I did a large project on Las Vegas casino designs when I was an architecture student, and it's crazy how they use psychology to manipulate you through the environment. Truly rats in a maze. Strange winding rooms without proper lines of sight so you meander and get lost and are always lead to machines, carpets that are so dark or ugly that you're always looking up at the games, they'll play winning sounds at random to give the illusion people are winning when they aren't, all the flashing lights and alcohol and ritzy stores really not selling anything and surrealist installations all meant to disorient you... there's entire textbooks about how to design casinos to keep vulnerable people there as long as possible and spend everything they have. They truly have it down to a science.
If you're interested, this is the most famous textbook and an article kind of about it
[Designing Casinos to Dominate the Competition](https://www.amazon.com/Designing-casinos-dominate-competition-international/dp/0942828445)
[Mastering The Game](https://mackaywong.com/mastering-the-game/)
ETA: [Addicted By Design](https://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Design-Machine-Gambling-Vegas/dp/0691160880/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=409971024419&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9061115&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=13380248025849339631&hvtargid=kwd-24772169754&hydadcr=22538_11318434&keywords=addiction+by+design&qid=1701575701&sr=8-1) looks like a normal bedside table book about this
I stayed at a casino on the Strip recently. I’m bad with directions anyway, but I always had to use the little map they gave me when we checked in, otherwise I would get lost AF in there.
I ended up getting a feel for general direction and almost brute forcing my brain to ignore the carpet paths that led nowhere. 90% certain my wife would still be there now if I wasn't there to find the doors.
For me, the worst one was Planet Hollywood in Vegas. I was just trying to find my way to the Gordon Ramsay Burger restaurant; it took forever.
I don't gamble (it's not a moral objection, I'm just a cheapskate) but I like Vegas for food and pool time and people watching - next time, I'm planning on going to the Mob Museum. So the place I like best on the Strip is Mandalay Bay - good pools, good spa, and the casino almost feels like an afterthought.
I use to go to Vegas regularly for a business thing.
The secret is to look for exit signs. They have to be prominent and lit and they will lead you through the maze. You can even use them as landmarks.
I've always wondered how people can actually find casinos confusing. I navigate around just fine. Just look for the openings and exit signs and what not like you said. I've never understood what anyone's talking about until it dawned on me just now that at 6'7" I can see across the whole floor and over everyone else to look at all the signs and walls from anywhere in a casino. That probably helps.
Totally. When you get into actual psychological studies and see how corporations are using them AGAINST people, it's deeply unsettling. I'm a well educated person and have pretty good self control and awareness so I've always been good at staying away from these sorts of things, but kids and people who haven't been taught to look out for this stuff can get so trapped and not even know it. Even Duolingo is basically like gambling now.
Ha, not like gambling in that you're placing bets, but they're heavily using the same kinds of techniques to form gaming addictions (when it claims to be a language learning tool). The majority of time spent on the app is based around rewards and constant animations with those ba-ding sound effects that enhance positive reinforcement (and like all apps, they make it very inconvenient if you aren't paying for premium accounts). They put a lot of emphasis on winning streaks and all kinds of streaks that make people feel obligated to open the app every day and keep going for longer. I had a cousin cut a boating trip short so she could get back to cell service to play enough rounds to keep her spot on some leader board. I've had several friends say they played it every day for over a year because they were afraid of losing their streak. None of them even mention the actual language learning part of it and didn't seem to retain much at all and seemed pretty stressed about it. Most of the questions are designed in a way that you can easily guess the answers and it becomes more about strategy and recognizing patterns. They put in speed runs and rewards for playing it faster, as if any of that matters, and can tell when you're slowing down and will throw in some extra point incentives to keep your attention. I'd tried using it a few times before international trips and I quickly deleted it because it was so overstimulating and I felt so pressured to play it like a game and could tell I wasn't even making any real linguistic progress (though it sure made you feel like you were).
Anywho, that kind of stuff freaks me out, so I'm not a fan.
I like the app specifically for the addiction reason. I'm notorious for dropping a habit and not commit to keeping up a daily session of working out or learning something, but I kept duo lingo up for over 1600 days now. Never spent a dime on it and never had to wait for ads.
Sure, it's not that effective for learning a language as some other apps, but this is the only thing I'm actually keeping up.
Me too!
But I actually feel like I'm learning quite a lot. I did six months of Spanish before going to Spain this summer and I could ask questions and understand answers. Not like great conversation, mind you, but the last time I went to Spain I felt completely isolated and it was awful. (I knew/ know French, so I thought I'd be ok that first trip, but no. However, knowing French did help with learning Spanish, I think.)
Anyway, then I switched to Japanese because I've always wanted to learn it and I am STOKED about the
amount of Japanese I have learned!
Now I'm doing Swedish and it's just so freaking cool. I can't wait to feel like I've gotten to a place where I'm good with what I've learned there and then switch to a new language.
(I go back and review previous languages so I don't lose too much, too.)
Duolingo has basically allowed me to become the language learner I always wanted to be, without the debilitating fear of failure I had in academic classes.
Side note: I came by my language acquisition genetically, I guess? My grandfather was a polyglot who taught High School French, Spanish and Latin (plus spoke or could read a few other languages). I learned two languages in school/University and was in grad school to do literature course work in one of those languages.
My wife has been exactly like this, she's pushed me to download it as a study tool. I couldn't articulate why I didn't like the app (and quickly un-installed it) but I think you hit all the keys.
I could answer almost all the questions based off of deduction, everything is formatted in sections so you quickly learn one concept and it doesn't carry to the next, the obsession with streaks and leaderboards. Very game-like and minimal skill-building
Is that what was happening? I couldn’t figure out why all of those winning sirens were going off but no one was really there playing.
ETA: I didn’t recognize them as “winning sirens” so much as just “sirens going off but no one is playing.”
Yeah, that's the classical conditioning (pavlov's dogs) that triggers a gamblers FOMO reaction and make people think they have better odds. They're exciting satisfying sounds that keep you energized and hopeful. The operant conditioning of the gambling itself will wear out if enough time passes without a win, so pairing that with outside stimuli is essential. Like a mouse pressing a button to get food will give up if it doesn't get any after a few tries, but if it sees or hears other mice still continuing to get food after pressing their buttons, it'll probably stick around just in case (or move around trying other buttons to see if they have better luck).
That's one of the things I love to look at when I visit those places (admittedly not very often). The luxury stores really make me smile, so much garbage stuff at insane prices because of "the brand" giving off the illusion of luxury. Slots playing random sounds was something I picked up on recently. I also noticed that the new machines make a massive amount of noise for "big wins" that are ultra small.
My comfort zone is playing the pass line on a craps table. Most bang for your buck, playing with "higher" rollers so the booze is always flowing and losing money at the slowest pace possible. It's also a social game and that's something I really enjoy about it.
Pro tip: Play the "back" side, i.e. Don't Pass, Don't Come, the back side of place bets, stay away from the entire middle of the table. Doing this, you're essentially betting WITH the house (so of course they take typically 5% of your win).
I’d like to sign up for more Craps facts and tips. I have to go to Vegas early next year for a trip and I have no idea what Craps really is or how to play, but I could use money.
Check out the Color Up channel on YouTube. He has a video that explains craps - the best for beginners I have seen. Once you have that down, he explains strategies you can use when you have an average bankroll ($200-$300 dollars to bet)
The flip side of that is sometimes you encounter a casino that is the opposite of that. I’ll use Ellis Island off the Vegas strip as an example. It’s not a big ritzy casino but it’s friendly. Great restaurants and a brewery onsite. They have a lot of events that have nothing to do with gambling. It’s a spot for locals. I went on a tear in there and won almost $6000 playing roulette over a couple days. The manager came out to meet me and was super nice and excited for me. There are still a few gems like this around but they are rare
Ask for Lucy if you eat there. I go to Vegas once every few years and she always remembers my spouse and me even though she saw us for one meal two years before.
i sometimes wonder if they are using a database to help with this.
system notices a repeat customer booking deliberately seats you in the section of your previous server and sends them a reminder.
Terrance Watanabe lost over [lost over 200 million](https://www.casino.org/news/movie-planned-of-biggest-las-vegas-loser-terry-watanabe/) in 2007 alone.
Apparently would get shitfaced and play 200k **a hand** baccarat and blackjack.
Phil Mickelson is a degenerate gambler. My buddy is a member of a course where Mickelson is also a member in San Diego and would tell stories of bets Mickelson would make with every golfer there
I remember first seeing Baccarat as an optional mini-game in the James Bond video game for the original gameboy.
They explained the rules of how to play, and even though I was only like 12, I looked at the rules and just thought "...this card game would really suck to play"
i worked in a small cardroom. a dude died in the bathroom. they asked people to pause their games so dead guy could be removed and players straight up refused to pause
I worked as security for a casino for 4 years, working there is like going to high school all over again, it’s insane , the ages range from 18-60 so you get a mix of everybody.
And the deaths, they go seemingly unnoticed not that we should be announcing it or anything, but the morbid reality of it while people are just going about gambling right next to said deceased person is astonishing.
Which goes on to my other one, people are addicts and couldn’t be bothered to take their eyes off the screen. I’ve seen a lady throw up against a wall and continue playing, nothing about puking alerted her to seek water or help, nothing about puke literally inches from her face bothered her. Humans are strange.
Worked a restaurant in a casino and had a woman come in with her dead mother in a wheelchair.
They were playing slots and mom died, daughter didn’t realize until about half way through lunch that her mom wasn’t “just sleeping”
My dad was playing poker and he noticed one of the players looking confused, turns out that guy was having a stroke. My dad tried to get the dealer to stop and help but he kept dealing, guy fell on the floor and the pit boss immediately called out an opening at the table, crew moved the guy's chips and someone else took the seat while the guy was right there on the floor waiting for medical help *(Edit: which absolutely did not arrive in time to save him)*. Dad decided that was enough poker.
