I Think My Card Might be Poisoned: What Now?

After getting heat hitting a repeat target, my teammate Bullet sometimes says, “I’ve gotta go in there and find out if my player’s card is good.” Why? Why?? Why???

No! No!! No!!! First of all, do you really even need to know the answer to the question? When I try to dissuade someone from going back into the furnace, I find that their desire for answers is not to further our strategic game management, but rather to satisfy an emotional need. The need to know. Would Megan have gone to the prom with me if I had
asked her before Mike did, back in 1974? Would the Seattle Seahawks have won the Super Bowl if they had handed the ball off to Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch instead of passing? Would I be able to last 10 seconds in the octagon with Ronda Rousey? We’ll never know the answers to these questions, and it doesn’t matter anyway.

Actually, that last question is the best analogy. We actually do know the answer, but getting proof could get us hurt! If you want to know whether a gun is loaded, do you figure it out by playing Russian Roulette? Even if you play Russian Roulette with the gun and nothing happens, does that give you a definitive answer? So it is with “going back in there” to test a player’s card for heat. If nothing happens, it doesn’t mean the card is clean, and that the previous play had no heat. It could mean that no one watched your test. It could mean that the surveillance operator or shift boss who made the previous play is off duty today. It could mean that they’re secretly watching you, building up to a major barring.

My general recommendation, from Exhibit CAA, is: “Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt.” If you think there might be heat, just ditch the player’s card, and accept that you might never know if you “made the right call.” In fact, you did make the right call. The play was to fold.

I realize, however, that this general recommendation is not a perfect solution. Your BP may be too well known at the casino to ditch the card, or switch to a new one. You may have significant comp value attached to the card. You may be able to hit the target again soon if you could verify that there was no prior heat. I get it.

So here are my recommendations if you absolutely must know the status of a card. The key is that you do not want to expose the possibly heated BP to a barring, photograph, or visual sighting. So the BP can’t be physically present; that’s why “going in there” is obviously wrong. With this dilemma, patient and cunning will beat quick and bold.

If you have a personal casino host, don’t call him yet. If you call the casino host, he could actually back you off, and he might know what you look like, and talk to the bosses about you, and so on. The path of least resistance is to call VIP Services, or Player’s Club Marketing, or whatever they call it. These are lower-level people who shouldn’t know you personally, and they’re not decision-makers. They tend to be straightforward and aren’t going to try to trick you. So call them up on the phone, give them your account number, ask what comps you’ve got coming, and specifically, can they comp you a nice room for two nights, starting the day after tomorrow. If they tell you you’re barred, or your comps are canceled, or that you just have no comp points indicated, then you have your answer.

If the VIP Services says you’re good for a room, tell them to make the reservation for the day after tomorrow, and tell them to put your girlfriend’s name, Jennifer Aniston, on the room as well. This isn’t definitive, but so far so good.

Next, call up your personal casino host, from a burner phone. (If you don’t have one, get one at Walgreen’s and activate it, all for $100.) Tell him that you’ve got a room booked for the day after tomorrow (just say you didn’t want to waste his time with that), but that tomorrow you’d like to have dinner for four at one of the nicer restaurants. Ask for his recommendation. Tell him that you might have one vegetarian in your party. Tell him to look into it, but to go ahead and book it for anytime tomorrow (ideally a slow night, like a Tuesday) and get back to you with the confirmation details.

You see what we’re doing here? We got some clue from VIP Services, but by booking that room, and now asking the host for more, we’re putting a bit of pressure on him. If there were heat, and you called the host first, he might have ignored you or said nothing. In this case, you’ve actually booked a room, and now you’re demanding more comps and some of the host’s time to handle dinner. If there is heat indicated on your player’s card, he is almost forced to say something now. So see what he says; see if he shows any reluctance. If he calls back with a dinner time, say 7:00 pm, our game continues.

The next move is a clever trick used by the legendary Wheelchair, who was quite fond of his comped dinners at the steakhouse. The host set up the dinner for 7:00 pm, but that might be a trap (we’ve seen it!). The day of the dinner, call the restaurant directly, and see if they have a 7:00 pm reservation for you. If not, you’re probably toast, but you could follow-up with the host to find out what’s going on. If they do have a 7:00 pm reservation, confirm that it’s for four people, but tell them that you’re having travel issues and you need to move it back an hour to 8:00 pm. These are just restaurant people, who would not have been informed of any heat issues or any of that. They’ll happily move the reservation to 8:00 pm, and not communicate that back to the host. They may not even be aware of who set up the reservation in the first place. A bit before the originally scheduled dinner (7:00 pm), send a scout to observe the restaurant doors to see if the casino host or a pit boss or a security guy shows up. If all’s quiet on the western front, our game continues.

At 7:30 pm, call up and say that you and your wife can’t actually make it, but ask if you can have the comp cover your two dinner guests, who are expecting to have dinner at 8:00 pm. If they say yes, then send two of your civilian friends to actually have dinner at 8:00 pm and see if anything happens. They should be prepared to pay for the meal themselves if the comp falls through. If the restaurant says no, then call up the casino host and ask him the same thing. Just tell him you can’t make it, but that you’d like your comp to cover your two guests, and that if he prefers, he can just bill it to the room, which is supposed to be comped. If they tell you that you must be present for the dinner comp, then just cancel the dinner.

The next day, call the hotel to confirm your room reservation, and then send Jennifer Aniston to check in at the hotel front desk, with a teammate watching from across the lobby. (This is such a simple plan!) At the desk, change the reservation from two nights to one and switch to a cheaper room. This way, if you end up having to pay, it’ll be cheaper. If Jen is forced to provide a credit card, do what works for you. Either don’t check in, provide a debit card to an account with minimal funds, provide a credit card but then call up and freeze that card. Whatever. The room was agreed to be comped, after all.

If all goes smoothly, you are finally ready to test the pit. But your BP is still staying out of it. Let’s say you have a clean teammate or expendable civilian named Repo. Ideally, Repo would look vaguely like Bullet. Send Repo in to sit at a bank of $1 video poker machines near the exit, and play on his own card for an hour (playing not too fast!), occasionally switching machines. Then, send Bullet in to sit at the machine adjacent to Repo. Bullet buys in $10, plays a hand for $5, then puts his card in the machine (noticing if any free play or points have been zeroed out), busts out and leaves quickly, so that security has not had time to arrive. When Bullet leaves, he leaves his player’s card in the machine next to Repo. Repo should continue to sit and play his own machine for 10 minutes or so to see if any security shows up. Then, he should cash out and use the ticket to buy in on Bullet’s machine, and play for a while with Bullet’s card inserted.

If nothing happens, Repo then cashes out and takes Bullet’s card out of the machine and goes to the pit. Repo should then buy in for $1,000 on the target game (though not the target dealer, if it’s a hole-card game) and present Bullet’s card. If there’s trouble, Repo can cite the machine mix-up which is verifiable on camera, and say that he must have left his own card in a machine. If there’s no trouble, Repo should play black for a while, color up, and slowly walk to the cage to cash out, giving them ample time to approach him and back him off for mistaken identity.

If all that works, then Bullet is finally ready to cautiously play in the pit. It’s best to do that alone on a non-target game, so that if Bullet encounters trouble, at least the target game and teammates are still safe. And if there’s still no trouble, then Bullet can go up to the room where Jennifer Aniston is waiting.