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While casinos are not evil places, they often attract people looking to cheat. This is an unfortunate side effect but fortunately the number of people who cheat are well in the minority. In my experience the vast majority of cheats are nothing more than opportunists that take advantage of something if and when the time arises.

For instance, there is a world of difference between someone who finds a wallet and then keeps the money inside it without handing it in and someone like a pickpocket who actively goes out and steals one.

In one instance one person has the money by default and is still technically stealing while in the other, the individual has actively planned the act. In a similar way, it is like the act of murder and manslaughter. Both involve the taking of a human life but only one was deliberate.

It is the same with cheating inside casinos. I believe that at least 99% of any dishonest activity stems from opportunists. Maybe someone was paid a bet that they shouldn’t have been paid and said nothing but whatever the cause, very few players actively plan cheating moves in my opinion.

But that is taken from the total population of people who inhabit casinos and 1% of that population still accounts for an awful lot of people. The last casino that I worked at had around 22,000 members and 1% of that figure comes to 220.

While only around 5000 of that total were active core regulars, that is still 50 people who actively go out to look to cheat. So that is an awful lot of people and if those 50 people each cheat the casino out of £200 per week then that is an amazing £10,000 a week being lost to cheating.

Someone asked me the other day about entering into a blackjack game in mid-shoe without knowing what the count was and how this affected your edge. Firstly what you have to remember is that if you enter a game in mid-shoe then what we are dealing with here is cards unseen.

So we don’t know if the count is plus or minus and in the absence of such information then we have to take a long term view of this and this means only one thing. The number of pluses that we cannot see will equal the number of minuses and so theoretically we can now treat the count as zero.

This is great for cover plays and especially in casinos with more than one table open. No card counter moves from table to table and bets sizable bets unless they are being signalled in by non counting team members. But let us say that you have a 20/1 bet spread of $5 to $200 and you enter mid-shoe. You could enter at say $20 and then downgrade the bets if your initial count is negative.

But also, going in at $20 allows you to double up and get to $100 very quickly and thus $200. Going from $20 to $40 to $80 to $160 looks like you are merely chasing losses or letting winnings ride. This can be achieved if the count goes immediately positive after entering.

However if the count goes negative then you can merely switch tables and enter mid-shoe again which makes you look less like a counter. So as long as you understand that entering mid-shoe makes no difference because cards unseen means that you can take the count to be zero then you will do fine entering mid-shoe.

There is no doubt that being a Croupier sounds like a very glamorous life and job to many people. The reality is something rather different of course as inner city land based casinos are often populated by many types of people who you would not want to be around.

But yet there is no doubt that becoming a Croupier is something that is not only accessible for the ordinary person but it can also lead to a very exciting life. I have known several people personally who were fully trained up in the UK and got their experience there and then left and went to work on the cruise ships.

This was a life that attracted many people although most of them came back to the UK at some future point in time. Imagine sailing around the Mediterranean or the Caribbean seas and being paid to do so.

The downside to life on cruise ships is that the hours can be long and there is nowhere to go except on deck or to your cabin. So I can understand how the novelty would wear off after a few weeks or months of doing this.

But then again I have also spoken to people who have worked on cruise ships and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So I suppose that this indicates that they do not suit everyone. If you do not like long hours or life on the sea then cruise ships are not going to be for you. But a certain type of person could find this life very rewarding and exciting.

Following on from yesterdays post and I want to continue my look at the inner workings of casinos and what they really are and peoples perception of them. In this aspect it is similar to poker in so much that there is no real badness inherent in the business.

The only badness if it can interpreted as that is from the people that frequent them and not from the owners themselves. Basically the casino is what it is……..it is a place of business where business people make money by providing entertainment for others. It is certain members of the public who have misconceptions regarding casinos that some people  see them in a totally different light.