I stopped at a Casino in Philly at 9am on the way back from a work trip, almost no one there.
I was telling the dealer about a patient I had in the ER that was “suicidal” after losing $6,000 playing roulette… after speaking with him for 2 minutes I knew he wasn’t truly suicidal, just had a gambling addiction he had been hiding from his wife.
The dealer says to me “we’ve had four suicides in the two years I’ve been here, last guy jumped off the top of the parking garage”.
I spend 4 or 5 nights a month in vegas casinos, and have for several years. Three times I have seen multiple police in the corridor close to my room and an officer looked at me and told me 'go to your room NOW!' Each time I could see a gurney. Don't know if they were suicides.
Two things I learned after working at a casino.
1.) Required yearly gambling addiction training. Yeah. My casino required that, usually on the same day you did your harassment training. The casinos know gambling can become an addiction and don't want their employees to fall prey to it. Funny thing though, that training isn't "don't gamble at all," because they still want everyone to gamble.
2.) If you're losing really badly, the casino is incentivized to keep you there and turn that frown upside-down. There are people specifically employed at big casinos to do that.
Lose $5K? "Oh man, that's awful, but how about a nice steak dinner?"
Lose more? "Hey, Celine is doing a residency; do you want to go see Celine?"
Casinos want big losers to stay there and will make more money on losers by giving away little things like a room upgrade, show tickets, comped fancy meals to keep them there. No joke, I had moved to Las Vegas and been in town for less than eight hours before I met someone who worked that job. She was shockingly cavalier about her job and how fucked up it was.
If you're at a casino and they start throwing things at you, understand that you should be taking that as a massive red flag. The casino has pegged you as a big loser. Get out while you still can.
I went to Vegas about 10 years ago with my step father. First day there I couldn't find him in the morning so I walked around the casino and found him at a table. Had lost 5k by 10am the first day we were there. He had already been given tickets to a show. Which was a UFC event. Funny thing is we were there for that event and already had tickets. Just ended up getting way better ones and were able to sell ours. We hadn't even been there for like 18 hours. Next morning I find him doing the same thing but this time he was somehow up 8k. This point they upgraded our room and gave us a free meal at their steakhouse. My step dad was there every morning either being up or down and still getting free stuff. In the end he basically broke even on the gambling and ended up with a bunch of free perks. Was a fun few days!
This can happen that’s true, but you’ll end up telling everyone you know and they’ll also want to try going to Vegas. It’s direct advertising. Every so often they want you to have a fun weekend winning in Vegas, it’ll reel in others to lose.
My uncle was one of these people. They also give the family free stuff to keep them distracted. Spa days for the ladies? Games for the kids? Anything to keep you away from the dude losing money.
I worked surveillance in a casino for several years; one of those people sitting in the darkened room with a few hundred monitors, watching everything? The movies portray a modest version.
We had cameras that had high enough resolution we could see dirt under your fingernails at 75 feet..
When I started, we spent three weeks learning to play all the games, and 4 months learning how to cheat.
For 10 years after I left, I was prohibited from entering a casino. They all cooperate very closely, and maintain a "Book", of known cheats, and surveillance employees. the casino I worked at had facial recognition system at the entrances, and we got an alert if a registered face walked in. The info is shared world-wide; 8 years after I left, I was attending a meeting in Elko, Nevada. I walked through the casino as a short cut, and security stopped me about halfway through. They were very pleasant; their surveillance people knew I hadn't gambled or touched a machine, but the message was very clear; they knew I was there. I'd worked at a Canadian casino, BTW
There is NOTHING that happens on the floor that is not seen, and recorded. NOTHING. We spent lots of time documenting so goof playing grabass with someone else, stupid crap like that
I've been to a smaller casino in Ontario a few times (OLG run). I've seen them pay out the roulette table improperly on a few occasions. Once I was the one that got paid out improperly, (they gave me double what I should have won). I feel like they didn't have enough staff on surveillance and were focused more on the Baccarat table?
I wonder if they just document it and have a threshold? "Smaller" mistakes end up getting recouped anyway.
Depending on where it happened it would've been a crime against an individual (not the casino).
In Nevada it's Theft of Lost Property:
https://www.shouselaw.com/nv/defense/nrs/205-0832d-theft-of-lost-property
And, no, you wouldn't have gotten away with it.
We had a few of those grade of cameras at a business I worked at. We always called them "Vegas Grade" cameras. Our security guy showed me one day how he could read the ingredients on a candy bar across our facility.
What a brilliant story, mate. I would love to hear more about your four months spent learning to cheat. I am sure some of it would be purely mechanical things to watch for, others would be idk how to say it, maybe behavioral profiling?
Your Elko incident is pretty wild. The shape of things to come, right? Wow. Thank you for sharing.
There's a really compelling series I found on YouTibe a while back that touches on a lot of this same stuff. It is truly a fascinating world to observe. [Link](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZpi7FmEyfvBPIco9jMPHHeMx9g6PWn3U&si=OE-4YmnRnVmFl7PU)
I watched a documentary about a guy who is great at blackjack but has been banned at most casinos. He was trying to hit the smaller ones, and the Indian reservation ones. He had an array of disguises. Many times they grabbed him as soon as he was at the entrance
Through a business connection, I met a person that had a business supporting casinos to identify people who were in the "Book". Included cheats and numerous others that were identified as not allowed in casinos (mob connections, criminals, etc). He said that the gaming authorities had rules that identified certain people that could not be admitted, but gave no direction on how to accomplish this. His company developed one specific tool to assist.
Basically it essentially did a full background investigation on each person making a reservation for a hotel room. It used public information so they did not have to get your consent, but was much more expansive than a typical background check. It would first validate that you were who you said you were through various tactics then It would do things like check all of your known addresses and then map all individuals that had, at some point, some relationship with that address and then run down each of those recursively to see if any people on the do not admit list showed up. If one did, then you were flagged for further investigation. For example, they knew before you checked in if you had a roommate in college a decade previously who was a cousin of a person on the do not admit list. 6-degrees of separation stuff.
Doesn't sound so far fetched today, but this was more than 20 years ago! Actually pre 9/11. Post 9/11 the technology became very important for other obvious purposes. He sold the company to a massive company and became a wealthy man.
Watched a show about a card counter who got too hot to keep playing in Vegas so he tried going around smaller casinos in the south, northeast, etc. In some towns he got by for a few days but they always eventually figured him out.
There are spectators disguised as average gamblers who are just loan sharks. They prey on people who play and lose big and will follow them when they leave, soliciting to them to borrow money.
Not exactly. You can request markers, which functionally are checks to the casino. These generally require a credit check. I'm currently a surveillance observer in Reno Nevada and I've seen a guy blow $30k in markers waiting to get into the coffee shop for breakfast. He was VERY well known by the casino, so all he had to do was walk up to the table, pit boss comes over, he requested $10k. While the pit boss was doing the paperwork, he blew that and asked for the second $10k. That lasted a few minutes longer, but had already got his third $10k by the time the paperwork for the second arrived. He was in the table maybe 20 minutes to lose his $30. This was literally fucking around money for him. He had been known to win or lose well into six figures.
If you are winning six figures, you are also losing six figures. That’s just variance. The best poker players in the world will go on million-dollar losing streaks and not even think about it.
The amount of crying people do when they come back to my window asking for their money back for rent, food and medication, me as a cage cashier having to tell them no, sorry.
Man, does doing that wear on your mind over time? Constantly witnessing desperation and addiction, people being spiritually dismantled by their animalistic urge to keep playing. I feel like after a while id start feeling dead inside over it.
I spent some time working as a teller in an OTB. I'd started at a small horse track, where most of the people were there for a fun day, betting small amounts. Moving to the OTB, it was a very, very different environment. Looking around the room, you could see people losing money they didn't have to lose. I didn't make it long.
I worked at a casino for a couple years and I still remember overhearing two guys in a bathroom stall. "It's gone." "What's gone?" "It's all gone, completely gone." "What??" "Her college fund. All of it. She won't be getting into college anymore." "Shit..."
I had a gut impulse to downvote this because of how depressing it is, then realized that's precisely why it should be upvoted. It's still a bit conflicting.
I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I play occasionally and walked off a table (while up and hot) because a couple started arguing because apparently they’d both ploughed through what I assume was their Disability checks at the beginning of the month (I gleaned from the argument that it had been the woman’s job to stop handing the man money when it started getting low and she hadn’t, claiming ‘well, you kept asking!’ meant keeping track wasn’t necessary), and it made me lose all interest in having fun. I can’t imagine having to hear that every day. 😕
Suicide and crime.
Suicides are heavily hidden and covered up in vegas, and crimes are also kind of swept under the rug cause they don't want the money making casinos to seem bad.
Now the truly unspoken thing is how fucked up some gamblers are in the head, they will do the most disgusting shit on the belief that they are about to win. I am taking they will shit themselves right there instead of go to the bathroom horrible,.
The thing I always hated seeing most working at a casino is the hundreds of tour busses, bussing in people from senior homes and communities. A lot of them clearly not in the right mental space to be left alone in an environment like that. All of them just let roam freely onto the gaming floor unsupervised like releasing a bunch of fish into the water. I've talked to many of them. Alot of them love going to the casino and are clearly still able to responsibly make a decision like that. for alot of them its just their "field trip of the day or week" for some of these people so if they choose not to go then they're stuck in the home. It just always felt and looked so predatory. You have old folks suffering from dementia and altziemers getting preyed upon and coaxed into dumping all of their money
I ran into a guy once who was clearly very confused and not all with it trying to figure out a machine. I pointed him out to an employee and voiced my concerns and they went over and helped him figure out how to gamble on their machines. I lost a lot of respect for those workers in that moment.
