Monthly Archives: April 2017

The Value of Knowing Casino Procedures: Part One

The Value of Knowing Casino Procedures: Part One

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Every casino has detailed house procedures, but these can vary widely from casino to casino. There is great value in knowing some of these casino-specific procedures before you play, especially if you intend to stay under the radar.

There’s a lot to discuss in this regard, so for now I’m going to focus on situations where you’re playing games with a constant edge and gaining value from increased game speed and decreased scrutiny.

I recently played a casino where I knew any table max bet on a particular carnival game required a call to the eye in the sky. This game has a fair amount of heat on it, and I have a face and name well known to casinos, so I don’t want anyone upstairs to notice me if I can avoid it.

Although a constant max bet would obviously produce more immediate EV than betting 75% of table max, in that particular situation I felt that a 75% bet had more value due to increased longevity. If I can avoid being detected and last twice as long in the process by only betting 75% of table max, my overall EV will be one and a half times higher. I also have a lower risk of ending up on a flyer or in a database, both of which are, of course, -EV.

Another area where this comes into play is during the buy-in. If I’m concerned about game speed or just don’t want the pit coming over to see what I’m up to, I can intentionally buy in for an amount under the threshold for pit approval.

I’ve even been in a session that required a lot of buy-ins, and the pit boss said, “hey Lee, if you could buy in for $900 each time instead of $1000 I would appreciate it. We’re understaffed today and $1000 requires a call to surveillance for approval.”

Of course I was happy to oblige, as the buy-ins were now faster and the EITS wasn’t being reminded of my presence every time I bought in.

On the flip side, if I want to slow the game down for any particular reason, I may buy in for an amount that I know will take longer to get approved, and I may do this at a time when the pit boss seems tied up in something else. This is assuming that I don’t think the extra scrutiny will pose a threat.

The reverse of this situation is one of the most important examples of knowing casino procedure when playing constant-edge games: achieving maximum game speed.

On carnival games especially, game speed can be atrocious. If you’re regularly receiving payouts over the amount a dealer is allowed to pay without approval, it may actually be +EV to bet less in order to increase game speed. If you want to bet $300 on Three Card Poker, for example, but notice that a payout over five black chips requires approval, you may actually make more EV per hour by betting $250, depending on how slow payout approvals are.

If you know a casino’s procedure for monitoring bets of a certain size, requiring approval for buy-ins, and requiring approval for payouts, you can manipulate your approach to maximize EV. Edge and bet size are only two parts of the EV puzzle.

Don’t Be a Jerk

Don’t Be a Jerk

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What do you think an AP’s most valuable asset is?

Is it 20/20 vision? A dextrous hand? A mind like a steel trap, lightning-fast counting skills, and an act that could fool even the most jaded pit boss?

Nope. It’s a strong network.

As an AP who is not particularly talented in any specific aspect of advantage play, there’s no question that my lifetime earnings have been heavily influenced by the strength of my network. I think my more naturally-gifted colleagues would tell you the same about themselves. For any AP, a strong network is the best and most reliable source of cold, hard EV.

This isn’t about being a leech; in fact, it’s anything but. If you’re honest, make fair deals, are easy to work with, and do your best to contribute whenever possible, you’ll likely be blessed with a wide network of players willing to share information and work with you. It’s never a one-way street—players who treat it as one will soon find themselves at a dead end.

There are players out there who are very bright and are unquestionably able to beat games on their own but that are giant pains in the ass to work with—or worse, completely dishonest crooks—and so they’re often stuck working alone, or working exclusively with green APs who haven’t caught wind of their reputation yet.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, the AP biz is extremely reputation-based. If you give other APs a raw deal, it won’t take long for other APs to find out. Aside from the immediate implications of being a total asshole, you’re also heavily stunting your earning ability.

For the shot-takers, liars, and all-around shady APs who conduct themselves in this manner, I have no particular advice. You’ll be out of business soon, anyway.

But there are a lot of APs who mean well and still find themselves battling a questionable reputation. You don’t want to be one of these guys. Prevention is the best medicine.

One of the biggest gripes I hear about other APs is that they’re difficult or unpleasant to work with. This can range from trying to change deals during a trip due to playing with scared money, to splitting hairs over literal pennies during chops. If you’re sweating a few extra bucks amongst a play worth thousands, rest assured there are a lot of other guys out there who are more easygoing and just as capable as you willing to take your spot.

