Casino cheating ...

OK, so there was this recent thread, and the topic digressed, and pretty soon we were talking about if "casinos cheat" where really it was if there is rigging of slot machines, because after all how can a non-entity (I should talk!) cheat, it's always someone doing the cheating, and it comes from all sides, all directions, so you just have to know where most of it comes from, and that's from players and dealers and not from management...

So, here:

Two accused of capping bets at Mohegan blackjack table

That's an example of cheating ...

Now, find me a similar story about casinos cheating players at blackjack, not saying it doesn't exist, just that it's much more rare than the opposite, and "preferential shuffling" is not cheating, no 10 years in prison for that, which is what players can get cheating the casino, and this story is not card-counting, which I emphatically repeat is not cheating; ok all you AP's, you see I am not on the casinos side, I'm not on the dark side, I'm just on the truth side ...

--Dorothy

Let's assume for the sake of discussion (I don't use the term argument, because I know I won't win THAT) a publicly held corporation operates a casino. The corporation employs humans to manage the casino operation. These humans may have some sort of stock-based compensation plan, or perhaps participate in an ESOP pension plan, or otherwise have some stake in the publicly traded stock of the corporation. There may be one or a few influential stockholders who are particularly interested in the trading price of the corporations equity securities.

Now further assume that an unlikely downturn in the casino industry results in a decline in earnings, perhaps influencing dividend payments and even stock prices! One or a few people may experience a significant decline in earnings and/or net worth. IN MY OPINION, and I stress that because I don't want to be mistaken for making an unconditional statement, this MAY lead one or a few humans to consider fraudulently altering the outcomes of some of their business operation in an attempt, however ill-conceived, to bolster earnings and/or stock prices.

People have moments of weakness at times and moments when they are ticked off and intentionally make a wrong call but overall the casinos have just too much incentive to stick to the straight and narrow. Oh yeah, some executive at The Venetian tried to rig a car giveaway for a high roller. One foolish pit boss allowed a woman's very young daughter to step up and draw an entry from a great big drum of names. And a few people had chips taken from them in the backroom but not segregated as evidence as they should have been, but overall the casinos stay honest because for them it surely is the best policy!

Can you imagine anyone going into a casino that had a reputation for being a clip joint? A sweat the money place, yes. A clip joint, no!

Has there been routine theft of chips from a casino by employees? Sure. From the cashier, from the cage, from the Chip Dolly, from the table banks... but not from the players. An entire crew can meet up after work and divvy up the night's take, but they are stealing from the house, not the players. Switch out a box of real chips for some fake chips in the inner recesses of the storage drawer? Its the casino's loss.

No casino wants that golden goose killed.

OK. Here's a hypothetical (sort of):

A casino has a big player coming in who likes to play roulette. It is known he likes to bet certain numbers and stick with those numbers come Hell or high water. After a few hours at the wheel, the player takes a break. While he is gone, the wheel is switched with another wheel that looks the same, but the numbers the player likes are negatively biased, and this is known to the casino.

The player then proceeds to lose over $1 million.

Would you consider this cheating on the casino's part? Would it be worthy of prison time?

Or, is it just good clean fun?

...Just asking....

OK, here's a non-hypothetical ... still waiting to see if anyone gets my point:

Six accused of cheating ...

Now, who is doing the cheating? The players, most certainly ...

Just show me those RECENT links where the casinos were caught red handed like this ...

--Dorothy

Dorothy, I agree with you. But your challenge is a bit unfair, I think. Player's don't have the video cameras running constantly to monitor what the casino is doing. And players very rarely have access to the casinos' tapes. It would be far more difficult for a player to prove that the casino was cheating him than for the casino to prove the cases you have cited. That in no way implies you are wrong, only that you may be using a stacked deck in your challenge.

Quote: Doc

Player's don't have the video cameras running constantly to monitor what the casino is doing. And players very rarely have access to the casinos' tapes. It would be far more difficult for a player to prove that the casino was cheating him than for the casino to prove the cases you have cited.