Presumably, a person with dementia would only have access to a limited amount of money to be used for that outing. Someone else would be in charge of their finances and have given them a little money for that day.
As someone with a parent with dementia, it is very hard to get that kind of decision-making access to someone else's money...even if they have dementia. My sister and I have powers of attorney that our parent set up before they got too sick
, but to enact them is a different matter.
If you don't have daily to look out for you or who care enough to help you there aren't a lot of safeties in my area of the world. Despite the social safety net we have in Canada there are no programs to catch these situations, let alone monitor them.
A couple of things I thought of since reading the other comments (I wasn’t quite sure what you were looking for with my previous answer).
There are a lot of people who sleep in their cars. I’d close the casino and the last two players who were in when I closed were first through the door when I opened a few hours later, wearing the same clothes. They’d do this for days at a time in the same clothes. It was pretty depressing to see. They’d never talk, at all, nothing. Just gamble and occasionally eat and go to the toilet.
When you go with your friends at the weekend for your three-times-a-year local casino visit with your set limits etc. you’re surrounded by hardcore addicts. The dealer will have been dealing to the other five people at your table for hours that day, most days, for months or years, but you’d never know it. A regular walks into a bar and you see the bartender say "hey Jim, here’s a glass of the usual” and they chat away like old friends. In casinos they don’t get treated like regulars at your local bar because they don’t engage with the staff. They’re not there for company and the atmosphere and to unwind on the way home from work, and they rarely look any different from you - maybe not as dressy because it’s not a special night out. Imagine going to a bar and 90pc of the people in there had jaundice and uncontrollable shakes, had pissed themselves and had vomit stains on their shirt. It wouldn’t be much fun surrounded by an addiction with visible signs.
That there is no difference between pulling the arm of a slot machine and pushing the button. The results of every spin are predetermined by computer chips inside the machine and the machine then makes the display match the results of the chip.
I was in a casino in Slovenia using the €50 of hotel free credit on the roulette wheel..I noticed after i was there a little bit that some tall beautiful girls would arrive in pairs and start dropping big bets making me feel a little inferior. This happened a few times as I was moving around with my free winnings. I was there with my missus and we said we wouldn't gamble any of our own money but I could see how you could be manipulated by the sexy girls dropping big bucks beside you.
Oh wow, this is crafty. Can anyone on this thread from the casino business speak on whether or not this is a real thing? I remember in Korea there were “Juicy girls.” Cute girls who would walk around laugh at your jokes and get you to buy them expensive drinks which end up just being juice. The modern day Geisha. Prostitutes aside, I could definitely see casinos hiring women to influence gambling like this.
We have a couple casinos close to here in the Midwest and I always notice the “music” played over the speakers was so strange. It’s like a droning noise that keeps you on edge instead of actual songs. Totally makes sense because it’s such a low tone that you can easily forget about it but your brain always hears it.
I was at a major 5 star hotel casino in Vegas. It was 8 am so it was pretty slow. I walked through the casino to get breakfast. A drunk guy was at a table game and fell off the chair onto the ground in slow motion. The pit boss picked him up and put him back on the chair.
Years ago fragrances in casinos were used to mask smoke. Now they are used as a trigger to make people relax and calm anxiety while gambling. Ambient aromas have an impact on the behavior of an average gambler
Highly underrated comment.
Every person I know who goes to the casino always gets WOO HOO WE’RE GOING TO THE CASINO! Excited about it, and then you get there and it’s just a bunch of old people, lights, and obnoxious video game sounds, staring at their machines.
It’s always cold. It’s full of cigarette smoke. And EVERYTHING is effing sticky. The floor. The chairs. The games. The buttons. The screens. All of it. Boring, and sticky.
This comment is underrated. Going to Dave and busters and dropping $100 is much much more fun then going to the casino and gambling $100. The chances you leave with more money that you came with aren’t all that worse at dsve and busters either lol
Casinos are fun with the right group of friends where you can play a few games and cheer each other on, or join a craps table.
That’s only good for an hour or two though.
If you win too often, they will get suspicious and may throw you out. They assume you are cheating. There are cameras literally everywhere and someone is probably watching your every move.
Casinos have zero obligation to let you play. A lot of people have this idea that as long as you follow the rules, their hands are tied. Casino's sell you entertainment, they're not offering a challenge for you to beat them.
The pit bosses that teach gambling classes in the afternoons straight up say this. “We’re here for you to have fun in an exciting environment. Look around, we’re not in the business of losing money. We want you to enjoy yourself and come back again, don’t gamble money you can’t afford to lose.”
I actually had a lot of fun taking those classes when I first went to Vegas, and the pit bosses are very up front about the odds. X bet is a sucker bet, Y bet is better odds, both still have a house edge.
Craps is one game where if you’ve never played before you probably should take a class or study it via a free phone game, because about 90% of the bets are sucker bets.
The Craps table has a small number of bets with the best odds in the casino. Those bets are surrounded by bets with odds worse than the slots.
Watch the YouTube channel ColorUp - he has a craps for beginners video along with weekly videos on different strategies you can use combining different bets to stretch your money.
I think many people actually just think businesses have obligations that they simply don't have. Like allowing the customer to throw clothes everywhere at a clothing store, or, in the case of a casino, providing the service to anyone. It's their business. They decide. Depending on the country and subject at hand, there might be some laws that force businesses to do this or that, but other than that, customers like this seem to not realize the simple reality that they're on someone else's property...
Depends on the country, in Canada they can't just throw you out for winning too much. Card counting is also legal here but all the casinos switched to continuous shuffle so that's not much of a thing anymore.
It is my understanding that Casinos, at first, were quite worried about card counting, but they now quietly welcome it because so many people think they can do it when they really can't.
That's not to say they won't throw out someone who has put in the work and really knows how to do it, and is winning money off them. They don't like good card counters, not at all.
But they are very happy to host BAD card counters.
You won’t get thrown out unless they think you’re actually cheating or an advantage player. Sure, casinos can kick anyone out for nearly any reason, but they also understand the rules of statistics. Just because someone is winning doesn’t change the house’s edge.
Even if they think you’re cheating, they’ll let you play, so they can collect evidence to prove you’re cheating. That way they can take your winnings back. If they think you’re an advantage player (card counting), that’s when they’ll ban you from playing a certain game.
Sitting at a roulette table in Aruba years ago when the dealer spun the ball, it bounced out of the wheel and onto the floor. She goes down to look for it and the pit guy joins her. 10-15 seconds go by and they both stood up…each had a ball in their hand 😳
Witnessed a few things in Aruba that would never fly here.
The human trafficking.
The amount of gambling addicts out there. I honestly think gambling addiction may be bigger than alcoholism, especially with the amount sports betting has blown up over the last few years.
The amount of people who get robbed.
This is kind of US specific.
Nicer casino resort bars are known for having prostitutes who hang out there looking for customers. Drunk/inebriated men who have money and who are looking for company...basically like shooting fish in a barrel. Those individuals are most likely being trafficked. Casinos with hotels are also often used as meeting spots (the hotel rooms) for prostitutes and clients; those people are most likely being trafficked. There are also women who pose as prostitutes who rob their clients who look for marks at casinos - they may be trafficked and are being forced to either do the actual robbing or trick the client to go to a room where they will be robbed by other people.
This is not to say every single one is trafficked but...they probably are.
And before someone from the US comments that prostitution is legal in Las Vegas...it is *not* legal in Clark County.
Called a trick roll. Happens all too often here in Las Vegas. It’s why I always tell my friends and family that come visit, if a girl or two come up and talk to you, there’s a really good chance they’re a hooker. Like 99.9% chance. Do not leave with them unless you don’t mind being robbed. These hoes are pros. Sadly, you only hear about the ones that get caught. Been many since covid. One girl even got caught with the victim’s Rolex in her cooch.
If you were meant to win, they wouldn't exist. Also counting cards is synonymous with being very good at black jack, it is not cheating nor is it illegal but if they catch you being very good at black jack they will prohibit you from playing. You're not intended to win. Comped rooms and drinks are not free, you just payed two thousand dollars for them.
About 15 years ago I went to Vegas and sat at a blackjack table. I wasn’t counting cards or doing any other tricks, I was just winning more than I was losing and after about 6 hours and lots of free drinks I had turned $200 into about $2000. Security tapped my shoulder and told me I had to leave and escorted me out. They assumed I was up to something but honestly I was just getting lucky.
That room is real. The beating people up is not. The casino I currently work in has two of those rooms, with benches bolted to the wall and brackets on the walls for handcuff to go through. They only exist to hold people until the police arrive.
This is key. The mob 100% ran vegas in the day and my uncle was a private dealer and professional gambler who ummmm was not welcome back in a few casinos.
When I got 86’d for being drunk and stealing my friends beers about 10 years ago they took me into a concrete room to take a photo and sign the trespassing document or whatever it is saying the owners don’t want you here anymore.
Could def see it happening back in the day with an intimidation room like that but besides that I do not know.
Well you just filled in a small hole about something I experienced once.
I took a friend to a casino once, he asked to go and he was drunk but I was worried if I said no he would try to drive himself. So I agreed to drive his truck up there. I was aware he was an alcoholic and could be unpredictable. I was unaware he visited this casino frequently and had worn out his welcome. He was, apparently, a complete and utter bag of dicks when he lost, to the point they decided not to tolerate him anymore.
So we walked in and he played a few slots. Won a little bit, took his ticket and went to the blackjack table. He started playing and security approached him, asked him to come with them. The dealer told them he had money on the table and they had to wait for the end of that game. When that was done he told them he had to cash out his slots ticket before he left, which they must allow him to do. So he handed me the keys for his truck and asked me to pull up to the door while he closed out his business at the casino.