This is why some people see them as cheats or as places where criminals and other various types of low life hang out. There is an element of truth to this but this just reflects life in general. The types of people that you may see in casinos will be the same types of people that you see in other areas so it is rather unfair to throw that label at casinos by inferring that they are only ever inhabited by crooks and low life.

Casinos are still one of the few places where a single woman would in all likelihood not be molested in any way shape or form. You really couldn’t say that about many of the bars and nightclubs in most major towns and cities. So casinos are forms of entertainment first and foremost and how much you want to pay for that entertainment is basically up to the individual.

Having worked in the casino industry on the inside as a Croupier, Inspector and trainee Pit Boss then I was in that industry for quite some considerable time. So it annoys me sometimes when certain ignorant people have some rather extreme views of the gaming and the gambling industry.

A few years ago a proposed “Super Casino” was planned for the town where I live. It actually made me laugh at the time how so many people were getting hot under the collar about this proposed event. They cited increases in problem gambling and prostitution amongst others. I saw documents from local residents which showed clear misunderstanding about what casinos actually were and their role in the community.

I also find something inherently wrong in being preached to by people many of whom have never even set foot inside a casino in their entire lives. Casinos first and foremost are places of entertainment and they do provide many thousands of jobs nationwide. This also knocks on into other areas as well and casinos plough an awful lot of money back into the economy.

But drugs and a dependency on drugs drives a large part of the prostitution industry and young people who become dependent on drugs need income in which to buy them above and beyond what they could earn in a normal day to day job.

Young boys turn to burglary and other types of theft while the girls turn to shop lifting and prostitution but the driving force behind prostitution is the drugs industry and not casinos or any proposed “Super Casino”.

If you go into any casino or play any form of gambling then a progressive betting system can work very well in the short term. As long as you do not use systems like the Martingale for instance which double up after every loss. The bankroll requirements are very severe and especially on casino games where the table minimum is well below the table maximum in terms of the number of potential double ups that you can make to get your money back.

But systems like the Reverse Labouchere for instance can use progression in an entirely different way. However it needs to be pointed out that in no way can a progression system turn you from a long term loser into a long term winner although on blackjack then it has the potential to do so if you are using good solid basic and card counting methods.

But even here, it is the card counting strategy that is providing the profit and not the progression system. In this environment then the progression system can serve a very good strategic purpose as it can allow the player to look like an everyday player when betting in this way. So even though the progression systems cannot and will not provide long term profits in their own right, everything has its place at some stage.

Even though we never used progression systems when we played blackjack, the strategic use of them as cover cannot be under estimated. But if you were to go into any casino for a day or an evening and use a progression system then your chances of success and walking out in front would be very good indeed as that isn’t an amount of time that is long enough for the house edge to take effect.

Just how far can you go with regards to cheating inside a casino using illusion and time misdirection? Personally I feel that a great magician could be the perfect person to cheat. I once had a demonstration from a highly trained magician and this is certainly a person who I would not want dealing my poker game for sure.

But time misdirection is the art of performing magic tricks by getting the target to look away from the move while you are doing something. The key with misdirection is that the subject must at no stage feel as if they are being manipulated into looking away. To give an obvious example, any misdirection that was so blatant like finger pointing would likely not work in a magic context simply because your subject is expecting you to do a trick and also to perform some sort of deception.

However in a gaming sense then the player to a certain extent has the advantage. The key to misdirection is to make the subject or subjects want to look somewhere else. I have heard of teams of professional cheats that used misdirection as their primary weapon, obviously these people didn’t reveal their true identities or the casinos in which they operated.

I feel that one of the primary targets for cheats are other punters. These people can be incredibly careless with their bets and money. But the key to extracting money from casinos is not to be too greedy. Past posters get caught because they try for too much too soon. Trying to get £25 on the number when the table maximum is only £25 is asking for trouble. CCTV camera’s will be inspected even if the move actually got past the gaming staff. But getting away with £1 on the number is a far easier proposition and those £35 pay outs at 35-1 really start to mount up over time.

