Effective 8/1/2018 Card Counters Can't be Kicked Out of Louisiana Casinos

[Dbs6582]

Dbs and Three are both right, and both wrong. Zender says that in a busy market like Vegas a casino will make more money by dealing deeper but a smaller local-type market does better by slowing the game down so that players get more playing time. Slowing the game down can be done by reducing penetration, hand shuffling, and keeping the tables full. That way the casino with more customers increases their bottom line and the local riverboat's customers see their money lasting longer and are more likely to return. It's not always about hands per hour, customer retention is also important in the smaller markets.

Sharky, what about these hypothetical examples? Even Zender agrees that slowing the game down (which means slower dealers and worse pen) can generate more revenue by getting people to play longer and makes them more likely to return.

I really liked this statement from mofungoo: “It’s not always about hands per hour, customer retention is also important.”

Even before I found out Zender thought this way, I knew this was the case from spending 20 years in various casinos. Generating more revenue and profits is much more complicated than deep pen and hiring fast dealers. Casinos are in the entertainment industry. They want to make the casino experience pleasant so people return. Their goal is not to take people’s money as fast as possible. That’s how APs think if they would run casinos. Thus, these casinos probably wouldn’t be very profitable. I know casinos that have taken out their automatic shuffling machines since they found the customer liked the break while the dealer shuffled.

I like playing blackjack and winning money from the casinos. This doesn’t mean I hate casinos or think everybody that works in a casino is stupid. Yes, there are bad and stupid casino managers, but I think that’s true with all industries. One industry doesn’t have them all.

I hope mofungoo doesn’t get blacklisted too because he doesn’t believe all of the APs mainstream tenants.

[RCJH]

1) Do you believe pen is the only way to increase the number of hands per hour at casinos?

Nope. ASMs and dealer speed can also play a role.

2) Do you think it’s possible for a casino to increase the number of hands per hour by opening up more tables?

Sure, with the added labor costs of dealers, pit critters, pit bosses, surveillance.

3) Do you believe in Stealth’s ridicules calculations that try to show how much extra money casinos can generate by moving the cut card further back?

Yup. It's a quick and easy, no additional cost involved way for a casino to make more money.

But then again, Stealth is a successful businessman. He has a lifetime of experience in tightening margins and making money.

[Dbs6582]

Yup. It's a quick and easy, no additional cost involved way for a casino to make more money.

But then again, Stealth is a successful businessman. He has a lifetime of experience in tightening margins and making money.

RCJH, thanks for answering my questions. You got the first two questions right. The last one you messed up on a little. Here’s why. Stealth’s calculation can ONLY tell us something about supply. Yes, with deeper pen, there will be more hands per hour. That’s not debatable. The problem is Stealth’s calculations don’t tell us anything about demand. This is ouside of what calculations or science can tell us. This is only speculation on Stealth’s part on what will happen with deeper pen. It could increase revenue as Stealth (and most APs) think but it could also decrease revenue as noted by Zender. It might also do nothing for revenue.

Remember when I told you about supply and demand. APs in general know about supply, but many don’t understand the demand part. This part is a little tricky. It’s hard to determine this part through calculations. This is what casinos have a little better handle on.

As as far as Stealth’s credentials, I’m sure he is a fine man and good business person. But this does nothing to make his calculations meaningful when it comes to the demand part of the equation.

As far as Freightman, I’m really proud of him. He hasn’t reponded to one of my posts and it’s been almost 4 hours. I think we should all give Freightman a blue star.

[Sharky]

Sharky, what about these hypothetical examples? ....

i think it's hogwash...no mathematical background = voodoo theory

casinos & successful APs use math to make 'business' decisions aimed at maximizing profits (ev)

so i proved there are millions of examples, where you agreed, that the casino is maximizing profits by 'putting the cut card further back'

times those million examples times the hundreds of million visitors to the thousands of casinos in the us alone....and there's you 'millions to billions lost by the cut card' that steatlh referred to.

you agreed w/ me...i gave you 'millions' of examples of "show me this magical increase in demand when the cut card is placed further back".

in less 5 posts, i answered your question (regarding 'magical' demand), gave you several examples and shot major shot holes in your argument in LESS THAN 4 POSTS AND 500 total words...EVERYONE WHO POSTED TO THIS DRIBBLE, SHOULD CHEW ON THAT!!!

