Dear Mark: I was looking at your website and figured
you were a good person to ask. I have noticed that
when people are wining a lot, casinos switch dealers
on them. Why do they do it, and why in the heck do
pit bosses walk around with clipboards marking stuff?
Rossco C.
Telling
you that dozens of dealers go on a break every 20
minutes for an hour's work to commiserate over rude
and obnoxious players while wolfing down the cafeteria
chow probably won't satisfy you, but it is one answer.
The answer you are probably looking for is that the
dealer change is often erroneously credited by superstitious
pit bosses (and players alike) with ending a player-favorable
streak of cards, but it's actually the players' seeing
more hands per hour that modifies their luck.
Pit
bosses like to push in a dealer whose pitch and
pay-and-take is Speedy-Gonzales-fast, a seasoned
dealer who can handle high-limit action, and deal
more hands per hour. Their reasoning is that the
more blackjack hands that expose you to the house's
built-in odds edge, the faster Speedy G. will obliterate
your bankroll. I do want to mention here, though,
that switching for this reason is done far less
often than you think.
What's on the clipboard? Nice you should ask: Notes
monitoring chips flowing in and out on the games
in the pit, dropped $100 bills, fill slips, notes
of patron play, even comments that you would freely
give while gabbing with a pit boss. If you happen
to mention that you've got a dog named Chip, the
pooch could well appear in a database upstairs.
Give up your wedding anniversary date, and you might
even see two coupons for a trip to Hoss's All-you-can-eat
buffet in the mail two weeks ahead of time. Uncanny
skill I had when I played pit bull; making you talk
and talk and talk, and once I sucked Chip's name
out of you, I could get anything else.
At shift's end, the bulls take their final strolls
with clipboard in hand, count down the trays and
get relatively accurate tallies as to that shift's
wins or losses. Yes, Rossco, casinos do lose in
an eight-hour shift, and more often than you think.
Oh, and as the pit boss hands off the clipboard
to the incoming shift's pit boss, he or she will
share verbal notes as well, like, "Watch Rossco
on T-7. He's in only $200 and beating the crap out
of us."
.
.
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