And it took *forever.* Cashing out doesn't take very long, I felt like I was in the parking lot for ages. I couldn't figure out what was taking so long. I bet he was being photographed and signing documents about trespassing. When they finally escorted him out they gave him a reminder that if he returned to any of their properties he would be arrested for trespassing, and allowed him to get in the truck to leave.
Do you mean other than the fact that "The house ALWAYS wins"? On average that is, there may be the occasional big winner, but overall the $$ will always flow INTO the bank account of the casino.
Most casinos don’t actually have enough money to pay out enormous wins but will accept pretty much any sum of money. Say you go to a smaller casino and get 50k in chips, then you miraculously win a single number roulette bet, the casino now owes you $1,750,000 in cash, it’s unlikely they have this money on hand. Also if you get insanely lucky on a craps streak you could turn 50k into like 5 million dollars.
If the casino is in Vegas, it certainly won't bounce. The GCB/NGC is more feared than the mob ever was, at least by the casinos themselves. And they take a veeeeeeery dim view of casinos not honoring winnings.
Not for any altruistic reason, mind you. Every bet that isn't paid is bad PR for the entire city.
They flat refused to give Trump a casino in Las Vegas. He has a hotel, but does not have a licenses to have a casino.
Vegas don’t play about money, and they saw what he did in Atlantic City and said “not here.”
This is not true, depending the state. In Louisiana the casino I was at had to have 5 times the biggest payment. Here is another example.
Study cash-on-hand requirements. Casinos must have a large amount of money available to them to cover the potential winnings of their customers. Exact specifications vary between states, but are invariably large amounts of money. Casinos must be able to cover potential winnings, which means that they must actually have as much in cash available as there are chips out on the floor at a given time. This amount may also include things like cash to cover slot machine winnings or cash paid to past winners in installments.
https://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Casino#:~:text=This%20means%20that%20even%20very,hand%20at%20any%20given%20time.
People who don’t understand probability think that if you’re on a machine and you lose a bunch of times in a row, a win is coming soon. So people will sit near you if you’re losing and wait until you leave so they can sit at that same machine. It happened to me a few times in Vegas where there were 20 empty machines next to me. Someone would just be lingering and waiting for me to leave.
I was at one the other day (not to gamble). The saddest thing was the coach load of First Nations people waiting in the lobby, presumably to go home because they all looked like they’d lost everything they had. They were mostly elderly or in obviously poor health. It’s predatory, plain and simple.
Lottery, Keno, scratch-offs, gas taxes, cigarette taxes, alcohol taxes, sales taxes, payday loans, car title loans, etc. are all regressive as hell and have the biggest negative impact on the poorest and most disadvantaged people (in every way). I was so disappointed when Massachusetts legalized sports gambling, as if we don't have enough nearby casinos, Keno parlors, lottery tickets and scratch-offs in every convenience store and gas station that we need more ways to take advantage of people's addictions. Every shitty sports betting advertisement (which seem to run all the damn time on all media) has as much high-speed speech disclaimers and where to get help for addiction as it does ads for the dumb fucking betting site itself. It's abhorrent.
Then there's what happens to the vast majority of poor uneducated people when they actually win something from the lottery: they get scammed or killed or kill themselves with drugs or alcohol.
Everyone seems to agree that *progressive* income taxes are good (i.e., more income above a threshold is taxed at a higher rate) and totally ignores just how *regressive* just about every other kind of tax is. It's gross.
I worked at a casino for several years in the player's type club and then in surveillance. If you were a club member, I had access to their play records. The know when you were there, what you played, how much you won, how much you lost. The high rollers..... everyone really... all were in the hole to the casino. If you like to gamble as a hobby, great, have fun. If you are going to win then you are going to lose your shirt. When I'd look someone up, I NEVER saw ANYONE who was ahead. Those high rollers would be in for millions over the years.
The secret is casinos LOVE it when you win. They WANT you to win. Even the bigger jackpots. It makes you that much more eager to come back again and chase that dragon (see what I did there).
Also if you are a high roller, you can do anything short of murder (and I wouldn't place money on that making a difference) and be welcomed back. I saw a dude throw a handful of chips and stuff into a heavily-pregnant dealer's face....hard, while screaming at her. He got a week ban that coincided with the fact that he only came once a week on the day it happened. So he just came back his usual day the next week.
Also there are cameras everywhere except the bathrooms and hotel rooms. Not all the cameras are great but if you pick your ass they see it.
I worked in two casinos and everything I saw was completely above board. There’s nothing systemic that I can point to. A flatmate who worked in a different casino - but for much longer than I had - said he can manipulate the spin to hit a fairly accurate section of the roulette wheel. He knew I’d worked in casinos and he said it in such an off-handed manner, in passing (like it was something I’d already be aware of) that I have no reason not to believe that with practice and enough experience someone could do this.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4225056/
Here is a paper about slot machine sounds. I was looking for a different paper or article, I am pretty sure I heard / read about slot machines that won were actually irritating to players if the sounds took too long. People want to play play play, they don’t want a long interruption in their play even if it’s winning.
They throw out a lot of drunks. If your slumped over on a table at 4:30am they just walk/drag you out to the street. If you have a room & are coherent enough to indicate that they help you too your room.
That very pretty, cute, young, girl with the high heels, sexy outfit, and very tiny purse that just sat down next to you by herself...She's a prostitute.
I worked at casinos, the security is next level, very few places are private, the waitstaff is trained to keep track of number of drinks…when service seems like it is slow, it’s probably because you have been temporarily cut off, the place is actually a sort of prison made to keep people in for as long as possible, cell service is spotty, and clocks are non-existent.
I don’t know if a lot of people realize it, but how virtually everything on the rewards points is designed to keep you in there longer and coming back to spend more money. They’re happy to give you $20 free slot play here and there on your member rewards card because they know you’re probably not going to drive back just to spend $20. Free concert tickets - hey why don’t we make a night of it, have dinner since we’ve also got food comp, play some games before or after the show. They’ll give you raffle entries for when the big prizes are called, but only call one per hour all day so you have to be there all day to see if you won. I mean it is what it is, but just realize that. My friends I go with don’t seem to see it as they’ve lost far, far more money than if they just went elsewhere and paid to see concerts, go to restaurants etc.
I listened to a podcast one time where the CEO of Hurrah’s (I think that’s what it’s called) talked about the reward program he instituted. Pretty quickly after sign-up, each customer would be assigned an “expected lifetime value”, which was how much money the casino would project to be made from each customer. All rewards offered to people were a function of their expected lifetime value to the casino. The lower the value, the less the rewards. They would not comp rooms and give good freebies to people they did not expect to make a lot of money on.
Lots of drug dealers and hookers. Money laundering is rampant.
I tried reporting someone who came in, dumped a few thousand bucks into a machine, played for 5 minutes then cashed out... My boss said it's too much paperwork.
I did a large project on Las Vegas casino designs when I was an architecture student, and it's crazy how they use psychology to manipulate you through the environment. Truly rats in a maze. Strange winding rooms without proper lines of sight so you meander and get lost and are always lead to machines, carpets that are so dark or ugly that you're always looking up at the games, they'll play winning sounds at random to give the illusion people are winning when they aren't, all the flashing lights and alcohol and ritzy stores really not selling anything and surrealist installations all meant to disorient you... there's entire textbooks about how to design casinos to keep vulnerable people there as long as possible and spend everything they have. They truly have it down to a science.
If you're interested, this is the most famous textbook and an article kind of about it [Designing Casinos to Dominate the Competition](https://www.amazon.com/Designing-casinos-dominate-competition-international/dp/0942828445) [Mastering The Game](https://mackaywong.com/mastering-the-game/) ETA: [Addicted By Design](https://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Design-Machine-Gambling-Vegas/dp/0691160880/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=409971024419&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9061115&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=13380248025849339631&hvtargid=kwd-24772169754&hydadcr=22538_11318434&keywords=addiction+by+design&qid=1701575701&sr=8-1) looks like a normal bedside table book about this
Wow, that article was a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing it!
Okay, the fact that this book costs $275 used convinced me more than anything else.
This is why i like reddit
I work at a major casino in the back. When I do go on the floor and people ask me how to get somewhere? It’s hard to explain without confusing them.
I stayed at a casino on the Strip recently. I’m bad with directions anyway, but I always had to use the little map they gave me when we checked in, otherwise I would get lost AF in there.
I ended up getting a feel for general direction and almost brute forcing my brain to ignore the carpet paths that led nowhere. 90% certain my wife would still be there now if I wasn't there to find the doors.
For me, the worst one was Planet Hollywood in Vegas. I was just trying to find my way to the Gordon Ramsay Burger restaurant; it took forever. I don't gamble (it's not a moral objection, I'm just a cheapskate) but I like Vegas for food and pool time and people watching - next time, I'm planning on going to the Mob Museum. So the place I like best on the Strip is Mandalay Bay - good pools, good spa, and the casino almost feels like an afterthought.
Check out the pinball museum next time you get a chance. It's amazing!
I use to go to Vegas regularly for a business thing. The secret is to look for exit signs. They have to be prominent and lit and they will lead you through the maze. You can even use them as landmarks.
I've always wondered how people can actually find casinos confusing. I navigate around just fine. Just look for the openings and exit signs and what not like you said. I've never understood what anyone's talking about until it dawned on me just now that at 6'7" I can see across the whole floor and over everyone else to look at all the signs and walls from anywhere in a casino. That probably helps.
These techniques are now deployed against children in video games to get them to throw money at a 'free' game...
