Playing Terribly on Purpose

Has anyone gone to a new casino and played (BJ) terribly on purpose?

This may sound crazy (and from a financial standpoint it is, unless you are trying to achieve a specific goal or just troll superstitious players). But, besides the amusement of making everyone groan at every move you make, you get rated much better. If you play long sessions and frequently make terrible plays, but not so terrible that its obvious you are trolling/being intentional (betting side bets, doubling 10s, staying soft 17s etc...) you will get rated very highly by the manager. Especially if you do this when the manager is at your table (and play slightly smarter when he is not).

So this made me curious. Obviously every casino is different with how rate. And, every pit is different and discretion based. But, it is well known that Blackjack players are rated based on their performance. Has anyone done experiments running through set bankrolls/set number of play hours at same table, where they play at different skill level. And, is there some sort of happy medium where the slightly higher house edge is mitigated by increased comps? This would be a challenging experiment (both in terms of time and money), but it would be interesting. And, of course results are never set in stone because one night the pit might have totally different perception.


This idea first occurred to me about 2 years ago when playing with a friend who knew nothing about blackjack, and was betting high (for the table), but playing terribly (he ended up ahead by dumb luck). There was an older lady who was constantly complaining about his play and insisting that it was messing up her game (which is nonsense, even though he was playing bad, he was playing very fast). But, within 10 minutes of play, the manager came up and gave us both (even though I was playing perfect) 40 dollar vouchers to eat at any restaurant in the casino, and said he wanted us to have a nice lunch (it was 11AM) on the house (friend did not have a player card). And, I have observed similar scenarios where bad players often get handed free things from cigarettes (which in NJ nowadays is quite valuable ), to meal vouchers, to upgrade offers very quickly just by playing poorly. Is this a reward for bad play? Or is it to get them away from the table so that they do not annoy "the serious players"? Or perhaps both?

You can already troll people by playing blackjack correctly. Try hitting a hard 12 vs a dealer 2,3 upcard with a $5 bet, pull a 10, then have the dealer pull a 8,9 while guy in the other bases are betting hundreds.

Then try surrendering. People already hate when you surrender. And then when the inevitable event comes where your surrender gives the dealer the 5 to the dealers 16, all sorts of fun happens.

I really am not sure that pits rate higher for bad play.

In my experience, they comp based on the expected loss of the game. It may appear that they comp you in quality of play because sometimes if you lose, they’ll comp you even though you don’t yet qualify for a comp and debit your players points. Before Harrahs bought Horseshoe, the Shoe was very liberal with comps and would do this (the pit boss told me so).

But even if they do comp you based on poor play, it’s still not worth giving up the expected value by making purposeful poor plays.

That’s just me. I refuse to give up any EV.

Quote: klimate10

You can already troll people by playing blackjack correctly. Try hitting a hard 12 vs a dealer 2,3 upcard with a $5 bet, pull a 10, then have the dealer pull a 8,9 while guy in the other bases are betting hundreds.

Then try surrendering. People already hate when you surrender. And then when the inevitable event comes where your surrender gives the dealer the 5 to the dealers 16, all sorts of fun happens.

I really am not sure that pits rate higher for bad play.

In my experience, they comp based on the expected loss of the game. It may appear that they comp you in quality of play because sometimes if you lose, they’ll comp you even though you don’t yet qualify for a comp and debit your players points. Before Harrahs bought Horseshoe, the Shoe was very liberal with comps and would do this (the pit boss told me so).

But even if they do comp you based on poor play, it’s still not worth giving up the expected value by making purposeful poor plays.

That’s just me. I refuse to give up any EV.

Thata a good point. I wish surrender was avaliable in more casinos.

I have much less table experience than y'all, I think, but I did notice after my recent trip that I made a hell of a lot more tier points losing $300 in a few sit-downs (probably 2-3 hours of play) than I did winning $400 and $600 on two other trips. For those two trips, my average bet was absolutely higher and I played for probably 4-6 hours total.

Guess they want me to come back and try to lose my way to the next rewards tier.