There are some people out there who are jeopardizing a great thing.
Precision-Shooting the dice at a craps table in a casino can generate all kinds of long and profitable rolls. As Martha Stewart would say, “That’s a good thing.”
Some people can augment their income with the profit that they make off of this. That’s also a good thing.
Some people get a lot of pleasure from moving their former losing way into winning ways by way of dice-setting. That too is a good thing.
But let me tell you about a bad thing.
If you rub the casinos nose in the fact that you have come up with a way to consistently beat the house; they will shut you down. Plain and simple! They have the right to do it, and they WILL do it. They can choose to bar any player, and they will if they so choose. Why put them into a position where they will resort to that? Why make them do it? It doesn’t have to be that way.
The GREED factor has been the down-fall of too many great things in this country. Remember that the pig who gets fattened at the feeding-trough the fastest, is also the one that gets lead to the slaughter-house FIRST!
I’ve played virtually unabated for the last ten years. Every once in a while, I’ll feel a “very light mildly warm breeze of irritation” from the Pit. It’s inconsistent, and usually goes away very quickly. Remember that I play A LOT, and I make a substantial living off of this game. The actions of a few people could change all of that instantly. There is enough money in the casino coffers to go around, but it’s HOW you get it that determines whether or not you’ll be able to continue doing it.
Recently a “flock of dice-setting hungry seagulls” descended on Las Vegas. Some of them had memorable hands. A number of them dinged a few casinos for a total that far exceeds the salary of the President of the United States, all in one short weekend! Gee, do you think that the casinos noticed?
Let me ask you this.
If you were a casino Pit Boss, would you notice if two empty tables were suddenly FULL.
If you were a casino Pit Boss, would you notice if the players all talked about the training session that they had just completed?
If you were a casino Pit Boss, would you notice if they were all talking about “taking every last chip out of the boxman’s house bank in every casino in this city?
If you were a casino Pit Boss, would you notice if all of them SET the dice exactly the same way?
If you were a casino Pit Boss, would you notice if they all THREW the dice the same way?
If you were a casino Pit Boss, would you notice if they all BET the dice the same way.
Finally, if you were a casino Pit Boss, would you notice if they were all WINNING THE SAME WAY!
Let me ask you another thing.
If you were a casino Pit Boss, would you notify all of your “sister” casinos in your corporate family? Boyd Gaming owns the Freemont Hotel. They also happen to own the California Hotel, Main Street Station, Stardust, and Sam’s Town. If a large group of players just took your house for $70,000, do you think that they’re not going to pick up the phone and let all of their other properties be aware that a “herd of rampaging dice-setting buffalo” have descended on the city?
Just so you know, the exact same thing happened at the Golden Nugget for about $85,000. Holy Cow! Why did Treasure Island, The Mirage, MGM, New York New York, Bellagio, Monte Carlo, and Boardwalk suddenly decide to hassle dice-setters when they rolled into each of those casinos like a desert dust-storm blows in a bunch of tumble-weeds. We call that marvel of modern technology, a telephone! It is corporate policy at MGM-Mirage to notify their other properties INSTANTLY under pain of termination if it isn’t done quickly enough. It’s called “game protection”, and it’s in their Management Policy binder.
Okay, when it happens with two large casino chains, you might still be looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, and think that it might be a coincidence because you are so naïve. So when it happens at Paris, and they get taken for more than $110,000, do you wonder why all the Park Place Entertainment gaming palaces, such as Bally’s, Caesars’s Palace, Las Vegas Hilton, Flamingo, and O’Shea’s, suddenly put the brakes on all setters, especially if they are in a group? Do you still think that it’s a random occurrence? When it happens at Mandalay Bay, and they get tagged for $140,000 and it’s sister properties like Excalibur, Luxor, Circus Circus stop all setters, and the policy gets further reinforced at it’s co-owned Monte Carlo, can you possibly pass it off as just “one of those thing”?
Do you think that these casinos will let an organized group of setters move in, let them beat the corporation senselessly about the head, and then bleed cash out of their wide-open noses for eternity? Those groups are lucky that they were allowed to get out of the casinos with their recently-won money. In the “old Vegas”, it would have been dealt with in a less subtle, back-alley sort of manner. Today, all they have to do is say, “No Dice-Setting Allowed.” Gosh, I hope you REALLY enjoyed your weekend.
There are some people out there who make a living off of SELLING dice-setting lessons. The lessons obviously work, and I have no qualms about someone making an honest living. I also have even less of a problem with any players who want to improve the performance of their game. I’m all for that, and it is exactly what all of my articles are about. I WANT people to profit from this game. On the other hand, why the hell would you want to kill the goose that lays all those delicious golden eggs? It makes no sense at all.
When one of their training sessions and “conferences” are held in Las Vegas, there is ALWAYS fall-out. If I was running these training sessions, I would also be concerned about the continued longevity of what is being taught. Additionally, my focus might be less on booking seminars, and more on ensuring that my graduates didn’t do any long-term damage to the whole concept. Perhaps there may be only one small element missing from those training sessions, and that would be how to properly conduct yourself in the casinos as an accomplished dice-setter and more importantly HOW TO MAKE THIS GOOD THING LAST!
In Part II of this article, we’ll take a serious look at how to do that. In the meantime, whenever I see an organized group of setters, I’ll continue to do as I usually do. I head in the opposite direction, and get away from them as quickly as possible.
Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life.
By: The Mad Professor