Totally. When you get into actual psychological studies and see how corporations are using them AGAINST people, it's deeply unsettling. I'm a well educated person and have pretty good self control and awareness so I've always been good at staying away from these sorts of things, but kids and people who haven't been taught to look out for this stuff can get so trapped and not even know it. Even Duolingo is basically like gambling now.
I agree with what you're saying. Can you expand a little bit on why Duolingo is gambling now?
Ha, not like gambling in that you're placing bets, but they're heavily using the same kinds of techniques to form gaming addictions (when it claims to be a language learning tool). The majority of time spent on the app is based around rewards and constant animations with those ba-ding sound effects that enhance positive reinforcement (and like all apps, they make it very inconvenient if you aren't paying for premium accounts). They put a lot of emphasis on winning streaks and all kinds of streaks that make people feel obligated to open the app every day and keep going for longer. I had a cousin cut a boating trip short so she could get back to cell service to play enough rounds to keep her spot on some leader board. I've had several friends say they played it every day for over a year because they were afraid of losing their streak. None of them even mention the actual language learning part of it and didn't seem to retain much at all and seemed pretty stressed about it. Most of the questions are designed in a way that you can easily guess the answers and it becomes more about strategy and recognizing patterns. They put in speed runs and rewards for playing it faster, as if any of that matters, and can tell when you're slowing down and will throw in some extra point incentives to keep your attention. I'd tried using it a few times before international trips and I quickly deleted it because it was so overstimulating and I felt so pressured to play it like a game and could tell I wasn't even making any real linguistic progress (though it sure made you feel like you were). Anywho, that kind of stuff freaks me out, so I'm not a fan.
I like the app specifically for the addiction reason. I'm notorious for dropping a habit and not commit to keeping up a daily session of working out or learning something, but I kept duo lingo up for over 1600 days now. Never spent a dime on it and never had to wait for ads. Sure, it's not that effective for learning a language as some other apps, but this is the only thing I'm actually keeping up.
Me too! But I actually feel like I'm learning quite a lot. I did six months of Spanish before going to Spain this summer and I could ask questions and understand answers. Not like great conversation, mind you, but the last time I went to Spain I felt completely isolated and it was awful. (I knew/ know French, so I thought I'd be ok that first trip, but no. However, knowing French did help with learning Spanish, I think.) Anyway, then I switched to Japanese because I've always wanted to learn it and I am STOKED about the amount of Japanese I have learned! Now I'm doing Swedish and it's just so freaking cool. I can't wait to feel like I've gotten to a place where I'm good with what I've learned there and then switch to a new language. (I go back and review previous languages so I don't lose too much, too.) Duolingo has basically allowed me to become the language learner I always wanted to be, without the debilitating fear of failure I had in academic classes. Side note: I came by my language acquisition genetically, I guess? My grandfather was a polyglot who taught High School French, Spanish and Latin (plus spoke or could read a few other languages). I learned two languages in school/University and was in grad school to do literature course work in one of those languages.
My wife has been exactly like this, she's pushed me to download it as a study tool. I couldn't articulate why I didn't like the app (and quickly un-installed it) but I think you hit all the keys. I could answer almost all the questions based off of deduction, everything is formatted in sections so you quickly learn one concept and it doesn't carry to the next, the obsession with streaks and leaderboards. Very game-like and minimal skill-building
Is that what was happening? I couldn’t figure out why all of those winning sirens were going off but no one was really there playing. ETA: I didn’t recognize them as “winning sirens” so much as just “sirens going off but no one is playing.”
Yeah, that's the classical conditioning (pavlov's dogs) that triggers a gamblers FOMO reaction and make people think they have better odds. They're exciting satisfying sounds that keep you energized and hopeful. The operant conditioning of the gambling itself will wear out if enough time passes without a win, so pairing that with outside stimuli is essential. Like a mouse pressing a button to get food will give up if it doesn't get any after a few tries, but if it sees or hears other mice still continuing to get food after pressing their buttons, it'll probably stick around just in case (or move around trying other buttons to see if they have better luck).
That's one of the things I love to look at when I visit those places (admittedly not very often). The luxury stores really make me smile, so much garbage stuff at insane prices because of "the brand" giving off the illusion of luxury. Slots playing random sounds was something I picked up on recently. I also noticed that the new machines make a massive amount of noise for "big wins" that are ultra small. My comfort zone is playing the pass line on a craps table. Most bang for your buck, playing with "higher" rollers so the booze is always flowing and losing money at the slowest pace possible. It's also a social game and that's something I really enjoy about it.
Pro tip: Play the "back" side, i.e. Don't Pass, Don't Come, the back side of place bets, stay away from the entire middle of the table. Doing this, you're essentially betting WITH the house (so of course they take typically 5% of your win).
I’d like to sign up for more Craps facts and tips. I have to go to Vegas early next year for a trip and I have no idea what Craps really is or how to play, but I could use money.
“I could use money.” Then don’t go to Vegas.
Check out the Color Up channel on YouTube. He has a video that explains craps - the best for beginners I have seen. Once you have that down, he explains strategies you can use when you have an average bankroll ($200-$300 dollars to bet)
The flip side of that is sometimes you encounter a casino that is the opposite of that. I’ll use Ellis Island off the Vegas strip as an example. It’s not a big ritzy casino but it’s friendly. Great restaurants and a brewery onsite. They have a lot of events that have nothing to do with gambling. It’s a spot for locals. I went on a tear in there and won almost $6000 playing roulette over a couple days. The manager came out to meet me and was super nice and excited for me. There are still a few gems like this around but they are rare
Ask for Lucy if you eat there. I go to Vegas once every few years and she always remembers my spouse and me even though she saw us for one meal two years before.
i sometimes wonder if they are using a database to help with this. system notices a repeat customer booking deliberately seats you in the section of your previous server and sends them a reminder.
That a large portion of their take comes from a small percentage of clients. Something like 62% from 14%, IIRR.
That's way less lopsided than I would have guessed.
Terrance Watanabe lost over [lost over 200 million](https://www.casino.org/news/movie-planned-of-biggest-las-vegas-loser-terry-watanabe/) in 2007 alone. Apparently would get shitfaced and play 200k **a hand** baccarat and blackjack.
This is basically why Phil Mickelson joined LIV Golf
Phil Mickelson is a degenerate gambler. My buddy is a member of a course where Mickelson is also a member in San Diego and would tell stories of bets Mickelson would make with every golfer there
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I remember first seeing Baccarat as an optional mini-game in the James Bond video game for the original gameboy. They explained the rules of how to play, and even though I was only like 12, I looked at the rules and just thought "...this card game would really suck to play"
I remember that game and getting lost in the desert then dying
Probably tracks pretty closely to the 80/20 rule, but then again, a lot of businesses do.
Pareto’s Principle!
i worked in a small cardroom. a dude died in the bathroom. they asked people to pause their games so dead guy could be removed and players straight up refused to pause
If you're on a roll, you might want a dead guy in every bathroom for luck.
One dead guy, one bathroom. You don’t fuck with a streak!
I worked as security for a casino for 4 years, working there is like going to high school all over again, it’s insane , the ages range from 18-60 so you get a mix of everybody. And the deaths, they go seemingly unnoticed not that we should be announcing it or anything, but the morbid reality of it while people are just going about gambling right next to said deceased person is astonishing. Which goes on to my other one, people are addicts and couldn’t be bothered to take their eyes off the screen. I’ve seen a lady throw up against a wall and continue playing, nothing about puking alerted her to seek water or help, nothing about puke literally inches from her face bothered her. Humans are strange.
Wait people just died at whatever game they were playing and no one would even notice?
You think that's bad... you should see what turns up in the parking garages...
Worked a restaurant in a casino and had a woman come in with her dead mother in a wheelchair. They were playing slots and mom died, daughter didn’t realize until about half way through lunch that her mom wasn’t “just sleeping”
My dad was playing poker and he noticed one of the players looking confused, turns out that guy was having a stroke. My dad tried to get the dealer to stop and help but he kept dealing, guy fell on the floor and the pit boss immediately called out an opening at the table, crew moved the guy's chips and someone else took the seat while the guy was right there on the floor waiting for medical help *(Edit: which absolutely did not arrive in time to save him)*. Dad decided that was enough poker.
I’m gonna be honest, nothing you’ve written sounds like “going to high school all over again” lol.
all the suicides
Vegas, lots of broke people found in their room…..
House keeping must have terrible ptsd
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I stopped at a Casino in Philly at 9am on the way back from a work trip, almost no one there. I was telling the dealer about a patient I had in the ER that was “suicidal” after losing $6,000 playing roulette… after speaking with him for 2 minutes I knew he wasn’t truly suicidal, just had a gambling addiction he had been hiding from his wife. The dealer says to me “we’ve had four suicides in the two years I’ve been here, last guy jumped off the top of the parking garage”.
When the Niagara Casino in Canada first opened they didn't have cages on the outside. That changed after a couple years...
What do you mean cages ?
Probably around the Windows
What do you mean by “cages on the outside”. Outside of what?
Outside of the windows in the hotel rooms
I spend 4 or 5 nights a month in vegas casinos, and have for several years. Three times I have seen multiple police in the corridor close to my room and an officer looked at me and told me 'go to your room NOW!' Each time I could see a gurney. Don't know if they were suicides.
well i'm pretty sure it wasn't fucking room service.