Sharky out

[Dbs6582]

I was once at a store all night on a weekend and towards the end of the session I walk by a degenerate gambler who I befriended at a table earlier. We started talking and he admitted that he lost over 60k in 2017 playing blackjack. He was a relatively young guy and not dressed particularly great. He had no intention of stopping.

The point you're trying to make is that deeper penetration will wipe out the average player quicker. What about the HOARDES of ploppies who have been gambling for years and obviously have a source of income that is replenishable??? Losing slightly more money in a year will definitely NOT stop someone who is addicted to gambling and has been for a long time. But the sum of taking a little more from EVERY ploppy over a years time is too much money to give up on just to cut off a few counters.

Sorry, your argument only supports those who are responsible enough to stop after they lost X dollars, which isn't the kind of customer the casinos are after anyways...….

No, you are 100% incorrect. Have you read any of my posts? My argument supports the degenerate gambling the most. This guy is going to eventually lose all his money no matter where the cut card is. If he has a job, he’ll lose what he earns every month. It’s just a matter of time until he loses it. Where the cut card is placed has little impact on him. He gambles until he loses it all. Sad but true.

You’re also missing my main point. We really don’t know know what will happen with deeper pen or faster dealers. It could increase revenues or it might decrease revenues (since this approach takes people’s money too fast).

When it comes to how pen impacts demand, this can’t be determined by calculations. There are a lot of variables that come into play, including human physiology. The supply part is much easier to understood. It’s essy to see how faster dealers or deeper pen or automatic shuffling machines increases supply. It does not necessarily follow that these things increase demand. In fact, they might decrease demand. Zender has discussed this and feels these things decrease demand in some casinos.

If all a casino needed to do to increase revenue was to increase number of hands per hour, they would just open more tables. That’s why I keep pointing out all the dealers standing in front of empty tables in casinos throughout our countries. This means the casinos are already supplying too much blackjack. Suppling more through deeper pen won’t increase revenue in this case.

I first started noticing this disconnect between understanding supply and demand in the AP community when I read Ken Uston’s books. He also felt that all a casino had to do was have deeper pen and both the casino and AP could live in perfect harmony and both would make more money. Ken Uston also didn’t understand the demand part of the equation. Just because a caisno supplies more hands, this does not mean demand is increased. This takes some time to understand because it isn’t intuitive.

[Solo player]

Why feed trolls? It is so obvious that Dbs6582 is on the casino side. Probably been a dealer for 20 years and cannot move up the corporate ladder. Hmmm.

[Dbs6582]

Hi Dbs6582,

I respect your long paragraphs tirelessly arguing the same point. However, I don't agree. Here's why:

Averaging over the long run, every single hand a ploppy plays gives the casino more money. Deeper pen means MORE HANDS, WHICH MEANS MORE MONEY TO CASINO. The average gambler will just keep playing through it all, BECAUSE THEY ARE ADDICTED TO GAMBLING. Yes, some will go broke, but they will just return when they get paid again. And you forgot about all the others just walking through the door. I don't know what stores you frequent, but mine are ALWAYS PACKED, i.e. not enough supply and too much demand.

The bottom line is deeper pen = more hands = more money to casino (despite counter threats increasing, WHICH IS OUR ARGUEMENT)

Now lets all live in harmony: casinos and APS, BJTF and Dbs6582....rofl

damlamation, one more time and then we’re going to have to agree to disagree. Deeper pen does NOT equal more money to casino. All it equals is more hands supplied. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Just because a company (any company) supplies more product this does NOT mean they have generated more demand. In fact, there are many examples in many industries where the opposite occurs. More supply generating less demand. Even Zender has acknowledged that when supply of blackjack hands is delivered too fast, it can lead to less demand, due to people losing their money too fast and poor customer retention.

If you are going to casinos that are always packed and there is not enough supply for the demand, then it sounds like these casinos should open up more tables. At almost every casino I go to there are always dealers standing in front of empty tables, which indicates there is already too much supply for their product (bj hands). I visited Harahs in downtown New Orleans a couple months ago on a weekend. This is one of the larger casinos in the south. Guess what I saw? Several dealers standing in front of empty tables. It sounds like you’re going to some poorly run casinos if demand is greater than supply. I expect this is only happening during isolated busy times. During the majority of times these casinos are open, I’m sure they have dealers standing in front of empty tables.

