What do Station Casinos, the Tropicana Las Vegas, Bally’s Corp. and the economy of the Las Vegas Strip have in common? They’re all subjects of discussion in my Friday appearance on KNPR-FM‘s State of Nevada. You can read about or listen online. It was fun to do … and hopefully will be fun to hear.
by Barry Meadow
(From Blackjack Forum XX #2, Summer 2000)
© Blackjack Forum 2000
[Barry Meadow is the author of Blackjack Autumn: A True Tale of Life, Death, and Splitting Tens in Winnemucca .]
The road is long, With many a-winding turn, That leads us to who knows where, Who knows where…
Uh, I know where. I’ve been there.
Most of us have doubled down and split pairs all over Las Vegas and Reno.
Some of us have comp-hustled in Laughlin or surrendered in Lake Tahoe. But I say if you’re going to play serious blackjack in Nevada, hit the road.
That means blackjack in Tonopah and McDermitt and Ely and Jackpot and every other place you’ve seen on the map, only it was too damn far or too damn cold and why the heck would you drive a hundred miles to Lovelock when there was exactly one blackjack table in town and you’d look like a stalker trying to wong it?
I’ve been here, and there, and everywhere in Nevada. I counted cards at blackjack in every casino in the state during a two-month trip last year which consisted of me, a suitcase, and $8000. No entourage, no pals, no nothing but yours truly and one open road.
Every day, I’d record my observations on a tiny tape machine. I made more recordings in garages than a Seattle grunge band. And by the time I finished my trip, 192 casinos later, my laptop computer was in worse shape than Andy Sipowicz.
And so was I.
The name of the book is Blackjack Autumn, and if you don’t buy a copy right this minute, shame on you. The subtitle is A True Tale of Life, Death, and Splitting Tens in Winnemucca.
I should point out that the count was really, really good at the time. Once I played in a one-deck game dealt all the way to the bottom. Boy, it sure was fun taking insurance on a plus count when only two cards remained to be dealt!
Then again, there was the casino that featured a grand total of one player — me again — and seven pit employees, none of whom had anything better to do than watch me try to earn a few dollars.
At times I was the crusher, while at other times I was the crushee.
I’ve seen a blackjack dealer pull out more dead hands than a grave robber, and I’ve also seen a blackjack dealer lose so many hands that the floorman actually switched the game from two decks to one deck in an effort to change the casino’s luck (it didn’t work).
I played with plastic cards. I played a game in which a player’s two hands were dealt one face up and the other face down (don’t ask). I saw a man deal the first half of the shoe, walk to the other side of the table, and play the rest of the shoe himself.
Sometimes I was barred for card counting, including one telephone ejection at 1 a.m.. Golly, didn’t that casino manager’s mother ever tell him it was impolite to call after 9 p.m.? A card counter once told me that if you’ve never been barred, you’re doing something wrong. I guess I did something right four times.
A few tips if you’re going to make a similar trip: Bring money. Have reliable transportation. And don’t blow into town at 8 a.m., you little Carlsonite, because the blackjack game isn’t open until 4 p.m. and what are you going to do all day when there’s absolutely nothing to do?
Don’t bother showing up at 10 p.m., either, because that means you will have traveled on a two-lane Nevada blacktop at night on roads so dark that if some animal decides to cross the road in front of your vehicle, you’ll never see it until it’s draped over your hood, which is bad for your paint job.
It’s a long way from Nowheresville to South Nowheresville in Nevada, as you will soon learn. This is not a trip from Las Vegas to Henderson we’re talking about.
Let’s say, for instance, that you decide to travel to Montgomery Pass to play blackjack. Try finding it on a map. Better yet, try calling information. Chances are you’ll have no luck either way. Hint: The place is actually called the Montgomery Pass Lodge and Casino, but it’s also called Soper’s Cafe, and there’s no town anywhere nearby. If you do manage to find it, you’ll enjoy the $2 chips and the aformentioned plastic cards that the casino employees wash rather than replace. There will also be a sign advising you not to drop your cigarettes into the urinal, always a sign of a first-class establishment.
Along the way, amazing things happened to me, as they no doubt will to you should you take on this assignment. In Beatty, for instance, I realized every card counter’s dream. I won so much money at the Burro Inn — well not all that much, but pretty big for Beatty as my blackjack profits crept into the mid three-figures — that the game actually had to come to halt because if I won the next hand, there would not be enough chips to pay me. Yes, all action actually stopped as we waited for one of the bartenders to step into the casino cage to chip-run another rack of reds for my gambling pleasure.
Good thing, too, because my next hand was a blackjack.
I found an Indian casino outside of Laughlin, though I actually found quite a few more Indians near the Say When Casino in McDermitt, and I wound up helping some of them herd horses across the state highway. Found some cowboys in Mesquite, too. And highway patrolmen in more than one place, although why they found 132 miles per hour objectionable is something I’ll never quite understand — heck, there weren’t any other cars for miles and miles, for Breedlove’s sake.
I met cattle who looked meaner than Mike Tyson after a three-day drunk, and pit bosses who looked meaner still. Then again, I ran into gorgeous blackjack dealers, who made me sad that I was already engaged, although there is no evidence that any of these women would have had the slightest interest in me anyway.
Now to the important question: Can you actually win counting cards in these towns? Yes and no. You can’t win thousands of dollars, because some of these towns don’t have thousands of dollars. In Wells, the highest limit blackjack game is $25.
Forget about black chips — in plenty of places you’ll never even see green chips. If you visit the Bird Farm in Fallon, the highest amount you can play at blackjack is $5 per hand, though by brilliantly spreading from one hand of $2 to two hands of $5 I was able to carve out a $26 profit.
Nor can you blithely spread from $1 to $100 with impunity, Mr. Uston, because even the smallest places have heard of card counters, although in some places I doubt they’ve ever actually seen many of them. At Sturgeon’s in Lovelock, not only did they cut off two of the four decks, but they burned a card after every round. The blackjack game wasn’t much more attractive in Topaz Lake, or in Gardnerville, or in Jean. And I couldn’t even find the blackjack game in Amargosa Valley, which turned out to be open only on weekends.
Then again, there was Yerington. I lost there — no big news; I lost in a lot of places — but I did find one intriguing practice at Casino West. The blackjack game was four decks, with the cut card placed halfway up. When the cut card appeared, the dealer would ask the players if they wanted her to shuffle; if they said no, she’d keep dealing until only a few cards remained. Does that mean you could have gotten negative shoes shuffled away while asking the dealer to keep going on the positive shoes? Apparently so. Hmmmmm.
And sometimes the blackjack games were downright good. I had a very nice 80% penetration shoe dealt to me at the Nugget in Searchlight, and the $415 I managed to drop there was simply my way of saying thank you. And the dealt-to-the-bottom blackjack game, discovered at the Station House Casino in Tonopah, proved more than pleasant until I was asked to please leave town as quickly as possible.
Not that you’re likely to find that game any more. Game conditions in these little towns change more often than Bill Clinton’s stories, although you can generally assume bad rules. When the best blackjack game in town is four decks, dealer hits soft 17, double on 10 or 11 only, with a $50 maximum, it’s safe to assume that high-powered card counting teams will be spending their evenings elsewhere. You can’t scout these games, either — it might look a tad suspicious for a stranger to loiter around a game all day without playing, and you can’t very well table-top because there is no other open table to hop to.
There is decent action in some of these out-of-the-way places, though.
Take Wendover, for example. It’s on the Utah border, and Utah is one of only two states (Hawaii is the other) where there is no legal gambling of any kind. Naturally the Mormons who populate the state occasionally like to get down a bet or two, and so there are a couple of very large casinos there as well as some smaller ones. At the State Line Casino, I saw a guy bet two hands of $500 apiece. A warning, though: the chips in Wendover are in the weirdest colors you’ve ever seen, so be careful what you’re betting because just when you think you’re betting $17 on a hand, you just might accidentally be betting $341.
Elko gets some play, too. The owner of the Red Lion Inn owns an airline and flies in players from all over the West. Not real big players, you understand — show up with $350 in front money and you’re in, no playing obligation required — but it’s eerie to visit this small northeastern Nevada town and see dozens of players sporting junket buttons.
The good news is that in some of these places, if you play for anything resembling quarters, you’ll probably get comped, or least score a casino room rate. At the Saddle West in Pahrump, I had only been playing about fifteen minutes for $35 or so per hand when I asked the floorman what I needed to do to qualify for a comp; he proudly displayed the comp slip that he had already written for me, and gave me a discounted room as well. At the Tahoe Biltmore in Crystal Bay, another eager pitster offered me a room before I even had a chance to ask about it, and I had only been there about ten minutes.
Tourists in these burgs are few and far between, the action mostly confined to locals and truckers. You probably won’t find Wayne Newton in the showroom, if you can find a showroom at all. The town’s gourmet restaurant might well be the casino coffee shop. Your room will have a bed and a thin bar of soap.
But hey, it’s blackjack. Just make sure you gas up the car, because between towns is the desert, and if you run out of a gas there’s no filling station for 50 miles. It’s also probably best not to try such a trip with a 15-year-old salvage vehicle, unless you have hefty towing insurance and don’t mind waiting a week for a part to come via UPS from Las Vegas.
Another reason to double-check your automobile is that it would be highly unfortunate to find yourself alone at night on a road next to an inoperable car that’s got $20,000 in cash stuffed in the trunk. It’s bad enough that some of these places don’t have safe-deposit boxes, and you’ve got to sleep with two chairs propped up against your motel door. The last thing you want to do is break down on some bandit-filled Nevada highway, where finding some abandoned mine in which to hide your bullet-riddled body would take the average criminal maybe ten minutes.