I had another casino trip last night and after I had watched the Spain vs Paraguay game in the bar, decided to play a little blackjack. I had been counting for a while but my maximum bets were only very small and about £30 or so. Everything had been going very well on the table even though I was down about £100. I had been having friendly banter with the staff and everyone had been talking about football and England being so bad.

Then the dealer went to pull a card to her own hand when she already had seventeen. She quickly placed the card under the shoe to be the next card out and I had seen that the next card was an ace. So I quickly asked for £200 to be placed on first box and the dealer went to place the chips when the Inspector stopped her.

When I asked why, he said that it was because I had seen the ace. I then said to him that this was academic because it was their mistake and not mine and that there was no law saying that I couldn’t bet the maximum on any box I chose. Suddenly the mood on the table shifted but the Inspector was adamant that if I placed this bet that the box would receive no cards.

So my next line was to say that I hadn’t seen the ace to which he then replied that I wouldn’t have jumped from £30 to £200 if I didn’t know that the next card was ace…….fair point and difficult to argue and the only thing that I could think of at the time was to say that it was going to be my last hand anyway and that I was having one big blow out. This was semi-believable seeing as I had over £200 in £5 chips on the table. The Inspector thought for a second or two and then allowed the bet to stand…… I did get my ace but only a total of 19…….the dealer had a nine which made…….you guessed it…….19!

I had someone ask me a few weeks ago about whether or not they should pursue a career as a Croupier and asked my advice. Firstly my own personal experiences in gaming were probably negative on the whole. Although having said that, I have gaming to thank in so many other ways as well. Gaming and my career in gaming basically was the launch pad to be where I am today so I can hardly be too critical even then.

At the time I thought that it wasn’t a great job but I was going through tough personal problems and working nights and being away from home was difficult. But for a single person who maybe has left school with few or no qualifications then it is a good way to build a career doing something that many people find glamorous.

Also the pay is far better in the casinos where I worked since I left and casinos do promote from within. So a croupier will not always stay a croupier and will usually be promoted to Inspector within two years providing that you work at a casino that has them.

The next step up after that is to “Pit Boss” and this is where you actually supervise the pit area and report to managers and the General Manager. I know many people personally who have gone all the way from Croupier to Pit Boss and to Manager. Also I am sure that had I still kept in touch with my past colleagues that there will also be one or two who are now General Managers of their own casino.

It is also a chance to see the world as well if you go on the cruise ships although doing so can harm your promotion chances if you are changing casinos too often.

Yesterday I looked at gambling theory in general and how important that is with regards trying to make money from casino games. Now obviously you are not supposed to be able to make money long term from casino games but that is not the objective for most people. Casino action gives people the opportunity to experience the thrill of casino game play while presenting the opportunity for short term success.

If you go into the venture with that in mind then you will be fine. Try to forget everything else that I have talked about on this blog because that stems from me having an awful lot of experience and inside knowledge that you simply will not have.

As an ex gaming employee then it is far easier for me to get away with certain things although even then, the average croupier is far more knowledgeable these days and the average casino manager is certainly so since I left gaming for good back in 1998. Theory is very powerful if you want to reduce the house edge to a very tiny percentage on all casino games and especially blackjack and roulette. Knowing basic strategy will not get you an edge at blackjack but it would almost certainly almost eliminate the house edge…….almost!

With sign up bonuses and loyalty bonuses that online casinos offer then you could find yourself almost breaking even or even better. Theory must be approached with caution because knowledge as they say is power but knowledge in the wrong hands or misinterpreted in the wrong way and used wrongly can be very damaging.

Give a reckless maniac the knowledge of how to drive a car and he could kill himself and others so knowledge isn’t always good. The bottom line is though that theory is important but it simply isn’t the be all and end all and success cannot be automatic as a result of knowing something…….it depends on what that something actually is.