I hesitated to being this up on this forum since I know this is a scared cow in the AP belief system. Now that I’ve opened up this “can of worms”, I’ll bet people on this forum will be more aware of all the empty bj tables they see when they go to casinos. I’ve brought this up with APs I know and they are now more aware of this. I’m sorry if I popped some people’s bubble by pointing out this flaw in AP thinking.

Something I thought about last night that I want to run by you. Before Ed Thorp’s book “Beat the Dealer”, casinos used a single deck and delt it down to the the last card (for the most part - I know there were exceptions). Now with DD, many casinos cut off half the cards, which basically means they are dealing one deck. How are these two any different? In both cases, they are dealing the same number of cards before shuffling. Were the casinos back in the 50s losing millions and billions because they weren’t using two decks and dealing with 80% pen? Using AP logic, this is what was happening. Think about this for a while. It’ll take a while before what I’m saying sinks in.

In the scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. Casinos are going to do what they do. All we can do is control what we do, which is trying to find games with good rules and good pen. The only thing it might change is how APs think about casinos. They might be more hesitant to call them dumb every time they see poor pen.

[ZeeBabar]

damlamation, one more time and then we’re going to have to agree to disagree. Deeper pen does NOT equal more money to casino. All it equals is more hands supplied. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Just because a company (any company) supplies more product this does NOT mean they have generated more demand. In fact, there are many examples in many industries where the opposite occurs. More supply generating less demand. Even Zender has acknowledged that when supply of blackjack hands is delivered too fast, it can lead to less demand, due to people losing their money too fast and poor customer retention.

If you are going to casinos that are always packed and there is not enough supply for the demand, then it sounds like these casinos should open up more tables. At almost every casino I go to there are always dealers standing in front of empty tables, which indicates there is already too much supply for their product (bj hands). I visited Harahs in downtown New Orleans a couple months ago on a weekend. This is one of the larger casinos in the south. Guess what I saw? Several dealers standing in front of empty tables. It sounds like you’re going to some poorly run casinos if demand is greater than supply. I expect this is only happening during isolated busy times. During the majority of times these casinos are open, I’m sure they have dealers standing in front of empty tables.

I hesitated to being this up on this forum since I know this is a scared cow in the AP belief system. Now that I’ve opened up this “can of worms”, I’ll bet people on this forum will be more aware of all the empty bj tables they see when they go to casinos. I’ve brought this up with APs I know and they are now more aware of this. I’m sorry if I popped some people’s bubble by pointing out this flaw in AP thinking.

Something I thought about last night that I want to run by you. Before Ed Thorp’s book “Beat the Dealer”, casinos used a single deck and delt it down to the the last card (for the most part - I know there were exceptions). Now with DD, many casinos cut off half the cards, which basically means they are dealing one deck. How are these two any different? In both cases, they are dealing the same number of cards before shuffling. Were the casinos back in the 50s losing millions and billions because they weren’t using two decks and dealing with 80% pen? Using AP logic, this is what was happening. Think about this for a while. It’ll take a while before what I’m saying sinks in.

In the scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. Casinos are going to do what they do. All we can do is control what we do, which is trying to find games with good rules and good pen. The only thing it might change is how APs think about casinos. They might be more hesitant to call them dumb every time they see poor pen.

It amazes me why anyone assumes they know far more about a business they have never run and have never seen the bottom line than the financial analysts with graduate degrees and years of experience.

My wife is somewhat like that, visit a museum and thinks she knows how that could be improved, eats a gourmet meal and assume she knows what to add to make It more fast (assumes they will get more business if they add salt, lol), goes to a grocery store and feels she could re-arrange the shelves and decor (does not understand the research that goes behind their decisions).

This topic is similar. At the same time that one pro says their is thinking behind the decisions a casino makes, another says casino operators are dumb.

Norm ought to close this thread.

[Sharky]

....Something I thought about last night ... casinos used a single deck and delt it down to the the last card ... Now with DD, many casinos cut off half the cards, which basically means they are dealing one deck. How are these two any different? ..

