The sad reality of blackjack life is that players must be circumspect in order to avoid getting barred. While I have argued for years that the threat of being barred is counterproductive to the casino industry, they have steadily maintained the right to toss a player who’s simply too good.
So we as players have to be smarter. We have to remain anonymous, to avoid getting noticed. And we also have to stay within what I call a casino’s “comfort zone” to lessen the risk of getting barred.
What is a “comfort zone”?
It differs per casino. For one thing, it’s defined by how much money you can win before someone starts giving you heat. By heat I mean having a pit boss breathe down your throat or ask you your name, or by having a new dealer brought in with new cards (perhaps also asking you personal questions and/or speeding up the game), and so on – any number of countermeasures winners sometimes encounter.
Some casinos let you win thousands before showing signs of being upset. Others are unhappy if you win $5.
(Obviously, this plays into what casinos you should choose to play at. Casinos who are unhappy if you win anything are, to be kind, drags to play at and not probably worth your time. Conversely, you should seek out the ones who let you win the most.)
Another factor is how they react to your bet size. Some don’t mind if you place thousands in the betting spot. Others look askance when you place a $100 bet. (You might hear the dealer scream “Black action,” which means he was trained to alert his bosses when a player was making that size bet. A sure sign you’ve just won yourself unwanted scrutiny and that that casino is not going to let you win much before they get ready to bar you. Not a great environment.)
You stand a better chance of avoiding getting barred if you leave when you notice serious signs of discontent. What might those be?
Here’s some of what I’ve experienced, after winning a certain amount of money:
At one casino, He read the fax and glared at me. It was time to leave.
At another casino, the dealer dropped a card on the floor. My girlfriend whispered to me (rightly so): “The dealer’s signaling the pit boss.” Sure enough a new dealer with new cards was brought in (outside the normal time for this). It was time to leave.
At one downtown Vegas casino, they brought in a new dealer outside the normal shift change time. He was cocky from the get-go and did not deal the cards but announced we were going to “play a game.” He wanted to go around in a circle and find out what town we were all from. (I gathered right away they were looking to find out if they’d correctly identified me. If I said “New Mexico” they’d have known it was me.) When he got to me I told him I was from Somerville. “Where’s THAT?” he asked, annoyed. “In Massachusetts,” I responded. He didn’t believe me and I decided it was time to leave. As I got up from my seat, he snarled: “Don’t let the door smack you in the (butt).” His hostility assured me I’d made the right move in leaving.
At one casino, a shill joined the table, in third base. He glared at me from the get-go and never looked at his cards. He was dressed in a suit, without a tie. No one in New Mexico wears a suit except (in a casino) possibly a casino boss. Taking signals from the dealer, he took cards seemingly at random. It was time to leave the casino.
The point is, overstay your welcome and you’re much more likely to get barred. And once that happens, you might find you cannot play anywhere anymore.
Best to retreat in the face of heat, to be able to play again someday.
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Richard Harvey is the acclaimed blackjack strategies innovator, expert player, blackjack coach and bestselling author of Blackjack The SMART Way (the NEW Gold Edition), Cutting Edge Blackjack (the NEW Third Edition), NEW Ways To Win MORE at Blackjack and the audio book Richard Harvey’s Blackjack PowerPrep Session. Have blackjack questions? Send them to rharvey2121@netscape.net. For more info see www.blackjacktoday.com.
