The Playing 21 Blackjack Program -- Cheating

Cheating
“Who’s Monica?”

Anything For A Buck

It should not come as any surprise that some people will do anything to win. Where is the surprise in that? It shouldn’t be surprising at all some of the creative ways people will cheat. Just when you thought everything has been tried once, someone has a new ingenious method of cheating. It is astonishing what people have tried in the past, and with technology, who knows where they will go in the future.

Cheating at gambling has been a problem long before the first casino ever opened. Casinos, although not totally innocent themselves, have gone to extreme measures to ensure cheats don’t prosper at their expense. It is a known fact there is hardly a corner you can go within one block of the Las Vegas Strip, and not be able to be located on a camera. Good thing they don’t have cameras in the desert!

We have broken down cheating into the two most common area’s, that of the Players Cheating the casinos, and the other, the Casinos Cheating the players. In a way it is kind of ironic, that most of what the casinos do, is not cheating in the cheating sense of the word, but it isn’t actually reputable either. You try using an acquired skill and Card Count, and they call you a cheater, but yet, look what they do! Everything they do is done for a reason. To take your money. If any other company in the world, which sold any product, was as shady as the casinos are, they would be shunned by their customers and literally go bankrupt. Any other industry would be held accountable for creating the social problems the casinos have caused, but somehow, maybe the fact the government loves all the tax money…but somehow they seem not be held accountable for their actions. The commissions put in place to oversee the casinos allow these little things to go on. Nothing about this is right!

What Classifies As Cheating?

Some things the casinos do are more obvious, like locating the cashiers cage in a location you have to usually walk through the casino to get out of the building, hoping you’ll place another bet before you leave. They pay you in chips, knowing you disassociate the chips with real money, making it psychologically easier to bet $100 per hand. They place dark tint on the windows so you can’t see the sunny day you are missing. The casinos pump in Oxygen to keep you awake, and nice fragrances, to keep you in certain locations longer. They don’t display clocks, so you aren’t thinking of getting sleep because you have work in the morning. They make slot machines go “Tink, tink, tink”, as coins fall into the tray, so you can hear people winning, similar to the loud balls and whistles when slot machines are hit (How funny is this. The new "coinless" slot machines that spit out a ticket with your winnings instead of coins, STILL make the sound of coins dropping into a tray!!!). You notice they have 20 people working the floor, but the loudest slot machine rings for 25 minutes before they pay the lousy $1,000. You notice slot machines yell and say things as if the wheel is being spun from a winner, (hint, hint) yet when you look, no one is playing the machine.

Everything they do is to make you a happy loser, but much of it is very shady! Casinos may think these are fair strategies, but would they be allowed to do this in other industries? Could other industries send employees disguised as players to go up to the table, loaded with the casinos money, and play like crazy, hoping others will see him win several thousand in a short period and leave? Would that be tolerated in the retail industry?

Would it be acceptable for any business in this world to hand out misleading information to their customers? Many casinos have done it, and I bet you have even been affected! They have handed out 10’s of millions of their Basic Play Charts, all containing numerous errors. Even if just one error was found, seeing as players get hands over and over, wouldn’t this be an enormous gross injustice by the casinos? We found numerous decisions recommended by the casinos to be wrong. When does a company or an industry become liable for their actions? It is sad, but they relish in the fact the players are so confused no one knows what is right anymore. So is it intentional?

Didn’t Microsoft get sued over Monopolistic Practices? Isn’t it funny there are States and Provinces where casinos are not only regulated by the government, but OWNED and OPERATED solely by the government as well. Ontario says they are the only ones to operate a casino in Ontario, yet they aren’t the best casino operators in the world, far from it really. So how can governments prevent other companies from holding a monopoly when they do it themselves?

If you sit and play Blackjack, and don’t Card Count, but mimic all the bets of the card counter, are they going to accuse you of card counting? If you sit and bet as someone tells you to, are you guilty? Well, the Playing 21 Program has proven anyone can win at Blackjack, everyone. Because we finally caught up to them at their own game, were all cheaters now?

I quite-frankly do not know what the casinos think. Maybe it is fair business practices. Obviously the gaming commissions either think this is, or they too are at fault! These commissions are in place to over see the fairness of the games, and that the players get a fair shake by the casinos. Well what do they call all this? They let all this “stuff” go, which is truly sad. Why bother having commissions if they do nothing for the player, and are just stuck up the casino’s ass? Why waste our tax dollars when it could be going to problem gamers if the commissions are just puppets of the puppet masters? When do they stand up and ask for answers? When do we as players say we have had enough? It is a tough pill to swallow when the gaming commissions are government agencies, and it is the government which makes huge amounts of money off the taxation of the profits of the casinos. How do the casinos make their money and all these huge profits? Well, we know that answer.

If you are disgusted, remember, you have a Voice!