We are required to pay out 100% of the money we take in. Period. There is no administrative fee. On some occasions, we have actually had to make up the difference when we have paid out all the available funds and still had more to pay.

In fact, our accounting department won't let us use the money to buy prizes, as there then becomes an issue as to real value of the prize (our cost vs. retail). All of our jackpots and promotions are paid cash/chips and come directly from the promotional fund.

There may be some properties that hold back a promotional fee, but by law, they must be able to provide you with an accoutning of where all the funds go. If they cannot (or will not), contact the local Gaming commission.

HLV Poker Guy is correct. In Nevada, 100% of ALL jackpot funds must be returned to players. Establishments run the risk of large fines or losing their licenses if this is breached.

Such is not the case in other jurisdictions, however. In California, upwards of 15% is withheld for admin costs.

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Incessant Twitter Ramblings available here: LasVegasMichael

How many complaints have you actually filed? I can tell you that the complaints filed that I am aware of were investigated immediately. In fact, I have had to sit on overtime waiting for Gaming Agents to arrive from downtown to resolve an issue. They are available 24/7. Really? They come in all the time here. Without warning. While usually not for specific audits, they do regularly come in. They are in plaincothers, but after a while you figure out who they are, especially when they flash a badge. So, it seems your blanket statement may have a hole or two. Did you ever consider that it might be because the casino might not lose its license due to theft by an individual? The overwhelming majority (and yes, I'm using that phrase correctly) of what you might describe as cheating or fraud is not committed by the casino, but by individuals in their employ. The casinos end up paying fines for the action of those individuals, and usually tighten up their procedures to minimize the chance of it happening again. But as long as there are rules, there will be people who will try to circumvent them to their benefit.

Look at PH, for example. Should PH lose their gaming license because of the individuals skimming in the poker room? I don't think so. That would be a gross overreaction to the incident. Should there be an investigation and potential fines? Absolutely. But to claim that because no one has lost a license means the entire system is irretrievably corrupt and the Gaming Commission ineffective is naive at best.

Your first and third paragraphs seem a tad...er...contradictory. So you can't take an "administrative fee", but you can take a "promotional fee"? And gee, if you ask, they have to provide you with an accounting! OOOOH!

When Hitler's armies looted France in 1940, they gave everybody they took things from RECEIPTS. Everybody got one---I guess they had utility, in that you could show the second wave of looters that you'd been pre-looted, and weren't hiding anything. But I digress....

Just how often does the mighty Nevada Gaming Control Board swoop down on you and demand, in ringing tones, to see a complete accounting of all jackpot/promotional monies taken in and paid out? Equally to the point--since the casino is the only entity that counts both the jackpot drop and the regular rake while those monies are in their original chip form, and neither of those amounts are metered in any way (so no one knows, barring a tedious hand-by-hand review of the surveillance tapes, how much SHOULD be in those boxes), what's to prevent the casino from simply removing some chips from the jackpot boxes, and putting them into the rake boxes? (Of course, no casino would EVER do this, because casinos are more honest than Mother Theresa--but I still want to ask the question.)

Yes, the "promotional fee" in the third paragraph was intended to say "administrative fee". I mistyped.

So... in the most regulated gaming environment around, of course everyone must be on the take. We also funded the phony moon missions, are hiding the Loch Ness monster, and Jimmy Hoffa runs MGM/Mirage.


And now you jump the shark.

Suddenly, casinos are akin to Hitler. Nice. Why is it that when presented with fact, those without resort to these kind of analogies? Do you really think it makes your point?


More often than you obviously think. And this is in addition to internal audits as well as external, third party audits. But hey, they're all on our payroll right? They couldn't possibly all be on the up and up, right? They're casinos, they must be stealing, right? Yawn.

I don't know, maybe the fact that the entire count team would have to be in on the process, which is performed under tight surveillance, for how much? Maybe a couple of hundred dollars? In the grand scheme of things, do you really think a casino is going to be so stupid as to jeopardize a gaming license over what is about 1/100 of 1% of the daily drop? Really? There wouldn't be enough money changing hands to keep everyone quiet.

It's easy to come up with grand conspiracies. It's a lot harder to make them make sense.

How many complaints have you actually filed? I can tell you that the complaints filed that I am aware of were investigated immediately. In fact, I have had to sit on overtime waiting for Gaming Agents to arrive from downtown to resolve an issue. They are available 24/7.

>>>Seven. All except one totally ignored, and the one that wasn't, I received a terse phone call six weeks later that told me that "there was no evidence of wrongdoing on the casino's part. Click." What a joke. I have also made dozens of calls to them over the years, and their attitude has consistent been unhelpful, dismissive, and often just plain rude. They give every impression of lazy government bureaucrats sitting on their butts, totally unmotivated to do their jobs. That's my experience; take it for what it's worth, but it's hardly a casual impression. And my complaints were quite legitimate by the way; I didn't even bother to contact these idiots unless I had what I thought was a very strong case.

Really? They come in all the time here. Without warning. While usually not for specific audits, they do regularly come in. They are in plaincothers, but after a while you figure out who they are, especially when they flash a badge. So, it seems your blanket statement may have a hole or two.

>>>Yeah, I worked in the slot department, and as a table game supervisor, and many other "gaming" positions, in several Las Vegas casinos, for eight years, and it was an open joke that everyone knew when the next "surprise" inspection was. We even received memos to that effect. I agree that the NGCB sends in plainclothes guys to frown at the slot machines, but so what? Unless they have the power to stop someone in mid-play, and open up the machines themselves (possessing, I presume, some kind of master key), then all they can really do is note how dirty the machine faceplates are. And even if they could surprise-inspect a machine, would they know how to do a core dump before the machine is powered down, so they could examine the machine's software (not its firmware)?

