Richard Munchkin and I were sent review copies of this book in order for us to determine if we wanted the author on our Gambling with an Edge podcast. It turned out I liked the book very much, recommend it, but don’t feel it’s appropriate for the show.
There is some gambling-related content to the book, but generally these are anecdotes about gamblers who cheated. Some of the anecdotes I had heard before. Some I hadn’t. But these kinds of anecdotes don’t lend themselves to follow-up questions.
The book is non-fiction and the writer is amusing. I found myself chuckling numerous times. Her main points are:
- Most people cheat.
- People vary in their propensity to turn in cheaters.
- People cheat more when they think they can get away with it.
Nothing earth-shaking here, but well presented. For me, the most useful thing about the book is how it got me thinking afterwards.
Consider the New England Patriots. Clearly the most successful NFL team this millennium, and a team that has been caught cheating (or at least accused of cheating) more than once. How serious the cheating was depends on whom you are asking.
For diehard fans of other NFL teams, the Patriots are cheaters pure and simple, and their coach, Bill Belichick, has his last name spelled Belicheat.
For people with less emotion attached to who wins or loses, Belichick is considered the best football coach ever and the reason his team wins is because of hard work and preparation, not cheating. Through considerable study, he’s located loopholes in the official rules that others didn’t know were there until he exploited them.
Both sides have strongly held views, and neither is likely to give in to the other.
I think the same is true when you consider the subject of Advantage Players. A common definition of an AP is one who legally beats casino games while playing by the rules and without cheating.
That’s a noble definition, but the simple fact is that many, probably most, APs cheat.
Consider that many people cheat on their taxes. APs largely play in a cash-only environment which makes cheating on taxes easier and makes that cheating less likely to be discovered. Do you still maintain that APs never cheat? Keep in mind that if you and I bet $5 on the winner of next year’s Super Bowl, legally the winner of that bet MUST report it as income and pay taxes accordingly. Anyone who doesn’t do that is cheating.
What complicates this is that “cheating” isn’t always well-defined. The famous cases of Phil Ivey and Kelly Sun playing baccarat with an advantage by convincing casinos to use particular cards and then to sort those cards in a specific way has been discussed at length on GWAE and elsewhere. From my point of view, what Ivey and Sun did was perfectly legal. According to at least three courts in both the United States and Great Britain, what Ivey and Sun were doing was not legal. Each of us can have an opinion on this, but how can we know whether it is cheating — especially in advance.
Let’s say I agreed to do a project for you where you agreed to reimburse me for expenses. My actual expenses are $50,000 and I submit a bill saying I had $100,000 in expenses. Most people would consider that fraud, which is a form of cheating. But players routinely find a way to overstate their losses. Sometimes this is because of a rebate, sometimes to get better comps, and sometimes just to keep their welcome. Likely there are other reasons as well. But a case could be made that it’s cheating to do this.
Let’s say you’re a table games player and correct the dealer when the dealer makes mistakes in the house’s favor, but let it stand when the dealer makes errors in your favor. Smart players do this regularly. There can be a difference of opinion on whether it is cheating.
Or how about scouring the rules looking for unintended casino mistakes? To me that’s clever and one of the secrets to my success, but I’ve had a casino manager tell me he considers it cheating.
In some clubs in London, counting cards in blackjack is against the rules — hence cheating. In the United States, counting cards is legal.
“Hole carding,” meaning searching for and exploiting sloppy dealers who expose one or more cards they shouldn’t, is legal in most states. But try to convince the elders of an Indian tribe who need to decide whether “hole carding” was legal at their casino or not. Good luck!
A lot of us have someone else pick up our video poker free play while we are on vacation. Some casinos have explicit rules forbidding this. So, we have our picker-uppers play for quarters to minimize detection. Is this cheating?
Let’s say you’re a big player, get a hotel room at a nice casino, and then sell it to a friend for $150 a night, which would be a big discount over retail and “free money” to you. At the minimum, casinos frown on this and don’t want you “taking advantage of them.” Players can easily justify their actions as cashing in something they have earned. Casino managers and players will have different opinions as to whether this is cheating.
I can come up with other examples, but you get the idea.
