Casinos don't cheat.....prove it.

Quote: Nareed

I'll just say this once:

If you think the casinos may cheat you, don't go to any casinos.

I think that's why some of us are taking this thread seriously. I don't believe that cheating in the games I play is occurring, yet someone who claims inside knowledge is saying that it is indeed pervasive. A reasonable discussion seems warranted.

Quote: mkl654321

I dealt blackjack for eight years. I avoided getting summarily fired by always maintaining a kissy-kissy attitude with my immediate superiors. Nonetheless, I was often--I would estimate over a dozen times--subjected to intense scrutiny after my table had had a bad shift/day/week. One time, I was pulled off the game and questioned after I had lost $15,000 to a single player. No doubt the surveillance tapes were pulled and gone over minutely as well.

If you've never been employed in this environment (and you obviously haven't, given your naivete), then you might not understand the crap that goes on, EVERY DAY.

And as far as cheating not happening? Don't make me laugh. I knew DOZENS of dealers who cheated on a regular basis. Some were dumping to a confederate, and thus had to destroy the other players to make up for it. Some cheated for themselves. Some cheated high-rollers at the behest of the house (and got double or triple shares of the tokes when they were divvied up). And yes, some dealers cheated the customers JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT. It was an ego thing, they laughed and joked about it afterward in the break room, and they had all sorts of wonderful things to say about the players.

By the way, if you could listen to the conversation in the break room for five minutes, you'd never toke the dealer again. The people who toke heavily ("georges") are the ones held in the highest contempt.

Thanks, mkl.
Finally some substance.
What do you know about roulette?

I started this thread asking if anyone had proof of an effective deterrent to casino cheating. There have been a couple examples of gaming commission personnel intervening on behalf of a customer with a complaint. But there apparently is very little evidence of gaming commission personnel checking the dice or the cards during play.

Many of you keep saying its unlikely that dealers would comply with directives from upper management to cheat, and I agree with you. But use your imagination; if the craps table is juiced only a few people know about it and none of the dealers would have a clue. And if Shufflemaster is not selling a card shuffler that identifies the card sequence coming up, and transmitting that data to someone in the control room, and altering the sequence of cards coming out, then I'm applying for a provisional patent on that Monday morning.

I don't want to believe that casinos cheat. I know I'm going to lose in the long run, I just want to have a reasonable chance. But losing $8,000 in a few hours of craps playing $5 pass line and 10x odds (which according to the WOO site gives the house only a .0018% edge) makes me question the fairness of the game.

Quote: chook

Thanks, mkl.
Finally some substance.
What do you know about roulette?

There was "substance" in all my other posts. You just chose not to see it as such.

I only dealt roulette during my first three months as a casino dealer. I doubt that the house or the dealers cheat at roulette, because it's relatively difficult to do, the house edge is gigantic as it is, and roulette only attracts small ball action, because of the double zero.

Quote: cclub79

A question: If it's so pervasive, has there never been a dealer who's acted as a "whistleblower" who could go to the authorities with proof? Having higher ups encourage cheating players is criminal, as is cheating the player. So every dealer would rather break the law to protect their job when they could blow the lid off of something, write a book, and be featured on The Today Show, Larry King, etc?

1. Without proof, as in, ironclad proof that the dealer had been ASKED (told) BY THE HOUSE to cheat a player or players, the dealer would just be dismissed as another "disgruntled former employee". And a dealer who confessed to cheating, but couldn't prove that he had been told/encouraged/pressured to cheat, would be putting his head in the noose for nothing.

2. Dealer jobs can be very lucrative. Whistle-blowing (as in other professions) would doom the dealer to never working again in any casino, and it would carry no tangible reward, possible Larry King appearances notwithstanding.

3. Harrassment/intimidation is very powerful in the casino workplace, especially used against women; until very recently, less than five percent of casino floor management was female. Threatening someone's livelihood can be a very powerful lever. Until quite recently, a person who couldn't work in the casinos would have been unlikely to find a decent job elsewhere in the city.

