Thursday, August 23, 2012

BloggeRhythms 8/23/2012

Flipping channels yesterday, a screen-crawling item caused me to turn up the volume. Legal analysts on Fox News Shepard Smith show were discussing an April gambling incident  at the Golden Nugget casino in  Atlantic City, NJ.

It seems that when mini-baccarat  players kept seeing the same sequence of cards dealt over and over again, they kept increasing  their bets, from $10 to as much as $5,000. Forty-one consecutive winning hands later, 14 players had racked up more than $1.5 million in winnings. By then, casino security had surrounded the table, convinced the group had cheated, but were unable to prove how.

As it turned out, the casino buys pre-shuffled cards, ready for use, from a Kansas City playing card manufacturer. But in this case pre-shuffling wasn’t performed, for some reason or other, which is why the same hands kept repeating and the players soon figured that out.  

But here’s the part that got my attention. The Golden Nugget is now suing the players for return of their winnings, saying they’d taken unfair advantage of a mistake and therefore, weren’t entitled to keep the money. And while I understand that the casino obviously must feel it’s worth a shot to see if they can recover all, or even part, of what they’d lost…I almost fell over when one of Fox’s lawyers said he thought the casino was right.

Now, as for myself, I spent considerable time playing all kinds of cards in the past, and although I avoided casinos, preferring games with folks I knew and trusted, I understand that a bet’s a bet, no matter. And if a dealer, or anyone else in the game, is too dim to realize an error and immediately correct it, the wins are wins and losses are losses…and that’s what gambling's all about. 
 
What’s more, if you make gambling mistakes, and others take advantage, you’re likely in the wrong line of work. So, perhaps, the Golden Nugget ought to learn some of the basics of playing cards.  Such as opening decks and flipping though them before putting them in play. 
 
But, whatever the case, the next time I sit in a game it will be at the Golden Nugget. And, because I‘ll likely win,  for the first time in my life I’m going to bring a lawyer -from anywhere but Fox. 

That’s it for today folks.

Adios

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