In Nevada, casinos are required by law to tape everything on their gaming floor and hold those tapes for 30 days if there is a dispute of any type. A player who feels cheated simply calls gaming, describes the alleged cheating, gets the tapes, gaming reviews them, spots the cheating which is just as obvious no matter the side who is doing it, and so on ... then the casino loses its license, goes out of business, and so on ... The tapes do NOT belong to the casino, they belong to whoever feels aggrieved -- casino or player!

It is just a bad idea for a casino to "cheat" -- there are cheating players and dealers and pit bosses and so on, they all do it for their own benefit -- but the idea that "casinos cheat" is just silly -- and so many think that's the truth instead of the other way around, which is the real truth of the matter -- casinos are assaulted from all directions all day long ...

Speaking with a shift supervisor -- he says that he lets any player have one shot, as long as it's not too big, and it's not a problem. It's the second one that raises suspicion ... so casinos let players cheat a little bit ... otherwise the day would be too long ...

The idea that there is anywhere near the level of cheating by casinos towards players as the other way around is just ludicrous ...

--Dorothy

Quote: DorothyGale

So the idea that there is anywhere near the level of cheating by casinos towards players as the other way around is just ludicrous ...

The way I see it is that, in the long term, casinos win if they play by the rules, whereas players lose if they play that way. therefore it makes logical sense (absent other considerations) for players to cheat and none for casinos to do so.

But the house edge is an average drawn over millions of plays. In the short term the casino may lose. If that happens in conjunction with cash flow problems, the casino's upper management, those who make policy decisions, might decide to cheat.

Of course, in order to do so, they'd have to come up with various cheating systems for different games, and implement them in short order. And they then have to actually cheat without leaving evidence, and without a single employee squaling. That would be a remarkable feat.

In other words it is ludicrous.

There was a show on pay TV a few years ago about Casinos, in the USA, rigging slot machines so that they wouldn't pay jackpots.
The star witness, a former employee, was shot dead in his driveway before he could give evidence.
Did anyone else see this program?

Quote: DorothyGale

Now, find me a similar story about casinos cheating players at blackjack

Here is one:
https://wizardofodds.com/casinos/casinobar.html

Quote: DorothyGale

It is just a bad idea for a casino to "cheat" -- there are cheating players and dealers and pit bosses and so on

I think, most people would say it's a bad idea to cheat, period. For players and dealers as well as the casinos. But as we all know, this consideration does not always stop people. If it did, there would not be any cheating anywhere.

It can also be argued, that cheating is more risky for players - it is easier to get caught, and the potential punishment is more severe - jail time far outweighs a loss of license and going out of business in my book. They also have less to gain from it.

Quote: Nareed

The way I see it is that, in the long term, casinos win if they play by the rules, whereas players lose if they play that way. therefore it makes logical sense (absent other considerations) for players to cheat and none for casinos to do so.

Would you insist that no profitable business ever cheats by the same logic? Why would they, if they are making money without it? I really wish it worked that way ...

Quote: DorothyGale

... The tapes do NOT belong to the casino, they belong to whoever feels aggrieved -- casino or player!

I have never personally tried to gain access to a tape, though I have heard others claim that it is a difficult process.

Recently, I came across a case law article presented at this link.

To summarize, a man playing blackjack (in Mississippi, not Nevada) was detained by casino security and arrested for supposedly creating a disturbance at the table and later at the cashier cage. He was handcuffed, detained, allegedly roughed up, and turned over to the local police for prosecution. At the arraignment hearing, the defendant proclaimed his innocence and requested that the security tape of the table be shown to prove that he did nothing wrong. The judge sent a representative of the casino to retrieve the tape, but he never returned. After waiting a while, the judge dismissed the charges.

At the defendant's place of employment, he was required to report all arrests, with a potential very negative impact on his career, even in the case where charges were dismissed. He sued the casino. At the civil trial (which is described in the linked article), the security tape of the table was still not produced by the casino, though a tape of some of the activity at the cashier cage was submitted. The jury did find for the plaintiff and award damages, which were appealed, with the end result being a settlement.

I don't know anything about this case other than what I read, but it did not appear that a player could necessarily get access to a security tape he wanted/needed even with an order from a court. The reason the tape was not produced is not clear. There is at least some suggestion that it was disposed of, perhaps because it did not show the casino's case in a favorable light. This was not a case of cheating, but it does make one wonder: if a casino actually were cheating (and I agree with you, Dorothy, that that is not likely) would the security tape ever see the light of a courtroom?