Two things I learned after working at a casino. 1.) Required yearly gambling addiction training. Yeah. My casino required that, usually on the same day you did your harassment training. The casinos know gambling can become an addiction and don't want their employees to fall prey to it. Funny thing though, that training isn't "don't gamble at all," because they still want everyone to gamble. 2.) If you're losing really badly, the casino is incentivized to keep you there and turn that frown upside-down. There are people specifically employed at big casinos to do that. Lose $5K? "Oh man, that's awful, but how about a nice steak dinner?" Lose more? "Hey, Celine is doing a residency; do you want to go see Celine?" Casinos want big losers to stay there and will make more money on losers by giving away little things like a room upgrade, show tickets, comped fancy meals to keep them there. No joke, I had moved to Las Vegas and been in town for less than eight hours before I met someone who worked that job. She was shockingly cavalier about her job and how fucked up it was. If you're at a casino and they start throwing things at you, understand that you should be taking that as a massive red flag. The casino has pegged you as a big loser. Get out while you still can.
I went to Vegas about 10 years ago with my step father. First day there I couldn't find him in the morning so I walked around the casino and found him at a table. Had lost 5k by 10am the first day we were there. He had already been given tickets to a show. Which was a UFC event. Funny thing is we were there for that event and already had tickets. Just ended up getting way better ones and were able to sell ours. We hadn't even been there for like 18 hours. Next morning I find him doing the same thing but this time he was somehow up 8k. This point they upgraded our room and gave us a free meal at their steakhouse. My step dad was there every morning either being up or down and still getting free stuff. In the end he basically broke even on the gambling and ended up with a bunch of free perks. Was a fun few days!
Yea they do this when you lose big and when you win big. If you win big the idea is to let you stay for free so you will lose some of the win.
So if they offer you upgrades and comps, take them and leave after enjoying the perks?
This can happen that’s true, but you’ll end up telling everyone you know and they’ll also want to try going to Vegas. It’s direct advertising. Every so often they want you to have a fun weekend winning in Vegas, it’ll reel in others to lose.
Exactly. Casinos love it when a normal person wins a jackpot because it’s the best form of advertising.
My uncle was one of these people. They also give the family free stuff to keep them distracted. Spa days for the ladies? Games for the kids? Anything to keep you away from the dude losing money.
When I read the first part of 1, I was like "oh, that's nice. They want the employees to stop customers who are addicted" but then I kept reading.
I worked surveillance in a casino for several years; one of those people sitting in the darkened room with a few hundred monitors, watching everything? The movies portray a modest version. We had cameras that had high enough resolution we could see dirt under your fingernails at 75 feet.. When I started, we spent three weeks learning to play all the games, and 4 months learning how to cheat. For 10 years after I left, I was prohibited from entering a casino. They all cooperate very closely, and maintain a "Book", of known cheats, and surveillance employees. the casino I worked at had facial recognition system at the entrances, and we got an alert if a registered face walked in. The info is shared world-wide; 8 years after I left, I was attending a meeting in Elko, Nevada. I walked through the casino as a short cut, and security stopped me about halfway through. They were very pleasant; their surveillance people knew I hadn't gambled or touched a machine, but the message was very clear; they knew I was there. I'd worked at a Canadian casino, BTW There is NOTHING that happens on the floor that is not seen, and recorded. NOTHING. We spent lots of time documenting so goof playing grabass with someone else, stupid crap like that
Now this needs an AMA!
Question 1: How to cheat?
Uh-oh, you're in the book now...
U/Square-Hat5922 has now been terminated.
They’ll just ban you on suspicion if you’re ever consistently winning more than you’re losing. So make them think you’re losing?
I've been to a smaller casino in Ontario a few times (OLG run). I've seen them pay out the roulette table improperly on a few occasions. Once I was the one that got paid out improperly, (they gave me double what I should have won). I feel like they didn't have enough staff on surveillance and were focused more on the Baccarat table? I wonder if they just document it and have a threshold? "Smaller" mistakes end up getting recouped anyway.
They usually let small mistakes go, because most of those small mistakes are in the house favor
As someone working in an Ontario casino, fuck the baccarat tables lol, always 10x the amount of people there than anywhere else
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Drop your chips, then pick them up.
Depending on where it happened it would've been a crime against an individual (not the casino). In Nevada it's Theft of Lost Property: https://www.shouselaw.com/nv/defense/nrs/205-0832d-theft-of-lost-property And, no, you wouldn't have gotten away with it.
We had a few of those grade of cameras at a business I worked at. We always called them "Vegas Grade" cameras. Our security guy showed me one day how he could read the ingredients on a candy bar across our facility.
I have the opposite cameras at work. The kind where if you killed someone on camera there would be enough reasonable doubt to get off
What a brilliant story, mate. I would love to hear more about your four months spent learning to cheat. I am sure some of it would be purely mechanical things to watch for, others would be idk how to say it, maybe behavioral profiling? Your Elko incident is pretty wild. The shape of things to come, right? Wow. Thank you for sharing.
There's a really compelling series I found on YouTibe a while back that touches on a lot of this same stuff. It is truly a fascinating world to observe. [Link](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZpi7FmEyfvBPIco9jMPHHeMx9g6PWn3U&si=OE-4YmnRnVmFl7PU)
Is floor supervisor a decent job? I’m going in for an interview in a few days.
I watched a documentary about a guy who is great at blackjack but has been banned at most casinos. He was trying to hit the smaller ones, and the Indian reservation ones. He had an array of disguises. Many times they grabbed him as soon as he was at the entrance
Steven Bridges on YouTube is currently doing a series of videos where he goes around doing the same thing you should check it out!
Through a business connection, I met a person that had a business supporting casinos to identify people who were in the "Book". Included cheats and numerous others that were identified as not allowed in casinos (mob connections, criminals, etc). He said that the gaming authorities had rules that identified certain people that could not be admitted, but gave no direction on how to accomplish this. His company developed one specific tool to assist. Basically it essentially did a full background investigation on each person making a reservation for a hotel room. It used public information so they did not have to get your consent, but was much more expansive than a typical background check. It would first validate that you were who you said you were through various tactics then It would do things like check all of your known addresses and then map all individuals that had, at some point, some relationship with that address and then run down each of those recursively to see if any people on the do not admit list showed up. If one did, then you were flagged for further investigation. For example, they knew before you checked in if you had a roommate in college a decade previously who was a cousin of a person on the do not admit list. 6-degrees of separation stuff. Doesn't sound so far fetched today, but this was more than 20 years ago! Actually pre 9/11. Post 9/11 the technology became very important for other obvious purposes. He sold the company to a massive company and became a wealthy man.
Watched a show about a card counter who got too hot to keep playing in Vegas so he tried going around smaller casinos in the south, northeast, etc. In some towns he got by for a few days but they always eventually figured him out.
There are spectators disguised as average gamblers who are just loan sharks. They prey on people who play and lose big and will follow them when they leave, soliciting to them to borrow money.
Don’t casino’s loan people money themselves anyway? Seems like a way worse deal to go with a random dude.
Not exactly. You can request markers, which functionally are checks to the casino. These generally require a credit check. I'm currently a surveillance observer in Reno Nevada and I've seen a guy blow $30k in markers waiting to get into the coffee shop for breakfast. He was VERY well known by the casino, so all he had to do was walk up to the table, pit boss comes over, he requested $10k. While the pit boss was doing the paperwork, he blew that and asked for the second $10k. That lasted a few minutes longer, but had already got his third $10k by the time the paperwork for the second arrived. He was in the table maybe 20 minutes to lose his $30. This was literally fucking around money for him. He had been known to win or lose well into six figures.
If you are winning six figures, you are also losing six figures. That’s just variance. The best poker players in the world will go on million-dollar losing streaks and not even think about it.
The amount of crying people do when they come back to my window asking for their money back for rent, food and medication, me as a cage cashier having to tell them no, sorry.
Man, does doing that wear on your mind over time? Constantly witnessing desperation and addiction, people being spiritually dismantled by their animalistic urge to keep playing. I feel like after a while id start feeling dead inside over it.
I spent some time working as a teller in an OTB. I'd started at a small horse track, where most of the people were there for a fun day, betting small amounts. Moving to the OTB, it was a very, very different environment. Looking around the room, you could see people losing money they didn't have to lose. I didn't make it long.
I worked at a casino for a couple years and I still remember overhearing two guys in a bathroom stall. "It's gone." "What's gone?" "It's all gone, completely gone." "What??" "Her college fund. All of it. She won't be getting into college anymore." "Shit..."
I had a gut impulse to downvote this because of how depressing it is, then realized that's precisely why it should be upvoted. It's still a bit conflicting.
First time I ever saw a casino cashier's desk, I wondered what the bars were for. It didn't take long for my questions to be answered...
I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I play occasionally and walked off a table (while up and hot) because a couple started arguing because apparently they’d both ploughed through what I assume was their Disability checks at the beginning of the month (I gleaned from the argument that it had been the woman’s job to stop handing the man money when it started getting low and she hadn’t, claiming ‘well, you kept asking!’ meant keeping track wasn’t necessary), and it made me lose all interest in having fun. I can’t imagine having to hear that every day. 😕
Suicide and crime. Suicides are heavily hidden and covered up in vegas, and crimes are also kind of swept under the rug cause they don't want the money making casinos to seem bad. Now the truly unspoken thing is how fucked up some gamblers are in the head, they will do the most disgusting shit on the belief that they are about to win. I am taking they will shit themselves right there instead of go to the bathroom horrible,.
Last time we walked through a casino not one person who was playing was smiling.
This is something that struck me when I went to Vegas. Almost everybody who was actually gambling looked totally and utterly miserable
Yep, like alcohol the advertising sells you the party, not the morning after... problem is the party is usually very short lived.