If you take up the road warrior’s life, you don’t have to worry much about running out of casinos, since Nevada is a pretty large state. If you’ve worn out your welcome in Minden, you’ll still be welcome in Verdi.
Many places, of course, are still more than happy to bar you if you play with any skill at all, no matter how big or small they might be. After powering my way to a hefty $40 profit at Harrah’s Tahoe, for instance, I was asked to take my action elswhere, preferably to the bottom of Lake Mead. Hey, Mr. Harrah — it wasn’t me who lost millions on your New Orleans project. Where’s your sense of humor?
It’s difficult to disguise your play much in the little towns, because there is usually only one cashier’s cage, only one or two shifts, and sometimes only one or two tables. If somehow the casino is short a thousand dollars, there are very few suspects, no matter how good your act. So you’re not going to be able to camp out for a week in Battle Mountain and bury the Owl Club and the Nevada Hotel for very long.
If you want to play reds for awhile and maintain a moderate spread, chances are nothing too terrible will befall you, though your chances of getting rich are none too great, either.
Sure, the Venetian has beautiful suites and the Desert Inn has a lovely golf course, but can you stay in a historic hotel for $19.95 on a Saturday night as I did in Ely, or play a nine-hole golf course that’s only slightly more challenging than Mel’s Mini-Putt as I did in Hawthorne? OK, there are no Bellagios in Indian Springs, but exactly how many floral cornucopias do you need to see, anyway? ♠
Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip won $660 million last month, a 5% bump over last year, as business continues to trend well into 2023. (It was also up a whopping 27% over 2019.) Strip numbers also benefited—although locals ones did not—from July having ended on a Sunday, meaning last-minute slot winnings were rolled into August. Strip slot win, $381 million, rose 6% on 11% more coin-in on an 8% hold. Table games yielded $186.5 million, also up 6% despite 5.5% lower wagering. Baccarat play eked up 2% for 1% more house win. Locals play stayed on an even keel ($250 million) with the year before, but was a sky-high +41% over pre-pandemic 2019.
Continue reading Strip buoyant, locals flat
Angry Florida man Steve Wynn will have to face the consequences of carrying the ChiComms’ water. Having spurned a settlement in the Justice Department’s lawsuit for failing to register as a foreign agent, he could very well find himself a defendant in a courtroom (well, we can certainly hope). As you may recall, Wynn tried to get then-president Donald Trump to return Chinese defector and dissident Guo Wengui to the clutches of Xi Jinping. We can well imagine what would have happened to Guo and it’s nothing good. The Justice Department’s position is that Wynn was nakedly doing Beijing‘s dirty work in order to protect his Macao casino concession, which was coming due.
Continue reading Steve Wynn is so busted; Murder at Ocean Resortby Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum Volume XVI #3, Fall 1996)
© 1996 Blackjack Forum
There are numerous approaches that a blackjack team might take to beat the tables. There is no “best” approach, as the optimum strategy for any blackjack team will depend on numerous variables, notably: the number of team players, the talents of the various players, the size of the team bankroll, and the specific games that are being attacked.
The scope of this article will be to lead you in the directions that blackjack team strategies might take, not to provide comprehensive instructions on exactly how various team members might function at the tables.
In Ken Uston’s books, notably The Big Player and Million Dollar Blackjack, you will find some fairly comprehensive blackjack team attack methods initially invented by Al Francesco, including everything from bet-sizing guidelines to camouflage tactics to the precise sets of team signals employed during the operations.
This type of information is good to read for ideas, but it is important that you learn to develop your own methods when it comes to the details of your precise strategies. You always want to do some things a little different from what others have done.
A blackjack team with little creativity is unlikely to last. Be flexible. Always be ready to change those things that aren’t working. Throw around ideas with your teammates. Discuss problems continually, and work out solutions. Try new approaches. Get creative.
The most successful blackjack operations are those that continually change. Conditions vary so much in different casinos that you cannot always use the same modus operandi. If there was one stock blackjack team methodology, the casinos would catch onto it in no time. Look at this article as a starting point for your method of attack. Your ultimate success will depend on how well your blackjack team develops its own approach.
The simplest team approach is the EMFH approach, or Every Man for Himself. This approach is viable with virtually any size blackjack team or bank. Because of its simplicity of execution, it’s also one of the most popular team approaches.
An EMFH team is dependent on each team member being a competent card counter who is capable of beating the tables. This type of blackjack team approach requires the highest level of trust among the participants, as it is essentially a simple agreement to share a common bankroll and all playing results.
For instance, three close friends, all of whom are card counters, might each contribute $10,000 to a common bank so that each of the three may play off of a $30,000 team bank. They need not play together, nor in the same casino(s), nor even in the same cities, nor at the same time.
Such a blackjack team might make a simple agreement to set a win target of $15,000, and to distribute profits when the target is hit, proportionately on the actual hours of play of each player. This type of agreement allows maximum flexibility for the participants. Technically, they need not ever even see each other. Over a six month period, one California player might get in 80 hours of play in Las Vegas, while another — who lives in Florida — gets in 65 hours in Louisiana and Mississippi, while the New Yorker gets 110 hours in Atlantic City. Actual playing times will be at the convenience of the blackjack team members.
An EMFH blackjack team can coordinate all operations over the phone, wire–transferring funds if necessary. Such a team has no hassle of coordinating attacks on specific casinos/shifts, no possibilities of signal mix–ups, and no risk of being identified as team players with each other.
The prime requirement for this type of effort is absolute trust in each other. This type of team cannot succeed unless all members are absolutely honest with each other — re: hours of play, win/loss results, expenses, etc. There also must be a vigilant effort on the part of all team members to regularly update each other on play results, so that all are kept abreast of the actual size of the team bank.
EMFH teams only work with players who trust each other’s counting talents and abilities to assess game conditions for profit potential. Given these criteria, such teams can be operated successfully with as few or as many players as can meet these criteria. Most such teams, however, remain small.
Another very popular approach to team play is the two-person team. This type of team often consists of players who play together at a table, without any attempt to disguise the fact that they are together. Since it is common for male/female couples to play together, and not uncommon for any two friends, same sex or not, to sit together and play blackjack, a two–person team does not necessarily need to hide the fact that they know each other.
There are many viable approaches for maximizing the profit potential of a two–person team. This type of team need not consist of two card counters. A single talented player can use discreet signals (verbal or non–verbal) to tell the other player how to play/bet. In the case of male/female couples, this can usually be done quite openly, without the need for signals, as couples often help each other play their hands.
Male/female teams can also use their “couple” status simply to increase the betting spread. During uncrowded times, female companions may sit at the table without playing a hand, and this appears very natural (because it is; you see this all the time in casinos). It is also quite common for such a female companion to occasionally grab some of her husband’s/boyfriend/s chips and play a hand or two. This can effectively double the betting spread of a single player without appearing to.
Two person teams which consist of two talented players can also utilize their counting abilities to enhance their profits beyond what either might be able to accomplish individually. For instance, at single-deck games, one player might use a traditional point count system, while the other keeps a perfect insurance count (tens vs. non-tens). Or one player might keep a side count of aces. Or one player might keep the High-Low (for betting) while the other keeps Hi-Opt I (for playing strategy). Usually rules such as over/under or Royal Match, which require non-traditional counting systems, can also be more effectively attacked by two-person teams.
More advanced players might also try various shuffle tracking strategies. Having two-players at the table not only mentally frees one brain from traditional counting chores, but it also doubles the probability to getting the cut card.
Two-person team approaches in which the players do not appear to know each other can also be quite effective. A “Gorilla BP” strategy, in which a big money player pays little attention to the game, obviously not counting cards, but in fact playing/betting very accurately via signals from a small stakes “stranger” at the table, is very deceptive and effective.
A two-person team which consists of two talented counters can also use a “rotating BP” approach, in which the players take turns back-counting tables to call each other into hot games; or competent shuffle trackers could alternate shuffle-tracking tables, calling each other in at the hot slugs (or off the top when they can get the cut card), using signals to indicate the size/position/value of the slug.
Two person teams, because they are so often composed of close friends and/or real life couples, have a high rate of success. When two players are using a strategy where they are playing at the same table, they also eliminate worries about win/loss reporting, as they both witness the results.
Larger teams often use a “spotter” approach to team play. A spotter is a low stakes player or often a non–player who is simply watching the games, who “calls in” a big player (BP) via signals. Ken Uston wrote fairly extensively about this approach (The Big Player, 1976, and Million Dollar Blackjack, 1981), crediting Al Francesco with having invented it in the early 1970’s.
Despite the fact that this method has been so widely publicized, it is still used successfully today. The only effective countermeasure to the BP approach is restricting mid-shoe entry. This is done in some casinos, especially in Atlantic City where they can’t bar counters, but it is one of those countermeasures that costs the house dearly. The vast majority of players who want to enter mid-shoe are just regular (unskilled) players. And many high rollers like to change tables at whim. Restricting mid-shoe entry eliminates a lot of action from the tables, so most casinos (wisely) reject this countermeasure.
BP/spotter teams generally work best during crowded playing times, when lots of players are wandering around. Signals must be both subtle (natural gestures) and easy to see. If a complex set of signals is required, much time must be spent practicing before attempting to engage such a strategy in a casino BJ pit.
