Edge Sorting at Casino Games

[aslan]

The legality of what Ivey did is the only thing that should be decided by the courts. Legally, Jacobsen may be right. On the other hand, morally speaking, I believe Ivey is a cheat. Tricking someone out of their money, even if that someone is a casino, is stealing where I come from.

[zengrifter]

The legality of what Ivey did is the only thing that should be decided by the courts. Legally, Jacobsen may be right. On the other hand, morally speaking, I believe Ivey is a cheat. Tricking someone out of their money, even if that someone is a casino, is stealing where I come from.

Legal trickery, Monsignor - Ivey used LEGAL trickery, otherwise he'd have been prosecuted for criminal offense.

[aslan]

Legal trickery, Monsignor - Ivey used LEGAL trickery, otherwise he'd have been prosecuted for criminal offense.

Isn't that what I said? What he did was legal, but immoral. For him to feel abused because his name is associated with cheating is just so much legal maneuvering, as he is a cheat, although not legally speaking. I suppose they can find him guilty civilly, requiring he return the $9 million, without a criminal finding. I imagine this was the case in England since they did not impose a jail sentence.

I'm not one of those who say anything you do against a casino is good, although it does not bother me so much as if you cheated a destitute widow. In the case of Atlantic City casinos, it may be nearly equivalent to stealing from that widow-- just look how many people are thrown out of work when one of those casinos go belly up. But that is a bit of a stretch.

[sagefr0g]

Quote Originally Posted by zengrifter View Post
Legal trickery, Monsignor - Ivey used LEGAL trickery, otherwise he'd have been prosecuted for criminal offense.

Isn't that what I said? What he did was legal, but immoral. ....

well here is part of what you said, "Tricking someone out of their money, even if that someone is a casino, is stealing where I come from. " (http://www.zenzoneforum.com/threads/...459#post218459)

errhh stealing, where i come from is a criminal offense.

[aslan]

well here is part of what you said, "Tricking someone out of their money, even if that someone is a casino, is stealing where I come from. " (http://www.zenzoneforum.com/threads/...459#post218459)

errhh stealing, where i come from is a criminal offense.

Yes, but it is also a moral offense. Possibly two different definitions. Thou shalt not steal.

[aslan]

One word, two possible meanings

*****
Merriam-Webster

steal verb \ˈstēl\

: to take (something that does not belong to you) in a way that is wrong or illegal

*****

wrong = morally speaking
llegal = legally speaking

[sagefr0g]

One word, two possible meanings

*****
Merriam-Webster

steal verb \ˈstēl\

: to take (something that does not belong to you) in a way that is wrong or illegal

*****

wrong = morally speaking
llegal = legally speaking

here's another use of the word from another dictionary
(note: section 6 bolded):

[steel]

Examples
Word Origin

verb (used with object), stole, stolen, stealing.
1.
to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force:
A pickpocket stole his watch.
2.
to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
3.
to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance:
He stole my girlfriend.
4.
to move, bring, convey, or put secretly or quietly; smuggle (usually followed by away, from, in, into, etc.):
They stole the bicycle into the bedroom to surprise the child.
5.
Baseball. (of a base runner) to gain (a base) without the help of a walk or batted ball, as by running to it during the delivery of a pitch.
[B]6.
Games. to gain (a point, advantage, etc.) by strategy, chance, or luck.[/B]
7.
to gain or seize more than one's share of attention in, as by giving a superior performance:
The comedian stole the show.

[zengrifter]

Isn't that what I said? What he did was legal, but immoral.

Au contrair! These are casinos, not churches!!

Temples of Chance!

Bugsy Siegel's dream and demise, the Flamingo, the lurid birth of modern Las Vegas itself, was barely 15 years old, and the casino business was still very much the sovereign domain of men who best understood and best served the needs of vast, illimitable suckerdom.

Such men today are for the most part gone or receding into the shadows, and the casino business is now the domain of corporate America. In 1989, not long before he died, Benny Binion, who had been convicted of murder early in his career, bragged to a Texas newspaper reporter: "I'm still able to do my own killings." Donald Trump, licensed by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in the decade of Binion's death, represented the new regime, a spoiled, chalk-striped punk who, as Johnston says, "grew up riding through New York's outer boroughs in his mother's Rolls-Royce." "Temples of Chance" takes us from the days of immensely lucrative dumps such as Binion's Horseshoe to the grotesque fiasco of the Taj Mahal Casino Resort, the bankrupt plastic cathedral of kitsch erected by Trump as a monument to, as it turned out, his own purblind pomposity and folly.

Casino gambling is now a socially acceptable, all-American pastime, and Las Vegas and Atlantic City have become Disneyworlds of venality. In the 1980s, Las Vegas, in a national television advertising campaign, began promoting its new, improved sucker's racket as "The American Way to Play." (As Johnston points out, Sig Rogich, the Strip publicity agent who concocted that phrase, later was hired as an image-maker during George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign and subsequent presidency.)

Part theme park, part mall, part Lourdes--just stand amid the slot machines and watch the endless caravan of old ladies in wheelchairs rolling themselves faithfully, desperately toward redemption--the gaming industry of the Merv Griffins and the Trumps and the junk-bond kings and the bold-suspendered yuppie accountants is testament to the power of America's lust for mediocrity. It is sin made bland, a pastel dream world in which the hoi polloi might catch a whiff of Robin Leach's cologne or a glimpse of Frank Sinatra Jr.'s gleaming ring.

