{"id":4057,"date":"2016-08-09T09:16:39","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T16:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamblingwithanedge.com\/?p=4057"},"modified":"2016-08-09T09:19:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-09T16:19:29","slug":"much-steal-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/much-steal-casinos\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Do You Steal from Casinos?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I sometimes post on the forum at wizardofvegas.com<\/em><\/a>. It\u2019s hosted by Michael Shackleford, the \u201cWizard of Odds,\u201d who\u2019s a long time friend and former radio show co-host.<\/p>\n

Recently someone there started a thread, \u201cHave you ever stolen from your employer?\u201d They included a poll and, early on as I write this, half (3 out of 6) of the responders say they have never stolen from their employers. With a sample size of six, no conclusions can be made. But as the sample size increases, surely the number of people admitting to theft from their employers will increase.<\/p>\n

In Dan Ariely\u2019s \u201cThe Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselves,\u201d he makes the case that most people sometimes steal at least minor amounts of stuff. While not all of us are employed, we all frequent casinos (or you\u2019re wasting your time reading my columns). So I thought I\u2019d change the topic to how often we steal from these places.<\/p>\n

Defining what is actually stealing isn\u2019t easy — even if we use Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart\u2019s (used in a significantly different context), \u201cI know it when I see it.\u201d Let\u2019s look at things that may or may not qualify:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Getting a comped room\/show\/meal and selling it to somebody else. The fact that it is comped means the casino knows it is giving it away and is fine with that. Casinos have policies against selling comps, but that doesn\u2019t make it illegal or immoral. If you give the room\/show\/meal away to a friend or relative and don\u2019t charge him for it, does that change the \u201ctheft or not?\u201d discussion in your mind? What if you were upfront with your host and said your niece was coming and you needed a room for her? To me, this latter situation (which I\u2019ve done recently) is perfectly okay. I\u2019m not sure where the dividing line is, though.<\/li>\n
  2. Loading up on toiletries, toilet paper, etc., from your hotel room and taking it home with you. If you\u2019re fine with this, how about extending it to towels? Or bedsheets? Where do you draw the line?<\/li>\n
  3. You\u2019re playing blackjack betting two reds (total $10) next to another player betting two greens (total $50) on a stupid 6-5 game. Officially it\u2019s a $25 minimum table but you were grandfathered in because previously it was a $10 table and you can play the lower stakes until you leave. You both get blackjacks and the dealer pays you both $60. Do you immediately speak up and say, \u201cNo. You should have only paid me $12?\u201d I wouldn\u2019t speak up (not that I play blackjack anymore — and certainly not on a 6-5 game), but some players would.<\/li>\n
  4. You cash in chips at the cage for $175, but somehow the cashier miscounts your chips and gives you $200 instead. Do you return the excess $25? I would, but some players wouldn\u2019t.<\/li>\n
  5. Morally, it\u2019s tough to distinguish between the two previous cases. The rule I use (as do many other players) is that if a casino worker will personally be responsible for making up the shortfall, I give the money back. Taking money from somebody who is working for wages is just plain wrong in my opinion. If it will just go into the pot as a casino loss, as in the overpayment on the blackjack table, I\u2019ll keep quiet. I am in the casino to make money after all. But just because I have a rule of thumb to guide my actions doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s any the less theft.<\/li>\n
  6. I\u2019m married to Bonnie, but used to be married to a woman named Shirley. Let\u2019s say I still have some of Shirley\u2019s old slot club cards and I still use the same mailing address as when I was with her. If Shirley got a \u201ccome on back and we\u2019ll give you $200 in free play\u201d offer in the mail and I came in and played off that money, how wrong would that be? For me personally, it isn\u2019t going to happen. I am too well known. Even casinos that allow me to play have some reservations about it, so I\u2019m not going to do anything that could backfire on me. What\u2019s right or wrong shouldn\u2019t depend on the consequences if you\u2019re caught. But it\u2019s probably a factor to most people. Decades ago if this happened, I probably would have gone in and picked up the free play without any qualms whatsoever.<\/li>\n
  7. Playing on a spouse\u2019s slot club card is allowed at some places and not at others. Where it\u2019s allowed, I take advantage of it and play on Bonnie\u2019s card. There are players with players\u2019 cards in 50-100 different names. To me this is clearly wrong, but I can see the argument that it\u2019s just a matter of degree.<\/li>\n
  8. Is that morally different from entering free football contests (where you need to pick who is going to win) in LOTS of different names and coordinating the picks to eliminate duplicate entries?<\/li>\n
  9. I know a guy who found a wallet in the casino. He turned it in to security almost immediately. But since he REALLY had to go to the bathroom at just that moment, he took the wallet with him inside a stall. What he did with the wallet inside that stall, we\u2019ll never know for sure. Makes you wonder, though.<\/li>\n
  10. Dealers are sometimes sloppy and expose their hole cards. There are players who specialize in seeking out such dealers and using that information to beat the house. Legally, thanks to the Einbinder case, these players are on solid ground (in Nevada anyway — maybe not so much at Indian casinos). Does the fact that it\u2019s legal have any bearing on whether it\u2019s moral? If players discovered that performing a particular action (perhaps tipping) made the dealers even more readable, is that unspoken collusion a type of stealing?<\/li>\n
  11. You\u2019re playing blackjack at casinos that will award you airfare if you lose enough money. You have perfected rat holing, meaning hiding chips on your person surreptitiously so the chips in front of you are a lot less than what you actually have. The pit boss writes down that you lost $6,000 when you actually came out ahead. You do this at six casinos during the trip and turn in printed receipts for the same flight all six times. You even went further. You ordered the tickets at full price — printed off multiple copies of the tickets — and then cancelled those tickets and booked the same flight at half the amount. You got the larger amount reimbursed six times for imaginary losses. Was the line between being clever and immoral ever crossed here? At what point? There will be some who say that\u2019s just business as usual — and others will say the line was not only crossed, it was obliterated.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I could go on, but that\u2019s enough for today. Most of us, myself included, consider ourselves to be moral, law-abiding people. And we all do things from time to time that are difficult or impossible to explain to somebody who takes an opposing point of view. And if somebody disagrees with you, they often take a \u201cholier-than-thou\u201d attitude about it.<\/p>\n