I don’t mean to suggest that you should be willing to be walked on by other APs, but often, differences of opinion will arise when it comes to splitting expenses and things of that nature. I stay flexible in situations like these, and it’s no coincidence that the people I work with consistently do the same. We’re not out to game each other, and we know that.

That leads to my next point: always make clear deals. I’ve been in situations before where disputes have arisen over non-minor things, like jackpot payouts, missing chips, and chop percentages after a game has already been secured.

In these kind of cases, I’ve generally been willing to give both sides the benefit of the doubt. Given the character of the APs involved, I don’t think anyone was angling dishonestly, but a major dispute still occurred, sometimes requiring mediation by an unbiased third party. In some cases, these disputes have hurt working relationships between impeccably honest APs.

The solution is to cover all the bases before the start of a play, or a trip, or a partnership. Account for as many possibilities as you can. Plan for the unexpected.

What happens if a teammate loses a purple chip while walking to the casino? What happens if a teammate is robbed in the parking garage? What’s the deal if one teammate starts a trip a day early and another starts a day late but stays a day extra? If someone wins a drawing for a new car while playing a session as part of a team, how is that handled?

The answers will vary from player to player, so talk about them before they happen—hopefully the bad ones won’t—and make sure you’re on the same page. The more you plan for, the fewer potential surprises you need to worry about, and the less likely it will be that you’ll have a disagreement that could hurt your working relationship.

Your network with other APs is your strongest asset, and it will usually be more consistent and valuable than any cache of secret games or individual skills you’ll ever develop. Plan ahead, be flexible, don’t be a jerk, and keep building that network with your good name and your easy-to-work-with attitude.

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Blake Phillips is a professional advantage player and contributing editor to AP Street. Contact him at bp@apstreet.com

Saving Money on Rental Cars with Costco Travel

Saving Money on Rental Cars with Costco Travel

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If you travel as much as I do, you probably get a lot of rental cars. My main focus when picking a company is price. Saving even $50 per rental adds up when you rent dozens of times a year, and I usually save that much or more by shopping around rather than booking directly with one company.

Booking directly through a rental car company has its benefits, but it usually costs quite a bit more—sometimes double or even triple versus booking through a travel site. The main benefit to direct booking for me is time saved by skipping lines through rental car company loyalty programs. In the past, I’ve weighed the time savings versus the extra cost, and the time saved usually wasn’t worth the extra money.

That was before I started using Costco Travel. Costco Travel is easily accessible through the Costco mobile app and offers discounts on three car companies: Budget, Enterprise, and Alamo. You can add your account details for any rental car loyalty programs you’re a member of right in the app. The company I usually choose is Budget because I like their Fastbreak program.

Another perk to using Costco is that all three companies allow you to add a second driver for free if you book through Costco. This is usually only offered at an additional charge.

Here is a breakdown of the three programs which can be added at booking:

Alamo Insider: This seems to be more of a typical rewards card. I don’t think it allows you to cut the line, but Alamo does offer a feature called “skip the counter” (available at some locations only; must check in online). I have never used it.

Enterprise Plus: You can sign up for this program for free. Some locations offer a Plus line that is usually shorter than the regular line. I have also never used this.

Budget Fastbreak: With Fastbreak, your car comes ready with paperwork on the dash and keys inside. At some locations, the shuttle driver will know which car is yours and drop you off at it directly. One location I went to had a Fastbreak display at the counter, and I had to locate my paperwork there. The spot number was on the paperwork’s jacket.

I usually go with Budget if the price is similar to the other options and use my Fastbreak membership to get in and out quickly. Sometimes Budget is much more expensive, so I choose one of the other two.

I do always check the rate versus other travel sites and if another site is significantly cheaper I go with that and deal with the line. Otherwise, I book most of my rentals at Budget through Costco.

The other great thing is only the person making the reservation has to be a Costco member. I have booked for friends on my account for the same price.

When to Show ID

When to Show ID

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Remaining anonymous in the casino is an important part of the job for many APs—namely, ones who would get thrown out or backed off if the casino knew their real name (myself included).

Sometimes, I still have to show ID to play, and this is because some crazy people apparently think I look like I could be under 21. It happens less and less, and eventually I’ll probably wish it would still happen and it won’t. Still, getting ID’d for age is often an issue for APs in their mid-30s or younger..