I would advise any players considering a BP/spotter team approach to start small (maybe half a dozen players), and allow the team to build gradually. BP/spotter approaches look great on paper, but can be quite confusing in a chaotic casino environment.
When starting out, you must prearrange short sessions (not more than an hour or two), so that you may reconvene with your teammates to discuss problems, missed signals, or any aspect of the approach that seems not to be working. On your initial sessions, you may expect to be devising many new signals for previously unanticipated situations you’ve encountered. You must maintain flexibility during your initial sessions to work out these fine details.
Because of the success of Uston’s blackjack books, the casinos are well aware of this team approach, and do look out for it. Big money players who continually jump in and out of games should expect surveillance. This is one of the more difficult types of blackjack team operations to coordinate, because the combined talents of so many individuals are necessary for success. There is often a great fun factor to participating in this type of team, however, as you will continue to get together with your teammates for discussions, practice sessions, money transfers, etc.
Tempers can flare when the team is losing, especially if any players begin to distrust the talents or honesty of any of their teammates. This type of team, more than any other, requires strong leadership, rigorous testing methods, and meticulous bookkeeping. With a large operation, money transfers may be frequent. All wins/losses and transactions must continually be recorded and updated. You must do this to avoid arguments about who had how much, who gave what to whom, etc.
It is also important that all members of the team understand that they do not know each other in the casino. It is also unsafe to meet in the casino coffee shop or restaurants, or any public areas of the hotel/casino(s) where you are playing, as pit personnel are liable to see you together. In many casinos, it is safe to meet in one of your hotel rooms, provided you arrive separately.
A “gorilla BP” (another term from Ken Uston’s books) is a player who is not a card counter (or at least is not paying any attention to the cards during the play), but who makes all betting/playing decisions according to signals. The gorilla BP is often drinking heavily so that his erratic big bets appear to be more due to his Johnny Walker wisdom than anything else.
The danger of using gorilla BP’s is that they often really do get drunk, and they are probably carrying a large amount of team money. What do you do if your gorilla’s ability to read and follow signals diminishes dangerously? I’ve heard more than one story of such players who not only failed to heed playing/betting signals, but failed to leave the tables when given the “quit now” signal.
Another problem that sometimes arises with gorilla BP’s who really do get drunk, is that even if they can accurately follow signals, they are sometimes very obnoxious, and casinos today are not as comfortable with obnoxious drunks as they used to be. If your BP is irritating other players, spilling his drink on the table, offending the cocktail waitresses, etc., he may be asked to call it a night despite the fact he is betting big money. Casinos are much more image conscious today.
The gorilla BP approach works best when you have a high roller who is not a card counter, and who already has a long history of big money playing with a top rating in a casino. Such a player, especially if a known loser, can often get away with murder at the tables, and the pit will usually be happy to see him winning for a change.
I would suggest using this approach with a gorilla BP who can act drunk, with a drink in his hand, but not necessarily one who is drunk. This approach should probably be avoided with a large team of spotters, as you will continually lose track of the whereabouts of your gorilla, which can be scary if he’s really drunk. He might also attract thieves and pickpockets, another worry. He is also unlikely to know anything about his actual play results, how much he won or lost, etc. Gorilla BP strategies work much better with actors than with alcoholics.
Most successful team strategies could probably be categorized as one of the types listed above. Keep in mind that there are virtually hundreds of variations on the methods described, and thousands of possibilities when you consider that these approaches can often be combined with each other.
As suggested earlier, it is quite possible to utilize a gorilla BP approach with a two-person blackjack team playing at the same table. This is probably the safest way to utilize this concept. But it is just as possible to utilize a couple as joint BP’s in a spotter blackjack team operation. The variations are endless if you use your imagination. ♠
For an outstanding book on blackjack teams see Repeat Until Rich: A Professional Card Counter’s Chronicle of the Blackjack Wars by Josh Axelrad, a player and manager on one of the most aggressive, successful and notorious blackjack teams of the past decade.
Also see Blackjack Blueprint, by Rick Blaine, a former teammate of Arnold Snyder’s. For a novel about a player on a blackjack hole-card team, see Risk of Ruin, by Arnold Snyder.
by S. Yama
(From Blackjack Forum XXIV #2, Spring 2005)
© 2005 Blackjack Forum
Radar, great rebuttal articles on McDowell’s numbers in Blackjack Ace Prediction. You wrote:
This is wrong because a share of the broken sequences and false keys properly belong to the aces that land on the other betting spots.
By subtracting .15 and .10 (.25) from .38 he comes up with an estimated 13% hit rate on his ace bets.
Instead, he should have multiplied .38 by .25.
.38 x .25 = .095
Then, he should have subtracted .095 from .38.
.38 – .095 = .285
It is a small point, however, unless I am missing something (which happens more often than I dare to admit), false key cards and broken sequences are not mutually exclusive. So it should be the chance of the Ace hitting the money minus when the sequence is broken minus when a false key card falls that is not in a broken sequence.
Or the same thing in reversed order: chance of hitting minus false card minus broken sequence without false key card. I don’t think it is a simple function of additions.
The numbers for cited case would be:
.38 – [.38 x .15 + (.38 – .38 x .15) x .1)] = .38 – .057 – .0323 = .2907 or
.38 – [.38 x .1 + (.38 – .38 x .15) x .15] = .2907
The difference is very small but I thought that you should be aware of it
S. Yama
Radar O’Reilly Replies:
Of course you’re right , S. Yama. Thanks. ♠
by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum Vol. XXI #4, Winter 2001/02)
© 2002 Blackjack Forum Online
[I asked a casino surveillance director if he would do an interview for Blackjack Forum. I told him he could be anonymous. No name. No pictures. Any question I asked about surveillance that he didn’t want to answer, all he had to do was say so. We’d skip to the next one. I just asked that he give me whatever honest information on casino surveillance he could give for card counters and other professional gamblers.
What follows is a transcript, almost verbatim, of the interview. He answered every question I asked. The only portions I removed were sections where he had second thoughts after he had responded. He asked me not to print these few remarks, not because of the sensitivity of the information provided, but because he felt his responses might reveal his identity to some other casino surveillance people who knew him.]
Q. How long have you been working in casino surveillance?
A. I’ve worked in surveillance for about fifteen years. I’ve worked in nine casinos of which three are on the Las Vegas Strip, where I am currently working.
Q. Have you worked in any other casino industry jobs?
A. I broke in as a dealer in the early 70s and dealt for four… five years. Then I was promoted to the floor and stayed there for four years. Around 1981, I became a pit boss, which I quit after three years because of the politics. Later on, in 1986, I took a position in surveillance and never left. I like it.
Q. Have you ever been a serious player, such as a card counter or other type of gambling pro?
A. No. I never was a serious player but I have dear friends who are and when I do play I will only play with an advantage.
Q. Can you explain that?
A. I’d rather not.
Q. In a major Strip casino, how many surveillance personnel are on staff, that would be on duty on a busy Saturday night, as opposed to a slow weekday morning?
A. At my casino, on an average, there are anywhere up to five people on duty in the surveillance room, and on a slow night there will only be three, maybe four with the supervisor.
Q. How do you decide whom to watch from the eye in the sky?
A. A phone call from the pit. Usually a pit boss will call up and ask us to watch someone. Or if a player is a continuous winner over several trips he will be observed.
Q. How prevalent is computer software in analyzing blackjack players’ skill levels?
A. It’s used different amounts by different casinos. I am not a big fan of blackjack analysis software because camouflage plays could throw it off if you only look at a short session of play. I don’t know of any surveillance monitor operators who care for it, and some don’t even take it seriously.
Q. Is this type of software ever used by casinos to evaluate play for comp purposes?
A. No. Comps are based strictly on the game played, average wager, and the amount of time played. I think it’s outrageous that many casino pit personnel are ignorant of how to evaluate a player’s value, or potential value.
Say a new patron walks into a casino and plays roulette, 5.26% house advantage, for several hundred dollars a spin for five to six spins and then asks for a comp to the buffet. A floor supervisor then informs the player that he does not have enough play time. Where’s the logic?
Q. Is this surveillance software ever used “live,” in casinos, on blackjack games in progress, or is it only used later, on videos of play?
A. I don’t know anyone who can use it fast enough for live play, so usually it is done later with video playback.
Q. In detecting card counters, is the blackjack software faster and/or more accurate than human surveillance personnel trained to recognize card-counting strategies?
A. I personally feel nothing can take the place of a trained individual.
Q. If a player is winning big, will he automatically be evaluated?
A. No. But if bet spreads raise an eyebrow in the pit, then we will be notified and we might watch him. We will definitely bring the individual up on a monitor but that will not be our first priority if bet spreads and good basic strategy combined are not also factors.
Q. How much of a win, or how many hours of winning, will trigger an investigation of play in a Las Vegas casino?
A. In our casino as soon as someone is winning $5,000 we are notified.
Q. Will all blackjack players be evaluated for both card-counting and shuffle-tracking skills?
A. No. Shuffle-tracking is simply not understood by many casino employees. Everyone uses the term but couldn’t identify one. It is such a hard area to do well and even a harder area to detect. The fact is, few, if any, players can beat the shuffles.
Q. In a typical month in a major casino, how many players will be found to be card counters, shuffle trackers, and actual cheaters?
A. Card counters, we average six to seven a month. Shuffle trackers, about two to three, simply because they are in Biometrica as a tracker, not because we catch them.
Cheaters, about one to four in a month, usually slots, and half are usually employees stealing coins when filling the machines.
