In March of 2011, Gold Coast had a promotion involving a wheel spin. Basically, it was like a Big 6 Wheel, only there were 20 spaces instead of 60. Each of the spaces had a prize ranging from $250 to $5000. The players selected (that’s the hard part!) got to spin the wheel. So long as it went around at least once, wherever the wheel landed was the prize won.
When this promotion was run last year, there was nothing in the rules that assigned a penalty if the wheel was spun “short.” So I decided I would try to “walk the wheel” and see if I could get a feel for how hard I should spin it. My first spin went about 75% of the way. I spun it a little harder the next time and it went about 85% of the way. A couple more spins and I nailed the $5000. There were some problems at the time (Column April 26 talks about that) but eventually I got paid.
A couple of things became clear about this. When it happened, I was booed lustily by the crowd. They didn’t want to see somebody pussy-footing with the wheel. They wanted some muscle put into the spin so they could see the result right away. I wasn’t concerned about the crowd that night, but surely the casino executives present were. They didn’t want this to happen again.
This month (August 2012), the Gold Coast is having virtually the same promotion. I played a lot the first week of the month (basically my entire month’s worth of play) but I wasn’t called on stage for the drawing. I was, however, in the audience when they announced the new rules.
If the person selected spun short once this time, there was no penalty. But if the second spin was also short, the turn was over and half of the lowest valued prize on the wheel–namely $125 instead of the otherwise-lowest prize of $250–was awarded. Were I called (I wasn’t and I’m done for the month) I would still try to nail it “exactly once around” one time. If I failed (and I probably would), I’d give it a big spin so I wouldn’t fail twice.
Although the casino didn’t call this a “Bob Dancer Rule” (and perhaps I wasn’t the only player it was aimed at), I am a well known player and they were likely thinking of my actions when they wrote the rule. Somebody asked me later if I was angry that a casino made a rule primarily to prevent me from doing something.
The answer to that is: “No, I’m not angry.” Whatever the rules are, I’ll adjust to them. If I can find an edge, I’ll take it. If a casino takes away Option A, I’ll try Option B. If and when they take away Option B, I’ll look for Option C.
The casino executives likely looked at this as: “This was our own fault. We could have thought out the rules better the first time. Now we know.” They didn’t HAVE to look at it this way. They could have tossed me for “taking a shot.” Thankfully they didn’t. There’s a difference between taking a shot within the rules and taking a shot by breaking the rules. Since I didn’t cross that line, I was allowed to remain a patron of the casino, at least for the time being.
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