I know when I’m getting carded for age rather than some other nefarious reason because I’m asked either by a dealer as soon as I sit down or by a door person carding me and everyone else as they enter the casino. Occasionally, a cashier may ask for ID to confirm age as well, although that’s far less likely than the other two, and it’s is not always an innocuous age verification.

Sometimes, a casino may use your youthful appearance as a ploy to demand ID to either confirm you are who they think you are before taking action against you, or to find out who you are so they can add a name to the 86ing you’re about to receive. Knowing the difference between types of ID checks is important.

So how do you know the difference?

Generally, any ID for age is done by either a table games dealer or a security guard stationed at the entrance. However, if you’ve been playing for a while and a pit boss suddenly appears and asks you for your ID because you “look young,” this is likely an escalating heat situation.

Ditto if you’re approached just walking through the casino. Unless you look like a legitimate juvenile, this is almost always not good; you should generally leave without giving up ID in both of these situations.

Sometimes this may actually happen as a legitimate age verification, but that’s very unlikely and has never personally happened to me. I would err on the side of caution.

Speaking of which, “normal” age-related ID requests can be dangerous, too.

In some age verification situations, it’s possible for surveillance to look at your ID after they become suspicious of you just by running the tape back. Once they see your name and confirm it’s one they don’t like, you’re screwed.

This does happen, but it’s pretty rare. Sometimes leaving the same way you came in and telling the ID checker you “forgot something in your car and will be right back” is enough to thwart the cameras. If they do roll the tape back, they would likely only go back to your re-entry, which should hopefully have been ID-free, assuming the same person is working and remembers checking your ID the first time around. Sometimes, though, power-tripping security guards will ID you again anyway, so this doesn’t always work.

In cases where an ID check is likely, it may be helpful to know that a passport is somewhat harder to read than a driver license from the EITS (eye in the sky). I always bring a passport to places that ID at the door for this reason, and also because some places do not scan passports but do scan ID cards.

There are also a handful of casinos that automatically check your name and/or face versus a database of undesirables when they scan your ID at entry, or even sometimes at the players club. These are places you just can’t play in if you’re in the database they are checking and look young enough to get ID’d at the door.

I’ve been instantly 86’ed at these casinos, as have others I know. We simply can’t play them until we look older. If you’re in this situation and are thinking about showing a fake ID to get into places, DON’T. It’s too risky. The software casinos use at the door is great at picking off fakes.

To Cash, or Not to Cash?

To Cash, or Not to Cash?

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Any time I play a session where I plan to bet an amount that could result in a big swing, I prefer to use a BP playing rated in their real name, or I play in my real name, if possible. It’s much easier to buy in for whatever amount you need to get the job done, cash out when you’re done, and be on your way.

Of course, a lot of times this isn’t possible, leaving the alternatives of playing unrated, or playing under an alias. In both of these situations, you may end up with a pile of chips. What do you do with them?

Cash them?

In this scenario, you give up your name at the cage and do the required paperwork to get your money. This can be a tricky situation, but sometimes it’s the best move.

I once hit a large carnival game jackpot while playing unrated at a little, out of the way dump. They paid me in $500 chips, which had to be brought to the table just for this hand, as they don’t regularly stock them in the trays.

I knew they used databases I’m in, and I knew if they decided to check them for my name they wouldn’t be happy. But, if I cashed now I would still get paid and wouldn’t have to worry about what to do with the chips, so I went right to the cage and cashed them without incident. The downside tis that I almost certainly can’t return there until they forget who I am.

Another situation where It may be best to just cash out is when a play gets made and a casino obviously knows your real name and decides to 86 you. I believe that most of the damage is already done and I would rather not be stuck with a bunch of chips I have to worry about.

Sure, they may get some better pictures, but unless you have an acquaintance that wants the chips, it’s going to be a pain in the ass to deal with them. If I have a big pile of chips and it’s obvious the casino is 86ing me because they realize who I am, I generally just cash them. My name, face, and SSN have plenty of heat already; whatever extra damage they can do was probably already done when they figured out who I was and decided to 86 me.

Don’t cash them?

If the casino doesn’t know who you are but is 86ing you for the play, then the best way to avoid your name getting heat is to just leave immediately. At this point, the casino really wants to know who you are so they can add a name to your file, flyer, or database entry. If you give up ID to anyone, they will definitely make use of the info.

If the casino doesn’t know who you are and you can continue to play there because of this fact, it is best to go on not letting them know who you are as long as they continue to let you play. In this case, it’s best to avoid showing the casino your ID for as long as possible.