4. As I've pointed out elsewhere, if the casino makes its displeasure with poor results evident, the dealer may feel under pressure to improve the bottom line in any way he/she can--and the only way to do that is to cheat. So the inducement to cheat may be subtle and unstated, but it's there nonetheless.

5. And if you're curious, I cheated the players, JUST FOR FUN, dozens of times. Sometimes I cheated FOR the players. I was terrible at it, and clumsy, but no one EVER said anything--so I would expect anyone actually competent would be able to cheat well-nigh invisibly.

Quote: mkl654321

1. Without proof, as in, ironclad proof that the dealer had been ASKED (told) BY THE HOUSE to cheat a player or players, the dealer would just be dismissed as another "disgruntled former employee". And a dealer who confessed to cheating, but couldn't prove that he had been told/encouraged/pressured to cheat, would be putting his head in the noose for nothing.

Seems to me a sting could be set up rather easily. (If it's as widespread as you say.) Politicians are caught all the time (see the 34 a year ago in NJ), and they wield as much power as the casinos in this state.

Quote:

2. Dealer jobs can be very lucrative. Whistle-blowing (as in other professions) would doom the dealer to never working again in any casino, and it would carry no tangible reward, possible Larry King appearances notwithstanding.

Imagine the publicity by HIRING the whistleblower. You'd be advertising your fairness to the world at the precise time that (if they were successful) the industry might have a cloud over its head.

If I play Craps, I'm assuming they can't cheat in any way other than trying to disrupt rhythm, which really only superstitious players believe in. I always thought that was counter-intuitive anyway; it just gives a player an excuse for the loss that was going to eventually come anyway. Now they blame the fact that the house looked at the dice, rather than that their luck just ran out. They are more angry and might play somewhere else in that case. Not good for business, unless you really believe in hot and cold dice.

Quote: cclub79

Seems to me a sting could be set up rather easily. (If it's as widespread as you say.) Politicians are caught all the time (see the 34 a year ago in NJ), and they wield as much power as the casinos in this state.
Imagine the publicity by HIRING the whistleblower. You'd be advertising your fairness to the world at the precise time that (if they were successful) the industry might have a cloud over its head..

We're wandering into Hypothetical Land here, but...

Such a "sting" would be done by law enforcement, with the goal of either a) exposing the casino as it induced/pressured the dealers to cheat or b) exposing the dealer as he cheated. The former would be a practical impossibility (how could outside law enforcement accomplish this without the casino's consent or knowledge?), and the latter also highly unlikely, as the casino itself would have much better cheating detection apparatus in place than any that could be brought in from outside by law enforcement.

In any case, you'd have to absolutely prove that the dealer cheating was doing so as a result of dealer-house collusion, and it would be much more likely that the cheating dealer would be cut loose and thrown to the wolves. I suppose an "undercover dealer" could arrange to get hired and infiltrate the organization, and then wait patiently until he is asked/told/coerced/encouraged to cheat, and of course THAT MOMENT would have to be recorded, along with instances of the actual cheating...all this with covert surveillance and recording that was unknown to the casino...

Naah.

You're talking about pulling a "sting" on a business that has its own police force, security/surveillance systems, etc. etc., and operates above and exclusive of the law, to boot. (You're way off the mark about casinos and politicians having equal power: casinos is to politicans as herd of elephants is to blind, old mice dying of AIDS.)

Headlock

If you play enough in a casino, you are going to see cheating by some of the dealers, but not all of them. Most dealers are just going to work and trying to make a living, and could care less if you win or lose. The good dealers will go out of their way to try to steer you in the right direction to win.

Then you have the dealers that delights in getting players to make bad bets, they get pleasure out of watching players lose!
You also have the dealers that will cheat the players to make money for them self, with an accomplice on the table.

