KJ, thank you for this post. This is very helpful when we warn each other of where to avoid. I would say the same of Tucson casinos.
Lionman, I hope it's just memorable personality or look. Because so far, never appear to give me too much trouble. But this place has recently changed their rules (to the worse) as to limiting their ante to weekdays v. 24/7 as before. They actually told me that it seemed to drive away the players who knew little and didn't know how to play. They said that now it seemed they only had "good" players coming to that place. Weird, huh? But they also said they welcomed the play because it had been so much slower. They all groused about the "higher up muckety mucks" and that if they had their way, then they would change things to the better. I'm hoping for the best. To a tee........pit bosses and dealers that I played that night were not really happy with the management. This is a "keep your own tokes" place, so it has really limited their income apparently. But they still have GREAT rules when their is no ante.
So actually I'm a little at a loss to come to a real conclusion.
"Women and cats will do as they please, and Men and dogs should just relax and get used to the idea" --- Robert A. Heinlein
Thanks for the info KJ! I must have been lucky. I won't go back to VF.
I also go to Parx in Bensalem and Sands in Bethlehem. Mostly Parx. I've extracted a good amount from them.
Now I'm not sure what to do. I thought I just wasn't taking enough for casinos to care. The side income has been awesome for me.
May the cards fall in your favor.
Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 - 8/23/10... “Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
I guess I'm getting confused about what draws heat at a casino. I always min bet until the count starts getting good and I will ramp until I hit my max which lately has been $400. At VF, I was a little careless, but generally my first ramp goes to $50 and then upward from there. Is it the amount of money being bet that draws attention? Is it the timing of the bet? Is someone really watching and keeping count in a back room somewhere?
if it's just your winnings, then this little old Korean lady I saw last week should have been booted out of the casino. She had a single towering stack of green chips that she had to hold on to with two hands to keep it from tipping over and she was killing it. It was the funniest thing to watch. I guess she thought if she split up her stack she would lose her luck or something. Why wasn't she backed off? She was flat betting for the most part and playing the exact match bet every hand but she was using the casino like an ATM machine that day.
Well, I'm off to the casino now.
If you are betting min bet for a long time, then suddenly begin to ramp up your bet, you might just catch the attention of the pit or the Eye. The Eye can always go back and review the game and see if you began to ramp up when the count turned positive. But there are lots of things that constitute "tells" to surveillance. Just put yourself in their position; what behavior would you find suspicious? For example, if you entered positive territory, did you lose your bet and then ramp up on your next bet? That is a definite tell. All shoe long you haven't chased a losing bet, but now suddenly in positive territory, you seem to be doing so.
Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 - 8/23/10... “Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Although I'm sure you're among friends, you never know who's watching from the shadows [insert ominous music]. However, in all seriousness, you should be careful with information that could be used to identify you. I'm sure it doesn't take much more than this information (the stores you frequent) for me to stop by those casinos and figure out exactly what you look like, your billing information, et cetera. It's usually not emphasized, and hopefully less common, but perhaps there are worse people than just casino intelligence that could take advantage of how loose you are with your identity.
You have a 20k bank? You carry 3-5k with you each trip? Save the muggers the trouble and just post your credit card info instead !
I would personally edit and either erase or substitute psuedonyms for the casino names. This is my fourth reference to information security in my posts today. Maybe I'm just tinfoil paranoid but I'll leave it up to you whether you think it's necessary.
EDIT: found some ominous music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjPAWbk5jKc
Last edited by NotEnoughHeat; 04-27-2015 at 07:56 AM.
I would caution everyone in their understanding of heat. Almost no casinos don't care about card counting. If you were a known counter, there are few, if any, casinos that would tolerate you.
However, that can easily be confused with casinos that don't care to look for counters, or are too stupid to know how to look for counters.
Outside of Las Vegas, most casinos simply do not watch red chip action. And some do not watch any action. These are the places you want to play. For places that are looking, but may be too stupid, figure out what they are looking for and don't do it.
For example, I have played at a place that I know a bunch of people have been backed off. I know they have active surveillance. How? Effective, low-cost camo that struck at the heart of the "tells" they were looking for.
The Cash Cow.
Bookmarks