We are not talking about --

A. Casino physical abuse of patrons or

B. Internet casino cheating ...

and ...

C. I have requested and obtained tapes (well, my lawyer did) ...

and ...

D. Just for the fun of it, try and find something that happened in the last, say, year (I found 2 in the last month on patrons cheating casinos) ... enough of these 1997 or 2002 things that aren't even on topic ... come on ...

GO ...

--Dorothy

Quote: scotty81

OK. Here's a hypothetical (sort of)

A sort of foolish one.

Quote: scotty81

the player takes a break, the wheel is switched with another wheel

It must be a really LONG break and have lots of nearby gamblers who are blind.
How much money does the casino lose by taking the wheel out of play?
And if they are going to be risking their license with a crooked wheel,,, why not do it ALL the time?

Casino patrons cheat (or try to) but haven't you heard the old saying about the only way to be a consistent winner at the craps table is to own the casino? If you own the casino, you make more money if things are on the up and up. By the way, that roulette technician who switches in a wheel with stops on it ... I sure hope he doesn't ever realize that he can make a heck of a lot of money by hinting to the casino owner about ratting him out.

Quote: weaselman

Here is one:
https://wizardofodds.com/casinos/casinobar.html

Can someone explain what Casino Bar is? If it's a manufacturer of bartop blackjack machines, I am alarmed. If it's some online casino, I don't care. Thanks.

C'mon, Dorothy. I have already agreed with your point multiple times. I just said that you have presented your challenge on an unlevel field (er, I think I said with a stacked deck). You have presented newspaper articles of people who have recently been accused of cheating. I think I have heard people on this forum recently accusing casinos of cheating, though they may not have attained the newspaper coverage or the support of the police. The real difference comes down to proof, and I just tried to point out that the availability of proof is not equal, even if both sides were cheating. Suppose you or your lawyer said that you want to review last evenings tapes just to see whether you could detect the casino cheating against you. Not likely to happen, but the casino gets to do the reviews all the time, just to see whether they can detect you cheating against them. Doesn't mean they are cheating as much as the players or that they are cheating at all, just that your challenge is not equitable.

Quote: Doc

C'mon, Dorothy. I have already agreed with your point multiple times.

Ah, but that's my main problem ... I don't read the poster's names and have no memory for details ... Your points are conceded ...

--Dorothy

Quote: DorothyGale

We are not talking about --

A. Casino physical abuse of patrons or

B. Internet casino cheating ...

Well you did not mention you wanted a case of a land-base casino specifically. Any points you (and others) made so far against casino cheating apply equally to online casinos as well - they do have a house edge, and they too will face sanctions and penalties if caught. They are also easier to get caught, because you can keep exact records of every game, videotape your sessions etc., and tend to be smaller (thus less money for lawyers and lobbyists) - that's why the news about an online casino getting caught cheating are easier to find. Yet, they still cheat.
I understand, that cases of cheating in online casinos doesn't automatically prove existence of such cases in their land-based counterparts, but I do feel, that they go far enough to refute the points you made about how it does not make sense for a casino to cheat. Apparently, some still think it does.

Quote:

and ...

C. I have requested and obtained tapes (well, my lawyer did) ...

This does not prove your previous universally quantified statement that any player can obtain those tapes from any casino, that Doc's link refuted, does it?

Quote:

D. Just for the fun of it, try and find something that happened in the last, say, year (I found 2 in the last month on patrons cheating casinos) ... enough of these 1997 or 2002 things that aren't even on topic ... come on ...

It is not surprising, that reports of land-based casino cheating (especially, the recent ones - because investigations of this kind take years) are not as easy to come by as those of players or dealers doing the same. It does not prove that casinos cheat less any more than that it is much harder to catch one cheating than to catch an individual player or a group of players, and even harder to prosecute too. By your logic, this should mean that casinos cheat more than the players, because it is less risky for them.
Even when caught and prosecuted, the matter is a lot more likely to be resolved privately, under a seal order to protect the interests of shareholders. So I don't think it is very often that a case of a cheating by a large casino is made public.
But "for the fun of it", here is one: http://lottoreport.com/022604casinos.htm

I just want to bring up something stupid. I don't believe that you could ever find a case of a casino cheating, because, technically, it's impossible for a casino to cheat.

