6 ms·
I’m super ambivalent about stories like this. Ignoring what the actual laws are for a moment - this is a game designed by the casinos to their advantage. If a p
by nlh 3y ago
I’m super ambivalent about stories like this. Ignoring what the actual laws are for a moment - this is a game designed by the casinos to their advantage. If a player can figure out a way to get his or her own advantage, more power to them!
I think the casinos can and should of course be allowed to ban people from playing if they don’t want them to play (their house their rules, literally).
But criminal charges? That feels just wrong. Falls in the same bucket as companies who pursue criminal charges against white hat hackers / security researchers.
- akiselev 3y agoNot only are the games designed by the casinos to their advantage but if someone actually starts consistently winning, they just get banned and sometimes refused a payout. It's set up to be heads the house wins, tails the customer loses.
- wincy 3y agoI watched a documentary on this the other day, with a guy traveling around the country playing blackjack. Multiple times he had to call the gaming commissioner or the sheriff to get his $40,000 in chips cashed. Even one time when he hadn’t played a single game.
- shocks 3y agoDocumentary name? I’ve also been following Steven Bridges on YouTube and it’s super interesting!
- kelnos 3y agoWait, I don't get the last bit. Did he go to the casino, exchange $40k in cash for chips, not gamble at all with them, and then take the chips to the cashier to get it changed back to cash? That's... weird? I feel like as a casino it'd not be unreasonable to think something fishy was going on, like the guy was making a (somewhat clumsy?) attempt to launder money. But overall... yeah. Certainly a casino has the right to refuse service to whomever they want -- such as someone who's counting cards (not that counting works at blackjack these days, since no casino deals out a single full deck at a time anymore) -- but the idea that they don't feel they have to honor whatever payouts owed up to the point of kicking someone out... messed up.
- School-Cotton 3y agoThe chips were probably from a previous session.
- analog31 3y agoI suspect if it doesn't work that way, we will start bailing out the casinos that go bankrupt, and subsidizing them, because jobs.
- sacnoradhq 3y agoReno and Stateline are casino company towns. Also, the Native tribe casinos are similar operations but probably don't have the same political clout.
- paulpauper 3y agoNot only are the games designed by the casinos to their advantage but if someone actually starts consistently winning, they just get banned and sometimes refused a payout. It's set up to be heads the house wins, tails the customer loses. It is not sometimes. They will strait up not pay if fraud is suspected.
- stavros 3y agoExactly, this is the casinos basically saying "come play, you can win tons of money, as long as you don't actually win!".
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoI think we would have much more ethical gambling if customers getting an edge wasn’t criminal.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dmbche 3y agoThis particular one is about sliding dice - throwing them in a way that they don't tumble. I'm sure it's understandable that that's outside the acceptable way to play a game - counting cards, for example, is done while respecting the rules of the game. I kind of see this one as stealing from the casino, rather than players getting an edge. But I'm cool with casinos getting robbed!
- amrocha 3y agoIMO the casino is responsible for enforcing the rules of the game. If the players sliding dice didn't trigger some sort of detection, that doesn't make it a crime to slide the dice.
- angry_octet 3y agoExactly, it's up to their dealer or put boss to stop it when it happens, not some kangaroo court criminal charges months after the fact.
- bluecalm 3y agoWhy do you apply this standard to cheating at games and not for example stealing? I find the view ridiculous. "If not a crime if you didn't catch me red handed" kind of ridiculous.
- amrocha 3y agoBecause stealing is against the rules/laws of the game/society. The article is scant on details, but it sounds like this happened at an auto table. If the auto table allows dice sliding, and they weren't warned by a dealer that they were not allowed to slide the dice, then they were playing by the rules. To flip it around, why is the casino allowed to stack the odds in its favor, but not the player? If there's an exploit in the rules that players can use to gain an advantage, then it's on the casino to update its rules
- kelnos 3y ago
- tesdinger 3y agoIt's entertainment and you pay for it in losses. That's the deal you make with the owners of the casino when you enter the game. If you try to profit off it by cheating, you are failing to comply to your part of the deal. You don't have to accept the deal if you don't like it, just don't go there. If a company doesn't allow you to test their security, just let it go.
- girvo 3y agoRight! But explain to me how what you've described should equal criminal charges?
- tesdinger 3y agoNot following the games rules to gain a monetary advantage is criminal. If the casinos owner would do the same while dealing cards, you would be saying the same.
- zdragnar 3y agoFraud, probably. The rules of the game require the dice to tumble.
- kelnos 3y agoThere's a simple remedy, though, for people who don't want to follow the rules: ejecting them from the game or the casino. Casinos do that all the time. And consider the usual case at a normal "manual" craps table: if someone tried to slide the dice, or throw them in a way that wasn't allowed, there are three (and sometimes four) casino employees around the table who will quickly call "no roll" and tell the shooter what they did wrong, and have them go again. If they keep doing it, they'll get kicked out. No need to involve law enforcement here. But once we talk about an "automatic" craps table -- which exists mainly to cut down on labor costs to the casino -- now they're pissed that they failed to enforce the rules properly, and have -- through their clout and government legal capture -- turned that into criminal charges against the people who slid by.
- 3y ago
- duxup 3y agoIf you don’t get caught you win ;)
- lb4r 3y ago> this is a game designed by the casinos to their advantage. While I more or less agree with everything you said, could there really exist a casino where players have an advantage against the casino? I feel like even a casino that tries to be perfectly fair, and make a profit on other things like food and alcohol, would eventually go belly up because they would logically attract more 'cheaters' than any other casino, even if they did their best to stop them.
- gerdesj 3y agoI'm not sure I could go quite as far as super ambivalent but I can certainly get quite ambivalent about it 8) The whole point of a casino is for the house to eventually win. That is the nature of a business. However we are also talking about gambling - the taking of odds and rules of the game and paybacks etc. So someone outflanked the house, via dextrous skill. Now here's where it gets a bit murky: where do we draw the line between fiddling the odds potentially into your favour via skill and otherwise? I think that skidding the dice was always an available option and hence should be accounted for say with a trip obstacle that the dice must cross. I think that skidding in this case is different than earpieces and card marking and other cheats. I also don't think that counting in Black Jack is wrong - fix the bloody game. Gambling is often painted by the industry as a game of skill. Please don't penalise skill but do have the good grace to realize when you have lost. Pick yourself up and adjust the rules and crack on. You have destroyed so many lives over the centuries, so why not own it and grow up?
- htag 3y ago> where do we draw the line There's actually clear rules about dice handling at carb tables. The dice are expected to hit the far wall, the dice are expected to be tossed, and to not slide. Throws that do not meet standards might be deemed 'no roll'.
- kelnos 3y agoAnd a call of "no roll" in that case is fine. But criminal charges? C'mon.
- bluecalm 3y agoI don't agree. I think it should be legal (as long as going business offering gambling games is legal which is another thing to consider) to offer a deal: "Let's play a game where you have 0.98$ ROI for every dollar staked. In exchange we offer high variance and thus a chance you win big". As long as the casino offers a game true to the promise they should have protection against people looking for loopholes the same way there is protection in contract law. Gambling games are a form of reverse insurance. With insurance you pay to reduce variance/risk. In gambling games you pay to increase it because apparently a lot of people enjoy it. As long as the deal is "come play this game, we offer negative ROI in exchange for high variance" and not "come at us, try anything to win at the game we have here" the house deserves protection imo.