Q. For casinos that subscribe to Griffin or Biometrica, is the service used extensively, say, on a daily basis?
A. Yes. As soon as we get a call from the pit about a patron, the first thing we do is see if the person is in Griffin or Biometrica. If he is, it makes our jobs easier.
Q. What percentage of major casinos would you estimate use Biometrica, Griffin, or both?
A. Eighty to ninety percent use Biometrica and I’d say forty percent use Griffin. Some casinos use both. This is based on talking to some of the other surveillance directors and is not a scientific estimate by any means. It seems to me Biometrica has really been taking over.
Q. Who in the casino decides if a player is to be added to Griffin or Biometrica?
A. We take a picture of the individual and state the reasons why we think this person is a counter, and the agencies decide whether or not to put him or her into the system. We can, however, send the individual’s picture directly to other casinos using Biometrica and ask them if anyone has information on the person.
Q. How well does Biometrica work, and what is the usage procedure?
A. Biometrica does work well in my opinion but, let’s face it, it is only as good as the people who use it. It is easier to use Biometrica because if we take a picture of a someone who is in the system the computer will find out who the person is because of the facial recognition device.
Q. Are players ever entered solely because of association with known card counters?
A. Absolutely. Guilt by association, I guess.
Q. If a player is in Griffin or Biometrica as a counter, is it assumed that the entry is correct, or will his play be watched?
A. If he’s in the book, he’s history.
Q. How do SINs (Surveillance Information Networks) work?
A. As soon as a person is a suspected undesirable a picture is taken and sent to all the other joints warning or asking about them.
Q. If a known pro counter is discovered in a Strip casino, will other Strip casinos be immediately notified?
A. Yes.
Q. If a player is winning inordinately, yet no explanation other than luck can be found, i.e., no counting, no tracking, no hole-card play, no devices, how long will the player be allowed to keep on winning? Is there some number of hours? Any dollar amount? Do all casinos have a pain-tolerance limit?
A. If the player is given a clean bill then we will keep letting him play, but with deterring methods — cutting shoes in half, changing dealers, and so on.
Q. If such a player is removed simply for inordinate wins, though nothing but luck presents an explanation, would such a player be a candidate for entry in Griffin or Biometrica?
A. No, because you have to explain to them why. But the individual will be in the house computer.
Q. Are players ever entered in Griffin or Biometrica simply because casino personnel dislike them?
A. No.
Q. How competent would you say the average surveillance person is at detecting card counters, shuffle trackers, and hole-card players?
A. Card counters: An amateur counter will be caught immediately. A professional, with no outrageous spreads, camouflage at the right times, etcetera, will have some longevity. Shuffle trackers: not much chance of getting caught. Hole-card players: not much chance of getting caught — providing greed is not a factor. Really bizarre plays can give them away.
Q. Which casinos have the strongest surveillance departments? And the weakest?
A. I really can’t say because there are good individual surveillance personnel but people are always moving from joint to joint. However, even when the “good ones” are in the room, they can’t watch everything. Remember, we are not just concentrating on blackjack. We have the other games to watch, slots, markers, escorts, log books to fill out…
Q. Which casino games other than blackjack are of the most concern to surveillance?
A. Depends on the hold. If certain games aren’t holding what they should, we watch them for employee theft, biased wheels, etc.
Q. How much playing time, or number of hands, would be input in a Blackjack Survey Voice analysis to look for skillful play?
A. Generally, one to two shoes to look for a good plus count to see what that person did when the count was good.
Q. How often are outside consultants called to evaluate play?
A. Outside consultants are rarely called in to evaluate play. Usually all the casinos have a resident expert who does the evaluation. Out of all the consultants I have seen over the years, there have been only two who were worth their weight in gold. One is fully retired and enjoying family life, and the other works solely for the [deleted] organization.
Q. Do either Griffin or Biometrica offer play evaluation services?
A. No.
Q. Does Gaming Control ever evaluate play in Nevada?
A. I have never seen them do anything like that.
Q. In a major Las Vegas casino, what is the pay scale for a floor person?
A. The pay varies from joint to joint. Obviously Caesars will pay more than Slots-A-Fun.
Q. On average, though, for a Strip casino, not the biggest and not the smallest, what does a floor man expect on his pay check?
A. $160 a day at the bigger joints. About twenty bucks an hour. It ranges from about $15 an hour at the smaller places on the Strip, to about $25 an hour at the top places.
Q. So, floor personnel get about $40 thousand a year. What about a pit boss?
A. Twice that. About $80 thousand per year. That’s at the top places. Maybe $60 thousand at the average Strip casinos.
Q. What about the shift manager?
A. A bit more than a boss. Maybe $90 thousand.
Q. How about the casino manager?
A. $120 thousand, plus bonuses.
Q. What about surveillance personnel?
A. I’m embarrassed to tell you.
Q. What’s the low end?
A. The monitor operators, all they do is sit in front of the screens all day and watch for anything suspicious, they hire in at $8 to $12 per hour. These are also the same personnel who input the Survey Voice data when a skill check is done.
Q. That pay sucks.
A. That’s the truth. And you get what you pay for. There’s little incentive to stay in this job. Nobody spends much time studying for it. Surveillance is a transition job.
Q. What’s the high end of surveillance pay?
A. The surveillance supervisor gets maybe $30 to $40 thousand a year. About the same as a floor man at most places. Pretty low on the salary scale for casino personnel. It’s still a transition job; you’re usually trying to get onto the floor so you can move up.
Q. Why would you leave a pit boss job for a surveillance job?
A. Like I said, politics. I’ve got some other things going also, nothing I want to get into.
Q. What about hosts?
A. Hosts are generally paid pretty well. At the top places, they get paid like a pit boss or shift manager. Maybe $80-100 thousand a year. The really top hosts can get a percentage of the losses of the big players they bring in. These hosts, if they’re bringing in whales, can make more than the casino manager.
Q. Do these top hosts have any actual salary, other than compensation for bringing in big players who lose?
A. They get compensated very well. They’re expected to bring in the top players, and that’s what they get paid for. The good ones really hustle, and they get paid very well. They also get fringe benefits, meaning gifts from their players. Some big players are very generous.
Q. If a host brings in a whale who lucks out and wins a million bucks on a trip, does that mean the host makes no money that month?
A. Like I say, they always get paid, and one lucky player won’t kill their pay check. If they’re any good, they have lots of players they’re bringing in. Good hosts make pretty good money. The best ones are at the high end of the pay scale.
Q. Is it ethical for hosts to bring their player lists to another casino if they move?
A. Ethical, no… but that’s how it’s done, and everyone accepts that. That’s how a host gets hired into a bigger joint. They go to player marketing and say, “I’ve got this list of big players from such-and-such casino, and I think I can get them over here. My players love me, and they’ll follow me. I’ve got all their names and numbers, et cetera.” Bang, they’re hired. If they produce the players, they get paid very well. That’s the way the business works.
Q. What advice can you give BJF readers who want to avoid detection as card counters?
A. Try not to bring too much attention to yourself, especially with bet spreads. If you are getting heat try some camouflage plays. Also watch the floor supervisor, because if he goes to the phone he is not calling Miss Cleo.
Also, if you are getting heat, leave before the next shift starts. That way no information will be transferred about you.
If you are winning, try to pocket some of the chips without anyone seeing you. If you are wearing a baseball cap and never look up, that’s a big tell. Surveillance will wait until you go to the cage to get a nice Polaroid. If this worries you, then do not cash out — just leave with the chips. To write more of these could take an article in itself.
Q. I think my readers would be very interested in this article. Give us some more tips.
A. I think it’s your job to write that article. The main thing is this: don’t go crazy with your spreads. That’s the biggest give away. If your bets are moving with the count, you can’t hide it if you’re watched for any length of time.
Q. What do you look for when evaluating a person?
A. When I evaluate a person the first thing I look at is basic strategy. If a person does play good basic strategy the next area is bet spreads. I will count the deck down and see if the player’s bets are spreading according to the count. I also look for basic strategy deviations along with the spreads.
The same would go for shuffle tracking. For this, I look for the larger amounts of money and see how the hands are played. For example, if a player cuts and bets big off the top and receives a 12 vs. 2 and stands, but later on hits the same hand when the bets are smaller, then I know I might have a tracker. The examples could go on and on because each situation is always different. The best advice I can give is to be careful and know your surroundings.
Q. Do casinos ever do background checks on new players? Say an unknown player calls the casino and he wants to put fifty thousand in the cage to play blackjack. Will they do any investigation to find out who he is?
A. No. They will, of course, check Griffin and Biometrica if they have one of these services, and they will check with other casinos they are connected with. For instance, MGM will check with Mirage, et cetera. Probably, player marketing will ask the player what other casinos he has played at, and they may check with one or two of those joints.
Occasionally, somebody just shows up out of nowhere with fifty thousand to play blackjack, but usually he’ll have some kind of playing history. But if he’s not in Griffin or Biometrica, we don’t look any further than that. Why should we? If he’s betting like that, we’ll be monitoring his play from the get-go.
Q. Would the casino run any asset checks on such a player? If he has little or no history, are they interested in where this fifty thousand front money came from?
A. Why should we care? If he’s putting this up as front money, why ask questions? His money’s green, that’s all that matters. Now if he wants a fifty thousand credit line, without bringing in the money, that’s different. There will definitely be a credit check done on him. He’ll have to provide his bank information, et cetera, just as if he were applying for a fifty thousand dollar loan — which, technically, he is.