Consider the first article that Dorothy was nice enough to link. Two men are arrested for capping their bets. Capping their bets was considered fraud. But who determines that it is fraud? The casino does. In other words, if there was a casino that said, "If you have a winning hand, then you may add additional chips to your wager," then the men would NOT have been considered committing fraud at that casino, and thus would not be guilty of cheating.

In the second article that Dorothy linked, the cheaters are said to have been card switching. But imagine a casino that says, "In Pai Gow Poker, if you are dealt the joker, you may swap that card to any other player for one of their cards," then that would NOT be considered cheating.

In one poster's inflated concept of a switched roulette wheel, please note that, again, the casino makes the rules. They have rules in place that state that no player may switch a roulette wheel, or touch the roulette wheel, or do anything to influence the roulette wheel. But there is nothing in the rules of the casino that say that the casino can't touch the roulette wheel, or influence the roulette wheel. Again, the casinos make the rules.

Thus, it's my contention that it's almost impossible for a casino to cheat, simply because the casino makes the rules in the first place. Please note that I also think that it's not in a casino's best interest to cheat, since they already have a built-in advantage in all of their games. But I'm not even considering that point.

Now I know an argument could be placed that there is some sort of oversight committee for the casinos. This may or may not be true in some areas. However, let's say for the sake of argument that there is an oversight committee for the casinos, and the purpose of said committee is to ensure fairness. Of course, fairness is already loosely defined, since there is no "fair" game in the casinos, as all of them have a house edge. I do think that most of the thinking people on this forum will agree that there is not one single game in the casino that does not have a house edge. So, right off the bat, any oversight committee is obviously biased in favor of the casinos. Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing. But I am saying that the oversight committee cannot truly be depended on to be fair. And even if it is as close to fair as possible, it has a decided bias in siding with casinos over customers in the fact that said oversight committee would not exist without the casinos for them to oversee.

Now, I'm not saying that an oversight committee is always going to side with the casinos. In situations of obvious problems on the side of the casino, the oversight committee's best interest is to side against the casino. But take the 3 cases above:

1) Person overcaps their bet. Person is accused of cheating by casino. Person appeals to oversight committee on the basis of the person did not know that overcapping the bet was considered cheating. Casino responds that rules for all their games are available, if not necessarily displayed right out on the tables themselves. Oversight committee sides with casino.

2) Person switches cards during game. Person is accused of cheating by casino. Again, rules may not be displayed, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Oversight committee sides with casino.

3) Casino switches roulette wheel. Oversight committee declares that casinos are allowed to switch roulette wheels when they feel it is necessary either to perform maintenance on removed wheel or for other reasons. Person would have to provide some sort of proof that casino replaced roulette wheel with a biased roulette wheel. Customer would have to sit and record the spins to prove some sort of biased roulette wheel. Oversight committee determines that a minimum of one million spins need to be recorded and show a significant bias in the extreme of 10 standard deviations. Customer is never able to watch the wheel for a million spins and thus customer loses argument.

You can also consider the fact that casinos have been given the "ok" to remove card counters at their discretion. Another example of any sort of oversight committee siding with the casino.

Again, I just feel that if the casinos make the rules, then it's nearly impossible for a casino to cheat, unless they are breaking their own rules. But their rules are never openly out there for any of us to peruse. They may have some issues about game rules. But unless they have listed in their rules something like, "In Blackjack, the casino will never shuffle the deck until the cut card has been reached," then the casino could always shuffle up the cards whenever they darn well feel like it. And since they aren't breaking any rules, they aren't cheating.

Now, I know someone is going to want to go into a technical definition of the word "cheat". Fine, here it is (according to Merriam-Webster): 1. to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud. 2. to influence or lead by deceit, trick, or artifice. 3. to elude or thwart by or as if by outwitting. First off I would say that the simple fact that the casinos don't come up to you as you walk into the door and say, "Here's the deal, pal, every game in this casino is defined to be against you, you cannot win in the long run, you may suffer short bursts of positive wins, in which case we are going to wine you, dine you, and provide you with a room in every effort to get even more of your money out of you, so prepare to lose everything you own," then they are, by definition, cheating you. However, I could throw an argument out there that you are required to turn your cash into chips. And the casinos argue that the chips have no inherent value outside of the casino floor. And thus, they may argue that, technically, you are gambling chips and those chips have no value other than what the casino says they are, and thus you are not being deprived of something valuable. It's a pretty loose argument, but so is considering the casino to be cheating you just because they don't tell you every game is against you.

