The Cellar » Why is it cheating?

monster · 12/29/2023 8:13 pm

I don't understand why "card counting" is "illegal" at casinos -it's just using your brain

And "sign stealing" in college football. It's not "stealing" it's cracking a code. Using your brain. You're college students ffs -come up with a stronger code.

Please explain to me why these things are such big deals? The casinos just don't want you to beat them, I get it. but if you're not allowed to make an informed choice based on what you've observed, it's not a game. Card counting doesn't change the order of the cards, the element of luck is still there. If you're betting on a sport, the bookies look at form and set the odds. They don't then say you can't see the odds or choose which team to back

Anon · 12/29/2023 9:13 pm

monster wrote:
...If you're betting on a sport, the bookies look at form and set the odds. They don't then say you can't see the odds or choose which team to back

In horseracing, if too many people bet on the same horse that's favored to win, they cancel all bets just before the race starts and refund the bets.

monster · 12/30/2023 12:48 am

that seems like a breech of contract to me

Anon · 12/30/2023 11:34 am

Regarding card counting...

In the song L-O-V-E, Nat King Cole sings Love is more than just a game for two. Likewise for cards in casinos. There are usually multiple players versus the dealer. A card counter may sacrifice some of their plays, taking more or fewer cards than indicated by what's apparent (in their hand and on the table), on some small bet hands to win larger bet hands later. While this doesn't change the order in which the cards come out, it can change which of the multiple players get what cards. It can drive other players from the game when one player is mercenary. It's probably the next worse thing to a player who's totally incompetent. Dealers are trained to recognize the difference since some behaviors can overlap.

The above considers just one independently operating card counter. Casinos have to deal (pun intended) with animosity between more than one if they end up at the same table, more than one working in teams, individuals and teams using electronic augmentation; also, plants (competitor or anti-gaming activists) who do it just to ruin a casino's reputation.

It's like going into a pool hall for some competition and a friendly wager only to find out that there's a hustler there. It's bad for the business.

Diaphone Jim · 12/30/2023 12:19 pm

9 out of 10 "hustlers" are called that because they are better players. I love playing pool.
I agree about card counting. One would think, however, that it you are smart enough to do it, you would know the casinos make the rules.

monster · 12/30/2023 6:45 pm

There is a reason I don't gamble, never have...

tw · 12/31/2023 1:12 pm

Anyone who gambles in a casino (or sports betting) is statistically guaranteed to be a loser. Casino, et al must have odds that make everyone (but the exception) a loser. The exception is important for propaganda purposes.

Counting cards is not legally illegal. But would harm their profit margins. Purpose of gambling is to steal (ie tax) the arithmetically naive. Nothing is produced. Money is legally taken from an easiest mark.

Then they lie. Promoting it as fun. I periodically walk thru casinos to see what is going on. If it is so much fun, then why is nobody smiling? They know the mark. He kept having a hard time. And still keep gambling.

The game is so rigged that even supercomputers in the basement monitor each gambler. Even tell a waitress when to give him a free alcohol drink. So that he will keep losing.

Last edited by tw (12/31/2023 1:13 pm)

monster · 12/31/2023 1:41 pm

I still fail to see how using your brain can be considered cheating. It's definitely a fool's game. Same with "sign stealing" just use your brain and outwit them. If you've taken too many hits to be able to figure out good code, hire someone

Anon · 12/31/2023 2:12 pm

[true story] Back in the days of all mechanical slot machines (a.k.a. one-armed bandits), I was able to do something akin to counting cards. With two days to spend on a stopover in Las Vegas, part of a cross country road trip, I watched others playing the slot machines. I'd memorize the combination of symbols that came up with each play. When there was a winner, I knew the preceding combination that was displayed and found it was the same for multiple machines when there was a winner on the next pull.

I walked through the major casinos on the Four Corners of the Strip playing only those machines displaying the pre-winning combination and placed the maximum bet allowed in each. They were all winners with only the payout varying. Sometimes I simply got my $5 wager back, sometimes I got $125.

The machines I was looking for; however, were few and far between. After 2 days, I had exhausted their availability in the four major casinos within walking distance. That was Ok though, it was time to leave anyway and I had an extra $750 in my wallet.

After everything in casinos went digital and metal casino tokens were replaced with paper tickets, the atmosphere was gone for me and I haven't been to a casino in decades now. [/true story]

Anon · 12/31/2023 2:54 pm

monster wrote:
There is a reason I don't gamble, never have...

