This week Anthony and Andrew sit down with Video Poker legend, Bob Dancer.
LAS VEGAS ADVISOR INTERVIEW – BOB DANCER
Sands Quits, Bally’s Folds
And then there were nine … New York City casino applicants, that is. Yesterday, Las Vegas Sands COO Patrick Dumont—the guy who gave you the Luka Doncic trade—announced that the company wouldn’t be taking a bite of the Big Apple after all. It’s walking away from Sands Nassau and everything that comes with it, on the grounds that iGaming, if approved, would make New York State an unprofitable market.
Continue reading Sands Quits, Bally’s FoldsIs This Legal?
I received an email from a friend. He heard about what happened to a particular player and asked me if I thought it was legal. I’ll share what was reported, but keep in mind that I don’t know who it happened to, the skill of the player, or even in what state the casino is located. All of this information could affect my answer, but there are still interesting features to discuss.
A player, I’ll call him Joe, was playing loose video poker and the casino had a promotion giving a large point multiplier. The points were good for free play only and the multiplying of the points would happen sometime after the day of the play. After the promotion started, the casino figured out that players pounding their loosest games, which included Joe, had a sizeable advantage over the casino. The casino 86’d some of these players and did not let them redeem any of their multiplied points — claiming that the players who were playing these machines so hard during the promotion were indulging in a “free play scam.”
Joe took it to gaming, claiming he was only playing a promotion that the casino offered. Gaming decided in favor of the casino — but didn’t explain to Joe why. Joe would not have played this game without the multiplier, so was stuck with playing a negative game. The friend who sent me the story told me he thought that casinos could 86 players, but he thought they had to pay out accumulated free play.
I have several comments on this.
- I often wish our Gambling with an Edge podcast was still happening, and this is one of those times. I would love to put this question to Bob Nersessian. While I have considerable experience and some expertise, Bob Nersessian is an attorney who specializes in player disputes with casinos. I’m sure he would ask where this happened because rules differ by jurisdiction.
- I don’t know whether this was a tribal casino or not. If so, all bets are off. Tribes have considerable discretion in enforcing policies however they see fit. It’s not impossible to sue and win in a situation involving a tribal casino, but it’s much tricker.
- I assume Joe represented himself when he went to gaming. Being represented by an attorney can improve your chances for success, but attorneys don’t work for free. I don’t know how much money was involved here. If it was a few hundred dollars, lawyers wouldn’t be interested in suing on a 1/3 contingency basis. If we’re talking $25,000 or more, attorneys will probably talk to you. (While I respect Nersessian and believe he’s handled these cases successfully in the past, I don’t speak for him. I don’t know Nersessian’s minimum amount, whether he has time for another case, or even if he is licensed in the jurisdiction where this took place.)
- There have been numerous cases through the years where a casino manager made a big mistake designing a promotion — and when players jumped all over it, chose to blame the players. This strikes me as another one of these cases. Some of these casino managers believe that players who play heavily on a promotion that was juicier than the promotion-designer imagined are actually scum and cheating the casino. Hence the accusation of “free play scam.” To beat such an accusation, you need to have all the literature describing the promotion and be able to cross examine whoever is calling it a scam. A gaming representative isn’t going to do this. He/she is going take Joe’s statement, take the casino representative’s statement, and make some sort of judgment. Unless Joe demanded a hearing, whether he represented himself or had an attorney do it, he would have no chance to cross examine the casino representative.
- I’m most familiar with the gaming rules in Nevada, as that’s where I’ve played the most and heard about more disputes than I have in any other place. Generally speaking, if the casino owes you money in a case such as this, unless they are successfully making a case of fraud, you’ll get your money eventually. I’ve seen it where you can collect small amounts (say $25 per day) of this money, but if you go through the rigamarole, you’ll get your money. If they 86 you, as they did with Joe, they owe him the money when they kick him out because he’s not allowed to go in and collect it.
- In a somewhat similar situation where I was on the wrong end of a gaming ruling, the casino only awarded free play for accumulated points — not cash. Since I was 86’d I was not allowed to go in and play off that free play. So sorry. if the casino offered cash back rather than free play, I might have been able to collect.
