Do casinos ever use coolers anymore? (n/m)

[Moyer]

n/m

[RiverMel]

Nowadays, they use fancy ice boxes.

[Moyer]

I thought you'd get that sooner. 6 1/2 hours?

Seriously though, according to Baldwin, they used to use them all the time.

[fsuplayer]

/images/graemlins/grin.gif:p /images/graemlins/grin.gif

Thanks for the laugh!

FsuPlayer

[submariner]

OK, I give, what's a cooler?

[Ed Miller]

OK, I give, what's a cooler?

Stacked deck

[Ray Zee]

coolers are from a stupid movie. being having a bad luck person walk by the hot shooter. casinos really didnt use them much. only some that were run by complete fools. i do remember herb, a casino manager in reno use to change his tie or stand on one foot when someone was winning alot.
old days had lots of morons running the show. not to say its better now.

[Toro]

I think Casinos still practice "cooling". Ever been at the dice table in the middle of a hot roll? They do everything under the sun to cool off the shooter, including slowing the action to a snail's pace, checking and re-checking the dice, changing the stickman, etc.

And at blackjack, don't they change dealers when one is having a bad run? Pretty sure this stuff still goes on.

[MicroBob]

yes....i was a dealer for 8 months (BJ and carnival games only).

our dealers would be taken off a table if they are giving away a lot of money.
they didn't have any specific 'cool-off' guy at out place, they just wanted to change things up. i'm sure other places have specific dealers for cooling type purposes.

typical convo in the break room
'you're on 3-card poker now...i thought i saw you on the double-deck BJ earlier'
'yeah...i was there but i was getting killed.....some guy had won $5k and they decided to get me out of there.'

this wouldn't happen daily....but i'd hear of such changes once every couple of weeks or so i think.


in my first week or two there i had a hot table and the floor told me to add an extra riffle to my shuffle.
i asked if ther was something incorrect about my shuffle procedure (remember, i was new) and he said that my shuffle was fine, but i was getting killed and they thought it would be good to vary the shuffle a bit to try to 'cool things off' and 'mix things up'.
this was on a shoe-game btw.....and i would have recognized any counters (and i suspect they would not have).
the players were just typical bad players getting very lucky. no more no less. and certainly not related to the shuffle.
the floor just thought adding a riffle would mix up the cards and change the luck.

i couldn't believe it....since i was new to the casino industry i thought the employees there, and certainly the managers, would have a basic understanding of probabilities, etc. they are counting the money every night afterall (counting down the chips in the rack, etc) so i thought they understood that not every table will be a winner every night for them.

but then i came to learn that many in the industry believe in such superstitious nonsense.

i have also known a couple managers who play craps at a different casino. one of them was talking about a hot run they were on the other night, but then one of the guys 'accidentally' dropped the dice on the floor....and you just KNEW that when those dice touched the floor that would change the whole FLOW (or something like that....i couldn't keep up with all of his nonsensical superstitions).


i have a couple of friends who want me to see The Cooler.
they especially thought that i would like it since they know i play cards in casinos, etc etc.

after learning what the basic premise was i said that i was extremely likely to have a violent reaction to the stupidity of the film if and when i actually saw it.
they didn't seem to understand what my problem was but i said 'trust me...you don't want me to see this film with you'

i really enjoy cinema though and i like Baldwin and Macy quite a bit so i suspect i am likely to see it sooner or later.

[Ed Miller]

they thought it would be good to vary the shuffle a bit to try to 'cool things off' and 'mix things up'.

I think these procedures are fine. As well as 'cooling things off' and 'mixing things up,' they also 'slow things down,' 'get fewer hands in,' and 'deliver more beer to ed for the same amount of action.'

[MicroBob]

why bother maximizing your profit margin when you can guarantee 'more beer for ed'?

[MrDannimal]

Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy (originally a Boston sports writer, now for ESPN.com's Page2), talks about this all the time in columns relating to Vegas.

He talks about how if someone in his group is on a run, they'll call in Mariano Rivera from the Asian gaming room. Pretty funny stuff.

Sitting here, I can say "I can't believe casinos staff would buy into superstitious stuff" (slowing the game down tactics aside), but just watching 5 minutes of Autoplay BJ makes me cringe when on a slide, and I have to minimize the window.

Humans are wacky. We hate being helpless, so we invent all kinds of rituals to give us the illusion of control. Sure, swapping dealers or adding an extra riffle don't affect the probability of the game, but they don't affect it good or bad, so what's the harm?

[MicroBob]

as Ed pointed out, the extra riffle makes the shuffle take longer meaning less hands per hour.

less hands per hour means that there is a greater likelihood that the lousy players who won big will hang onto their money longer...and when they get tired and decide it's time to leave they might actually have some of their winnings still with them.

of course, i have no problem with this personally.

but from the casinos POV, such goofy superstitions are DEFINATELY cutting into their bottom line because they should be more concerned with dealing out more hands per hour....and less concerned with whether their customers are up or down (except for purposes of throwing lavish comps at the big spenders).
this is very obviously similar to the advantage player (BJ or poker) who is supposed to be less concerned with whehter they are winning or losing in the short-run and would be more interested in just getting the money out there when they have the advantage.


additionally, the fact that this superstitious stuff actually happens is indicative of the general incompetence of some of the casino staff.
no matter how good the formula is (show up, deal cards, give them drinks, take their money) it is always helpful to have competent personnel.

wasting time and energy changing dealers or telling a dealer to change things up is time and energy that could be better used making the customers feel welcome and trying to increase the chances that they will be interested in coming back even after they walk away a big loser.

in fact, the overall idea of the casino managers 'sweating the money' (or bringing in some sort of cooler) is ridiculous.
the games are designed to win for the house in the long-run.

floor-persons who sweat the money create a negative atmosphere. they really should be sitting there rooting FOR the players. and, when they do this, they should understand that cheering or sweating the money or extra shuffling has ZERO effect on the math of the game.

[Moyer]

The only intelligent reason I could see for slowing a winning player down is if you think they're cheating. This could give you more time to figure out what they're doing. Other than that though, it's rediculous.

BTW, you should see the movie. You just have to make believe that Makey's luck is really so horrible that he has the power to rub it off on others. For me, that was much easier to get past than most factually flawed movies. I thought it was a pretty decent flick. Plus, you get to see some nice tits. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
Plus, you get to see some nice tits.

[/ QUOTE ]


Why didn't somebody tell me this sooner?!?!?!
i'm seeing it tomorrow!!!!!

[risen]

I thought William H Macy's tits are overrated.

[Inthacup]

DEFINATELY

I'm sorry, but if a word is important enough to be all caps, it's important enough to be spelled correctly. It's definite not definate.

[soah]

A player winning at blackjack may be getting lucky. He may also be hole-carding or shuffle-tracking. Changing dealers/shuffle technique won't hurt anything if the player is just lucky, but could save quite a bit of cash if the player really does have an edge. Those options lot more rational than simply barring a player that is winning.