Q. Any final comments for Blackjack Forum readers?
A. Just be thankful that casino surveillance is on the low end of the pay scale. The surveillance guy watching you on the monitor probably knows a whole lot less than you do about what you’re doing, so you can fool him if you’re careful. Move around the casino a lot to make his job more difficult. He’s not paid well enough to really give a damn. And good luck! ♠
[For a detailed look at the views of the people working the eye-in-the-sky, see D.V. Cellini’s The Card Counter’s Guide to Casino Surveillance.]
by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum Volume X #2, June 1990)
© Blackjack Forum 1990
You’ve got a double-digit true count, a huge expectation, and a bet to match. While you’re hoping the pit boss doesn’t notice the size of your bet, the dealer deals you another lousy sixteen — a ten and a six — vs. his ten up. He looks bored waiting for your decision. You could throttle him.
Hitting your hand is suicide. To stand is to witness your own execution.
No cause for alarm. This is no ordinary blackjack game. You’re at a casino that offers surrender!
You don’t have to play this hand! You can wave the white flag, give up half your bet, and see what the next hand brings.
This is why card counters like surrender.
Sitting to your left, however, is a player who’s been getting clobbered all morning. He’s not a card counter, but he plays a fairly decent game — as most high rollers do — sticking close to basic strategy for most of his decisions. A good player having a bad day. After you surrender your God-forsaken sixteen, he surrenders his own lousy stiff — a ten and a deuce — commenting to you as he does so, “At least they’ve got surrender here. On days like this, you really need it.”
This is why casinos like surrender.
You’d like to tell this guy he’s throwing his money away, that you just don’t surrender twelves vs. anything but it’s a lost cause. All morning he’s been giving up on his stiffs, not only vs. dealer tens and aces, but vs. nines, eights, and even sevens! This guy is the reason why the Claridge offers surrender. A few card counters may save a few bucks with the option, but most players are abysmally ignorant of when to throw in the towel, and when to put up their dukes and fight.
In a nutshell, in a multiple-deck game, you’d surrender your hard sixteens vs. nines, tens, or aces. You’d also surrender your fifteens vs. tens and aces. But that’s it. The rest of your rotten stiffs you’ve got to play to the bitter end. You may lose most of them, but you won’t lose twice as many as you’d win, so surrendering is foolish.
Following a 90-day trial period last year, the Claridge petitioned the New Jersey Casino Control Commission to allow players the surrender option in Atlantic City. The CCC granted the petition, effective January 16, 1990, amending the rules of the game so that any Atlantic City casino may allow players to surrender, provided the casino allows surrender on all of its blackjack tables.
Surrender is one of those options, like insurance, that card counters can exploit profitably, while the casino makes money from everyone else. Most card counters, in fact, will lose money on the surrender option because there is so much misinformation available to players.
Many East coast players — who have faint memories of the “early” surrender game in A. C., which was repealed by the CCC in 1981 — can be expected to throw money away even more frequently because it used to be correct to surrender more frequently when early surrender was available. They won’t understand the difference between the early surrender option that used to be available and the late surrender that’s available now.
Bear in mind, also, that the casinos have many system sellers on their side. John Patrick, currently one of the biggest and most successful promoters of gambling systems through his nationwide “So You Wanna Be a Gambler” cable TV shows and home videos, has far more effect on the way players play their hands than Peter Griffin, Stanford Wong, or yours truly.
In one of his recent “So You Wanna Be a Gambler” bimonthly newsletters — which has more than 10 times the circulation of Blackjack Forum — Patrick provides his readers with a quiz on surrender. In his answers to the quiz, he provides the wrong surrender decision on five out of six of his recommendations!
For the non-card counter, even the perfect basic strategy player, surrender has very little to offer, less than one tenth of 1% for perfect surrender decisions. Interpolating from Peter Griffin’s Theory of Blackjack, the basic strategy value of surrender goes up as more decks are added. Rounded to the nearest hundredth of a percent, these are the basic strategy values of surrender according to # of decks, assuming the dealer stands on soft 17:
| 1-DECK | 2-DECK | 4-DECK | 6-DECK | 8-DECK |
| +.02% | +.05% | +.07% | +.08% | +.08% |
This is nothing to write home about. The single-deck value of +.02% translates to a 2 cent gain per $100.00 bet.
These basic strategy gains are also based on making perfect two-card decisions. Surrender decisions, more than any other player option, are dependent on the make-up of your hand.
For example, although it is proper to surrender a 15 vs. a dealer ten, this actually applies to hands composed of X, 5 and 9, 6 only, in most games. You would only be correct in surrendering your 8, 7 if more than six decks were being used, or — if the dealer hits soft 17 — if four or more decks are in play. The following chart, drawn from Peter Griffin’s Theory of Blackjack (p. 178), indicates proper basic strategy surrender decisions according to the number of decks in play.
| 1 DECK | 2 DECK | 4 or 6 DECK | 8 DECK | |||||||
| X | A | X | A | 9 | 10 | A | 9 | 10 | A | |
| X,7 | *h | *h | *h | *h | ||||||
| 9,8 | *h | *h | *h | *h | ||||||
| X,6 | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * |
| 9,7 | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | |
| 8,8 | *h | *h | *h | |||||||
| X,5 | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | ||
| 9,6 | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | ||
| 8,7 | *h | *h | ||||||||
| 7,7 | * | *h |
* = surrender
*h = surrender if dealer hits soft 17
(one exception to chart: If double after splits are allowed, don’t surrender your 8, 8 vs. A in the 2-deck game.)
Here’s a simplified version of surrender basic strategy, not based on 2-card hands:
| 1,2-Deck | 4,6,8-Deck | ||||
| X | A | 9 | X | A | |
| 17 | *h | *h | |||
| 16 | * | * | * | * | * |
| 15 | * | * | * | * |
When I published Blackjack for Profit in 1981, I advised players to disregard whether or not a casino offered the surrender option in seeking a good game. My reasoning was that the basic strategy value of surrender was so small that the rule was relatively worthless.
Julian Braun, author of How to Play Winning Blackjack, disagreed. He wrote to me that although surrender is worth little to the average player, he would estimate that it could be worth up to .25% to a card counter who is using a moderate betting spread. His reasoning was that most of the surrender opportunities occur when the dealer has a ten up, which is more likely to occur when the count is high.
The counter is also more likely to have a high bet on the table at this time, and will be more likely to save his biggest potential losses. Also, when the count is low, the counter can deviate from his basic strategy surrender decision, since the dealer will be less likely to have a high card in the hole.
Since the Claridge in Atlantic City is now offering the surrender option on all of its tables, with 4-,6-, and 8-decks, let’s look at the value of this option to both the basic strategy player, and the card counter. Half a dozen Las Vegas casinos also offer surrender with 4- and 6-decks. Although there are a few other rule differences between the Vegas and A.C. games, the surrender value will be about the same. I tested all games with Atlantic City rules, simulating 50 million hands on each run, always with 75% deck penetration.
First, let’s look at the value of surrender to the flat-betting basic strategy player. Surrender decisions are not two-card dependent in these runs. Players who took the surrender option surrendered all the 15s and 16s vs. dealer 10s and aces. These are the player expectations in %:
| No Surrender | Surrender | |
| 4-Deck | -.39% | -.35% |
| 6-Deck | -.44% | -.39% |
| 8-Deck | -.47% | -.41% |
As expected, the value of surrender is minuscule for the basic strategy player who is not counting cards. But what if this player is counting cards, using a 1-8 spread, but still playing all of his hands according to basic strategy? Here’s what we come up with:
| No Surrender | Surrender | |
| 4-Deck | +.57% | +.73% |
| 6-Deck | +.34% | +.49% |
| 8-Deck | +.22% | +.41% |
As Julian Braun pointed out in 1981, the value of this rule option goes up considerably for the card counter. Now let’s look at the value of surrender for the card counter who is not only spreading his bets from 1-8 units, but also varying the play of his hands according to his count.
For these runs, I used the single-digit Zen Count Strategy indices from Blackbelt in Blackjack. I did not publish Zen surrender indices in Blackbelt, but I did publish a set in Blackjack Forum (Vol. VII #1). In case you missed that issue, these are your Zen Surrender Numbers:
| 9 | 10 | A | |
| 16 | +1 | -4 | -1 |
| 15 | +5 | -1 | +3 |
| 14 | +5 |
These are the results of the computer simulations, using the Zen indices along with a 1-8 spread:
| No Surrender | Surrender | |
| 4-Deck | +.76% | +.96% |
| 6-Deck | +.54% | +.68% |
| 8-Deck | +.39% | +.53% |
Thus, it appears that the value of surrender to the card counter, who is using a 1-8 spread in a multipledeck game, is between .15% and .20%, if the counter sits through all negative counts. (A counter who abandons negative decks will find surrender worth more than this).
In Nevada, three Las Vegas casinos offer the surrender option on 2-Deck games. One Reno casino offers surrender in a 1-Decker. Let’s look at the value. First, for the flat-betting basic strategy player (using strip rules for all comparisons):
| No Surrender | Surrender | |
| 1-Deck | -.10% | -.10% |
| 2-Deck | -.36% | -.33% |
Here we see that although Griffin predicts a .02% surrender value in the single-deck game, our 50-million hand run showed no value whatsoever. There are two explanations for this. Foremost, with 50 million hands, one standard deviation is about .015%, so these results could easily be a normal fluctuation.
Also, Griffin’s estimated value is based on perfect 2-card decisions. Rather than surrendering all 15s and 16s vs. tens and aces, we shouldn’t be surrendering 9, 7 vs. ace, or 8,8 vs. anything. And technically, we should be surrendering 7, 7 vs. ten in single-deck games.
