What is the reason behind the practice of laying cash on the table instead of handing it to the dealer?

The February 2009 issue of the Las Vegas Advisor points out that the super-fancy and elitist Encore casino has severely restrictive and ungenerous rules for gambling, but the Eastside Cannery will have much looser and gambler-friendly rules to be revealed soon. Explain to me what I'm not understanding, but in the section under "Encore Gambling," LVA states that in 6-deck blackjack games, the dealer stands on soft 17, and the player may double after splitting, resplit aces, and surrender. Aren’t these blackjack rules so liberal and loose as to be comparable to Atlantic City rules? Is there any casino in or around Las Vegas that has such loose blackjack rules as the Encore?

If comps are based on average bet X time played X type of game, why do they always want to know what you bought in for and what you left with? The company line is to keep track of the black and purple chips but isn't there more to it than that?

With some of the casino companies currently struggling financially, even some rumored to be on the verge of bankruptcy, should I start reducing the comp balances I have on the player’s cards? Basically, am I at risk of losing these accrued benefits if bankruptcy is filed, or will the casino companies respond like the airlines and take care of their players?

What do a casino host's duties include besides booking rooms and dining reservations for his clients? How much can he "give" a property visitor and is there a ladder he can climb in corporate gaming?

What does it mean when you refer to a slot machine as a 9/6 machine (as in a recent QoD answer)?

Have you run into blackjack dealers who want to play your hand for you? I'm no expert but I have a pretty good grasp of basic strategy. Can you suggest a tactful way to tell the dealers that you want to make the decisions?

I’m not in the casino business, but I understand a little about blackjack and decided to take a flyer on your book Casino-ology (I went with the e-book at the lower price). Good stuff! But I have a question. In chapter 25, "Marked Card Play in 21," Bill Zender writes: "I possess some video footage of cheaters denting the 10-value cards [on a 21 game] with the intentions of busting the dealer once all the 10 cards were marked.Recently, I was talking to a gaming acquaintance who mentioned a similar scam that happened many years ago. He told me that a group of cheaters marked all the 10-value cards on several games at a casino that utilized a curtain-type shield over the front of its dealing shoes. Because of the shields, the casino wrongly assumed the shoes were safe from all types of marked cards. Over the course of the day, the cheaters dented the bottom edge along the length of all 10 cards. Later that same day, the cheaters used that information and the damaged curtains to beat the casino out of a good deal of money. Once the cards were marked, the cheaters used both a top-card bettor and a third-base "anchor" to beat the 21 games that had the defective curtains." I understand that it would take the amount of time you cite —- "the course of a day" -— for the cheat to get all (or even most) of the 10s. But the money player could start playing immediately, with some advantage, from the first shuffle after at least a couple of cards were marked, right? So why would they waste all the opportunity on the way up by waiting till all the 10s were marked?

How bad is it to play less than max coins on a video poker game? Sometimes I don’t want to play $1.25 a hand (maybe because I don’t want to lose too much that day). Is it really a sin to play $1 or 75¢ or even just a quarter per play?

While checking out the video poker schedules at one of the bars at the Encore, I asked the bartender what the play was to get comped for a drink. He said they don't comp drinks at the bars. I can get a comp drink when I play video poker on the floor, why not at the bar? Wynn allowed it at his other properties, what's the deal with the Wynn/Encore?