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.

Feeling Blue in Paradise

This time a year ago I was in the Caribbean islands for a friend’s wedding, surrounded by white sand and crystal blue waters. I was even planning on proposing to my girlfriend on the final day. However, despite being in a virtual heaven on earth, I was sitting in a tiny bar, in front of a video blackjack machine, totally bummed out, absent-mindedly choosing hit or stand, not caring at all whether I won or lost. My favorite team, the Washington Capitals, had just been eliminated from the playoffs. I hadn’t even been able to watch the game.

It has been extremely stressful to be a Caps fan over the past five years. Tonight, they will play their 5^th Game 7 during that stretch, more than any other team in the NHL, except one…their opponent, the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Boston Bruins.

As a diehard, Capitals fanatic, I can remember each game like it was yesterday:

April 22^nd, 2008- In their first playoff appearance in four years, the Caps managed to storm back from a three games to one deficit against the Philadelphia Flyers. The game eventually went to overtime before Joffrey Lupul tucked a rebound past Cristobal Huet and my head collapsed into the carpet.

April 28^th, 2009- The Caps once again clawed back from three games to one, against the New York Rangers this time, and the game fell on the same night when I hosted my weekly poker game. When Sergei Federov blasted a goal with five minutes left, I celebrated so loudly, my friend across the street thought I was getting robbed.

May13^th, 2009- Against the Pittsburgh Penguins, my most hated sports franchise, the Caps got embarrassed in front of a home crowd, 6-2. The following day, with my girlfriend out of town, totally alone, a bottle of good bourbon helped me discover the wisdom of country music.

April 28^th, 2010- After winning the President’s Trophy for the best regular season record in the NHL, the Caps were heavy favorites to battle for the Cup. This time, it was the Caps that stormed to a commanding three games to one lead against the lowly Montreal Canadiens before completely choking. I’m not embarrassed to admit that, for the first time in more than a decade, I cried.

The Caps have faced the Bruins twice before in the playoffs. Each team has won one series. Both times the winner has gone on to the Stanley Cup finals. I have little faith the Caps will prevail tonight. My stomach churns a horrible knot and I feel on the verge of utter collapse. Time moves with sting of a thousand pin pricks until the puck drops.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. 

Stepping into a Casino for the First Time

"We're goin' out where the sand's turnin' to gold"

-Bruce Springsteen "Atlantic City"

I suppose any gambler can recall the first time he or she stepped inside a casino. There is a certain spine-tingling magic that lurks in the air and fuels the lungs. Just like the yellow brick road begged Dorothy to follow, a casino’s overly imaginative carpet patterns coax visitors through a forest of neon, tables, and slots: oh my! The natural adrenaline rush of gambling can fight a body’s sleep requirement for days upon days. This phenomenon is doubtlessly the source of the urban legend that casinos pump oxygen into gaming floor.

One lazy college day some friends and I were watching the movie Rounders. This was long before I found an interest in poker and, because of a general Matt Damon repulsion (at that time), we actually found it rather boring. However, the moment Mike McDermott and Worm headed for Atlantic City, we immediately turned the movie off (or maybe we left it playing, who can say?) and headed straight for the door. We were in “America’s Favorite Playground” (as Atlantic City was called in those days) shortly over an hour later.

Wandering around Trump Plaza, I soaked up this strange, new experience which I had awakened to. I looked over all the action and tried to decide where to test my luck first. Because the $5 blackjack table was full, I put a “nickel” on the outside of a roulette spread. My bet hit and paid 2 to 1. I won my very first casino bet and was on my way to infinite riches!

When I finally got a seat on the cheap blackjack table, it was on the third base side. The action got around to me and, not knowing the game, I hit against a dealer stiff card. A small, smoky-faced wrinkled man was so upset by the play that he yelled at me, picked up his chips, and left. "Wow! This place is serious," I thought to myself as I sat like a wide-eyed deer staring down an eighteen wheeler.

All in all, my first sojourn into a gambling house was quite an experience. It goes without saying that I had a mind-blowingly good time and did my best to return as soon as possible.

Monkey Gambling

A few years ago, I met someone that swore she was “good at roulette.” When I asked what she meant, she (surprise!) couldn’t explain her special skill. Roulette can be a nice adrenaline rush as that little white ball dink…dink…dinks its way to a home, but it requires about as much skill to play as falling down the stairs (as well as some of the worst odds in the casino). The only way to beat the game involves cheating with a loaded ball, rigged wheel, or past posting. A large statistical analysis to determine biases in certain wheels is the only way to do it without cheating. Can knowing which bet on a roulette table offers the least house edge be considered a skill? If so, then the best roulette player in the world is the one that never plays. It short, there is no strategy in the game, hence, no skill. If you can work gravity, then you can play roulette about as well as anyone else.