Regardless, the value of surrender is so minute to the flat-betting basic strategy player in single-and double-deck games, there’s no practical reason to run a zillion hands with perfect 2-card decisions just to discover that Peter Griffin’s estimates are correct. (Also, John Imming’s Real World Casino programs don’t allow 2-card surrender decisions. If you surrender a 16 with the RWC program, the 8,8 is included. In multiple-deck games, the two-card make-up of your hand becomes less important, though all of the RWC win rates are technically slightly low).
Let’s look at the value of surrender in 1- and 2-deck games to the card counter who is spreading from 1-4 units, but playing his hands according to basic strategy:
| No Surrender | Surrender | |
| 1-Deck | +1.03 | +1.19 |
| 2-Deck | +.48 | +.66 |
And, for the counter who is not only spreading from 1-4 units, but using his indices to make strategy decisions:
| No Surrender | Surrender | |
| 1-Deck | +1.73% | +1.95 |
| 2-Deck | +.96% | +1.13 |
Again, the value of the blackjack surrender rule to the card counter proves to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a +.20%. This is worth going out of your way for, all other blackjack game factors being equal (penetration, etc.).
When the chips are down, throw in the towel, wave the white flag, cry uncle, and laugh all the way to the bank. ♠
by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum XX #2, Fall 1996)
© Blackjack Forum 1996
On Sunday, June 23, 1996, speaking before a small crowd of card counters and other gambling enthusiasts who were attending his blackjack seminar at Casino Players’ Las Vegas Gaming Festival ‘96 at the Tropicana Hotel, Stanford Wong predicted that, due to a casino promotion, a “party” would soon take place at the Klondike Hotel and Casino, just a few blocks down the street on Las Vegas Blvd. South.
Despite its Vegas “Strip” address, many in the crowd had never heard of the Klondike, a small casino which boasted a total of five blackjack tables and a handful of slot machines. No craps. No roulette. No poker. No keno.
Betting limits on the BJ tables were $1-100, though $100 action was pretty much unheard of in this sawdust joint. The casino, in fact, owned no black ($100) chips – just silver ($1), red ($5), and green ($25). The $1 action was most common with the regular customers—truckers and the local blue collar crowd who enjoyed the relatively quiet atmosphere and the inexpensive, uncrowded coffee shop.
Within 24 hours of Wong’s prediction, the “party” began, and by 12:15 A.M. on Tuesday, June 25, not much more than 8 hours after it had started, it was all over. Another successful Pi Yee Press “surprise party” went down in blackjack history.
Here’s how it happened.
About 3 weeks earlier, the Klondike introduced a new rule on its blackjack tables: the “Free Ride.” The rule had been invented by Jim, one of the pit bosses, apparently to encourage more $5 action. Placards on the tables and large signs on the walls explained that you could only take advantage of the “free ride” option with bets of $5 or more.
What is a “free ride?” In fact, it turned out to be pretty expensive for the Klondike…
If the player was dealt a blackjack with a bet of $5 or more, his betting spot was marked with a “lammer.” Lammers are those small plastic disks that dealers in some casinos use as chip separators in their racks. The Klondike had lammers imprinted with dollar amounts from $5 to $100.
If a player was dealt a blackjack when he had $10 bet on the hand, a $10 lammer was placed on the edge of his betting square. The player could then use the lammer for a “free ride” on any subsequent hand dealt to that position up to the amount imprinted on the lammer, in this case $10. A “free ride” was simply an option to call any hand a push prior to playing it out.
In other words, if the player had a $10 lammer on a betting square, and if he was then dealt a total of, say, 16 vs. an ace, he could announce “free ride,” and the dealer would pick up his cards, remove the lammer, and the hand would not be played out—technically it became a push. As this was done before the dealer peeked under his ace, this was actually an “early free ride,” and since the player did not even relinquish half of his bet, it was quite a bit more valuable than early surrender. How much more valuable had yet to be seen…
A few other fine points of the free ride option: if a player had a $10 lammer on a betting square where he subsequently had a $25 bet, the lammer could only be used for a free ride on $10 of that bet. In other words, if the player elected to use his free ride option, only $10 of his bet would be returned to him, then the hand would be played out for the $15 remaining.
If a player was betting on two squares and had a lammer marking only one position, he could not move the lammer to the hand of his choice. The lammer could be used only on the hand in the marked square. If a player were dealt another natural on a hand which was already marked with a lammer, he could not get another lammer. Tough beans. Only one lammer per hand.
At his Sunday Casino Player seminar, Wong said he’d just heard about this new free ride rule, and he didn’t know the precise value of it, but that he planned to start running some computer simulations on it as soon as he got home that evening. Nor did he know the best strategy for using the lammer.
Obviously, any time you give up a hand that has a negative expectation, you’re profiting. But giving up a stiff vs. a dealer low card (2,3,4,5,6) would be nowhere near as valuable as giving up a stiff vs. a dealer high card (7,8,9,X,A). There is a danger, however, to saving the lammer for a really bad hand, and that danger is that you might be dealt another blackjack prior to getting a really bad hand, thus “wasting” the use of a lammer.
Prior to Wong’s revelation of this new rule at his seminar, a few local players had already discovered the rule, and the Klondike was already seeing more red and even some green action on its tables. I wandered in on Sunday evening. There was one player making $25 and $50 bets, who appeared to be losing heavily. There was also a smattering of red action.
The green action player was obviously not a pro, as he was using a plastic basic strategy card at the table as he played, but violating the advice on the card any time he had a hunch the card was wrong. One of the casino customers I talked with told me that a few players had made some “real money… 500 to 1,000 bucks,” on that weekend, betting green action. These players had also discovered the rule independently, and may or may not have known what they were doing.
I called Wong the following morning to find out if he had run any computer simulations yet to analyze the free ride option.
He said he was currently testing the rule with “aggressive” use of the lammer—i.e., taking the free ride on virtually any hand of negative value. He told me he intended to test a more conservative lammer strategy later, and by 2 P.M. or so, he would be putting the word out to his FAX subscribers, as well as to his Internet group.
At 2:30 P.M. on Sunday, I called Wong again. He told me he would be sending out his FAX and Internet announcements within an hour or so. “You’d better get over there, Arnold,” he said. “You’ll have a chance to see what a Pi Yee Press surprise party looks like first hand. By later this afternoon, I guarantee you there’ll be a $100 bet on every spot on every open table.”
I told Wong one player told me that a pit boss had said the Klondike planned to patent the rule and market it to other casinos.
Wong laughed. “No, they won’t,” he said. “That rule will die tonight. Aggressive lammer use gives the basic strategy player about a 1% advantage over the house. With a more conservative lammer strategy—and I just simulated the standard early surrender strategy—you can get about a 1.5% advantage. If I had another 24 hours to play with this, I’m sure I could come up with a more perfect strategy, and a stronger advantage, but I can’t afford to waste any more time on it. My customers need to know this information right now. This is what they pay me for.”
I asked Wong if he intended to continue running his simulations so that he could publish the perfect strategy the next day.
He laughed again. “You don’t understand, Arnold. This rule won’t exist tomorrow. I would be wasting my time. The casino will surrender before the night is through. I guarantee it. 1% to the players is just too strong. With $100 bets, a small casino like that just won’t be able to take it.”
Within two hours of that conversation, the players began arriving at the Klondike. One at a time, they sat down and pulled out a handful of hundred dollar bills and asked for all green chips.
By 5:30 P.M., there wasn’t a betting spot available on any of the three open tables. Most were playing two hands, flat-betting $100 per hand, playing basic strategy and using early surrender strategy to give up the lammer when they had one.
The pit bosses and dealers seemed confounded at where all these table limit players had come from. They asked almost all of them individually how they’d happened to stop in at the Klondike on that night. Most gave a version of the same story: “Oh, I was just on my way into (or out of) town, and I thought I’d stop by and look at this place. Pretty good game you’ve got here. I really like this new `free ride’ rule.”
The rule produced some of the most unusual player reactions I’d ever seen at a blackjack table. Players with lammers cheered when they were dealt stiffs vs. dealer tens and aces, gleefully calling out “free ride!” Stranger still, players with lammers cursed when they were dealt blackjacks, knowing that they would not get another lammer, and that a blackjack had been “wasted.”
As the casino allowed players betting two spots with max bets to continue betting two spots even when other players wanted to play, all of the tables had only four players, three betting two spots, and one—the last to sit down—betting one. Hordes of players lurked behind the tables like vultures, waiting for any player to stand up and give up his seat, or even to take a break to one of the rest rooms.
Rest room breaks were infrequent and quick, as the attitude at the tables was that with a 1% advantage, each $100 hand missed cost the player $1.50, so players with two hands gave up $3.00 per round for every round they missed when nature called! The casino did save their seats, while the lurking vultures fought to squeeze a few $100 bets in on-to those temporarily vacated betting square(s).
One player, who had been playing two spots for five or six straight hours gave his seat up to his female companion so that she could play his spots for awhile. The adjacent single-spot player, however, quickly grabbed one of the two spots, claiming some sort of “squatter’s rights” to the second spot, since he had been there for many hours, and she had just arrived. One of the pit bosses had to arbitrate the argument, while the dealer stood dumbfounded. Why on earth were players fighting to place $100 bets on their tables?