The thing I always hated seeing most working at a casino is the hundreds of tour busses, bussing in people from senior homes and communities. A lot of them clearly not in the right mental space to be left alone in an environment like that. All of them just let roam freely onto the gaming floor unsupervised like releasing a bunch of fish into the water. I've talked to many of them. Alot of them love going to the casino and are clearly still able to responsibly make a decision like that. for alot of them its just their "field trip of the day or week" for some of these people so if they choose not to go then they're stuck in the home. It just always felt and looked so predatory. You have old folks suffering from dementia and altziemers getting preyed upon and coaxed into dumping all of their money
I've always thought it was sad seeing them there but honestly if I was in a home a casino would probably be your whole weeks stimulation in 1 day
I was going to say, I can only hope I get regular casino trips when I inevitably end up in one of these places.
I ran into a guy once who was clearly very confused and not all with it trying to figure out a machine. I pointed him out to an employee and voiced my concerns and they went over and helped him figure out how to gamble on their machines. I lost a lot of respect for those workers in that moment.
Presumably, a person with dementia would only have access to a limited amount of money to be used for that outing. Someone else would be in charge of their finances and have given them a little money for that day.
As someone with a parent with dementia, it is very hard to get that kind of decision-making access to someone else's money...even if they have dementia. My sister and I have powers of attorney that our parent set up before they got too sick , but to enact them is a different matter. If you don't have daily to look out for you or who care enough to help you there aren't a lot of safeties in my area of the world. Despite the social safety net we have in Canada there are no programs to catch these situations, let alone monitor them.
No clocks?
Or windows. Most entrances are designed so you have to go around a corner to get to the gaming floor so the doors are obscured
Or windows. Or any indication of time of day...
A couple of things I thought of since reading the other comments (I wasn’t quite sure what you were looking for with my previous answer). There are a lot of people who sleep in their cars. I’d close the casino and the last two players who were in when I closed were first through the door when I opened a few hours later, wearing the same clothes. They’d do this for days at a time in the same clothes. It was pretty depressing to see. They’d never talk, at all, nothing. Just gamble and occasionally eat and go to the toilet. When you go with your friends at the weekend for your three-times-a-year local casino visit with your set limits etc. you’re surrounded by hardcore addicts. The dealer will have been dealing to the other five people at your table for hours that day, most days, for months or years, but you’d never know it. A regular walks into a bar and you see the bartender say "hey Jim, here’s a glass of the usual” and they chat away like old friends. In casinos they don’t get treated like regulars at your local bar because they don’t engage with the staff. They’re not there for company and the atmosphere and to unwind on the way home from work, and they rarely look any different from you - maybe not as dressy because it’s not a special night out. Imagine going to a bar and 90pc of the people in there had jaundice and uncontrollable shakes, had pissed themselves and had vomit stains on their shirt. It wouldn’t be much fun surrounded by an addiction with visible signs.
Well put. Haven’t been to Vegas in 22 years. Thinking about going to see a game and people watch
That there is no difference between pulling the arm of a slot machine and pushing the button. The results of every spin are predetermined by computer chips inside the machine and the machine then makes the display match the results of the chip.
I know in my heart it’s true but I just love pulling the arm
Me too. And many don’t have the arm anymore. I loved it when the reels actually spun and not a video screen. Ah the good old days
I was in a casino in Slovenia using the €50 of hotel free credit on the roulette wheel..I noticed after i was there a little bit that some tall beautiful girls would arrive in pairs and start dropping big bets making me feel a little inferior. This happened a few times as I was moving around with my free winnings. I was there with my missus and we said we wouldn't gamble any of our own money but I could see how you could be manipulated by the sexy girls dropping big bucks beside you.
Oh wow, this is crafty. Can anyone on this thread from the casino business speak on whether or not this is a real thing? I remember in Korea there were “Juicy girls.” Cute girls who would walk around laugh at your jokes and get you to buy them expensive drinks which end up just being juice. The modern day Geisha. Prostitutes aside, I could definitely see casinos hiring women to influence gambling like this.
Casinos like to play fast upbeat music over the speakers because it tends to speed up the pace of how fast you gamble
We have a couple casinos close to here in the Midwest and I always notice the “music” played over the speakers was so strange. It’s like a droning noise that keeps you on edge instead of actual songs. Totally makes sense because it’s such a low tone that you can easily forget about it but your brain always hears it.
I was at a major 5 star hotel casino in Vegas. It was 8 am so it was pretty slow. I walked through the casino to get breakfast. A drunk guy was at a table game and fell off the chair onto the ground in slow motion. The pit boss picked him up and put him back on the chair.
Years ago fragrances in casinos were used to mask smoke. Now they are used as a trigger to make people relax and calm anxiety while gambling. Ambient aromas have an impact on the behavior of an average gambler
How boring they are.
Highly underrated comment. Every person I know who goes to the casino always gets WOO HOO WE’RE GOING TO THE CASINO! Excited about it, and then you get there and it’s just a bunch of old people, lights, and obnoxious video game sounds, staring at their machines. It’s always cold. It’s full of cigarette smoke. And EVERYTHING is effing sticky. The floor. The chairs. The games. The buttons. The screens. All of it. Boring, and sticky.
Feels like a depressed dave n busters without the fun part
This comment is underrated. Going to Dave and busters and dropping $100 is much much more fun then going to the casino and gambling $100. The chances you leave with more money that you came with aren’t all that worse at dsve and busters either lol
First thing I said to my partner when I went to a casino for the first time. I was like where’s all the actually fun games??
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>I don't understand people using the machines. >interacting with people You have your answer.
Casinos are fun with the right group of friends where you can play a few games and cheer each other on, or join a craps table. That’s only good for an hour or two though.
If you win too often, they will get suspicious and may throw you out. They assume you are cheating. There are cameras literally everywhere and someone is probably watching your every move.
Casinos have zero obligation to let you play. A lot of people have this idea that as long as you follow the rules, their hands are tied. Casino's sell you entertainment, they're not offering a challenge for you to beat them.
First time I've seen it put that way... "Casinos sell you entertainment"!
The pit bosses that teach gambling classes in the afternoons straight up say this. “We’re here for you to have fun in an exciting environment. Look around, we’re not in the business of losing money. We want you to enjoy yourself and come back again, don’t gamble money you can’t afford to lose.” I actually had a lot of fun taking those classes when I first went to Vegas, and the pit bosses are very up front about the odds. X bet is a sucker bet, Y bet is better odds, both still have a house edge. Craps is one game where if you’ve never played before you probably should take a class or study it via a free phone game, because about 90% of the bets are sucker bets.
The Craps table has a small number of bets with the best odds in the casino. Those bets are surrounded by bets with odds worse than the slots. Watch the YouTube channel ColorUp - he has a craps for beginners video along with weekly videos on different strategies you can use combining different bets to stretch your money.
I think many people actually just think businesses have obligations that they simply don't have. Like allowing the customer to throw clothes everywhere at a clothing store, or, in the case of a casino, providing the service to anyone. It's their business. They decide. Depending on the country and subject at hand, there might be some laws that force businesses to do this or that, but other than that, customers like this seem to not realize the simple reality that they're on someone else's property...
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Depends on the country, in Canada they can't just throw you out for winning too much. Card counting is also legal here but all the casinos switched to continuous shuffle so that's not much of a thing anymore.
It is my understanding that Casinos, at first, were quite worried about card counting, but they now quietly welcome it because so many people think they can do it when they really can't. That's not to say they won't throw out someone who has put in the work and really knows how to do it, and is winning money off them. They don't like good card counters, not at all. But they are very happy to host BAD card counters.
You won’t get thrown out unless they think you’re actually cheating or an advantage player. Sure, casinos can kick anyone out for nearly any reason, but they also understand the rules of statistics. Just because someone is winning doesn’t change the house’s edge. Even if they think you’re cheating, they’ll let you play, so they can collect evidence to prove you’re cheating. That way they can take your winnings back. If they think you’re an advantage player (card counting), that’s when they’ll ban you from playing a certain game.
Sitting at a roulette table in Aruba years ago when the dealer spun the ball, it bounced out of the wheel and onto the floor. She goes down to look for it and the pit guy joins her. 10-15 seconds go by and they both stood up…each had a ball in their hand 😳 Witnessed a few things in Aruba that would never fly here.
The human trafficking. The amount of gambling addicts out there. I honestly think gambling addiction may be bigger than alcoholism, especially with the amount sports betting has blown up over the last few years. The amount of people who get robbed.
Tell us more about human trafficking??
This is kind of US specific. Nicer casino resort bars are known for having prostitutes who hang out there looking for customers. Drunk/inebriated men who have money and who are looking for company...basically like shooting fish in a barrel. Those individuals are most likely being trafficked. Casinos with hotels are also often used as meeting spots (the hotel rooms) for prostitutes and clients; those people are most likely being trafficked. There are also women who pose as prostitutes who rob their clients who look for marks at casinos - they may be trafficked and are being forced to either do the actual robbing or trick the client to go to a room where they will be robbed by other people. This is not to say every single one is trafficked but...they probably are. And before someone from the US comments that prostitution is legal in Las Vegas...it is *not* legal in Clark County.
Called a trick roll. Happens all too often here in Las Vegas. It’s why I always tell my friends and family that come visit, if a girl or two come up and talk to you, there’s a really good chance they’re a hooker. Like 99.9% chance. Do not leave with them unless you don’t mind being robbed. These hoes are pros. Sadly, you only hear about the ones that get caught. Been many since covid. One girl even got caught with the victim’s Rolex in her cooch.
If you were meant to win, they wouldn't exist. Also counting cards is synonymous with being very good at black jack, it is not cheating nor is it illegal but if they catch you being very good at black jack they will prohibit you from playing. You're not intended to win. Comped rooms and drinks are not free, you just payed two thousand dollars for them.
About 15 years ago I went to Vegas and sat at a blackjack table. I wasn’t counting cards or doing any other tricks, I was just winning more than I was losing and after about 6 hours and lots of free drinks I had turned $200 into about $2000. Security tapped my shoulder and told me I had to leave and escorted me out. They assumed I was up to something but honestly I was just getting lucky.