Did you ever consider that it might be because the casino might not lose its license due to theft by an individual? The overwhelming majority (and yes, I'm using that phrase correctly) of what you might describe as cheating or fraud is not committed by the casino, but by individuals in their employ. The casinos end up paying fines for the action of those individuals, and usually tighten up their procedures to minimize the chance of it happening again. But as long as there are rules, there will be people who will try to circumvent them to their benefit. Look at PH, for example. Should PH lose their gaming license because of the individuals skimming in the poker room? I don't think so. That would be a gross overreaction to the incident. Should there be an investigation and potential fines? Absolutely. But to claim that because no one has lost a license means the entire system is irretrievably corrupt and the Gaming Commission ineffective is naive at best.

>>>To claim that the casinos themselves never ever ever ever cheat as a deliberate act of policy (which should be the implied conclusion from all the cumulative NGCB investigations) is breathtakingly naive. To claim that the reason they never found such cheating is that such cheating never existed is just plain silly. And for what it's worth, I would advance the radical notion that the casino is responsible for the acts of the casino's employees. I'm sure that they're quite willing to throw one or more individuals to the wolves if there happens to be an investigation, and profess loudly that such persons were acting against casino policy. I know two such scapegoated indivuals who lost their gaming card permanently as a result of something that happened in their department, and while it's possible they were involved in the incident in question, my personal knowledge of those individuals causes me to assess the likelihood of that actually being true at near-zero.

So... in the most regulated gaming environment around, of course everyone must be on the take. We also funded the phony moon missions, are hiding the Loch Ness monster, and Jimmy Hoffa runs MGM/Mirage.
Suddenly, casinos are akin to Hitler. Nice. Why is it that when presented with fact, those without resort to these kind of analogies? Do you really think it makes your point?
More often than you obviously think. And this is in addition to internal audits as well as external, third party audits. But hey, they're all on our payroll right? They couldn't possibly all be on the up and up, right? They're casinos, they must be stealing, right? Yawn.
I don't know, maybe the fact that the entire count team would have to be in on the process, which is performed under tight surveillance, for how much? Maybe a couple of hundred dollars? In the grand scheme of things, do you really think a casino is going to be so stupid as to jeopardize a gaming license over what is about 1/100 of 1% of the daily drop? Really? There wouldn't be enough money changing hands to keep everyone quiet.
It's easy to come up with grand conspiracies. It's a lot harder to make them make sense.

>>>it's also almost a cliche to dismiss any allegations of impropriety as implying a "grand conspiracy". Classic seventh grade debate tactic--reductio ad absurdum--make your opponent's arguments seem absurd by missstating them in absurd fashion.

Your argument about a casino jeopardizing its license would carry some weight if there was any evidence that a casino's license was ever, anywhere or anytime, in any actual jeopardy. Since no casino has ever lost its license in this fashion, how much of a deterrent is such a threat?

And my analogy to Hitler's armies referred to the irony of being ripped off, but offered an ACCOUNTING. I was referring to the player supposedly being able to obtain a nice little piece of paper showing where the jackpot money goes. I've never bothered to try that, myself, because what good would the information be with no means of verifying it? Or are you saying they'll let me follow security into the count room?

What it all comes down to is that your assertions of constant, diligent oversight ring hollow in the light of the fact that NO CASINO has EVER been caught (or, more precisely, it was ALWAYS just a single miscreant individual, LOL) cheating. There are two explanations for this: 1. The casinos never cheat. 2. The detection and enforcement process is...uh...flawed. Your assertions amount to the equivalent of the police chief saying that the cops are doing a great job, despite the fact that there's no one in jail, and they've never arrested anyone.

Except that you have absolutely NO proof that it happens. So instead, you make the case that just because you believe it to be impossible that it doesn't happen, it must therefore be a conspiracy to hide the fact that it does. If you want to follow the logical fallacy model, this is the Burden of Proof Fallacy. From Nizkor.com

Bill: "I think that some people have psychic powers."
Jill: "What is your proof?"
Bill: "No one has been able to prove that people do not have psychic powers."

You dont have proof that casinos skim the promotional drop, you simply assume it must be so. And your assertion is backed by the statement that it is impossible that no one has been caught. This would be an example of Begging The Question, also referred to as Circular Reasoning. Your proof that your claim is true is that there is no proof that your claim is true.



Explanation 3 - There has never been any proof of a casino cheating, while there has been proof of individuals (one or more than one) using specific techiniques to cheat not only the customer, but the casino itself. See PH.

You seem to feel that the entire system must be broken to explain what is more easily explained by simple, individual greed.

Your assertions simply don't make financial sense. Forget jeopardizing a license, which you feel is unlikely. The amount of money that is involved is so miniscule that it's ludicrous to think it would be able to hush everyone that would have to be involved, from count room personnel to security, to surveillance to auditors. In all the years that the drop has been going on, you don't think there would have been one person who felt the need to report it, either due to honesty or because they weren't part of the cut? They all were kept quiet, even those that left? Is there some secret society of drop manipulators that keeps everyone in line?

Occam's Razor applies very easily here. The explanation is that there are safeguards in place to minimize this activity, and that allowing it is not in the best interest of the casino. There are tons of ways that casinos make money from customers by orders of magnitude greater than transferring money from promotional drop to house rake. It makes absolutely no sense to do something with so little return and so great a risk.

I've got a fiver here for the guy who teaches Beaverdance how to properly use the "quote" feature on these boards .... provided that he actually makes use of those teachings in all future posts.

Hmmm...what did I do with that Tazer?

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