However, I think we would all agree that when we talk about a casino cheating us, we don't mean by those methods. The basic idea is that the casino does something seriously duplicitous in order to get our money. But again, if they make the rules, then what rules do they need to break to be duplicitous.

Thus, I sum up my huge ramblings with the following. What can a casino POSSIBLY do to actual cheat a customer?
Again, figuring that the casinos make the rules, you would have to be talking about something that the casino would do, that would break their own hard-defined, written down, and made available to the customer, rules, that deceitfully removes chips from the customer. Thus, you would have to SHOW what rule that the casino has made for itself to follow, that the casino would then break in order to take more chips or money from a customer.

And until someone can show me that rule, only then could I then go out and look for a case where the casino actually broke the rule in order to cheat someone.

Sorry, wanted to follow up because I knew I was forgetting one link, and that has to do with the Venetian scandal. While the Venetian was held responsible for the problems, it's interesting to note that the Venetian claims that the problems were caused by four rogue employees. In other words, the casino doesn't say the casino was responsible, but rather than employees of the casino were held responsible. I don't believe in any way, and I'm sure others don't, and obviously the Gaming Control Board didn't, that this means the Venetian should not be held responsible. But it still goes towards what I'm saying, in that, in order for a CASINO to cheat, the CASINO has to violate some rules. It doesn't count if employees violate the rules. Another poster mentioned the possibility of profit-sharing employees doing something to increase profits of the casino. Again, that's an employee doing something, and not the casino. So you may say that some employees of a casino may be cheating, but that still doesn't mean, at least to me, that the casino itself is doing the cheating. You would have to prove that the actions of the cheating employees were instructions from the board of directors.

Quote: konceptum

I just want to bring up something stupid. I don't believe that you could ever find a case of a casino cheating, because, technically, it's impossible for a casino to cheat.

Consider the first article that Dorothy was nice enough to link. Two men are arrested for capping their bets. Capping their bets was considered fraud. But who determines that it is fraud? The casino does. In other words, if there was a casino that said, "If you have a winning hand, then you may add additional chips to your wager," then the men would NOT have been considered committing fraud at that casino, and thus would not be guilty of cheating.

In the second article that Dorothy linked, the cheaters are said to have been card switching. But imagine a casino that says, "In Pai Gow Poker, if you are dealt the joker, you may swap that card to any other player for one of their cards," then that would NOT be considered cheating.

In one poster's inflated concept of a switched roulette wheel, please note that, again, the casino makes the rules. They have rules in place that state that no player may switch a roulette wheel, or touch the roulette wheel, or do anything to influence the roulette wheel. But there is nothing in the rules of the casino that say that the casino can't touch the roulette wheel, or influence the roulette wheel. Again, the casinos make the rules.

Thus, it's my contention that it's almost impossible for a casino to cheat, simply because the casino makes the rules in the first place. Please note that I also think that it's not in a casino's best interest to cheat, since they already have a built-in advantage in all of their games. But I'm not even considering that point.

Now I know an argument could be placed that there is some sort of oversight committee for the casinos. This may or may not be true in some areas. However, let's say for the sake of argument that there is an oversight committee for the casinos, and the purpose of said committee is to ensure fairness. Of course, fairness is already loosely defined, since there is no "fair" game in the casinos, as all of them have a house edge. I do think that most of the thinking people on this forum will agree that there is not one single game in the casino that does not have a house edge. So, right off the bat, any oversight committee is obviously biased in favor of the casinos. Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing. But I am saying that the oversight committee cannot truly be depended on to be fair. And even if it is as close to fair as possible, it has a decided bias in siding with casinos over customers in the fact that said oversight committee would not exist without the casinos for them to oversee.

