Dealer Errors: "Do the Right Thing"

Anyone who has played a decent amount of blackjack knows dealers make the occasional mistake. They are typically quite rare, but they happen more frequently than a lot of people suspect. Changing player cash, adding hand totals, blackjack payouts: there is a lot of math to keep track of, and dealers are as human as us all. 

In fact, on my recent trip to Vegas, dealers made errors in both of my first two blackjack sessions. An experienced dealer, distracted by conversation, paid my pushed 17 and the next day a dealer swept my bet into the rack on another push, only to get corrected by me. Investment in attention pays good dividends.

The worst, and rarest dealer mistake I’ve encountered occurred at Harrah’s in Murphy, North Carolina. It’s a decent sized casino, although a baby compared to the monolithic mega-casinos of Vegas. I had just picked a $25 table to begin another session, laying $200 on the felt in front of me. The dealer spread the five $20 and two $50 bills, and proceeded to stack THREE hundred in chips!

“Changing three hundred,” he called to the pit critters behind him. I had to casually double check the math in my head a couple of times, before concluding the $50 bills, as relatively uncommon, had thrown him off. As often happens, the pit boss was busy and didn’t visually verify the payout; this time the lapse in procedure cost them $100.

I retold the experience to a non-gambling friend of mine, and she asked me if I did “the right thing.” Although it was opposite her meaning, I assured her that I very much did “the right thing” and kept the money. 

I will not feel weepy for a casino that pays me too much money. Casinos are not philanthropic entities, insuring social well-being; they are predatory, and exist mostly to relieve suckers and addicts of their money. In fact, that mistake was virtually my only win for the evening. 

There were three other players at the table, and I’m not sure they noticed, but they certainly joined my silence. I’m pretty sure the couple beside me briefly discussed the event in Chinese, before leaving the table a short time afterwards. I played for about half hour myself, and then went for a late dinner.

“Aren’t you worried the dealer will get in trouble?” my friend continued. I reasoned that if the casino makes these kinds of mistakes in the front of the house, I can only imagine what kind of shenanigans operate away from the public eye. Ray Charles might be head of surveillance. 

At the end of the evening, I changed my chips at the cashier. The young guy briefly chatted as he counted my money. “Counting money all day is hard. Sometimes your brain sees different than your eyes,” he remarked. We chuckled as I folded the bills in my wallet. 

“Weird,” I responded with a smile, and left for my truck in the night air.