3 ms·

The only law you need is the rules of a game and a "theft by fraud" statute, which already exist everywhere. The rules of craps generally require that the dice

The only law you need is the rules of a game and a "theft by fraud" statute, which already exist everywhere. The rules of craps generally require that the dice tumble some number of times and bounce off a wall to ensure randomness, and I would be certain that the general rules of craps apply to this game as well. Dice sliding is against the rules already. This isn't a "legal loophole" sort of situation, it's cheating, and thus theft by fraud. Note that card counting is a "loophole" to this idea, since nothing about the rules of blackjack prevents you from memorizing cards, and thus it is not against the rules of the game. On the casino side, by the way, this means some very stringent RNG requirements in slot machines and electronic gaming machines (often requiring specialized TRNG devices), as well as testing gaming devices, from the most complex slot machines to the dice, very stringently.

to11mtm 3y ago
> Note that card counting is a "loophole" to this idea, since nothing about the rules of blackjack prevents you from memorizing cards, and thus it is not against the rules of the game. Typically in these cases the house is limited to either ejecting someone they decide is a 'counter' after they win the hand, or applying countermeasures such as having two decks and shuffling one while the other is in play for a hand (and then using the shuffled one for the next hand.)
- Zanni 3y ago
  I can't remember the last time I saw a single-deck game being dealt. Lowest I've seen (and not recently) is double-deck, dealing about half the cards before shuffling. More common are six or eight deck shoes, dealing anywhere from half to three-quarters of the cards before shuffling. (Most egregious are the continuous-shuffle machines where cards are fed in after every hand.)
  - ec109685 3y ago
    They have single deck in Vegas but mess with blackjack odds to keep their advantage.
    - ec109685 3y ago
      *payout I mean.
  - htag 3y ago
    An eight deck shoe being dealt to 3/4 empty would give an advantage to teams signaling over a 2 deck shoe being dealt to 1/2 empty, because it allows for more total hands before being shuffled.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  You get ejected for card-counting, and arrested for cheating. Pretty simple.
  - TheDudeMan 3y ago
    Do you have any citations for someone being arrested purely for counting cards? In the U.S.? First Google hit: https://www.dlgteam.com/blog/nevada-law/counting-cards-can-lead-arrest-las-vegas/ https://www.dlgteam.com/blog/nevada-law/counting-cards-can-l... Edit: Never mind.
    - School-Cotton 3y ago
      They didn’t say you got arrested for counting cards.
      - TheDudeMan 3y ago
        Oops. You're right. Thanks.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      It's not cheating, so you won't get arrested for it. If you add an ace to the shoe when the dealer isn't looking (and make off with enough money for them to involve the police), off to jail with you.
gumby 3y ago
> Dice sliding is against the rules already. This isn't a "legal loophole" sort of situation, it's cheating, and thus theft by fraud. This is the part I don't get. The game apparently mechanically allows that, so how is it cheating, any more than, say, allowing a soccer defender to kick a goal? Seems to me like a loophole like card counting in blackjack. Is placing a bet after the roulette wheel has begun to spin a crime or merely a violation of the rules (which could get you ejected)?
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Intent matters here, and accidents don't usually even get you ejected from a casino at all. Intentional cheating like that will get you arrested. The rules of the game are often controlled by a gaming commission or legislation that set the rules. Soccer doesn't have the same sort of thing.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    Very much so, if you're playing blackjack and you accidentally touch cards or chips or something inadvertent, you'll just get told "Hey, you cannot do that", in varying degrees of firmness.
  - gumby 3y ago
    Ah, so if I run a casino and come up with some new kind of game I can’t just offer it? Rather I have to get approval and perhaps some regulation is formulated just for that game? That would certainly answer my root question. Sorry if this is naïve — I don’t really know how gambling laws work at all.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      Games are very heavily regulated. You have to get approval, and there is a process for submitting the rules for a new game and getting it approved. Often it's the game makers who do this (and they sell the tables to the casinos for a license fee). It's easiest when it's a game that's very similar to an existing one.
    - 3y ago
anothernewdude 3y ago
If theft by fraud is illegal, then why are there Casinos still operating?
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Casinos and gambling establishments are generally very straightforward and upfront (as required by law) about how the odds are against you. People don't care - they find it fun.
  - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    Also, you can be completely honest about the odds, but most people are bad at math and a significant number believe they will win through supernatural means anyways.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      Now that I have done some work with gambling companies, I'm actually pretty sure most people actually don't have delusions about their winning chances, but they just want to "try their luck" so to speak. There are also the people who get delusions about this sort of thing and can become very problematic for casino staff because they annoy other patrons (eg hogging specific machines or harassing them out of table seats).
- refurb 3y ago
  Because gambling and lotteries are pretty clear on the odds? I mean the government runs lotteries, are they committing fraud?
shultays 3y ago
Wouldn't the responsibility on the casino in this case? Am I going to be arrested if I fail to bounce dices X times when I throw them? Asking because not that I don't believe people cheat this way, but it must be hard to prove that someone cheats or just not good at throwing dice
- andy800 3y ago
  Your instincts are correct. No, at a normal craps game you won't be arrested for failing to throw the dice properly, however, if the casino repeatedly voids your throws they will likely ask you to leave, especially if you're a healthy person who could easily make proper throws but are strangely setting the dice and sliding or dribbling them. The current case seems to be much less clear-cut, however. Normally, a craps game would be watched by a pit crew (and surveillance to an extent) and bad rolls would be immediately recognized and voided. It is unclear whether anybody was monitoring the rolls at the electronic table, and whether there is any specific direction that states the dice must be rolled a certain way. Your question about the casino's responsibility seems highly relevant -- responsible for monitoring the rolls, for observing any possible player collusion, and for clearly stating what an acceptable dice roll consists of. If they failed at any of those, it would be hard to claim that whatever the players were doing, right out in the open, was illegal. This case has parallels to Phil Ivey's ordeal with Borgata and Crockford's casinos. He and an associate won $20 million using a technique known as "edge sorting," which essentially is recognizing extremely small imperfections on the backs of the cards, to know the value of the next cards to be dealt. Whether or not this was actually cheating -- nobody touched the cards or manipulated the cards in any way -- was decided by the courts, but various US and UK courts had differing opinions so that decisions were often flipped on appeal. In this case, the casinos can claim "cheating," but if the players "rolled" the dice and the electronic table accepted those rolls as valid and no casino personnel objected and no written rules were broken, I'd say the players have a good case. Unfortunately we'll likely never know, $225,000 is a lot less than $20 million and I would expect if the casino legal teams realize they are in the wrong, they will simply offer the players $50, maybe $100,000 scot-free to keep their mouths shut and never visit again, and given the cost of legal fees and the possibility they could lose (or be charged criminally), I can't imagine the players not taking that deal. More info on Phil Ivey: https://www.uspoker.com/phil-ivey-lawsuit-borgata-guide/ https://www.uspoker.com/phil-ivey-lawsuit-borgata-guide/