Virtually every player I talked to later had nothing but praise for the dealers and pit crew. Said one: “They were so cordial and accommodating. They were offering everybody comps to the coffee shop and a room if they wanted one. I heard them offer one player a room at the Hacienda! I don’t know how they would swing that deal! But nobody would leave their seat. It was too expensive to go eat, even though we were starving! A couple players asked to have sandwiches brought to them at the table, and they even did that! They were so nice while we were cleaning them out!”
The scene was wild. The players continually emptied the dealers’ chip racks of greens and reds. After the first hour or so, the pit crew brought all the green chips the house owned out of the storage room, but that didn’t help much. All of those chips quickly wound up in front of the players, again leaving the dealers with nothing but silver.
So, a new chip replenishment strategy was born. The security guards were put to work as “chip runners,” bouncing back and forth from the tables to the cashier’s cage, buying chips from players right at the tables, and paying them off by counting hundred dollar bills onto the felt in trade for their greens and reds.
A couple times during the evening, they stopped the games completely, once to buy all of the chips from all of the players at all of the tables, and once to change all of the decks of cards in the shoes.
I don’t know how many times the dealers’ chip racks were cleaned out, or how many thousands of dollars in chips the house bought back from the players, but at one point a little before midnight, buying $1,000 in green chips from one player, the security guard started counting $20 bills onto the table. The cashier’s cage had run out of hundreds!
The punishment couldn’t last much longer. The incredible patience the pit had shown while being hammered for eight straight hours, waiting for the tide to turn, as it always did in casinos games, waiting for the “house edge” to start moving all those chips in the other direction, the right way, back into the dealers’ racks, was all for nought. The house was running out of money. The tide went out, and it wasn’t coming back in. The party was almost over.
At midnight, the grave shift arrived. The new pit crew looked positively confounded at the strange scene before them. A table limit player at every open seat in the house? Every spot covered with a $100 bet? On a Monday night?! And why were all the green chips in front of the players? And why were the security guards running back and forth like keno girls from the tables to the cage, buying chips from the players? What the hell was going on?
They were scratching their heads, talking in a huddled group with the swing shift pit crew, who were attempting to explain to them rationally the inexplicable eight hours that had just passed in which the impossible had occurred—the players were winning, and not just some of them, but all of them! For eight crazy hours, the chips had been flowing in the wrong direction!
A few hundred miles away, I imagined Stanford Wong with a grin on his face, wearing a paper party hat and blowing a little horn… “Surprise!”
At fifteen minutes past midnight, Bud, the swing shift manager who had witnessed the entire debacle, threw in the towel.
“The pit is closed!” he announced. “No more blackjack. No more hands. It’s over. Cash in your chips and go home.”
There was a small stampede of bedraggled players to the cashier’s window, all praying the house would have sufficient funds to cash them out. They did. Everyone got paid. Most had been in their seats a full eight hours by this time. They were tired and hungry.
Once outside, the players stretched and breathed the night air, and immediately started making connections with each other, asking each other how they happened to find out about the game. At least two of the players had been attending the Casino Player’s Festival the day before, were not pros in any sense, but just happened to hear about the game at Wong’s talk.
A couple players said they were on Wong’s FAX service. A few had read about it on his Internet site, but were not subscribers, just net surfers who were interested in blackjack. One local player had discovered it on his own earlier in the week, but learned about Wong’s advice to use the early surrender strategy from another player he happened to meet at the tables. A few players exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses. It was a real conglomeration of locals and out-of-towners, mostly amateurs and a few pros who just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
I called Stanford Wong the next day to tell him what had happened at the Klondike. He suggested that I wander over there again to see if they still had the free ride option on their tables. “There’s a law in Nevada that requires a casino to have some minimum amount of money in the cage in order to pay off winning players,” he told me. “It’s possible they only closed the tables to comply with the law if they were running out of money. They still may not know that the free ride option was responsible for what happened to them. A lot of casino people are pretty dumb.”
I told Wong that at one table the players kept talking about how much the dealer kept busting, as if that was responsible for the house’s eight-hour long negative cash flow.
“I’ve got some pretty sharp players on my FAX service,” he said, “and they might definitely say things like that to divert the house’s attention from what their real problem is. I think it’s very possible the casino personnel may not know that the free ride rule is the culprit. I’d go back in and check it out today if I were you.”
So, I wandered over to the Klondike, and who should I bump into outside the door but one of the local players who had been there the previous night. I asked him if the free ride rule was still in effect.
“No,” he said, “and they’re not particularly friendly today. I was just coming here for lunch. I walked in and noticed, while walking through the video poker machines, that the sign on the wall advertising the free ride option had been taken down.
“I did not go near the blackjack tables, I just went into the coffee shop. While I was waiting to be served, I saw the day shift pit boss, Sammy. He asked me if I had played last night and how I did. Sammy knew me from two days prior and we had developed a nice friendly rapport.
“Then another man moved in on our conversation and I began to explain that I had done well and how unlucky the casino was the night before. The second person, whose eyes were bloodshot and looked like he had been up all night, said `Did you play here last night?’ I said, `Yes,’ and he said, `I don’t think you’re welcome here any more,’ and he started to walk away.
“I called him back and attempted to speak to him in a friendly tone, and he responded with `Why don’t you just get the fuck out of here.’ I said, `Okay. See you later, Sammy,’ so I’m leaving.
“This treatment upsets me. After all, all I did was sit down and play the game that they offered. I didn’t mark cards, or use a computer, or run a scam with the dealer. Nor would I ever! You didn’t even have to count cards to beat that game. All I did was sit down, flat bet, play basic strategy, and enjoy the wonderful game that they were offering to the public. I took advantage of what they gave as anyone else who walked in would be able to do. It wasn’t my fault that they were too stupid to realize that the game they offered gave the basic strategy player a big edge!
“I’m going home now, but I’m going to write a letter to the Gaming Control Board. I’ll probably call the casino manager first to vent my anger over this discriminatory treatment.”
I asked this player if I could call him later to find out what transpires in his conversation with the Klondike’s casino manager. He gave me his number so that I could contact him, which I did the following day.
“I called the Klondike,” he said, “in order to secure the name of the casino manager, to whom I would direct my letter, as well as to the Gaming Board. The operator informed me that the owner, Mr. Woodruff, acted as casino manager, and would I like to speak to him?
“I said `sure.’
“In our conversation, Mr. Woodruff explained to me `exactly what happened last night.’ That his `management could not figure it out, but when he came in the casino around midnight, it only took him 15 minutes’ to do so, in part because of his experience as he `had been in the business for 33 years.’
“The Klondike was correct in kicking me out the next day, according to Woodruff. What occurred, he said, was that everyone playing at the Klondike that night was part of one big team. I guess he made this assumption because everyone was flat betting the table max of $100. Each player at the table had a function on the team, he said. Some people `kept a plus-minus,’ some people `called plays’ for others, and the key was the person at third base. The third base person at each table `directed the cards to the dealer to keep the dealer in a minus situation.’
“His 33 years of casino experience must have taken some time out of any years of basic math. I could not believe that a casino owner could speak with such ignorance. I assured him that I certainly was not part of this `dream team’ he put together. If things were that easy, any group of people could sit at any table in any casino and `put the dealer in a minus situation!’
“Why go to the Klondike, of all places? Why not the MGM Grand where you can bet $10,000 a hand instead of a hundred? Simply `direct’ the proper `minus’ cards to the dealer! There was no point in trying to reason or be logical with him, so the conversation ended with me again denying his claim that I played for this enormous team with this impossible strategy, and him insisting I was not telling the truth.”
But, regardless of what this player was told when he called the Klondike, the fact exists that, as Wong had initially predicted, the casino did remove the free ride option approximately 8 hours after Wong publicized it, along with an easy strategy for beating it. I tend to doubt we will ever see that option surface again in any U.S. casino.
Good-bye, Free Ride, you were great fun while you lasted! And if you want future casino promotions to last long enough to make some money from them, keep your casino promotions to yourself!, ♠
by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum Volume XXIII #2, Summer 2003)
© 2003 Blackjack Forum
In the two-plus decades that we’ve been publishing this mag, we’ve covered many stories about professional players suffering physical abuse at the hands of casino personnel. Back in June of 1986 (“Why I’m Suing in Nevada”), Ken Uston wrote about a former teammate of his “…100 pounds soaking wet…” who had been dragged across the floor of the Flamingo Hilton and was back-roomed and bruised about the arms and legs by “…two huge uniformed Neanderthals.”
Uston also wrote about his own 1978 beating at the Mapes Casino in Reno, a beating that broke five bones in his face and left him without feeling in the left side of his mouth.
In March of 1988 (“The Horseshoe Trial”), Anthony Curtis updated us on the case of two card counters and hole card players who were beaten and hospitalized by Binion’s Horseshoe security guards.
In the Spring 2001 issue (“A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the Forum”), James Grosjean tells the story of his back-rooming, handcuffing, and arrest on false cheating charges at Caesars Palace, charges that were dropped after he had spent three days in jail and thousands in attorneys’ fees.
In the Spring 2003 issue (“Blackjack Wizards,” by Richard W. Munchkin), interviewee “R.C.” discusses his being handcuffed, back-roomed and beaten up by half a dozen security guards at the Eldorado in Reno a few years ago, and having more recently been tackled and handcuffed by security guards at the El Cortez in Las Vegas.
In the past couple of years, it seems these types of incidents have been increasing, both in frequency and severity. On our website, there has recently been a lengthy discussion about a card counter who was “tortured” (thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and kneeled on) by Mandalay Bay security guards.
