Excuse Me Professor
Good morning Michael,
How are you doing with dice games now in your back yard? ... In all fairness, I
wanted to let you know that I disagreed with part of one of your articles in the
following post ......
“Biometrics aka Facial recognition software technology is here and does lead to
advantage player lists despite an old 2005 article by one of our good friends -
Michael Vernon:”
Quote From Michael Vernon:
|
The player has to do something blatant
against casino rules before receiving a warning about their play. Pit
bosses are there to protect their game, it is true, but the notion
that advantage players are on a hit list is preposterous. Without
winners, there would be no casinos. |
|
http://www.crapspit.org/crplyplt4.htm
Quote:
|
Three of Atlantic City's 12 casinos —
Trump Marina, Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Plaza — use it (facial
recognition software) as part of their casino surveillance units. "It's
a tool for us to identify people who could possibly come in and take
advantage of our casino," said Trump Marina surveillance director
Charles Guenther in 2001. |
|
The standard has been created by Griffin
Investigations and is sold to the casinos... here is another supplier of
Biometrics:
Quote:
|
Here is Andy Anderson. He used to patrol
the casinos, keeping an eye out for suspicious activity. Many pros began
to recognize him and now he rarely enters. Instead, he lets technology
do the work. He has put players mug shots into a computer program and
markets the database to the casinos.
His service is for hire through his company, Casino Visual
Identification. To look up a card counter in Anderson's program, a
casino official clicks the mouse on the icon for the game the player is
playing. Blackjack has a picture of a blackjack hand, craps is a
picture of dice, roulette is a roulette wheel. Each game has a
list of known cheats or card counters.
Each name has a picture or several to go with it, aliases the player
uses and a list of associates. Plus, a casino can communicate
directly with another casino, sending a live picture via a system
similar to e-mail and asking: "You seen this guy?" Anderson's services
can run up to $16,000.
Anderson used to work for the other main culprit of professional
player identification, Griffin Investigations owned by Bob Griffin
and his wife Beverly. Rapp also worked for the company. |
|
http://www.thegoodgamblingguide.co.uk/thisweek/2001/biometrics.htm
....on his website Griffin Investigations
infers that advantage players are criminals:
Quote:
|
THE PROBLEM
The gaming industry is under siege from opportunistic scam artists
worldwide. Converging on the Internet, these gaming cheaters represent
the organized crime movement of the new millennium. Their actions
cost gaming operations untold millions a year - and the number is
growing.
THE SOLUTION
The first step in defense from suspected cheaters and counters involves
identifying the subject. Griffin Products and Services have been
designed specifically to provide instant identification. Whether you use
Griffin's new Internet database or use Griffin's investigators for their
expert facial recognition experience - you will identify
subjects faster and reduce your losses to the new organized crime
movement. |
|
http://www.griffininvestigations.com/about.html
Michael, I enjoyed your original article,
but took issue with this one point. D.H.
Hello D.H.,
Thanks for taking the time to write.
I’ve been busy like crazy -- reason it took me so long to reply to you.
It is okay to disagree with me. One
problem with the Internet is too much is published as truth and even worse, it
is accepted at face value as if it were the truth.
The definition of “advantage”
probably needs to be agreed upon.
Advantage, for me, is taking all that
I know to the game.
For the casino, I see it as meaning
to protect themselves from players that have an advantage because they cheat.
Otherwise, in this discussion, what
does advantage mean?… “to identify people who could possibly come in and take advantage of our
casino," said Trump Marina surveillance director Charles Guenther in 2001.”
Quick assumption, If you win they
take your picture? Do they want customers or not? Or, do they only want losers?
If I want my picture taken, I’ll run a red light.
I think this quote you provided
explains it all… “THE PROBLEM”
“The gaming industry is under siege from opportunistic scam artists worldwide.
Converging on the Internet, these gaming cheaters represent the organized crime
movement of the new millennium. Their actions cost gaming operations untold
millions a year - and the number is growing.”
Bottom line is the bottom line, and
the removal of table games in replacement for machines, I believe, has more to
do with wanting more machine losers and less over head, than it has to do with
worrying about a dice setter or two betting five or ten buck units. I know that
I just changed “horses” here, so hold on to the reins for a second. If untold
millions lost in a year is their concern, then the casinos’ can justify the cost
of purchasing the surveillance equipment you noted. It would justify the expense
of protection versus the assault from scam artists, cheats and organized crime.