The Powerball jackpot is estimated to be $810 million (408.9 million cash value) for Mon, Jan 1, 2024.

Gamble on a $2 ticket and it could all be yours. You can't win if you don't play.

(Aren't I a stinker.)

tw · 1/01/2024 10:23 am

monster wrote:
I still fail to see how using your brain can be considered cheating.

Purpose of a casino is not understood. Only to enrich top management. Do nothing productive to get rich.

They don't want customers who think. That would harm profits. And might even educate other customers. Profits, when running a scam entertainment, can be harmed by thinking people.

Got to love what Anon did. Today, they have computers to block such thinking. They do not want thinking customers.

Purpose of a casino (and sports betting) is to cheat the customers; not the casino. To play a customer as a fool. Even hype a rare winner so that everyone will think they too can win.

Casinos do not want thinking customers. Banning them is quite legal. And increased profits. The mark is a human who makes decisions from emotions (brain of a child).

Its legalized theft. So the mafia will always be first getting into it. To make profits without doing anything productive.

Last edited by tw (1/01/2024 10:25 am)

monster · 1/01/2024 12:52 pm

It's the same principle as teaching class at the pace of the slowest student so no-one gets left behind.

I grew up playing card games like rummy and canasta -I couldn't not count them. It's like giving people a page of words and asking them to guess what they are but under no circumstances read them.

And as for sign stealing yes if you put cameras of microphones in the locker room of the team, yup, that's cheating. But buying a ticket, watching the game you have paid for the ticket for, figuring it out.....?

tw · 1/01/2024 7:08 pm

Any technique (technical or mental) that affects profit for the Central Committee (top management) is always considered evil in corporations that exist only for profits. That do not contribute anything to society and mankind.

Best profit centers are consumers with poor reading skills. Who make conclusions using an emotional brain that children use. If 'Rain Man', then the company considers you evil. Since you do not enrich the "Central Committee of the Party".

People who cannot read anything longer some character on a playing card or video machine, or who cannot count - those are profit centers. Are welcome. As long as their emotions also do not justify need for a gun.

Happy Monkey · 1/02/2024 12:51 pm

monster wrote:
It's the same principle as teaching class at the pace of the slowest student so no-one gets left behind.

Blackjack is a bit of a unique position; through historical accident it has ended up as the only casino game where the player can have a legitimate advantage over the house. If there weren't enough "slow students", they literally couldn't afford to offer it, even if they weren't motivated solely by greed.

So their only options are to kick out counters or change the rules of the game, and they apparently don;t think they can get away with the latter.

Flint · 1/02/2024 1:16 pm

Full disclosure, leaning into the "Rain Man" trope, but if "card counting" is representative of some neuro-divergent, savant ability, then it's in the same category as things we consider valued job skills, such as just being "naturally good at" reading database schemas, or arcane network syntax. We don't question someone being a "human cheat code" when calculating their salary, we just hand over the money.

And come to think of it, it plays out the same way whether card-counting/job wizardry is a "natural talent" or a skill acquired through hours of torturous study and discipline.

We let people "card count" at their jobs because it benefits "the house"

Last edited by Flint (1/02/2024 1:16 pm)

Anon · 1/02/2024 6:08 pm

Anon wrote:
monster wrote:
There is a reason I don't gamble, never have...
The Powerball jackpot is estimated to be $810 million (408.9 million cash value) for Mon, Jan 1, 2024.

Gamble on a $2 ticket and it could all be yours. You can't win if you don't play.

(Aren't I a stinker.)

...The winner bought the ticket at the Food Castle in Grand Blanc, Michigan, located just outside Flint, the Michigan Lottery said....

monster · 1/02/2024 10:43 pm

Anon wrote:
Gamble on a $2 ticket and it could all be yours. You can't win if you don't play.

also.... can't lose.

xoxoxoBruce · 1/07/2024 1:26 am

Went to Atlantic City with $1000 and a friend who had $80.
I paid for gas, tolls, parking, lunch, dinner, push chair on the boardwalk, and 2 cartons of cigarettes on the swing through Delaware on the way home.
I ended up at home with $1500, my friend had $0, so I gave her $750 plus the two cartons of butts.
Never went back to let them get even.

meph · 1/19/2024 10:29 pm

monster wrote:
I don't understand why "card counting" is "illegal" at casinos -it's just using your brain

Because they have the money and can make the rules. Never saw the point of gambling.

fargon · 1/20/2024 9:10 am

Welcome Home Meph.