- If a casino has published rules where it promises to deliver such and such, sometime Gaming will force them to honor that during a hearing. Most rules, therefore, have language in it where the casino reserves all rights and is the sole arbiter of disputes. Sometimes Gaming will honor this disclaimer. Sometimes not.
- Casino points and comp dollars can sometimes be confiscated — depending on more factors than I can cogently outline. Without knowing more details than I have, it’s possible that the casino was in the right. They were jerks about it, but within their rights. The multiplied points had not been given to Joe when he was 86’d — so it’s possible he’s not going to get them.
- Joe has a few options. The ruling in the casino’s favor can sometimes be appealed for a certain period of time. If that time has not elapsed, this is one option. Another option is in the court of public opinion. If what the casino did can be publicized, often the casino will settle in order to shut you up. Sometimes newspapers and/or television stations will publicize it if they are convinced the casino was in the wrong. One problem with this is that Joe’s name will be in this publicity and other casinos in the area may learn more about Joe than he wants them to know. Other casinos may well decide that Joe is too expert or too much of a troublemaker for their taste — and not allow Joe to play in their establishments. While it is legal for Joe to try to embarrass the casino for its high-handed actions, it’s also legal for other casinos to restrict Joe simply by saying, “He’s too good for us.”
- In the above situation, if the casino happens to be a big advertiser with whatever media you’d like to use to help you sway public opinion, media executives are often understandably cautious with biting the hand that feeds them.
In similar cases, where the combination of earned free play and my winning has put me in position where I think it’s at least possible the casino will take some action I don’t like against me, I continually download as much money as I can, as I go. That way, when they stop me, they will not owe me a lot of money. If a casino owes me $5,000 when they pull the plug, and it was possible to retrieve that beforehand and I didn’t, this is arguably my own fault. In this particular case this might not have been possible, but in other cases it has been. In this particular case, where the additional free play would not be loaded until sometime in the future, Joe couldn’t possibly have redeemed points that hadn’t been loaded on his account yet.
Hockey Knights in Vegas Episode 107: Playoff Picks & Contest
That’s a wrap! The regular season is in the books and the VGK are once again PACIFIC DIVISION CHAMPIONS! Eddie & Chris wrap up the regular season and hand out a couple of awards.
Bally’s Race to the Bottom
Never able to resist the sight of an open mike, Bally’s Corp. Chairman Soo Kim has been doing interviews Down Under, on the subject of his acquisition (at a rock-bottom price) of troubled Star Entertainment. The results were even more dismaying than one feared. Kim’s message to Australia about Star: “Everything you knew is over.” Kim told the Sydney Morning Herald that “the company’s luxury casinos will need to lose some of the glitz and glamour as they start life over from scratch.” That’s right. He’s going to reinvent the company’s three state-of-the-art casinos as—Guess what?—grind joints.
Continue reading Bally’s Race to the BottomLAS VEGAS ADVISOR – YOUTUBE BEER FRIDAY
Anthony and Andrew go live for BEER FRIDAY.
Gloom, Doom & Atlantic City
Today’s S&G is written with a heavy heart, as we have little good news to impart. At least there was a mixed signal from New Jersey. Gamblers went to Atlantic City less … but played online more. Terrestrial casinos were down 3.5% to $231 million, whilst iGaming was up 23.5% to $244 million, outgrossing Atlantic City for the second straight month, as the Garden City casino industry consumes its own tail. Mind you, traditional casinos got left out of much of the iGaming action, dominated as it was by DraftKings (25%) and FanDuel (21.5%) with BetMGM (22%) sandwiched in between. Good news for Bally’s Corp.: It garnered 2.5% of the action, giving them something to crow about at the impending earnings call, still TBA.