But, according to one industry spokesperson, players who express shock and outrage at this type of treatment are overreacting.
“We hardly ever beaten a player badly enough that he requires hospitalization,” he insists. “I’m not saying it doesn’t happen—but that’s not the norm. And you should also keep in mind that when a player does require hospitalization as a result of a casino beating, the player actually gets to go to the hospital. The days when we just left them out in the desert are history. Players today can pretty much rest assured that if they beat us at the tables, they will not be killed. A relatively mild beating, with perhaps one broken bone—maybe a cracked rib or two—that’s it. This is a kinder, gentler casino culture today.”
Old time players agree. “The beatings today aren’t that bad,” says one old pro. “The corporations that own the joints now are very restrained compared to the way the mob used to handle winners.”
But, is it legal for a casino to physically assault players who beat them at the tables?
One Las Vegas attorney says, “In Nevada, beating the crap out of players who beat the house is a long-standing tradition. And tradition has a lot more weight in this state than the letter of the law. Historically, gamblers have never been permitted to beat the house and walk out with the money. If a player beats a casino, then tries to leave town without giving it all back and then some, that foils the whole purpose of the casino, at least from the owners’ perspective.
Imagine how a casino stockholder feels when some wiseguy shows up with a ‘system’ and starts siphoning money off the top of his investment returns. When this player—who has no investment in the casino at all—starts beating the house, this is like a slap in the face to the stockholders. It’s like this player is telling the owners, the investors, the bosses, everyone involved in the operation, ‘I’m smarter than you.’
This is personal. The fact that the player’s strategy may be technically ‘legal’ is not the issue. If you’re going to insult a public corporation, tradition in this state gives them the right to kick the shit out of you.”
How do the Nevada courts feel about all of this? One Clark County District Court judge feels the court system handles these beating complaints very fairly. “There may be nothing in the books per se about how to adjudicate such a case, but we have precedents to guide us. We would not accept it as reasonable, for instance, if a player who won a thousand dollars had his arm broken. A casino that took such an extreme measure against a player who won such a small amount could face a fine of up to $50 for every broken bone this player suffered.
The casino may even be required by the court to contribute to the player’s medical bills, assuming the player was not an associate of, say, the Greeks or the Hyland team. Before a casino can resort to any physical punishment of a player, that player should have beaten them for at least five digits. Once a player has won that much from a casino, then we will allow certain physical measures to be taken in order to protect the revenues of the state.”
There is, in fact, a very strict set of guidelines followed by the Nevada courts, based on both the dollar win of the advantage player and other extenuating circumstances. Here is a list of the “violations” and “recommended actions” currently allowed in Nevada. [Ed. Note: We obtained this list through confidential sources in the Nevada Justice Department.]
Violation: Player wins $1000-$5000 via skillful play.
Recommended Action: Player may be back-roomed, pushed around, kicked out of hotel, and relieved of his winnings.
Violation: Player wins $5000-$10,000 via skillful play.
Recommended Action: All of the above, plus: player may be bruised via manhandling, hand-cuffed, punched in face and/or stomach. Casino may also refuse to cash in player’s chips.
Violation: Player wins $10,000-$50,000 via skillful play.
Recommended Action: All of the above, plus: minor bone breakage (rib, finger, etc.), and/or dislocation of shoulder. Player may also be arrested and jailed on trumped up cheating charge.
Violation: Player wins $50,000-$100,000 via skillful play.
Recommended Action: All of the above, plus: multiple fractures of major bone groups (arms, legs, etc.). Casino may also discover back-room videotape to be missing or accidentally erased.
Violation: Player wins more than $100,000 via skillful play.
Recommended Action: All of the above, plus: damage to internal organs, ruptured spleen, etc.
Violation: Player returns to casino to play in disguise, or with phony ID, after trespass.
Recommended Action: All of the above, plus: holding in back room for 3 to 5 hours in handcuffs tightened to restrict blood circulation. Also recommended: kneeling on player’s back to cut air passage through windpipe, and similar forms of torture popularized in guerrilla warfare.
Violation: Player wins $1 million or more via skillful play.
Recommended Action: Sever player’s head.
There is currently a bill before the Nevada State Legislature that would make it legal for casinos in the state to publicly flog card counters and other advantage players who beat them at the tables. A spokesperson at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau says: “We think the general public would find this entertaining. A lot of citizens’ groups in this country have been pushing for laws that would enable the TV networks to televise executions. This would simply be a small step in that direction.”
Looking to the future, the Marketing Department at Caesars Palace has already commissioned Franco Dragone, the brilliant theatrical designer who created the sets for Celine Dion’s extravaganza in Caesars’ Coliseum, to design Roman-themed stocks and pillories for card counters, so that players who violate the state’s win restrictions can be tarred and feathered and publicly displayed in the gaming pits.
“It’s just a fun concept for everyone,” says Park Place Entertainment President Wally Barr. “But that’s just the beginning of what we’re planning for Caesars. People have been asking us for a year what that big construction mess is out front on the Strip. I am very proud to announce at this time that in keeping with Caesars’ Roman theme, we are building an exact replica of Mount Calvary, where we hope to stage crucifixions of winning players, every hour, on the hour, throughout the day. We expect our commemorative Golgotha gaming chips to be even more popular with collectors than our Celine Dion chips. We are finally going to give that volcano next door a run for the money.”
MGM/Mirage magnate, Kirk Kerkorian, insists that Caesars’ plans don’t scare him in the least. “When you’ve already got a volcano, you’ve got a lot of options,” he says. “We could tie card counters to the sides of it, and have them covered in molten lava. We could throw them into the volcano and mike their screams as they fry. We’ve got a lot of options.”
Not to be outdone, the Las Vegas Hilton is now in the process of reprogramming their new MindPlay tables to handle electronic alligator clips that can be attached to the blackjack players’ genitals. “We don’t think card counters should have to wait for countermeasures to be taken against them,” says one Hilton bigwig. “MindPlay gives us the opportunity to let counters know immediately that their skillful play is improper. This new MindPlay NutZapper® peripheral really is the future of gaming in Nevada.”
The Nevada Gaming Control Board has already approved the NutZapper® device for casino use. “It’s not much different from the comp system the casinos have been using for years—except that it works in reverse,” according to a memo sent by the Gaming Board to all Nevada casinos last month.
Many other Nevada casinos are planning similar countermeasures. According to Carl Icahn, his Stratosphere Casino will soon be redesigning their ho-hum Big Shot thrill ride to help with their card counter problems. “Our engineers have already determined that by loosening just a few screws, the Big Shot becomes the Big Splat,” says Icahn. “We’ll be getting rid of counters and providing wholesome family entertainment for our customers all at the same time.”
Likewise, the MGM Grand will soon be feeding the big cats in their Lion Habitat some creative new lunches. “It’s all about entertaining the kids,” says the animal trainer. “And it’s educational. Everyone loves to watch nature’s wild animals in action.”
The Atlantic City casinos are now clamoring for the same rights to take physical countermeasures as the Nevada casinos are afforded. In the wake of a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission has already caved in on some points. Although the AC casinos will still not be allowed to bar counters from their tables, they will be allowed to poke out the eyes of counters who look at the cards being dealt. Trump is dissatisfied with this solution. “Even if they’re blind,” he points out, “some other player at the table might be telling them what cards have been dealt.”
Dr. Myron Mengele, head of the Psychology Department at the University of Nevada in Reno, applauds these types of physical countermeasures. “It is a well-known fact that when casino players see winners, they are encouraged to keep playing longer than they normally would in order to try to win themselves. So, card counters are directly responsible for encouraging many weak players to become compulsive gamblers. All of these winning card counters are causing an immense gambling addiction problem in this country. The counters must be stopped. When gamblers see these aberrant types of players beaten up, hospitalized, and jailed for the way they play, this encourages them to avoid engaging in any similar playing style. That helps not only the casino industry, but our society as a whole.”
Even the Office of Homeland Security has taken up the casinos’ cause. According to Director Tom Ridge, “We feel that this is a national security issue. To put it bluntly, we believe that beating casinos is a terrorist act. These so-called card counters are not just attacking our American corporations; they are attacking our American way of life. I’m quite certain that we will find that these so-called systems they use were actually developed in terrorist training camps.”
Attorneys for the card counters remain optimistic in the face of these developments. “We probably can’t stop the beatings or the maimings,” says Louie Neil, of the Las Vegas law firm Neil, Dounn, and Prei. “It’s hard to buck tradition in this state. We may not even be able to stop the beheadings. But even if we can’t stop the public crucifixions, we do feel that we will be able to force the casinos to cash in a counter’s chips before he is killed. Even if the casinos are allowed by the courts to keep all of the player’s winnings, we feel very strongly that his initial buy-in should be divvied up among his remaining family members. There are, after all, laws in this country protecting the rights of lawful heirs.”
Meanwhile, an international group of ex-card counters who have since gone over to the casino side, headed by Howard Grossman of Las Vegas and Michael Barnett of Sidney, Australia, are soliciting all former and current professional players to quit attempting to beat the casinos and join them in a class action lawsuit against Edward O. Thorp, author of the 1962 best seller, Beat the Dealer. Says Barnett, “The casinos are simply doing what all corporations have done since the beginning of time—protecting their assets. It’s troublemakers like Ed Thorp who have caused all of these problems for players. And since he personally has more money than all of the major casino corporations combined, we’re going after him.”
Players who would like to join the suit can call Howard Grossman toll-free at: 1-800-GET-EDDY. ♠