LMAO...you CANNOT be winning $$$...quit while you are "ahead"....hopeless

[Dbs6582]

Why feed trolls? It is so obvious that Dbs6582 is on the casino side. Probably been a dealer for 20 years and cannot move up the corporate ladder. Hmmm.

Solo Player, why do you say this? Why can’t an AP player be an independent thinker? Does someone have to conform to AP orthodoxy thinking to be an AP? If that’s true, that’s a sad statement on the state of APs.

Why does having a different viewpoint immediately make that person a troll? Do you believe every time there is a disagreement, someone is a troll? Do you believe an AP should never even attempt to see things from the casinos’s perspective? This is what sports teams do when they compete against each other. They try to figure out the other team’s strategy so they can counter it. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

I don’t work for a casino and I never have, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try to understand them. And I don’t believe everything an AP says just because they are an AP.

I’m going to leave you with a little hypothetical math problem to illustrate my point:

Casino believes 2 + 2 = 4
AP expert believes 2 + 2 = 5

Who is right? I believe it’s the casino (in this hypothetical example). If you’re Freighman or Three, you believe it’s the AP expert. Why? Because the AP expert said so.

I try to look at things from both sides and then make my own decision. I don’t just believe something because some “expert” said it was so.

Hope this helps you with understanding where I’m coming from.

[Freightman]

It amazes me why anyone assumes they know far more about a business they have never run and have never seen the bottom line than the financial analysts with graduate degrees and years of experience.

My wife is somewhat like that, visit a museum and thinks she knows how that could be improved, eats a gourmet meal and assume she knows what to add to make It more fast (assumes they will get more business if they add salt, lol), goes to a grocery store and feels she could re-arrange the shelves and decor (does not understand the research that goes behind their decisions).

This topic is similar. At the same time that one pro says their is thinking behind the decisions a casino makes, another says casino operators are dumb.

Norm ought to close this thread.

Your wife would drive me nuts. Btw, how does she comment on the sex. Also, one of the better posts on this thread.

[Dbs6582]

This is why, among other things, no one takes you seriously


If you're supplying more hands you're making more money. The act of supplying a hand that otherwise would not be played is making more money (on average in the long run). There will always be people there to play it. Your not concerned with a single individual going broke but a collective group of gamblers, and they will just continue to gamble.

This relationship between supply and demand is perhaps not linear but it doesn't take that much intellect to ascertain the obvious.

No, what you're saying sunk in right away. Blackjack started off as single deck and that is what the player of the time was used to. Slowly but surely the casinos added more decks to make more money, much like deeper cut card is more money.

That's cool!

Sorry about misspelling your name dalmation. That was not intentional. I can tell you aren’t understand the relationship between supply and demand so there is no need to discuss this further.

In a previous post that everybody on this forum raved about, James Grosjeans said it’s in the casinos interest to take the ploppy’s money slowly so the the ploppy keeps returning. This was his objection to the 6:5 game...it took the ploppy’s money too quickly. If he thinks 6:5 takes people’s money too fast, I can only imagine what he thinks as far as deeper pen and faster dealers. I’m only speculating but I expect he’d think this would have a huge negative impact on casino’s business and revenues.

The bottom line is it’s hard to know how deeper pen will impact revenue. All we know is how it’ll impact supply. There is no simple math calculation that will tell us what it will do to demand, which relates to revenue. If it makes APs feel better, I’d recommend going ahead and believing it will help casino’s revenues and profits. For whatever reason, this seems to be a very important belief in the AP community. Even if this belief is probably false, we all need something to believe in.

[Dbs6582]

You have all the characteristics of an internet troll. I'm feeding it, damn……..

I disagree. Until I brought this topic up, I doubt if many people on this site thought about how stupid it is to believe better pen increases demand. I’ve discussed this with other APs and they’ve told me they have never thought about this topic the way I have. Most naively think more supply in and of itself will generate more demand. I’ve pointed out this could be a wrong assumption.

I expect several on this site are now thinking of pen in a new light. Yes, it generates more supply, but nobody really knows what it does to demand, or casinos revenues.

Some people like to be challenged with new ideas...other’s don’t. They like to live in their own little make believe world.