I do not believe they are out to
ban the average player with a little skill added to their game.
Hmmm, the flip side to this coin…OMG!
The casinos do not consider me to be an advantage player and as such I am no
threat to their bottom line. Dooh! That would mean my inspiration for my article
from the first quote above… If “You Can’t Stand the Heat” has nothing to
do with my years at the table without experiencing casino heat. Double Dooh!
To read my article in its entirety,
go to
www.playing4keeps.com
Click on “Read My Free Newsletter” at the upper left, then scroll
down the newsletter archives to 2005 and click on January to find,
January 2005 Volume 7 Issue 1- the article is
titled “If you Can’t Stand the Heat.”
At the craps table or at the
blackjack table, I am an advantage player and not a cheat or scam artist. How
about you?
On the Coat Tales of a Gambler
continues… Episode 25
A Personal Update From Sailor,
I am back in my old home town for a visit.
Greenville, Alabama, should have been nicknamed The Great Pretender. After all
it is smack dab in the center of the Southern Bible Belt. Down here, when you
met someone, the first words out of their mouths asked, “Where do you go to
church?”
During my years in Greenville, there were poker
games and gambling happening regularly right in their holy home town. Hell,
right in their own damn homes. Gambling had a great disguise having many of the
town’s leading residents pretending to oppose gambling. Of course paying off the
cops had a lot to do with it too. Yes, the general population was convinced of
Greenville’s Middle America purity. It is laughable that the loudest protesters
spent the most time in the gambling joints. You’d see them out at the farm house
too. If their holy-moly, good church going friends, ever found out about their
gambling, they’d all been in for a shocker. How the town’s biggest secret never
got out is more than a mystery. I guess that could be why when I come back for
these visits it all looks the same and no one seems to know anything about
gambling behind closed doors. Even as kids, we knew about it.
I admit I still get in a legal game now and
then, but I don’t go very often. Even when I am in Taos I don’t play much,
except for the occasional blackjack tournament. Not any mobsters there, but I
swear sometimes that those Indians spend all night in the Kiva praying for their
casino to make money. As I travel around this beautiful country of ours, I see a
lot of casinos these days. I have to admit that I just about go into all of them
eventually. Only I don’t play usually. Call it window shopping, I guess. Being
on the road, traveling as I do, casinos are always good for inexpensive meals,
clean restrooms and okay, sometimes a quick game for gas money.
Henceforth I am going to try to limit my visits
to Greenville to the months of autumn. The weather is best here in the fall and
at sixty-eight, the best weather is good for me. I have to admit I feel and get
along as if I were forty. I will be heading west for Taos maybe the first of the
month. I may even get there in time for San Geronimo Day. It’s a good way to see
everyone you know in one place.
Well now this news… my youngest and only
daughter that I have left, is forty-three. Sadly my oldest girl died at
thirty-nine. She would be forty-seven had she lived. As it turned out, Military
service is in the blood. My youngest daughter, Ally, joined the Army Reserve
when she was seventeen. She was gung ho right from the get go and she was
commissioned while she was still seventeen. She will have twenty-six years in
service next month. Her rank is Lieutenant Colonel which she earned about four
years ago.
Once your kids grow up you have to give them the
space and respect that they earned from you. Never the less, after Ally put in
her twenty years, I urged her to retire and I have done so ever since. Well, you
can guess what I am about to say next… last Thursday Ally received orders by
email. Next month she is being sent on active duty to Afghanistan for at least a
year and maybe more. She is none too happy about it and neither is her husband.
Goes without me saying how I am feeling. They do protect female Lieutenant
Colonels pretty good. In the old days the husband went off to war and the woman
stayed home with the babies… progress?
I know it has been awhile since I have had any
stories about Scarpone. I have a bone for you but as I no longer have my own
computer, my library time is up and I have to sign off for now. Hope to see you
down the road, maybe in Taos this fall.
Anchors away!
Sailor
Well, that’s it for this edition of the Playing 4 Keeps™ Newsletter.
See you at the tables,
Michael Vernon
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