Should I have said anything?

The scene: the El Cortez. A crowded blackjack table on a Saturday night. I'm watching, waiting for a seat.

A man is betting about $125 per hand. But he likes to mix various colors of chips and make his bets uneven numbers--for instance, four greens, five reds, and four whites, for a bet of $129. Then he gets a blackjack, and I notice that the dealer breaks out the bet's various denominations and pays each stack 3:2 separately, which is standard procedure, so the camera can see that the payout is done correctly.

Except she doesn't do it right. She subtly screws up the process and winds up paying the guy $25 too much. She resumes dealing. A few minutes later, the same thing happens...she overpays the guy for a BJ by $25. I wonder, is she simply inexperienced and miscalculating somehow? But the breakdown-the-bet procedure is supposed to prevent that from happening.

Over the next half hour, I see her make this "mistake" (?) three more times--overpaying the same player, by the exact same $25 amount. I try to determine her overall dealing skill level, and as far as I can judge, it's excellent. She's smooth and fast and obviously experienced. So why this repeated overpayment?

The way she broke out and paid that guy's bets was unorthodox and kind of hard to follow. I'm actually kind of surprised I was able to detect the BJ overpayments at all--it was kind of hard to follow, given her hand-work.

Could this be collusion? I wonder. If that player is overpaid by $25 on all his BJs and his average bet size is $125, he's making an extra fifth of a bet every 21 hands--essentially, a 1% boost. That's enough to win big time if he's otherwise playing good basic strategy. I think that the eye in the sky would eventually pick this up. but they'd have to be watching it carefully, and the place was jammed.

Should I have said anything?

I wouldn't.  Let her get canned if she wants to do that and collude.  

That's the thing. I almost admired how smoothly this was being done and how innocuous it looked--if it was collusion at all rather than an honest mistake. It could have been that the player had noticed that his oddball bets were being paid incorrectly--by this dealer, at least--and simply wasn't saying anything.

I ultimately just walked away, because I couldn't tell if it was collusion or just the dealer screwing up. Who knows--there's a chance that the player didn't even know he was being overpaid for his BJs. It's not easy to quickly calculate the payoff for a BJ on a $129 bet ($193.50, for those of you scoring at home).

I wouldn't say anything. 

But would be interesting if you could get a seat and put out a bet or two exactly like that guy did, see if she pays you similarly.  But...possibly expensive for you...yikes!   Was he stacking his chips correctly, or was he mixing up the colors?  Of course it would be on her to correct the stack...as in greens first, reds then whites.

Once (different place) I was playing Blackjack Switch.  So long ago I'm forgetting whether this dealer was the relief or it was his table.  He was Asian, NTTAWWT, but he hardly said a word ever, very straight faced and for that matter not a happy face, almost like he wasn't feeling well or something.

ANYWAY, everytime this dealer got 22 he treated it as a dealer bust instead of a push and paid everyone for a win.  The first time, I actually said "push", pretty much under my breath, just a habit, expecting my chips to remain, etc.  (It is a wonder some other player didn't smack me.  But it was often that players weren't that familiar with Switch.) 

Nobody else said anything, and on every subsequent dealer 22 he paid us.  I kept my mouth shut.  It happened several times.  Heck, I gave the guy one chance, and either he was hard of hearing or unfamiliar with Switch himself.  So I lost no sleep over it, and actually glad I didn't blow the whistle on him.  Not the money, just never liked to call attention to dealer mistakes (unless it would cost me...LOL).  As many times as it happened, maybe the eye in the sky didn't know Switch either!  LOL.

Candy

It is kind of clever to make a weird bet like that actually and see if they screw up.  Most dealers would get so annoyed by that amount bet that they would purposely pay it off lower or know the correct amount for sure and roll their eyes.  I bet they were in cahootz.  

 For what it is worth -- I focus on my bets. If I feel I have been shortchanged on a winning bet or the dealer has mistakenly tried to take my chips when I have won a bet, I will speak up and have a supervisor called if necessary. If I am overpaid for a winning bet, I accept the amount the dealer pays me and then place another bet. In my 30+ years of gambling in Vegas,I can recall having such a similar incident happen to me just 2 or 3 times. 

Well, in point of fact, you're never obligated to point out dealer mistakes but at the same time, perfectly entitled to point them out if you feel they cost you.

In a perfect "what not to do" moment, I was sitting at a full table with a bunch of tourists (ewwww!). The dealer had a 10 up, revealed a 2 underneath, hit it a couple of times for a hard 17, and...hit it again for a hard 27! "Bust," and she paid all the remaining players (those who hadn't already busted themselves). UNTIL...

One of the players who had already busted blurted out, "But you already had 17! Why did you hit again?" The dealer saw what her error had been and had no choice but to call the floor. The dealer's last hit was disallowed, and two players who had stiffs, and were about to get paid, instead lost their bets. One of those players had a $50 bet out. I had a hard 19 and would have won either way, but the silence at the table was deafening; the $50 bettor gave Ms. Blabbermouth a look black as a thundercloud, and I thought for a moment that he was going to lunge at her, but instead, he grabbed his chips and stormed off with his wife. We all looked at Ms. Blab, and she smiled weakly and also left. I saw the floorman frantically waving over the cocktail waitress.

It's my guess the original dealer and player referred to were colluding. The $25 semi-routine overpayment occurrences were too consistent if what you observed was actually happening. Would I have alerted the pit critters? No. Dealer errors are quite common and one just has to be vigilant. If a dealer short-pays me on a winning hand, I certainly would call that out...immediately.

My take:  there is no upside to pointing it out. None. If there is collusion, you are probably pissing off the wrong people. If there isn't, you're playing "house" maid and cleaning up for the house, and you're not being paid to be a maid. No benefit to you; possible loss (you never know who's having a bad month and might blow up your car), so no motive to be a crosswalk monitor.

Yeah, I hear you. However, if I saw an employee or a customer in a business slipping merchandise, or cash, into their pockets, I'd feel uncomfortable not saying something. Also, my "motive" is that I feel I have an obligation to do something, or at least say something, if I see someone stealing--even if the "victim" is the big bad ol' casino.

Not cut and dried by any means. That's why I asked the question--thanks for your input.