Dear Mark,
I was asked to leave a casino because a pit boss believed I was adding more chips
to my bet on a roulette table after the dealer “supposedly” called no
more bets. I told him I didn’t hear the dealer say it, and that I was just
adding chips to my favorite number, which I believe he was upset at because it
just happened to be a winner. Does the casino have the right to toss me out? Nick
B.
Let’s just say you were lucky, Nick, that you weren’t treated to
powdered eggs for breakfast compliments of the county.
It’s obvious from your letter that the pit boss felt, right or wrong (I
wasn’t there) that you were capping your bets, meaning, you were piling
extra chips on top of your initial bet after the ball had dropped. Casinos consider
this a serious form of cheating, and it’s a good way to get 86’ed
from the casino and/or to spend some time in the slammer.
The primary function of a pit boss is to protect the company’s assets.
It’s their job to be on the lookout for charlatans who “past-post”
an unsuspecting croupier by adding chips to a winning number, or removing chips
from a losing number after the ball has already dropped into the wheel. One
time Yours Truly had such a hustler on a game that was graced with the hands
of a magician. He could get chips on or off a table without me, a patsy break-in
roulette dealer, even noticing. Luckily, an alert pit boss did, the 'eye in
the sky' confirmed, and the casino ended up pressing charges to the fullest
extent of the law.
Regarding the dealer calling “no more bets,” every casino, Nick,
has its own set of guidelines on when they want the dealer to call it. Some
before the spin, others will allow an experienced roulette dealer to halt wagering
at his or her discretion. Since the casino holds a hefty 5.26% advantage over
the player on all but one bet on the layout, obviously they want to wave in
as many wagers per spin as possible within reason. To avoid a future fracas
with casino pit personnel, I suggest you get your bets in early, well before
the dealer voices “no more bets.”
Dear Mark,
Lemme see here. I will lay 5-1 that this is the 500th or higher e-mail you’ve
received about your Hardways explanation. You were just checking on your readers
to see if we are alert enough to gamble, right? Mike H.
The egregious error, Mike, (a 7 and 1 to make an easy eight on a dice roll)
was purposely done so as to give away some of my Hooked on Winning tapes for
those alert enough to spot it. Surprisingly, I got nowhere near 500 readers
catching the blatant mistake for the free giveaway.
The half-baked idea of seven-sided dice on a crap game had blown in from Gurth.
You might remember him -- the knucklehead who wrote in wanting to wrap his Uncle
in Reynolds Wrap to block Uncle’s pacemaker signal from interfering with
an electronic slot machine. Recently he sent me a letter crawling with indigestible
mathematical muck to prove that the game of craps could rain cash and glory
on the player if seven-sided dice were introduced on the game, I am guessing
illegally.
I’m figuring Gurth is in possession of a pair of seven-sided dice, since
I’ve seen them before, associated with a variant form of Backgammon that
uses seven-sided dice and a seven-sided polygon board with seven points in each
quarter instead of six, as on a standard board. Anyhow, I’ve put Gurth
on special secret assignment, asking him to field test a seven-sider with five
million random tosses to see if all seven numbers on the dice equally appear.
That should keep him busy, and hopefully out of trouble. I figure he’ll
be done in nine years, four months and three weeks. I’ll post the results.
Nice catch to you, Mike, and those others who noticed it. The tapes are in
the mail.
Gambling wisdom of the Week: "If bankroll accumulation is your
goal, there are better methods for obtaining it (for most people) than gambling.
Work two jobs. Bank everything. Spend nothing." --Bob Dancer
