Monday, April 23, 2012

Backed off

Last week I was backed off while playing blackjack at the Silverton. It was the third time I have been backed off but the first time in at least three years, a pretty good record considering how much blackjack I have been playing.

For the unfamiliar, being backed off means being told you can't play. It is the most common way (but not the only way) casinos deal with blackjack players they believe can beat them legally in the long run. (Cheaters are a whole different story; in Nevada, they are considered suspected criminals and treated as such.)

For card counters, the vast majority of advantage blackjack players, being backed off is part of life. Card counters make their money by putting out bigger bets when the count indicates the remaining pack of cards is rich in aces and those with a value of 10. A card counter can be detected by observation by someone competent at card counting. A few pit bosses can count, but the vast majority cannot and are not expected to detect card counters as part of their jobs. For the most part detection is the province of the so-called eye in the sky. Surveillance is allowed to use computer programs to help detect counters; apparently an observer enters the cards played and the bets made and the computer determines whether the player being watched is raising his bets when the count rises. Incidentally, players are not allowed to use any computing or mechanical device to aid their play in any way. Doing so is considered cheating in Nevada and could lead to liability for a crime.

Obviously surveillance doesn't track every blackjack player looking for card counters. So when one gets backed off, the question always is: What could have caused it? In this case, I have a couple of theories. First, the Silverton is a pretty low-roller place. The highest minimum for blackjack I have ever seen there is $25, and I have never seen more than one table with this minimum. By playing at this table I was making it far more likely that I would be watched than if I had been playing at a $10 table and betting mostly red chips.

Another factor was that I was varying my bets with the count, though not to the full extent my system calls for because suspected I was likely to be watched at this casino. In retrospect, the small adjustments I made probably provided no meaninful cover and I should have just gone all out and made as much money as I could.

Another tip-off that a player is counting is that he is winning, which I was on this partiuclar night. After about a half hour of play I had about two and half times as much in front of me as I had bought in for -- a nice win but nowhere near off the charts. This may have been a factor, especially in light of my won-loss history at that casino. I haven't reviewed my records but I remember having a couple of fairly big wins, and I would guess that I am ahead there for this year, the only period in which I have played there with any regularity.

I made it easy for the Silverton to track my wins and losses by always presenting my players' club card when I played there. I almost always play with a card because I want the comps and benefits that come with playing. At the Silverton and some other casinos, these include free bets that add considerably to the value of the game. I would not have played regularly at the Silverton without the incentive of the four free bets a month my play was earning (the amounts varied but this month were $20 each). The reason for that is that the double deck game there had lousy penetration. Until a few weeks ago the dealers did not use a cut card but most dealt out fifty percent of the cards or not much more. Lately they have been using a cut card and it  has been placed consistently in the middle of the two decks, which is about as bad as it gets. (Good double deck penetration is about 75 percent of the cards being dealt out.)

Another way players conceal the amounts they are winning is by "rat holing" or secretly pocketing chips. I have never done this, mostly for fear that it would do more harm than good if I were caught. At the places I usually play and the amounts I usually play for, I don't think rat holing has been necessary. Maybe I'll have to re-think that.

Of course, the most important thing we can do to avoid being detected is to keep our sessions short, generally meaning to less than an hour. I'm sure length of session was not a factor in my back-off at the Silverton because I had been playing only about a half hour when the pit "critter" whose native language obviously is not English delivered the news: "You cannot play table games here." (Why the Silverton would not want me to play any table game other than blackjack is a compete mystery.)

In one respect the Silverton's back off was favorable -- casinos sometimes wait until a player has incurred a
big loss to lower the boom. Had I been allowed to play another twenty minutes I might have given back much of the money I had won.

In another resepect, though, the back off came at a bad time. The Silverton is running a series of drawings this month, and my wife and I have been playing video poker there every day -- way more than we normally would -- to make sure we accrue the maximum number of tickets for each week's drawing. Normally what happened to me would be irrelevant to this, but the Silverton has an unusual provision in the rules for all of its promotions that gives it the right to disqualify anyone it deems an "advantage player." I will be very interested to see if the casino tries to inoke this rule if I win a prize in the drawing. Stay tuned for further developments.


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