked me if I was missing $60 in chips. I said yes. They said somebody sat down at my spot when I was gone, gambled them and lost them and left. They then handed me $60 cash. So it seems Sands security is a bit more player friendly. 2 happy security stories in a world of so many bad ones.

Quote: Sandybestdog

I was playing blackjack there once. I took about a 15 minute break. I was going to leave all of my chips there but as I walked away I grabbed my green and left the red. When I came back they were gone. I asked the pit boss if she locked them up. She looked at me weird. After a brief moment of hoping I wasn't losing my mind, I said I left about $60 in red chips and the dealer marked my spot. She reluctantly called security and then told me they were looking at it. About 15 minutes later 2 suits came up to the table and asked me if I was missing $60 in chips. I said yes. They said somebody sat down at my spot when I was gone, gambled them and lost them and left. They then handed me $60 cash. So it seems Sands security is a bit more player friendly. 2 happy security stories in a world of so many bad ones.

How? Empty table + different dealer?