to11mtm 3y ago

> Note that card counting is a "loophole" to this idea, since nothing about the rules of blackjack prevents you from memorizing cards, and thus it is not against the rules of the game. Typically in these cases the house is limited to either ejecting someone they decide is a 'counter' after they win the hand, or applying countermeasures such as having two decks and shuffling one while the other is in play for a hand (and then using the shuffled one for the next hand.)

Zanni 3y ago
I can't remember the last time I saw a single-deck game being dealt. Lowest I've seen (and not recently) is double-deck, dealing about half the cards before shuffling. More common are six or eight deck shoes, dealing anywhere from half to three-quarters of the cards before shuffling. (Most egregious are the continuous-shuffle machines where cards are fed in after every hand.)
- ec109685 3y ago
  They have single deck in Vegas but mess with blackjack odds to keep their advantage.
  - ec109685 3y ago
    *payout I mean.
- htag 3y ago
  An eight deck shoe being dealt to 3/4 empty would give an advantage to teams signaling over a 2 deck shoe being dealt to 1/2 empty, because it allows for more total hands before being shuffled.
pclmulqdq 3y ago
You get ejected for card-counting, and arrested for cheating. Pretty simple.
- TheDudeMan 3y ago
  Do you have any citations for someone being arrested purely for counting cards? In the U.S.? First Google hit: https://www.dlgteam.com/blog/nevada-law/counting-cards-can-lead-arrest-las-vegas/ https://www.dlgteam.com/blog/nevada-law/counting-cards-can-l... Edit: Never mind.
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    They didn’t say you got arrested for counting cards.
    - TheDudeMan 3y ago
      Oops. You're right. Thanks.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    It's not cheating, so you won't get arrested for it. If you add an ace to the shoe when the dealer isn't looking (and make off with enough money for them to involve the police), off to jail with you.

