Even though the primary function of casinos is to entertain people and give them a place to enjoy their leisure time, a casino loses money when a customer wins excessively.
Excessive winnings occur very rarely. In fact, a gambler is much more likely to experience bankruptcy than winning a large sum of money. The issue isn't necessarily how large the prize is, but rather how often it occurs.
Once a casino realizes that there are winners that are more frequent than losers, then they begin to "sweat the money." Most of the casino patrons aren't aware of the term, but it is easy to explain.
Sweating money refers to finding a way for the house to profit. A casino is always searching for a means to generate income. The underlying principle behind a casino has existed since the beginning of casinos.
There are several types of games where the profit margin for the house is extremely small. Baccarat, Blackjack and French roulette are among those. The profit margin for the house in these games is approximately 2 percent. Depending upon how lucky you are, and based on the number of clients playing these games, the profit margin may vary slightly.
Regardless of whether it increases or decreases, it remains relatively low.
The main reason why casinos continue to operate these games is due to competition. Since the amount of profit generated by each player is limited, then casinos must find a way to keep their clients interested in playing at their establishment and encouraged to invest larger amounts of money into the games.
They accomplish this through offering different denominations of chips. They encourage their patrons to begin investing $5 chips and eventually graduate to $75 or $100 chip investments. Although luck can sometimes prove beneficial for a patron, it generally doesn't result in significant winnings except in poker.
As casino establishments celebrate their patrons' successes, they appear displeased whenever a patron experiences a long string of consecutive wins. At that point, they start to sweat the money.
Sweating money entails observing any inconsistencies and taking corrective measures to prevent excessive payouts to patrons. The casino initially seeks assistance from the floor staff or security personnel to determine if anything unusual has occurred.
From a cracked nut that has caused a malfunction in a machine, to a miscalculation made on a table, these issues can lead to a patron retaining his winnings if they contribute to a reduction in capital at the casino.
Prior to determining whether an act constitutes cheating, it's essential to define exactly what constitutes cheating. Casinos begin to scrutinize patrons that suddenly amass large sums of money without explanation, or an unexplained occurrence of slot machines producing unusually high jackpots.
While such extraordinary occurrences don't happen daily, they certainly don't happen frequently. Therefore, the casino views this phenomenon as an abnormality that needs to be addressed in order to reduce future losses. As such, they're not only concerned with identifying bad players, faulty equipment, cheating dealers and/or card handling, but also incompetent employees responsible for distributing cards.
If the management determines that all factors are normal (i.e., a good run), then the patron will receive his share without hindrance. Conversely, if there is credible evidence that dishonesty has occurred, then it's time to pursue legal action.
At worst case scenarios, and as an alternative to pursuing costly litigation, casino management prefers that the excessive profits resulting from a particular machine or table be attributed to some sort of technical deficiency. Examples include roulette wheels with defects causing certain numbers to be favored; deck distributors revealing cards during negotiations; patrons defeating the casino; cheaters or dealers and/or patrons colluding to defeat the house.
In both instances, of course, the facts cannot be dismissed and while the employee receives his termination notice and/or severance package; the patron is permanently banned from said casino, and potentially from other lists containing undesirable players.
However, when casinos are able to capitalize on employee carelessness by providing a favorable environment for them to learn improved techniques for dealing cards and/or shuffling cards; then casinos typically assist their employees in improving their skills and supervise them thoroughly prior to reinstating them into the floor staff. This is a more efficient and cost-effective approach.
Employee errors, particularly those derived from mechanical failures in equipment are truly detrimental to casinos. While mechanical failures obviously impact profitability; popularly used equipment utilized for entertainment purposes cannot afford to be removed or marked as inoperable.
Consequently, most casinos opt for implementing technical remedies prior to removing or marking their equipment as defective. Once repaired; a machine is returned to operation and the cause(s) for continued failure are evaluated.
The practice of sweating money was not initiated arbitrarily. Historical data exists supporting why casinos employ this tactic and how it favors casinos relative to individual patrons.
Perhaps the most notable example of money bleeding occurred at the Golden Nugget casino located in Atlanta georgia usa. During a span of 14 days (approximately two weeks), golden nugget experienced losses exceeding $1.5 million dollars versus fourteen patrons participating in mini-baccarat.
The reason: decks provided by manufacturers had identical configurations. The incident resulted in litigation favoring golden nugget casino. Employees enhanced their security practices relating to monitoring card distributions; and this anomaly ceased occurring.
Irregularities with respect to gaming have consistently been viewed as a threat by casinos across various jurisdictions. Cheating has not affected all types of players equally; however.
Unlike other casino games such as Blackjack, baccarat and craps; the potential for casinos to incur losses is virtually non-existent with regards to poker tables. Poker involves real competitors competing against One another and thus eliminating inequalities and inequalities of opportunity between participants.
Thusly, while there may be occasional exceptions; there are very few opportunities for casinos to incur losses when hosting poker tables. With regards to other casino games where all winnings are derived from casino resources; excessive hemorrhaging results in slower cash flows into casino coffers.
A group called tran organization reportedly earned more than seven million dollars between 2002-2006 at multiple casinos due primarily to collaboration between croupiers and patrons utilizing invisible ink marking cards; rapid card shuffles; and record tampering. This is One of the most disturbing examples illustrating how imperative it is for casinos to implement sweat-money tactics.
Some casinos exhibit extreme intolerance with regard to profit margins allowed for losses incurred by casinos. In fact, some casinos are capable of firing all croupiers involved in facilitating patron cheating or banning entire tables of patrons regardless of how loyal or consistent they are found to be once discovery is made.