My game is craps, and I have seen it all. Some dealers are dirt bags that have no business in the casino industry.
One thing they will do on the weekends is have the accomplice standing next to a player that is drunk. The drunk will be making bets and the dealer will place one bet for their accomplice. Depending on how drunk the player is, depends on how braising the dealer gets with making bet for the accomplice!
The same dealer will pay his accomplice on bets he did not make, that the drunk did make! Most players will never catch the dealer doing this because they are only looking at their bets when getting paid off!

When you say something to the dealer, they make like it was a mistake! Then you are going to get crap when you are shooting from the other dealers too! Short color-up are always a problem when you have a dealer that is trying to rake chips for their tokes, even when they can see that you know what you are doing some times you will get a short color-up! Isn’t it funny how that green or black chip ended up right next to the dealer’s tokes when you catch them at it, again a late night or weekend thing!

Always do a chip count before you color-up, and count it twice before you color-up!

Then you have the dealers that are new and are afraid of losing their jobs, and yes it does happen they will do anything to stop a player from winning, bad calls seven out, saying they didn’t book a bet that just hit for a big pay-out.
You are starting to see more of this in the smaller casinos when they have break-in dealers working, and a bad suit that does not want their table pay out too high!

I have seen where the dealer booked the bet a player had been making every time they got the dice, and then when the player hit it for big money say they didn’t book the bet.
After ½ hour of arguing the player just gave-up, when the suit would no pay the bet.
When I told the player to call the gaming board he said to forget about it, and walked off the table!

If you live in Vegas you know dealers, and some of them will tell you that if a table is winning the suites will pull them off the table, the other thing is they will tell you if they always are losing they will be looking for a new job!

In Nevada they do not balance the dice or even measure them any more, and yes they use to do it, there are no rules for the dice and I know that someone is going to say there is, but will you please show me them!
In a lot of the states there are rules that the dice have to be balanced and measure before they are put into play. When you play BJ at a Station Casino they bring the cards out that has already been opened, that started about five years ago, and when asked about it, they will tell you that they count the cards in the back room to save time!

Here is the link to the gaming board for NV: http://gaming.nv.gov/stats_regs.htm

The Bear Growls: http://www.thebeargrowls.com should be checked out too!

I have heard all the arguments as to why a casino would not cheat, and the dealers would turn them in if they were cheating right?
Then think for one moment about the oil spill, and how many workers on that platform knew there was a problem. But never said a word about it, till after the spill!

You see it everyday, just open your eyes and read about it in all the news papers!
Everyday someone is getting caught cheating in some business or government, are we all that gullible?

Here is one more site about bad dice: Craps Advantage Players: http://crapsadvantageplayers.blogspot.com/

Remember 95% of all dealers are great dealers, and I do have a lot of respect for them and what they have to deal with everyday, but like anything there are some bad ones, and the same goes for suits, and when you put the both of then together you have a problem!

And yes there have been casino that have gotten caught cheating, only to have their hand slapped, and a small fine!

There are bad apples in ever basket, lets not forget that! Keep your eyes open when on the tables for your fellow players, it is sad but it is true!

For all you naysayers, no I do not blame anybody else when I lose. I heard that one before; he is just a bad loser that is why he is saying the casinos would cheat!

Headlock

If you PM me I will find you some of the things we have found about the casinos when they got caught! It will take a few days of digging things back-up but I will get them to you!

One last point, here in NV most of our tax base is from the casinos, what would happen to that tax base if someone proved the casinos were cheating, and everyone knew about it?

mlk, you certainly are an amusing gent.

You ever see Glengarry Glen Ross?

"I used to be a dealer once... it's a tough racket." *sip*

I'm sure we all like the old, "Let me tell you about the time..." chestnut but it's little more than snips and snails and fantasy without... ummmm... what was it again? Oh yeah, proof.

Yes, I dealt for a time (not the 8 years you put in you old codger) and yes I know that there are a lot of dealers who have questionable morals at best. I also knew a lot of dealers who thought their **** didn't stink who liked to tell stories because it garnered the attention they craved...

Is it possible that dealers cheat players of their own volition? Certainly. Is it likely? Less so. Have you any proof?