Being Restricted

Both blackjack players and video poker players risk being restricted by casinos — largely for the same thing — which is winning too much. Many casinos view advantage players as highly undesirable, but most let advantage players who are losing continue to play.

There are a lot of ways to be restricted, and a video poker player being restricted is very different from a blackjack player being restricted.

A blackjack player does not have to give his name to play — at least until winnings reach “cash transaction report” levels — usually $10,000. And when a blackjack player does give his name, it’s often given verbally without actual I.D. being checked. So misspellings of a name, intentionally induced or not, can easily create record-keeping snafus.

When a supervisor comes over and tells a blackjack player he can’t play there anymore, sometimes there is no written record of this. The player can easily come back on a different shift and play some more. Preparing for my radio interview with Tommy Hyland, well known blackjack player, I asked if he’d ever been backed off from the same casino more than ten times. His response was, “Oh yeah. A lot more times than that at a number of casinos. I was even backed off wearing a Santa Claus outfit, but I don’t think that counts because they didn’t know who I was at the time.”

Video poker players who get W2Gs must produce ID. If you want mail from casinos, you must give them your name and address. Since this mail is valuable in many casinos, most video poker players bite the bullet and produce accurate ID. When a video poker player gets restricted, there is a good presumption that some record is made in their player account.

Some casinos (South Point for one) actually remove the slot club accounts from those it doesn’t want to play. If you put one of your cards into the machine, it will give you a message telling you to go to the club booth, at which point you’re paid for all of your existing points and told not to come back.

Some casinos don’t tell you anything — they just stop sending you mailers. Sometimes when you go to the booth they’ll reinstate you, but not frequently. Sometimes you’ll be told to call up the vice president of marketing to present your case. Good luck. At some casinos (Sam’s Town for one), it’s not that critical for you to lose out on your mailers. The cash-in-the-mail levels are fairly low and most of their promotions are open equally to players with and without mailers. At other casinos (Orleans for one) losing your mailer is a show stopper. They have 7x or 8x point days that are only open to players with mailers — combined with very tight machines. Without the multipliers, there are no intelligent plays there.

Sometimes they partially restrict you — you can’t participate in drawings, or you can’t play on 3x point days, you can’t play certain machines, or you can’t use your points for xxxxx. There are a large number of ways you can be restricted — depending on what the marketing department can come up with.

When you get restricted, it’s basically a negotiation between you and casino management how it all turns out. Probably 50% of more or people who get restricted figure they can’t win and they go along with the casino’s dictates. Of the 50% of the players who at least try to discuss the matter with the casino, perhaps 80% of them are ineffective in getting things changed.

With the understanding that the percentages in the previous paragraph are estimates covering a lot of different situations, these numbers imply that 10% of the people who get restricted can talk their way out of it — or at least talk their way into a lesser restriction. While you can never know whether you’ll be among the 10% or not, in my mind it’s always a good idea to try to talk yourself out of being restricted.

The profitable places to play are relatively few, and losing one to restrictions is a big loss. Plus, once your name is on a restriction list, casino employees sometimes take that list with them when they change jobs. So being on one casino’s restricted list today can transform into being on several casinos’ restricted list in a year or two.

How you talk yourself out of being restricted is up to you. How is your case different from others they are dealing with? How are the numbers they are looking at in your particular case misleading? What do you bring to the table that makes you a particularly desirable customer?

Are there any restrictions you would voluntarily agree to (such as not playing particular machines or limiting your play somehow) which would still give you some of the benefits at the casino you want? If so, perhaps you can talk them into a lesser restriction. It may well be that what they most want to restrict you from is not something you’re particularly attached to.