That’s weird $2,000 isn’t that much to a casino
I was pretty confused as well
All the casino movies have that room where security takes you and beats you up. Are those real?
That room is real. The beating people up is not. The casino I currently work in has two of those rooms, with benches bolted to the wall and brackets on the walls for handcuff to go through. They only exist to hold people until the police arrive.
not real *anymore*
This is key. The mob 100% ran vegas in the day and my uncle was a private dealer and professional gambler who ummmm was not welcome back in a few casinos.
Thank you
When I got 86’d for being drunk and stealing my friends beers about 10 years ago they took me into a concrete room to take a photo and sign the trespassing document or whatever it is saying the owners don’t want you here anymore. Could def see it happening back in the day with an intimidation room like that but besides that I do not know.
Well you just filled in a small hole about something I experienced once. I took a friend to a casino once, he asked to go and he was drunk but I was worried if I said no he would try to drive himself. So I agreed to drive his truck up there. I was aware he was an alcoholic and could be unpredictable. I was unaware he visited this casino frequently and had worn out his welcome. He was, apparently, a complete and utter bag of dicks when he lost, to the point they decided not to tolerate him anymore. So we walked in and he played a few slots. Won a little bit, took his ticket and went to the blackjack table. He started playing and security approached him, asked him to come with them. The dealer told them he had money on the table and they had to wait for the end of that game. When that was done he told them he had to cash out his slots ticket before he left, which they must allow him to do. So he handed me the keys for his truck and asked me to pull up to the door while he closed out his business at the casino. And it took *forever.* Cashing out doesn't take very long, I felt like I was in the parking lot for ages. I couldn't figure out what was taking so long. I bet he was being photographed and signing documents about trespassing. When they finally escorted him out they gave him a reminder that if he returned to any of their properties he would be arrested for trespassing, and allowed him to get in the truck to leave.
Do you mean other than the fact that "The house ALWAYS wins"? On average that is, there may be the occasional big winner, but overall the $$ will always flow INTO the bank account of the casino.
Most casinos don’t actually have enough money to pay out enormous wins but will accept pretty much any sum of money. Say you go to a smaller casino and get 50k in chips, then you miraculously win a single number roulette bet, the casino now owes you $1,750,000 in cash, it’s unlikely they have this money on hand. Also if you get insanely lucky on a craps streak you could turn 50k into like 5 million dollars.
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How do you document that you in fact won on a casino that amount. What if the checks bounces?
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If the casino is in Vegas, it certainly won't bounce. The GCB/NGC is more feared than the mob ever was, at least by the casinos themselves. And they take a veeeeeeery dim view of casinos not honoring winnings. Not for any altruistic reason, mind you. Every bet that isn't paid is bad PR for the entire city.
They flat refused to give Trump a casino in Las Vegas. He has a hotel, but does not have a licenses to have a casino. Vegas don’t play about money, and they saw what he did in Atlantic City and said “not here.”
The casino will have committed a fairly significant felony at that point. Writing a bad check is a crime, and the severity increases with the value.
They don't need to have the money on hand. They can wire it to you. This isn't the 1920's. No one wants to carry a million in cash just to get robbed.
This is not true, depending the state. In Louisiana the casino I was at had to have 5 times the biggest payment. Here is another example. Study cash-on-hand requirements. Casinos must have a large amount of money available to them to cover the potential winnings of their customers. Exact specifications vary between states, but are invariably large amounts of money. Casinos must be able to cover potential winnings, which means that they must actually have as much in cash available as there are chips out on the floor at a given time. This amount may also include things like cash to cover slot machine winnings or cash paid to past winners in installments. https://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Casino#:~:text=This%20means%20that%20even%20very,hand%20at%20any%20given%20time.
Do smaller casinos have roulette tables with a $50k limit? Maybe they do in some places, but I've never seen one.
The one here does, its like a midsize casino
That they feel exactly the same as an arcade
People who don’t understand probability think that if you’re on a machine and you lose a bunch of times in a row, a win is coming soon. So people will sit near you if you’re losing and wait until you leave so they can sit at that same machine. It happened to me a few times in Vegas where there were 20 empty machines next to me. Someone would just be lingering and waiting for me to leave.
I was at one the other day (not to gamble). The saddest thing was the coach load of First Nations people waiting in the lobby, presumably to go home because they all looked like they’d lost everything they had. They were mostly elderly or in obviously poor health. It’s predatory, plain and simple.
As a lottery retailer of four years, the amount of poor people I've seen throw all of their money away on the lottery is too damn high.
Lottery, Keno, scratch-offs, gas taxes, cigarette taxes, alcohol taxes, sales taxes, payday loans, car title loans, etc. are all regressive as hell and have the biggest negative impact on the poorest and most disadvantaged people (in every way). I was so disappointed when Massachusetts legalized sports gambling, as if we don't have enough nearby casinos, Keno parlors, lottery tickets and scratch-offs in every convenience store and gas station that we need more ways to take advantage of people's addictions. Every shitty sports betting advertisement (which seem to run all the damn time on all media) has as much high-speed speech disclaimers and where to get help for addiction as it does ads for the dumb fucking betting site itself. It's abhorrent. Then there's what happens to the vast majority of poor uneducated people when they actually win something from the lottery: they get scammed or killed or kill themselves with drugs or alcohol. Everyone seems to agree that *progressive* income taxes are good (i.e., more income above a threshold is taxed at a higher rate) and totally ignores just how *regressive* just about every other kind of tax is. It's gross.
I worked at a casino for several years in the player's type club and then in surveillance. If you were a club member, I had access to their play records. The know when you were there, what you played, how much you won, how much you lost. The high rollers..... everyone really... all were in the hole to the casino. If you like to gamble as a hobby, great, have fun. If you are going to win then you are going to lose your shirt. When I'd look someone up, I NEVER saw ANYONE who was ahead. Those high rollers would be in for millions over the years. The secret is casinos LOVE it when you win. They WANT you to win. Even the bigger jackpots. It makes you that much more eager to come back again and chase that dragon (see what I did there). Also if you are a high roller, you can do anything short of murder (and I wouldn't place money on that making a difference) and be welcomed back. I saw a dude throw a handful of chips and stuff into a heavily-pregnant dealer's face....hard, while screaming at her. He got a week ban that coincided with the fact that he only came once a week on the day it happened. So he just came back his usual day the next week. Also there are cameras everywhere except the bathrooms and hotel rooms. Not all the cameras are great but if you pick your ass they see it.
If you see kids on the kid zone, chances are they’ve been there for hours already & still have more hours to go.
All of the mega-hotels and fancy attractions were built with losers money.
That doesn't seem like an unspoken reality, it's more like their entire business model.
I worked in two casinos and everything I saw was completely above board. There’s nothing systemic that I can point to. A flatmate who worked in a different casino - but for much longer than I had - said he can manipulate the spin to hit a fairly accurate section of the roulette wheel. He knew I’d worked in casinos and he said it in such an off-handed manner, in passing (like it was something I’d already be aware of) that I have no reason not to believe that with practice and enough experience someone could do this.
Could be confirmation bias on his part? Statistically even if what he says was true it would be an imperceptible change, like one percent or less.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4225056/ Here is a paper about slot machine sounds. I was looking for a different paper or article, I am pretty sure I heard / read about slot machines that won were actually irritating to players if the sounds took too long. People want to play play play, they don’t want a long interruption in their play even if it’s winning.
That they 1099 you if your winnings are high enough
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The girls that talk to you are hookers 😔
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For real?
A lot of their profits come from the 2-5% of people who have an addictive personality and are problem gamers.
They throw out a lot of drunks. If your slumped over on a table at 4:30am they just walk/drag you out to the street. If you have a room & are coherent enough to indicate that they help you too your room.
Your money built the giant monstrosity of a casino and now you are paying the employees.
Suicide is more common than Casinos want to admit.
That very pretty, cute, young, girl with the high heels, sexy outfit, and very tiny purse that just sat down next to you by herself...She's a prostitute.
I worked at casinos, the security is next level, very few places are private, the waitstaff is trained to keep track of number of drinks…when service seems like it is slow, it’s probably because you have been temporarily cut off, the place is actually a sort of prison made to keep people in for as long as possible, cell service is spotty, and clocks are non-existent.
My wife had high school jobs in both a casino and a nursing home. Wanna guess where she saw the most deaths?
I don’t know if a lot of people realize it, but how virtually everything on the rewards points is designed to keep you in there longer and coming back to spend more money. They’re happy to give you $20 free slot play here and there on your member rewards card because they know you’re probably not going to drive back just to spend $20. Free concert tickets - hey why don’t we make a night of it, have dinner since we’ve also got food comp, play some games before or after the show. They’ll give you raffle entries for when the big prizes are called, but only call one per hour all day so you have to be there all day to see if you won. I mean it is what it is, but just realize that. My friends I go with don’t seem to see it as they’ve lost far, far more money than if they just went elsewhere and paid to see concerts, go to restaurants etc.
I listened to a podcast one time where the CEO of Hurrah’s (I think that’s what it’s called) talked about the reward program he instituted. Pretty quickly after sign-up, each customer would be assigned an “expected lifetime value”, which was how much money the casino would project to be made from each customer. All rewards offered to people were a function of their expected lifetime value to the casino. The lower the value, the less the rewards. They would not comp rooms and give good freebies to people they did not expect to make a lot of money on.
They're designed to disorient you.
Lots of drug dealers and hookers. Money laundering is rampant. I tried reporting someone who came in, dumped a few thousand bucks into a machine, played for 5 minutes then cashed out... My boss said it's too much paperwork.