    I do the best I can and suggest you do the same.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I sometimes post on the forum at wizardofvegas.com. It\u2019s hosted by Michael Shackleford, the \u201cWizard of Odds,\u201d who\u2019s a long time friend and former radio show co-host. Recently someone there started a thread, \u201cHave you ever stolen from your employer?\u201d They included a poll and, early on as I write this, half (3 out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,9,6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Much Do You Steal from Casinos? - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/much-steal-casinos\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Much Do You Steal from Casinos? - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I sometimes post on the forum at wizardofvegas.com. It\u2019s hosted by Michael Shackleford, the \u201cWizard of Odds,\u201d who\u2019s a long time friend and former radio show co-host. Recently someone there started a thread, \u201cHave you ever stolen from your employer?\u201d They included a poll and, early on as I write this, half (3 out of […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/much-steal-casinos\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lasvegasadvisor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-09T16:16:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-08-09T16:19:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@lva_tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@lva_tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/\",\"name\":\"Gambling With An Edge\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/much-steal-casinos\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/much-steal-casinos\/\",\"name\":\"How Much Do You Steal from Casinos? - Gambling With An Edge\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-08-09T16:16:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-08-09T16:19:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#\/schema\/person\/c27a91b6679cdf3c71f73bd2bdc844c7\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/much-steal-casinos\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/much-steal-casinos\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/much-steal-casinos\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How Much Do You Steal from Casinos?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#\/schema\/person\/c27a91b6679cdf3c71f73bd2bdc844c7\",\"name\":\"Bob Dancer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/GWAEDancerVP-e1466809008667.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/GWAEDancerVP-e1466809008667.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Bob Dancer\"},\"description\":\"Video Poker Expert\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/author\/bob-dancer\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4058,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4057\/revisions\/4058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}