Now, I'm not saying that an oversight committee is always going to side with the casinos. In situations of obvious problems on the side of the casino, the oversight committee's best interest is to side against the casino. But take the 3 cases above:

1) Person overcaps their bet. Person is accused of cheating by casino. Person appeals to oversight committee on the basis of the person did not know that overcapping the bet was considered cheating. Casino responds that rules for all their games are available, if not necessarily displayed right out on the tables themselves. Oversight committee sides with casino.

2) Person switches cards during game. Person is accused of cheating by casino. Again, rules may not be displayed, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Oversight committee sides with casino.

3) Casino switches roulette wheel. Oversight committee declares that casinos are allowed to switch roulette wheels when they feel it is necessary either to perform maintenance on removed wheel or for other reasons. Person would have to provide some sort of proof that casino replaced roulette wheel with a biased roulette wheel. Customer would have to sit and record the spins to prove some sort of biased roulette wheel. Oversight committee determines that a minimum of one million spins need to be recorded and show a significant bias in the extreme of 10 standard deviations. Customer is never able to watch the wheel for a million spins and thus customer loses argument.

You can also consider the fact that casinos have been given the "ok" to remove card counters at their discretion. Another example of any sort of oversight committee siding with the casino.

Again, I just feel that if the casinos make the rules, then it's nearly impossible for a casino to cheat, unless they are breaking their own rules. But their rules are never openly out there for any of us to peruse. They may have some issues about game rules. But unless they have listed in their rules something like, "In Blackjack, the casino will never shuffle the deck until the cut card has been reached," then the casino could always shuffle up the cards whenever they darn well feel like it. And since they aren't breaking any rules, they aren't cheating.

Now, I know someone is going to want to go into a technical definition of the word "cheat". Fine, here it is (according to Merriam-Webster): 1. to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud. 2. to influence or lead by deceit, trick, or artifice. 3. to elude or thwart by or as if by outwitting. First off I would say that the simple fact that the casinos don't come up to you as you walk into the door and say, "Here's the deal, pal, every game in this casino is defined to be against you, you cannot win in the long run, you may suffer short bursts of positive wins, in which case we are going to wine you, dine you, and provide you with a room in every effort to get even more of your money out of you, so prepare to lose everything you own," then they are, by definition, cheating you. However, I could throw an argument out there that you are required to turn your cash into chips. And the casinos argue that the chips have no inherent value outside of the casino floor. And thus, they may argue that, technically, you are gambling chips and those chips have no value other than what the casino says they are, and thus you are not being deprived of something valuable. It's a pretty loose argument, but so is considering the casino to be cheating you just because they don't tell you every game is against you.

However, I think we would all agree that when we talk about a casino cheating us, we don't mean by those methods. The basic idea is that the casino does something seriously duplicitous in order to get our money. But again, if they make the rules, then what rules do they need to break to be duplicitous.

Thus, I sum up my huge ramblings with the following. What can a casino POSSIBLY do to actual cheat a customer?
Again, figuring that the casinos make the rules, you would have to be talking about something that the casino would do, that would break their own hard-defined, written down, and made available to the customer, rules, that deceitfully removes chips from the customer. Thus, you would have to SHOW what rule that the casino has made for itself to follow, that the casino would then break in order to take more chips or money from a customer.

And until someone can show me that rule, only then could I then go out and look for a case where the casino actually broke the rule in order to cheat someone.

I agree that to be prosecuted (not just arrested) for cheating a casino, there had better be a concrete law that was broken. I wonder how many people have been arrested for cheating but are able to either plead out to something much lesser or are not found guilty because of the fact that the casino must prove that you were intentionally defrauding them and not just gaming incorrectly, with no intent.

Two questions that I will then throw out to the forum: 1. Does anyone know the prosecution rate for people who are accused of cheating in a casino to the point of arrest? We've all seen the Travel Channel shows of the guys being floored by security, but I've never seen a trial. 2. Several posters have shared stories about contacting the gaming commissions about unfair payouts or fouled up promotions. Can anyone say that they "won"? What about the guy that was playing slots and said that Gaming was there and said he should have been paid? Was that resolved yet? I'd love to know if anyone has fought the law and won.

