After going more than a decade without so much as a backoff, I've been outright 86'd from two places in the past 9 months.

My latest 86ing was from Table Mountain Casino in Friant, CA, which is located approximately between Fresno and Yosemite National Park.

In November, I showed up for a play there. I was with two other people, who also used their cards (one of whom already had one).

Later, two more people I knew showed up, got cards, and ran some play.

No one ever used my card or ran my play except for me.

Some odd things did happen there, however.

1) I hit a "jackpot" (just a hair over 1200), but one of my friends and I were alternately pressing the buttons just for fun. When it hit, they came over and asked which one of us pressed it. Well, they didn't believe the answer we gave (I forgot which of us said we did it) and made us wait 25 minutes while they checked the camera. Finally they determined it was my friend, and they made him take the W2-G, which was fine. They also wouldn't pay us without withholding 30% unless he presented his social security card (!!) They claimed their system to verify the SSNs was down. WTF?! Fortunately he had his SSN in his car, even though technically you're told by the government NOT to carry it with you! We got paid at that point without further incident.

2) Two of the people (the last two) ended up with no freeplay and no points, despite a fair amount of play. The casino later insisted this was a glitch and put a token amount of $ back on the cards (lasting 7 days), but they were long gone by then, and it went to waste.

3) Some of my own freeplay earned never appeared the following day as it was supposed to. They again claimed system error. I couldn't stay around any longer to redeem it.

Two of the people did get offers, including me. However, given its remote location, none of it was ever picked up.

I happened to be in the area today, and supposedly had $225 in bimonthly freeplay good from April 15-30.

I walked in, went directly to $1 9/6 JoB, inserted $100 (you need to insert money first to run the freeplay, though I could've used as little as $5 instead of $100), and loaded the freeplay.

To my surprise, I had $275, and not the $225 printed on the flyer.

I ran all $275 but didn't do very well, and converted it to $175. Added to my $100 already in the machine, there was $275 in there.

Then I went to look at my points, and noticed I had $20 worth of points I could run. So I converted $10 of it (you can only do $10 at a time), bricked the first hand for the first $5, and then I hear, "Hi, Todd, can I talk to you?"

I thought it was probably a host and said, "Oh, hi!"

Then I noticed it was a security guard.

He said, "Please cash out and come with me."

Shit.

This is an Indian casino, so there's basically no rules or protocols they need to follow.

I asked, "Can I at least play off this last hand?"

He said, "No, please cash out and come with me."

He walked me over to the main security desk, which was in the center of the casino. Thankfully, it wasn't a back room, which I would have tried to avoid being brought to.

I was happy to be having this discussion out in the open casino.

My three concerns were:

1) Getting my $275

2) Not getting backroomed or worse

3) Not causing a huge delay, as I actually had people waiting in the car as I was running this

They brought me to a different guard at the main desk who told me that I was on a "watch list" for allowing others to use my card.

I told them nobody used my card (true), but clearly they must have just 86'd in absentia my whole group.

I told them I was with friends that night in November, but we all ran our own cards. He told me that wasn't true from the information he had.

I countered that they found me today alone and only playing my own card, thus backing my story that I've always done it this way.

He asked for ID. This was where I could have told him to eat shit if this were a Vegas casino, but at an Indian place, I didn't want to make things worse. I gave them the ID. He copied down some info. Asked me if the address on the ID was good, which it wasn't (though I can still get mail there), but I said yes. He asked for a phone number, I gave him the one from my PokerFraudAlert Radio show. He asked me to take off my cap so he could take a picture, and I did so. He asked me to sign the paper basically agreeing that I am being trespassed and will both be arrested and have my winnings confiscated if I return. I signed it with a fake signature (with my name, but not the way I normally sign things.)

He asked for a thumb print. I hesitated but did it.

He let me go cash out the $275 and walked me to the door. I left without further incident.

Keep in mind that I would NOT have handled it this way if I were in a non-Indian place. For example, the last time I got trespassed in Vegas (in person), they didn't even have my name. I refused to give it to them, refused to show ID, and while I didn't stop them from taking a picture of me, I refused to cooperate to take anything off for it. This was because I knew I had clear rights in Vegas. At Indian casinos, I don't, and was worried I would be backroomed, arrested, and not given my $275 if I refused to cooperate.

I would be interested in hearing how you guys would have handled it, given it's an Indian casino.

Obviously I won't be returning.