Probably a better definition of an AP is a player who beats casinos by using their brains — while not stretching the envelope too much. That definition is unworkable, of course. Your opinion of what is cheating may or may not be the same as mine or anybody else’s.
Moreover, each AP makes and maintains his own set of do’s and don’ts. At the Blackjack Ball, or any other place where working APs band together for an evening, you could make a list of situations that some players would consider acceptable and others wouldn’t. I was “more aggressive,” shall we say, when I was struggling to make ends meet. Now that my life is not such a struggle, I more frequently take the high road. I suspect I’m not the only one who has based decisions on this.
I still consider myself an AP. I still consider myself a non-cheater, generally speaking, although my list of personal peccadillos over the years would not be a short one. And I know from experience that some of my readers are more than willing to condemn me right and left should I express such things in detail.And I thank J. M. Fenster for her fun read, Cheaters Always Win. Her book caused my mind to go in the direction that led to this article.
Bob, you said hole carding is legal in most states. Do you know of any states where it’s illegal? Illinois used to be a grey area but I believe they’re now legal
I haven’t played much BJ in years, but I know used to be in Nevada that hole-carding was legal as long as you were seated at the table. Positioning yourself off the table in a way to see the hole card and signal to an accomplice was illegal.
The question of “cheating” is far too narrow. Of broader consequence is an array of behaviors on the part of both players and casinos that the other party would considerable unacceptable were they aware of it.
Whether deemed cheating, fraud, unethical, or simply inappropriate, where there’s a potential advantage to one of the parties in an action, they need to weight cost/benefits in deciding whether to engage in such behavior. In my experience, most all players AND casinos intentionally choose to do so under the right circumstances.
On a player’s part, some acts are relatively passive in nature (e.g. taking advantage of system lapses that permit triggering a promotion multiple times that were declared as restricted to one redemption). The player may rationalize that because the system permitted the behavior there’s really no foul. Nonetheless, a casino that becomes aware after the fact may choose to act in some fashion against aggressive redeemers.
Other player actions are much more deliberate (e.g. taking advantage of a flaw that requires an unusual sequence of steps in order to trigger a payout). Subsequent review would demonstrate a clear intention to take advantage of a malfunction that, if nothing else, marks the player as an undesirable/unprofitable presence on the property.
The point here is that without resorting to a call of “cheating”, a casino would likely say that the player has violated a social contract under which each party engages the other with the expectation of “fair play”. Short of a legally defined crime, there’s no specific enforcement of that contract available. It’s simply expected that in the event of a violation, the harmed party will pursue whatever remedy is at hand.
For a player to behave rationally in such circumstances, they must weight the potential benefit against possible retribution (mailer cutoff, rescission of comps or other benefits, etc., as permitted). If regular play at the casino is beneficial, how much is lost in the longer run were mailers restricted.
The point is that I don’t find an assessment of “cheating” particularly useful (except, when there’s an opening for legal action to come into play). Instead, it’s critical to assess one’s behavior against an implied social contract … and understand that if you run afoul of it, you should allow for potential penalty.
(This could be expanded to discuss what’s involved when a casino violates that “contract” … more than I want to bite off here.)
I don’t think everyone cheats on taxes. But, it is difficult to know how to report winnings.
That book seems like an interesting read Bob, however cheaters don’t always win. By far I believe the biggest cheaters in the gambling world are poker players. They have proved themselves to be cheaters thru & thru be it a poker tournament, online poker thievery, card reading smart phones, crooked dealers who may have cohorts on the table, cheating at cash games in the casino by playing as a team, a crooked dealer working alone in a private game where the deal is manipulated by either stacking the deck or knowing which cards will be cut out of play to influence betting decisions on the next deal if cards are seen in a flop poker game, and cheating in private home games. Their degenerative behavior knows no bounds. If they think they can get away with it they will do it until they get figured out.
I am a firm believer that the NFL cheats by using their crooked ass referees to control the outcomes of close games. People can accuse the Patriots of cheating but the team still has to go out and win the game by catching passes and making tackles. NFL players cheat by using performance enhancing drugs.
“Win if you can. Lose if you must. But always cheat”
Jesse “The Body” Ventura
my wife and i go to atlantic city often.we noticed the machines poker start winning more when the locals get off work about 4-6 pm.so we go to eat at other times.