Quote: konceptum

Again, I just feel that if the casinos make the rules, then it's nearly impossible for a casino to cheat, unless they are breaking their own rules. But their rules are never openly out there for any of us to peruse. They may have some issues about game rules. But unless they have listed in their rules something like, "In Blackjack, the casino will never shuffle the deck until the cut card has been reached," then the casino could always shuffle up the cards whenever they darn well feel like it. And since they aren't breaking any rules, they aren't cheating.

Breaking the rules isn't the same as cheating. Cheating is telling you (or, perhaps, leading you to believe) they do one thing, but secretly doing another with the intent to get an additional advantage, without you knowing.
If they just decide to shuffle the deck before the cut card is reached, it may be mean or even dishonest, but I would not consider it cheating.
Removing a few face cards from the deck would be an example of cheating, unless, of course, they publicly announce that this is the rule they are establishing for their game. To answer your question, the reason they don't want to do the latter is the same as why my cell phone company isn't charging me $2 per minute for airtime (but doesn't mind to make a "mistake" in my bill every now and then in their favor BTW) - they'd lose customers if they did.

Quote: konceptum

Again, figuring that the casinos make the rules, you would have to be talking about something that the casino would do, that would break their own hard-defined, written down, and made available to the customer, rules, that deceitfully removes chips from the customer.

While I agree with this in general, I think, this may be a little bit too strong of a statement.
In particular "made available to the customer" is very vague. Legally, a little piece of paper, posted in the casino's HQ in Bahamas may be a sufficient defense (or maybe not), but in my book, if the rule in question is obscure enough, that would still constitute cheating. "No resplitting aces" is fine, but something like "we play with six decks after removing ten face cards" is something that needs to be communicated really well, and made extremely clear to every player in order to not be cheating. There is a kind of a de-facto standard for the rules, as well as their common variations, that the players reasonably expect to encounter. I would call cheating any wild deviation from that standard, that is not made completely obvious to every player before he starts the game.

Quote: konceptum

In other words, the casino doesn't say the casino was responsible

Do you really find that surprising? :)

Misposted

Casino's don't cheat, but it's easy to accuse them of cheating because they have the odds stacked in there favor.

If we flipped a coin, the same coin, 1 billion times and every time I won you gave me $5 and every time you won I gave you $4.50. You are given the opportunity to choose heads or tails every time. Even if you were correct more than you were incorrect, I could still make money off you.

The same applies to casinos. Every game has the number that gives it the house edge. In Roulette it's the zero(s), in craps it's the High or low.

By the way, this is why I think it's dumb that people think that wagering 100x odds means they are probably going to win in the long run. The reason it lowers the house edge is because the amount bet that has an edge becomes negligible. However, if I am betting the pass line all night(which a lot of people do), how often do you see there being nothing but passes.

Quote: Doc

Dorothy, I agree with you. But your challenge is a bit unfair, I think. Player's don't have the video cameras running constantly to monitor what the casino is doing. And players very rarely have access to the casinos' tapes. It would be far more difficult for a player to prove that the casino was cheating him than for the casino to prove the cases you have cited. That in no way implies you are wrong, only that you may be using a stacked deck in your challenge.

That's why the argument, "prove it prove it, I knew you couldn't, you're full of crap, neener neener neener" isn't as...er...compelling as it otherwise might be. In order to PROVE casino cheating, a person--as in, ordinary, by-himself, non-technologically-equipped, inside-the-casino person--would have to both DETECT and RECORD it. What are the chances, as a practical matter, of being able to do both those things?

There's a reason why casinos don't allow customers to use cameras.

So the argument that casinos don't cheat because there are so few documented cases of their having cheated is a wee bit flaccid. It's sorta like the "did Saddam have WMDs" debate--the Demos say that since we didn't find them, they OBVIOUSLY MUST NOT HAVE EXISTED....

Quote: weaselman

I would call cheating any wild deviation from that standard, that is not made completely obvious to every player before he starts the game.

I agree with you, and you are better at articulating things than I am. But you have very greatly re-worded by statement in an easier to understand format. It makes sense that a casino, in order to be cheating, would have to have some wort of wild deviation from standard. I still ask, has a casino ever done that? While Dorothy is looking for proof of casinos having cheated, I'm still looking for ideas of what a casino would have to do that would be considered cheating.

