Originally Posted by
Darkoz
Starting new thread to discuss accountinquestion saying I am not a gambler because I know I am going to win.
Firstly he claims I trick the casinos into believing I am making a wager I am not. Therefore not only do I not gamble but I commit a crime.
It took me a moment to realize he is referring to my "card pulling"!
To be clear I agree that tricking the casino into seeing wagers not made is criminal. Past posting for example, where you wait till the outcome is known then trick the casino into believing you made the wager.
But card pulling is the polar opposite. I ACTUALLY MAKE A WAGER, then trick the casino into believing I didn't!
But I am always making a wager!!!
Is it illegal? Hell no. The casinos give the player the option of using a player card or not. How can choosing not to use a card be illegal especially when quite a few players do it?
And there are no gambling regs I am aware of that state when a player must choose to insert or remove their players card.
In fact making wagers but hiding wins is really more "rat-holing digitally" but stuffing chips into your pocket is certainly not illegal either (except perhaps roulette chips with intent to falsify value later).
Or making a large initial wager, then playing lower amounts while slow playing a crowded table so that hourly risk guesses by the pit bosses are misconstrued.
Which brings us back to definition of an advantage gambler. Accountinquestion surmises I am not a gambler because I know I am going to win, therefore there is no real gamble.
Hmmm! Technically AP means Advantage PLAYING. Note we don't call ourselves AG (Advantage Gamblers). In one sense I am inclined to agree.
Casinos don't gamble either. "The house always wins"? True because they have an advantage. Variance creates ups and downs but over time the casinos always win. That means they aren't gambling by any sense of the word.
An advantage Player simply switches who has the advantage. A perfect card counter KNOWS he is going to win even in the downward slumps. Therefore even a card counter isn't gambling.
So I will accept that I am not an advantage gambler. However only if one accepts that there is no such thing to begin with. There are negative expectation GAMBLERS and advantage PLAYERS!
This was a really good answer. I am going to borrow some of the language, with DarkOz as referenced source.
I am reminded of a famous bookmaker in Pennsylvania. He always argued that he was actually gambling, not bookmaking, because he took a position on every game and wasn't really concerned with balancing book on any given game. Of course, we argued with him that he had an edge and he wasn't gambling. His counter-argument was he had an edge only if he was right a certain percent of the time (47.6% not counting parlay bets, for example).
He fought tooth and nail to define himself as a gambler, while I argued that he was actually an advantage player as a bookmaker. But because bookmaking is a game of opinion, he had a point. Unless he took opinion out of it and simply flipped a coin, in which case he was clearly an advantage player and not a gambler.
As with most things, definitions are crucial and underappreciated.
By the way, he recently served some time in the same location as Michael Douglas' son and got to meet Douglas and Zeta-Jones