“Monkey gambling” is a term which refers to games that have no strategy or skill component to them; a monkey has as good a chance of victory as the best player in the world. Even the basic physical mechanics of a game like roulette could be easily mastered by our hirsute cousins; pick up chip, move arm forward, and drop chip: done. A monkey could literally play the game as well as Stephen Hawking. The purest form of “monkey gambling” in a casino is the slot machine. Even pulling a handle is too much brain activity for slots players, so most machines now offer buttons for the convenience of their zombified patrons.

“Computer gambling” is at the opposite end of the spectrum from monkey gambling. This term refers to games that offer choices during play, and therefore contain elements of genuine strategy, but only one correct move. Blackjack is a computer gambling game because at any given time, there is only one best move. Given the composition of cards in the discard rack, slight variations from basic strategy are made to determine whether standing, hitting, splitting, doubling, or even insurance (a bad idea nearly 100% of the time) is the best play. The best blackjack player in the world could only be as good as a computer.

Poker is neither monkey nor computer gambling, although I’ve seen players who try each style. A couple years ago, animal trainers tried to enter a monkey in the World Series of Poker (see above). They took their chimp on television to demonstrate how it could really play poker; even though it could lift the cards and move the chips, it could not protect its hand, avoid string betting, or determine the strength of its cards. While any player at the monkey’s table would certainly beat the beast, organizers rightly refused to let the handlers enter the animal in the event. On the flipside, top computer designers have built machines good enough at poker to beat most amateur players. However, when pitted against professional poker players, the most sophisticated poker machine in the world still loses to the power of human imagination.

Top poker pro, Eric Seidel, captures this majestical element of the poker:

Imagination is at the heart of the game. Just as there is no right way to write a song or paint a picture, there is no right way to play poker. The best players are experimenting and adjusting all the time. The beauty of the game lies in this ever-shifting landscape, and it keeps us interested each time we sit down.

Now I’d like to see a computer, or even a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters, come up with that.

Kicked Out for Counting Cards

In the summer of 2004, I became infatuated with the game of blackjack. Although I had played the game a lot in the past, during drunken escapades in Atlantic City, I never took it seriously. I bought the book Blackjack for Blood and learned how to count cards. Hour after hour, day after day, I methodically trained myself to become a blackjack machine; my skill increased as I counted down hundreds of decks and played thousands of practice hands.

In that first year, I made three trips to A.C. and two to Las Vegas, playing a few hours at low table stakes. My records show that I had spread action in 13 different casinos, playing about 23 hours, with a net profit of $834.5 (a good run of slightly more than $36 per hour, but definitely no reason to quit my day job).

This is when the most interesting experience of my blackjack experiment occurred; a casino actually barred little ol’ me from play.

I had scouted out a good table in a tiny casino located at the heart of the Vegas strip called Barbary Coast. Sitting between the mammoth Caesars, Flamingo, Bally’s and Bellagio, this dinky little casino looks completely out of place; I have to believe it won’t be long before it is knocked down for another lavish coin fountain or some other pricey Vegas trinket (ok., so maybe I have a little grudge). It was 11 in the morning and I had been playing for an hour when I encountered a good deck, stacked a win on top of my bet for a max bet, and prepared for a nice little payday. At this moment, a pit boss stepped up, pushed my bet back, and said “No more blackjack for you.” As he walked off without further word, I feigned shock and looked at him, then the dealer, then the stunned old man playing to my left. What the hell? I was even down $85 for the session. I muttered that fact as I left, a little pissed, but also a little proud. The staff of a Vegas casino considered me too good to let play.

To this day, I have not figured out what gave me away. I didn’t feel any “heat.” The pit bosses didn’t even seem to be watching. Maybe the dealers spotted me…maybe my lips moved slightly as I followed the count…maybe it was too early in the morning for a player that seemed to magically pick good spots for big bets…who knows?

Thinking back over the memory, I have never been able to forget how unsurprised the man to my right was by the events. In all my years of gambling in casinos, I’ve seen a lot, but never anyone getting kicked out before, and this guy didn’t even blink. While the old man on my left sat agape, this bearded fellow placidly sat there and avoided eye contact with me. There is the strong chance that he was a shill, working for the casino, and tracking my play.

The end result of my barring was negligible; I was playing at another casino within ten minutes.

While any form of cheating in a Vegas casino is considered a felony, counting cards is not cheating. It is merely a method of using math and intelligence to gain an edge over a game and beat a casino, or, in other words, beat an industry that is so accustomed to beating everyone.

Personally, I consider counting cards to be very, very boring. My two year blackjack experiment was only relatively entertaining and the tiny stakes were only slightly profitable. By the end, I grew tired of thinking like a machine. As if my brain was ruled by binary coding, numbers dominated every conscious thought, even away from the table. Becoming a machine might be exciting for some people, but I cannot stomach the boredom.