Beneath the patina of this sucker-friendly dream world, however, the cold-blooded nature of the racket has grown ever more calculated, by means of computerized odds-stacking, subtle psychological lures expertly devised to attract and evoke compulsive behavior in the addictive (and the just plain dumb), and a variety of other methods introduced by the graduate-schooled, spreadsheet-spewing minions of the new order.

[aslan]

here's another use of the word from another dictionary
(note: section 6 bolded):

[steel]

Examples
Word Origin

verb (used with object), stole, stolen, stealing.
1.
to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force:
A pickpocket stole his watch.
2.
to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
3.
to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance:
He stole my girlfriend.
4.
to move, bring, convey, or put secretly or quietly; smuggle (usually followed by away, from, in, into, etc.):
They stole the bicycle into the bedroom to surprise the child.
5.
Baseball. (of a base runner) to gain (a base) without the help of a walk or batted ball, as by running to it during the delivery of a pitch.
[B]6.
Games. to gain (a point, advantage, etc.) by strategy, chance, or luck.[/B]
7.
to gain or seize more than one's share of attention in, as by giving a superior performance:
The comedian stole the show.

You have stolen the show!

[aslan]

Au contrair! These are casinos, not churches!!

Temples of Chance!

Bugsy Siegel's dream and demise, the Flamingo, the lurid birth of modern Las Vegas itself, was barely 15 years old, and the casino business was still very much the sovereign domain of men who best understood and best served the needs of vast, illimitable suckerdom.

Such men today are for the most part gone or receding into the shadows, and the casino business is now the domain of corporate America. In 1989, not long before he died, Benny Binion, who had been convicted of murder early in his career, bragged to a Texas newspaper reporter: "I'm still able to do my own killings." Donald Trump, licensed by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in the decade of Binion's death, represented the new regime, a spoiled, chalk-striped punk who, as Johnston says, "grew up riding through New York's outer boroughs in his mother's Rolls-Royce." "Temples of Chance" takes us from the days of immensely lucrative dumps such as Binion's Horseshoe to the grotesque fiasco of the Taj Mahal Casino Resort, the bankrupt plastic cathedral of kitsch erected by Trump as a monument to, as it turned out, his own purblind pomposity and folly.

Casino gambling is now a socially acceptable, all-American pastime, and Las Vegas and Atlantic City have become Disneyworlds of venality. In the 1980s, Las Vegas, in a national television advertising campaign, began promoting its new, improved sucker's racket as "The American Way to Play." (As Johnston points out, Sig Rogich, the Strip publicity agent who concocted that phrase, later was hired as an image-maker during George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign and subsequent presidency.)

Part theme park, part mall, part Lourdes--just stand amid the slot machines and watch the endless caravan of old ladies in wheelchairs rolling themselves faithfully, desperately toward redemption--the gaming industry of the Merv Griffins and the Trumps and the junk-bond kings and the bold-suspendered yuppie accountants is testament to the power of America's lust for mediocrity. It is sin made bland, a pastel dream world in which the hoi polloi might catch a whiff of Robin Leach's cologne or a glimpse of Frank Sinatra Jr.'s gleaming ring.

Beneath the patina of this sucker-friendly dream world, however, the cold-blooded nature of the racket has grown ever more calculated, by means of computerized odds-stacking, subtle psychological lures expertly devised to attract and evoke compulsive behavior in the addictive (and the just plain dumb), and a variety of other methods introduced by the graduate-schooled, spreadsheet-spewing minions of the new order.

Are you suggesting that we leave our consciences at the door?

[zengrifter]

Are you suggesting that we leave our consciences at the door?

At the door of the casino, yes.
Or ... when the dealer makes a mistake that would otherwise benefit you or the table do you immediately point out the error, in good conscience?

[aslan]

At the door of the casino, yes.
Or ... when the dealer makes a mistake that would otherwise benefit you or the table do you immediately point out the error, in good conscience?

If someone is getting overpaid other than myself, or at the same time as myself, I have never felt it right to say anything. I don't know the moral justification for this. Maybe it's simply that I should mind my own business. I just follow my gut.

If it's just me, sometimes I have said something, and sometimes I have not. I felt better about it when I said something, but I didn't lose any sleep over it when I did not, although it didn't seem entirely right. I think I feel better of myself not taking advantage of dealer's errors, believing that the honorable thing to do is to limit my attempts to beat the house to the way I play the game, nothing more. Also, it's fantastic camo to call attention to a dealer overpaying you, and it doesn't cost you anything in your expected win rate, since this calc does not include a dealer error factor.

[Katz]

Yes, but it is also a moral offense. Possibly two different definitions. Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not steal? Why don't you preach that to the casinos?

[aslan]

Thou shalt not steal? Why don't you preach that to the casinos?

Is the house advantage, permitted and regulated by the state to allow the casinos to make a reasonable profit, stealing? And their are plenty of advantage players who claim they have the advantage. Just ask Ion Saliu. The casinos don't even let him play!

[zengrifter]

I felt better about it when I said something, but I didn't lose any sleep over it when I did not

Me neither, f**k'em.