Originally Posted by
MDawg
One thing KewlJ you're completely wrong about, is how the comp system works with respect to baccarat especially, but also with respect to table game play in general.
First off, I have always played above radar under my own name with my own player card.
My experience with blackjack actually mirrors yours, in a way - in that when I was winning heavily at blackjack they did start to sweat me. I was backed off after just a few trips in a row where I cleared around sixty thousand each trip, playing double deck blackjack. Before that I had won consistently at blackjack, but never sums that raised much attention.
Anyway, you're wrong about that they cut off the comps first - that's not true at all. The department that hands out comps has nothing to do with the department that cuts off players. It's like - to use an analogy, the difference between salespeople and loss prevention in a department store - no matter how good a customer is with buying shirts and slacks, if he steals from the store, L.P. will step in and give him the boot and maybe arrest him. Similarly, in a casino, the guys watching the action on the floor are like loss prevention, and the casino hosts and casino marketing are like salespeople in a store - one really has nothing to do with the other. All casino marketing and hosts care about are how much a guy plays – it’s the casino floor staff and their bosses who decide if the guy is going to be allowed to play at all.
And anyway the usual practice, for a known player who is suspected of card counting, or just plain “guilty” of winning too much at a game of skill like blackjack, is to just tell him that he may play whatever he likes - except for blackjack. I want to clarify again - that by known player I mean a guy who has a player card and has been playing regularly in that casino's system, especially at a good level. In my case, they stepped in and effectively banned me by placing a handicap on my blackjack action, limiting my spread to 3X hand to hand. And the ban was across, at that time, one of the largest chains in Vegas, anyway, the chain that owned pretty much all the casinos I cared about playing at, at that time.
I couldn't play blackjack again for about two years. I tried - I stepped back in about a year later and there was something on the computer or a pit boss recognized me, not sure which, but I was asked to stop playing blackjack. And again, I was playing under my own name, with my player card, I wasn't trying to hide.
Then after about two years had elapsed, I had become good friends with the director of table games and he lifted the ban across the entire chain. But by then, I was playing baccarat and winning more than I ever won at blackjack, so I didn't even care and never went back to playing blackjack exclusively, although I still do play blackjack sometimes to this day.
Now Baccarat, is considered a game of chance, the casino doesn't think that there is any way for a player to beat them at it using skill, so - they really don't care what anyone does at that game as long as he's not cheating, which means - unlimited comps, and unlimited winning potential, because, again, the casino thinks that in the long run no one wins at that game. No one gets backed off from baccarat, I mean just the idea or mention of such a thing is absurd. Which means then that a large part of your objection to my true story - is because you aren't aware that baccarat is a game where the casino never cuts any legitimate player off.