Conversely; this extreme stance toward sweat-money may prove counter-productive from patron perspectives. The more intense a casino becomes with implementing sweat-money policies; the more barriers will exist preventing patrons from experiencing pure luck resulting in major winnings.
Many casinos recognize that patrons achieving major winnings derive largely from either luck or probability-related outcomes. For this reason; most casinos exercise restraint when enforcing their rules governing payout processes, instead allowing patrons to collect winnings after establishing fair procedures for verifying legitimate claims.
The strategies employed by casinos achieve nearly 90 percent success rates; thereby enabling casinos recover substantial portions of payouts awarded previously by recouping patron interest in continuing their participation in gaming activities.
Eventually; patron streaks cease contributing positively toward patron wagers; and at that point; the house gains leverage related to patron wagering patterns.
Patrons employing techniques designed specifically to exploit house vulnerabilities are referred to as "advantaged players." Identifying advantageous players presents an obvious challenge faced by casinos.
Advantaged players typically utilize large-stakes games offered by casinos; therefore it is not difficult for casinos to identify advantageous players. Many times advantageous players remain undetected within the casino community until they present problems with specific games or behaviors exhibited during gaming activity.
Casinos employ a variety of techniques designed specifically for eliminating advantageous players from gaming operations. Among these strategies is referred to as "patterned betting," whereby casinos attempt forcing patrons exhibiting advantageous behavior to increase their betting limits when the house exhibits superior probabilities.
Blackjack provides perhaps One of the most recognizable opportunities for advantageous players developing winning strategies against casinos. Strategies commonly employed by advantageous players include card-counting; tracking shuffling sequences; and analyzing card hole patterns. Whenever casinos identify advantageous players employing these strategies; they have the authority to exclude them from participating in Blackjack.
Ben Affleck serves as One example demonstrating how advantageous players may be identified by casinos. When Ben Affleck's use of card-counting techniques became evident at the Hard Rock casino in Las Vegas; he was immediately prohibited from playing Blackjack at said location.
Affleck was not terminated nor barred due to excessive winnings or losses; but rather because affleck possessed exceptional Blackjack skills and feared other players could be exploited via his card-counting strategy.
In cases where the ultimatum was not met by the players, the casino went to extreme measures to exclude the players from their gaming rooms. It is said that during the years 1980-1990 many casinos worldwide lost a significant portion of money playing Blackjack, such that they "bled out" their funds by prohibiting those individuals from returning to their establishments again.
At first glance, it appears to be contradictory, but the more a player counts cards, the more relentless the casino will be in excluding them from their establishment. So severe are the punishments of the unwanted visitors who attempt to return; legal ramifications could result in the arrest of that individual. However, not every country has the same laws regarding exclusions. One case of this took place in New Jersey in the Eastern part of the United States. When the International Resort excluded a player named Uston from entering their gaming area, the court found that there were no grounds to support the claim that the player cheated. The Court ruled in favor of the player and stated that no gaming establishment can remove one of its patrons based solely on their success. Although the decision did leave a sour taste in the mouths of the casino officials, they were forced to accept the Court’s decision and pay the player the monies they had earned from their patronage.
More often than not, experienced players recognize when a casino is attempting to "bleed" the money from their own bankroll. For this reason, they have developed strategies to avoid becoming the victim of harsh treatment by management. These methods generally consist of monitoring those responsible for overseeing the gaming room. If a player becomes aware that a head table supervisor is giving them excessive attention, they will either miss a round or two and then move to a separate table to test their luck with something entirely unrelated. A casino’s best method for avoiding a successful streak is to keep a player under radar for as long as possible. Some players travel back-and-forth between locations, while other players play the slots (which are always approved) to draw attention away from themselves.
Regardless of whether or not casinos implement these tactics in paranoia; typically the "bleeding" of money at the hands of casinos affects mostly professional gamblers. The last thing a gaming establishment would want to do is create conflict with a customer who generates revenue for them. Therefore, it should never be assumed that a casino will turn a blind eye toward minor infractions. Any infraction, whether minor or major, will result in repercussions and/or further investigation. Gaming Establishments are places to gamble, socialize, drink and enjoy oneself. At their core however, they are businesses and will not tolerate any form of loss of capital.
Casinos provide games in order to maximize profit. Additionally, by providing a wide array of games within their gaming halls, casinos hope to continue attracting new customers and maintaining a diverse assortment of games available for patrons.
Casinos tend to be uncomfortable when patrons earn large sums of money, especially when earnings exceed $10,000 or reach million-dollar levels. Large-scale wins are extremely rare; players are far more likely to file for bankruptcy than achieve massive winnings. As such, casinos may initiate "sweating-the-money" procedures once they observe players winning consistently and risking potential financial loss.
"Sweating-the-money" represents the actions taken by a casino to limit financial loss through identifying and correcting any anomalies/irregularities that may enable patrons to win frequently. This involves examining game results/player behavior/game mechanisms to identify any unfair advantage(s).
To compete with each other, casinos maintain games with marginal profit margins (approximately 2%), including baccarat, blackjack and French roulette. By offering small bets and gradually raising bet limits, casinos encourage incremental betting and increase the likelihood of retaining smaller profit margins.
Upon suspicion of cheating/abnormality in-game operations, casino management conducts investigations. Once irregularities are substantiated, any unjustly awarded payouts are withheld by the casino and legal proceedings may be initiated against those identified as having engaged in fraudulent activity (including employees). This process is designed to protect the integrity of casino operations.
When malfunctions occur within casino games, management prefers internal remedies over pursuing legal avenues. Internal remedies may include replacing defective equipment or modifying game mechanics to prevent similar malfunctions from occurring again. Internal remedies are more economically viable options compared to acquiring new equipment.
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