Has this happened to anyone else?

[ZenKinG]

I don't know if I'm just paranoid, but there is one store where I rarely win at and there's others where I hammer every time. Can it be possible this store is rigged? Its a major name so I doubt they would rig it. I'm just gonna go ahead and give the name I don't even care. The store is Sands and i just don't win there as much as everywhere else and makes me wonder if their games are legit. I mean they're a big name but who knows anymore these days. The other stores where I win at are fairly similar pen and same rules.

Has anyone else had a similar experience, not with Sands in particular, but in general where there are some stores you seem to lose at a lot more than others when the pen and rules are basically the same? I win almost all the time at every other store I play, its weird, is this just mental or a coincidence, or is it possible there could be some shady sh** going on at Sands?

[Goatlife]

lol no they don't cheat


such a joke this post is, you bust everyone balls as an expert and this is the shit you come up with

[ZeeBabar]

SCG, stop being so hard on people. A person can have doubts and, at least on this forum, they should be able to post it. I have had such doubts but have been told in unkind ways that it is mental, it is just variance showing up.

[ZenKinG]

lol no they don't cheat


such a joke this post is, you bust everyone balls as an expert and this is the shit you come up with

lool

[NotEnoughHeat]

You never know. Although the motive and gain doesn't seem consistent (why would a big company risk it's name, license, and therefore their business as a whole, just to squeeze more money). However, people can be quite silly and the unexpected can happen. There's no universal law that says that everyone only ever does the most rational thing. Beyond, simple greed, I'd imagine desperation (say the business is failing) could also drive a few rogue managers and/or employees to do such a thing.

I don't think it's reasonable just to simply dismiss the possibility as ludicrous. There are statistical tools you can use to prove that such cheating is occurring. However, chances are, even with plenty of regular play, your sample size is just not big enough to conclude anything except a glaringly obvious case of cheating. It won't be worth your time or your money testing this for yourself.

You have a few decisions:
You can keep playing, since it's still very possible it's just been a coincidence or you can be safe and just not play there anymore.
When it comes to whether they are cheating, you can either choose to call your local gaming authorities or choose not to. Simple as that. I don't know the procedures, but this may not be worth the effort, and may even expose you.

[Three]

This kind of thing happens a lot and tends to be streaky. I have found it is either due to variance or a factor I am not considering that affects results. Penetration and crowding both impact your win rate but in different ways.

Deeper penetration makes your advantage range further from the norm in both directions. Advantage being defined as advantage at the start of any round. This is where your counts ability to predict advantage accurately comes into play. I am not talking about BC. I am talking about the width of the bell curve around your advantage estimate for the TCs. The tighter the bell curve around your advantage estimate the more accurate your advantage estimate actually is. Hilo has a strong BC but a very wide bell curve but a count like HIOPT2 has a very tight bell curve by comparison. This will make results more predictable. Anyway my point is at deeper pen your overall advantage goes up but so does the the uncertainty. The fewer cards left the wider the range of advantage for any TC as well as the wider frequency graph of TC's in general due to more extreme TC's happening more frequently. The effect is more big betting opportunities but the range of advantage around the TC advantage estimate is wider. Deeper pen is definitely good in that it increases EV and lowers n0 but there are some trade offs.

Then you have crowding. Unless you are a pure WiWo wonger crowding really hurts your results because you get so few hands in on a good count and the good cards often land on others hands when they do come out. It still hurts the WiWo wonger but he can find another table and only plays advantage counts as much as possible. Now there may be other factors that affect your results.

If you are choosy about your spots to play and go for uncrowded conditions and when possible find deeper pen and a fast dealer you can get enough hands in at a decent advantage to have a session results to be more predictable. You must remember each TC has a n0 as well. If you don't get enough large advantage counts and your actual advantage is well below your count's advantage estimate wen yo make your big bets results will be unpredictable.

All that said I only have 1 or 2 stores that I find hard to beat. I could never find predictable uncrowded conditions at one despite GREAT pen. The other is also tough to get the conditions I want. I have eliminated stores that had great incentives before because they are always crowded and it just seems like a waste of time playing there. Many of my current honey holes it took a while to learn the casino's rhythms. It was a struggle until I found out when to play and what dealers were fast etc. I had one place that had crappy pen but I could always get a heads up game. It was a grind but I tended to win there quite predictably. It is probably just variance though. I tend not to play the places that beat me more often so there is a smaller sampling. With a smaller sampling comes meaningless results statistically speaking.

[Smoke8]

I don't know if I'm just paranoid, but there is one store where I rarely win at and there's others where I hammer every time. Can it be possible this store is rigged? Its a major name so I doubt they would rig it. I'm just gonna go ahead and give the name I don't even care. The store is Sands and i just don't win there as much as everywhere else and makes me wonder if their games are legit. I mean they're a big name but who knows anymore these days. The other stores where I win at are fairly similar pen and same rules.

Has anyone else had a similar experience, not with Sands in particular, but in general where there are some stores you seem to lose at a lot more than others when the pen and rules are basically the same? I win almost all the time at every other store I play, its weird, is this just mental or a coincidence, or is it possible there could be some shady sh** going on at Sands?

I had a store in my rotation that I simply couldn't beat! My AP friend is compelled to play there and is always telling me he can't beat them either! So I ask him why do you keep going there? I took them out of my rotation so I don't worry about it any more. It's easy to get caught up on conspiracy BS, don't go there. The store that I couldn't beat didn't have any trouble paying lucky ploppies. It seemed like they were winning every hand while I got my ass kicked. I'm sure if you think about it, Sands was paying out to some else while they were raking in your chips. It happens, don't go there.

[stopgambling]

More important , a dealer that hates you . be careful ,if you get my drift. "careless mistakes " that hurts you .

[Thirdbaseman]

I don't know if I'm just paranoid, but there is one store where I rarely win at and there's others where I hammer every time. Can it be possible this store is rigged? Its a major name so I doubt they would rig it. I'm just gonna go ahead and give the name I don't even care. The store is Sands and i just don't win there as much as everywhere else and makes me wonder if their games are legit. I mean they're a big name but who knows anymore these days. The other stores where I win at are fairly similar pen and same rules.

Has anyone else had a similar experience, not with Sands in particular, but in general where there are some stores you seem to lose at a lot more than others when the pen and rules are basically the same? I win almost all the time at every other store I play, its weird, is this just mental or a coincidence, or is it possible there could be some shady sh** going on at Sands?

I could have made the same post about a different shop 45 minutes away. I have played pretty frequently over a number of years at a number of different shops. I have a nice winning record at all but one. I can't understand why I have a lifetime loss at this one shop, but figure it is just variance. I stayed away from this shop for 6 months since I preferred to play where I am winning, but recently, in the middle of a nice winning streak, decided to go back and got my ass handed to me. I want to go back to turn around this loss, but wonder if I am banging my head against the wall, or whether I should "trust the math" and figure that the variance will turn around.

[ellenc]

I don't know if I'm just paranoid, but there is one store where I rarely win at and there's others where I hammer every time.

I was told that if you become dealer hated persona, especially not tipping while you are winning, the dealer has a way to shuffle the cards with the higher value card concentrated behind the cut card to punish the player. So, avoid the hand shuffle game.

[ZenKinG]

Norm delete thread please, thanks

[realestate]

I am always confused in this forum. Who are the real experts............

[Bodarc]

Who are the real experts............

Would all the real experts please raise your hands?