gumby 3y ago

> Dice sliding is against the rules already. This isn't a "legal loophole" sort of situation, it's cheating, and thus theft by fraud. This is the part I don't get. The game apparently mechanically allows that, so how is it cheating, any more than, say, allowing a soccer defender to kick a goal? Seems to me like a loophole like card counting in blackjack. Is placing a bet after the roulette wheel has begun to spin a crime or merely a violation of the rules (which could get you ejected)?

pclmulqdq 3y ago
Intent matters here, and accidents don't usually even get you ejected from a casino at all. Intentional cheating like that will get you arrested. The rules of the game are often controlled by a gaming commission or legislation that set the rules. Soccer doesn't have the same sort of thing.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  Very much so, if you're playing blackjack and you accidentally touch cards or chips or something inadvertent, you'll just get told "Hey, you cannot do that", in varying degrees of firmness.
- gumby 3y ago
  Ah, so if I run a casino and come up with some new kind of game I can’t just offer it? Rather I have to get approval and perhaps some regulation is formulated just for that game? That would certainly answer my root question. Sorry if this is naïve — I don’t really know how gambling laws work at all.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    Games are very heavily regulated. You have to get approval, and there is a process for submitting the rules for a new game and getting it approved. Often it's the game makers who do this (and they sell the tables to the casinos for a license fee). It's easiest when it's a game that's very similar to an existing one.
  - 3y ago

anothernewdude 3y ago

If theft by fraud is illegal, then why are there Casinos still operating?

pclmulqdq 3y ago
Casinos and gambling establishments are generally very straightforward and upfront (as required by law) about how the odds are against you. People don't care - they find it fun.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  Also, you can be completely honest about the odds, but most people are bad at math and a significant number believe they will win through supernatural means anyways.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    Now that I have done some work with gambling companies, I'm actually pretty sure most people actually don't have delusions about their winning chances, but they just want to "try their luck" so to speak. There are also the people who get delusions about this sort of thing and can become very problematic for casino staff because they annoy other patrons (eg hogging specific machines or harassing them out of table seats).
refurb 3y ago
Because gambling and lotteries are pretty clear on the odds? I mean the government runs lotteries, are they committing fraud?

shultays 3y ago

Wouldn't the responsibility on the casino in this case? Am I going to be arrested if I fail to bounce dices X times when I throw them? Asking because not that I don't believe people cheat this way, but it must be hard to prove that someone cheats or just not good at throwing dice

andy800 3y ago
Your instincts are correct. No, at a normal craps game you won't be arrested for failing to throw the dice properly, however, if the casino repeatedly voids your throws they will likely ask you to leave, especially if you're a healthy person who could easily make proper throws but are strangely setting the dice and sliding or dribbling them. The current case seems to be much less clear-cut, however. Normally, a craps game would be watched by a pit crew (and surveillance to an extent) and bad rolls would be immediately recognized and voided. It is unclear whether anybody was monitoring the rolls at the electronic table, and whether there is any specific direction that states the dice must be rolled a certain way. Your question about the casino's responsibility seems highly relevant -- responsible for monitoring the rolls, for observing any possible player collusion, and for clearly stating what an acceptable dice roll consists of. If they failed at any of those, it would be hard to claim that whatever the players were doing, right out in the open, was illegal. This case has parallels to Phil Ivey's ordeal with Borgata and Crockford's casinos. He and an associate won $20 million using a technique known as "edge sorting," which essentially is recognizing extremely small imperfections on the backs of the cards, to know the value of the next cards to be dealt. Whether or not this was actually cheating -- nobody touched the cards or manipulated the cards in any way -- was decided by the courts, but various US and UK courts had differing opinions so that decisions were often flipped on appeal. In this case, the casinos can claim "cheating," but if the players "rolled" the dice and the electronic table accepted those rolls as valid and no casino personnel objected and no written rules were broken, I'd say the players have a good case. Unfortunately we'll likely never know, $225,000 is a lot less than $20 million and I would expect if the casino legal teams realize they are in the wrong, they will simply offer the players $50, maybe $100,000 scot-free to keep their mouths shut and never visit again, and given the cost of legal fees and the possibility they could lose (or be charged criminally), I can't imagine the players not taking that deal. More info on Phil Ivey: https://www.uspoker.com/phil-ivey-lawsuit-borgata-guide/ https://www.uspoker.com/phil-ivey-lawsuit-borgata-guide/