I agree, removing cards from a blackjack deck would be considered cheating. Does anybody think a casino has ever done this? In craps, a casino could provide loaded dice that are against the player. Does anybody think a casino has ever done that? In roulette, a casino could be using a biased roulette wheel. Does anybody think a casino has ever done that?

Even in those situations, any such "bias" would eventually be discovered, and players would alter their play accordingly, so that the casino would in effect lose way more money than they stood to gain.

Quote: konceptum

I agree with you, and you are better at articulating things than I am. But you have very greatly re-worded by statement in an easier to understand format. It makes sense that a casino, in order to be cheating, would have to have some wort of wild deviation from standard. I still ask, has a casino ever done that? While Dorothy is looking for proof of casinos having cheated, I'm still looking for ideas of what a casino would have to do that would be considered cheating.

I agree, removing cards from a blackjack deck would be considered cheating. Does anybody think a casino has ever done this? In craps, a casino could provide loaded dice that are against the player. Does anybody think a casino has ever done that? In roulette, a casino could be using a biased roulette wheel. Does anybody think a casino has ever done that?

Even in those situations, any such "bias" would eventually be discovered, and players would alter their play accordingly, so that the casino would in effect lose way more money than they stood to gain.

All of the things that you mention can and have been done, rather easily. In a casino environment, dice are replaced every few hours, cards at a blackjack table, every two hours. Roulette wheels are swapped out somewhat less often; every few days if the table is not busy (although roulette is a game with such a high house edge that there is less incentive for the house to cheat, especially since the number of victims from such a cheating scheme would be limited--I would expect roulette cheating to be more prevalent in Europe).

The statement that you responded to is in error. Most casino cheating does NOT result in a wild deviation from the standard results. That would, in fact, be noticed by gamblers over time. That would, in turn, affect business, as people who consistently lose in a given casino will tend to take their business elsewhere. The forms of cheating that casinos generally use involve an incremental increase in the house edge. For instance, removing two face cards from a six-deck shoe almost doubles the house edge, and no one playing could possibly detect that it had been done.

The "old-style" Vegas casinos had loaded dice that they could switch in and out of games (and for that matter, so did the players!), and most if not all casinos had one or more "bust-out" dealers who would be summoned into a game to quickly destroy a winning player. Practices such as these persisted well into the "corporate era", and the cheating floormen and dealers are now in upper management.

This is why the bias you mention would, in fact, NOT be discovered, because the evidence would be destroyed/discarded. Cards wind up in the gift shop or at rest homes, and it would be simple to reverse any alteration in the decks before they were sent there. Dice can be thrown away, and I don't think we'll see Gaming Control Board agents sifting through landfills anytime soon. A biased roulette wheel can likewise be disposed of.

You have to keep in mind one thing--casinos don't LIKE it when they don't win as much as they feel they should. The corporate mentality actually exacerbates this, as a casino is supposed to be a reliable cash cow. So when the bottom line drops, even as a blip, there is pressure to find out WHY, and resultant pressure on middle management to fix the "problem"--which is very often simply the slings and arrows of variance. I remember a few years back, the Hilton sports book got (quote) "...absolutely slaughtered. We had a terrible year. The players destroyed us." Players indeed did better than normal that year, because the favorites covered the spread in just about every NFL playoff game, including the Super Bowl. However, the sports book getting "slaughtered" was actually the tragedy that they only won $26 million that year. Their reaction was to cut down parlay card and teaser odds, thus penalizing the sucker portion of their clientele--those people who made the worst bets available. Casino management is reactive rather than proactive.

Quote: konceptum

I agree, removing cards from a blackjack deck would be considered cheating. Does anybody think a casino has ever done this?

Yes. First hand knowledge.

Quote: konceptum

In craps, a casino could provide loaded dice that are against the player. Does anybody think a casino has ever done that?

Probably. Don't play craps.

Quote: konceptum

In roulette, a casino could be using a biased roulette wheel. Does anybody think a casino has ever done that?

Yes. First hand knowledge.

Quote: konceptum

Even in those situations, any such "bias" would eventually be discovered, and players would alter their play accordingly, so that the casino would in effect lose way more money than they stood to gain.

Not as easy as you may think.