Continue reading Gloom, Doom & Atlantic CityA Class Act; Atlantic City Mailbox
Las Vegas just lost a lot of class. Elaine Wynn died yesterday and, with her, a golden age in Sin City. She tempered then-husband Steve Wynn‘s worst impulses (albeit not enough of them) as the ministering angel of Wynn Resorts and its precursor, Mirage Resorts. We feel unqualified to write Ms. Wynn’s obituary but will hasten to note that the tributes have come flowing in from far and wide, including from competing casino companies, which is quite unusual. (Try to imagine Frank & Lorenzo Fertitta penning a verbal bouquet to Tilman Fertitta. You can’t.) Ms. Wynn consistently strove to make Las Vegas a better place and we thank her for that. We’d love to be remembered so fondly when we shuffle off this mortal coil … but we’re no Elaine Wynn.
Continue reading A Class Act; Atlantic City MailboxShould I Ask?
I was canvassing a casino looking for slot machines in favorable conditions. From 15 feet away I saw a Wolf Run Eclipse for $15 per pull. The numbers on the meters were high enough according to my guru, but not high enough according to most other sources. This is a good situation for me because most other pros would let the machine be. You can bet there were other slot pros circulating the casino. It’s a fact of life in most casinos these days.
There was a guy I’d never seen before sitting there with exactly $100 in credits. He didn’t have a player’s card inserted. He wasn’t playing the machine, but rather was talking flirtatiously to a young woman seated nearby.
I tried to read the situation. Had he been dressed like a homeless person I would have concluded that he was trying to “sell” the machine to anyone who asked about it. After all, homeless people don’t play for $15 a hand generally. But he was clean-shaven and dressed nicely. He didn’t look homeless.
The fact that he had exactly $100 in credits indicated to me he had just put in a hundred-dollar bill and hadn’t started to play yet. I didn’t know what to make of the fact that he didn’t have a player’s card inserted. There are a number of possible explanations for that.
For a $15 game, $100 in credits wasn’t much ammunition. I might put in $500 or more before I hit the button the first time. It’s easier for me to keep track of how much money I’ve played if I put in $500 increments. I need this information so I can calculate wins and losses. But not everybody loads a machine before they start to play. Some players put in one bill at a time and only put in another bill when the credits get below the value of one hand.
I didn’t see anybody else hovering around waiting for him to leave. Which was good. Either this “opportunity” hadn’t been noticed by other pros yet, or the ones who had noticed didn’t think it was a good opportunity.
I went to check some nearby machines and returned in five minutes. Nothing had changed. He still had $100 in credits and was enjoying talking to the lady. I left to check some other machines, returning in another five minutes, and, again, nothing had changed.
Right or wrong, I decided to politely ask him if he was planning on playing that machine. I figured that possibly my asking him might be an impetus for him to take the lady for dinner or drinks or something. Or if he wanted to sell it to me, perhaps by suggesting I put in all the money and we split the winnings, I could deal with that. As I’ve written earlier, when that happens, I have no problem reporting him to a slot attendant. Usually, the slot attendant will tell him to either play the machine or get off of it. The fact that he had no players card in could indicate that he wasn’t planning on playing the machine anyway. My goal was to get the machine if it was going to become available soon — but not being rude about it.
My hoped-for scenarios didn’t happen. He told me, also politely, that he was still planning on playing and the machine next to him was vacant. (Yes it was, but there was nothing playable on it.) I thanked him and moved on,
Twenty minutes later, I circled back, and the machine was vacant. I checked it and one of the minor meter (the one that was most attractive this time) was at reset — meaning that this guy, or somebody else, had played the game until it was no longer positive. Oh well, he found it first. I’ll find another game.
I’ve shared this story with a few of my pro friends. Some would have done the same. Some would have sat down at a nearby machine and just waited until the situation resolved itself. Some would have just walked on and never said a word to the guy. With this diversity of opinions, I’ve concluded that there is not a unique “correct” way to handle the situation — and my way was within acceptable limits.
What do you think?
A Mild March Thaw
After a pretty bad February, casino performances rebounded slightly in March, at least sufficiently to probably salvage the quarter. The headline item was Illinois, where grosses seemed to pogo-spring 12%. However, on closer inspection (i.e., a same-store basis) they were just 1% higher. In other words, everybody except the newcomers was treading water.
Continue reading A Mild March Thaw