> 3. Don't let the door...
>
>
> They kicked me out for supposedly being "too good".
>
> Here in NV, the law says they can do this, but that
> does not make it right and we all know that NV law
> is anything but fair when it comes to player vs
> casino issues.
>
Yeah, I agree that law isn't "right" or "fair". Neither is the one that bans online poker (that's not actually the law, but that's its effect, now that they're enforcing it). For that matter, neither is the one that says I can't drive as fast as I want to (I've never had an accident speeding, but I've had one falling asleep because I was driving so slowly that I couldn't maintain maximum alertness). Neither is the one that taxes me and spends my money on services I don't want or use, or gives it away to people I don't want to help out (including the people that pass all those laws).
Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules.
But they're there.
Understand, while I haven't been barred from playing VP, I have been barred from playing blackjack, and I was only a 20-hour per trip, 5-6 trips a year card-counting player, not a 40-hour per week professional. In my opinion, players "like me" (identified as probable card-counters but not likely to suck the life blood out of the casino) were not a threat to the casino's viability, as a group, since many of them would NOT realize a long-term edge.
This is because I knew more people than not, who were card-counters who did not play skillfully enough, counting notwithstanding, to succeed in the long run. If barred, they not only obviously showed a lack of ability to disguise their play (which I apparently also lacked long-term although I was able to play for over a decade), but would make enough mistakes to lose their edge -- or they lacked adequate bankroll and money-management skill to assure a long-term win.
The casino did not recognize that these sub-par counters should be permitted to continue to play, perpetuating the myth that players can win at blackjack (good for the casino) while not themselves having a long-term edge.
Nevertheless, they did not want me playing blackjack (I usually got the "you are welcome to play slots or roulette or craps if you wish" -- although one was smart enough to add "but you don't strike me as a craps-shooter"). One, as apparently occured for you at the Sahara, simply said "you're too good for us".
Obviously, the parallels in VP exist -- many knowledgeable players play with enough errors to lose their edge, or (like me) continue to play games that have a small casino edge (that I got hooked on when the cash back made them net favorable to the player). Even moreso, most VP players do not have the considerable bankroll necessary to play at the level they find enjoyable - if you have $25,000 to "gamble" with, most players don't feel like nickels or quarters is "their game" -- and yet it's my understanding that this is about what you need to play $1 VP with reasonable safety against "ruin" (depends, of course, on the game and its theoretical player edge, and the variance). Again, most players will therefore eventually lose their money, even if they know how to play with an edge.
In my opinion, it would be good practice for the casino to allow obvious non-professionals to play, regardless of their skill level, thus promoting the play of such games to others who don't have a chance in the long run. I can also see why the casino would consider it "bad practice" to allow an obvious professional to come in and operate with the edge that the casino considers to be its own domain. And I guess I can see how the casino might consider it good practice to bar ANY player from ANY game at which the player has even a POTENTIAL long-term edge over the house.
In a nutshell, the "right"-ness and "fainess" of laws is in the eyes of the beholder -- legislators represent the interests of the state in which they pass the law, and they usually pass laws that they feel their constituents support (sometimes their personal biases cloud their judgment of what their constituents support, but if that happens too much, they don't get re-elected). Obviously, in NV, they are elected in a state where most of the citizens are NOT professional gamblers, but enjoy being in a tax-free state, and in which that status is preserved by assuring that the gaming industry makes enough money to support the state budget - and where the gaming industry does NOT do that at the expense of the non-professional-gambling citizen. So the laws will predictably favor the casinos and allow them to do their business with interference from the law only when they go to extremes, such as roughing people up, which modern society finds to be an
unacceptable way of telling someone they have to leave and never come back. It is, of course, one of the most effective ways for the casino to communicate its displeasure with a player :)
Specifically for VP, if casinos can't bar skilled players, then they'll make the pay tables so bad that even the most skilled player can't win -- and that hurts the completely unskilled players even more, as it does people like me who play well, although recreationally, but perhaps don't frequent places often enough to get (or visit in a timely manner to use) the offers and specials that push a 99.5% game into positive territory - I'm OK with that (well, sure, I liked it better when I also got 0.67% cash back), but if they can't trespass anyone, pretty soon I'll be playing 99% or less games instead, no matter where I go - or I'll just stop playing VP altogether (I already play a lot less).
This has already happened with blackjack as card-counting became (1) more prevalent and (2) more apparent to the casinos as a threat to their bottom line. The blackjack games that are offered now, in spite of the casino's ability to bar, have become much more favorable to the house, to the point where it is difficult for the most skilled players to find a game at which they can eke out a small long-term edge, even if allowed to play.
Not only has this happened at blackjack, but it is happening at VP as well; the games and associated perks are no longer offered in combinations that make it easy for a minimally skilled player to win, and the opportunities for the most skilled players are fewer than in the past.
I agree that playing well should not be grounds for barring, but that's the way it is in NV -- the casino counter-measures in other places (i.e., only offering very bad pay tables) are no more acceptable to me. Interestingly, of course, NV casinos COULD offer good paytables routinely (they don't do that very much now) and just bar the skilled players, but they are allowed to do both, and have chosen that pathway.
Many laws are passed to protect society against those people who can't conduct themselves "properly" in the judgment of other people, who believe they are doing so and that others should behave the same as them -- so they complain to their legislators about the "bad behavior" and if the legislators agree that this bad behavior is unacceptable, they pass a law against it. Sometimes it's to protect us against our own stupidity -- e.g., most of us are probably not smart enough to drive properly, so we have traffic laws to penalize us when we are stupid enough to break them; most people probably are not smart enough to avoid spending their money on dangerous drugs, so we make it illegal to possess or sell them; most people are probably not smart enough to avoid prostitutes or to avoid being one, so we make prostitution illegal (of course, in NV, the legislature came to a different conclusion on that one). Most people would probably not pay for a lot of the
services that the government offers, so they pass laws to allow them to tax us.
Some people don't realize that, even if players can win SOME of the time, the casinos are SUPPOSED to win from EVERYBODY in the long run (MOST people know this), and instead they think they should be allowed to play games where THE PLAYER can win in the long run - so we have the NV trespass law to make these people comply with the behavior that everyone else knows is "proper" -- i.e., going into casinos with an expectation of losing being more likely than winning. From the legislature's perspective, they are simply doing what the people of NV, as a whole, find most favorable to them.
Put the shoe on the other foot -- the casino is also trying to be an advantage player; that's how they make money. If you, as a player, won't play any games at which the casino has an edge, then you, as a casino operator, probably won't offer games at which the players have an edge, and if you do offer some games at which some players CAN get an edge, you won't want to offer that particular game to those particular players if you can get away with discriminating against those players; NV law allows this discrimination. Other states are more restrictive on barrings, so the casinos there MAY choose only to offer games at which no one can get much, or any, long term advantage over the casino.
To operate your casino otherwise would not be in your bottom line interests, and everyone knows that most businesses think in terms of their bottom line as their primary motivation (a few, mostly smaller businesses, do realize that other things might be more important, such as your reputation with your customers and in the community, your responsibility to take care of the environment, and so on). Most serious advantage players actually have the same attitude - it's all about their bottom line.
--BG
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