You may consider keeping a running chip inventory for use when playing at that casino, cashing it all out when you’re no longer welcome or otherwise done playing there. There are other alternative options in this situation, but I will leave those for you to consider.

Don’t Look Like an AP

Don’t Look Like an AP

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Occasionally, you’ll play a session with no scrutiny, no heat, and no suspicion coming from the dealer, the pit, or surveillance. More often, and especially as you engage in higher-stakes play, your presence will be a source of curiosity amongst casino personnel at best, and a serious source of immediate concern at worst.

You are essentially presenting the casino with a puzzle: who you are, and whether or not you’re a desirable player. Do you want your puzzle to be a children’s jumbo jigsaw, or a 2000-piece borderless jigsaw with no box image and extra pieces?

Much has been said about various tactics to keep casino staff guessing. There are lots of things you can do that make you look less like an AP—drinking alcohol, tipping, talking a lot, not paying attention to the cards, and so on. But there are just as many things you can not do that will also add a little bit of complexity to your puzzle.

1. Phones. If there’s one leak that the entire advantage play community has, it’s gratuitous cell phone usage. Don’t get me wrong—cell phones are crucial in this business; they’re one of the most powerful tools we have. But do you really need to be checking your phone under the table every two minutes?

Look at other gamblers in the casino. How many of them are glued to their phones while playing? Not many, because they’re engrossed in the game they’ve decided to play. They’re there to escape reality, not to indulge in by checking their phone compulsively.

It’s even worse if you have a partner at the table doing the same nonstop phone checking under the table. It looks extremely suspicious, and it helps surveillance put you together.

Oh, and holding your phone at an upright angle and/or covering it with your other hand to hide the screen from surveillance cameras looks stupid, and it’s a 100% guarantee that anyone doing this is an AP. Knock it off.

2. Paying attention. Most civilians aren’t attached to their phones while playing because they’re wrapped up in playing! I know it’s boring as a non-civilian to sit at a table all day and play cards, but you need to at least pretend to care about what’s going on.

Sitting in the same spot for eight hours and spending nearly all of that time staring at the TV and checking your phone tells casino staff that you’re not really there to gamble for fun, and you’re not there to satisfy your craving for action, either. So why are you there? Is that a question you want the pit crew and surveillance to ask themselves?

3. Handling cash. Watch gamblers at the table, especially high rollers. If they’re not playing with a credit line (i.e., using markers), how do they handle buy-ins?

Here’s a hint: they definitely don’t sneakily pull a money belt out of their pants and count money by touch under the table. Counting money under the table is an AP thing. Having money neatly separated into set amounts across several pockets is an AP thing. Using a money belt in view of the cameras is a really ridiculous AP thing.

Pulling out a wad of cash in a rubber band is more “normal.” Pulling it out of your wallet is even more so. Be normal.

4. Blatant dealer-play correlation. We’ve all done it, and many of you are doing it now. You like playing against a particular dealer but not so much against their relief. So when the relief shows up, you immediately take a 15-minute long bathroom break. Or, you drop your bet to 1/10 the size of your standard wager.

Is it really worth the savings here? Could you time your breaks a little more strategically—perhaps leaving a little earlier and sometimes not leaving at all? Could you afford to fade the 0.7% house edge on your standard wager size for 20 minutes so that you can keep it steady with a 5% edge for the next hour? Can you employ some game slowing techniques instead of dropping bets to a comically low level or appearing as if you have a serious drug and/or constipation problem?

If you want to look like a civilian, do things that civilians do. And better yet, don’t do things that APs do. By thinking about this from both perspectives, you create a much more difficult puzzle for the casino to solve, and that’s money.

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Blake Phillips is a professional advantage player and contributing editor to AP Street. Contact him at bp@apstreet.com

Gaming the System With Priceline

Gaming the System With Priceline

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Most of the time when traveling outside of major casino destinations it makes sense to stay at an off site hotel. I spend about half of my life in hotels, and so I’ve developed a few methods to save a considerable amount of money without sacrificing much quality of life. One of the simplest of these methods involves the “name your own price” and “express deals” features on Priceline.

Name Your own Price: This feature allows you to book a hotel by picking a desired star rating and area you want to stay in. You can name a price lower than the typical price for hotels of this star rating in your chosen area, but the catch is that you won’t know which hotels you’re actually booking until the reservation is complete.

There are a few downsides to using this feature. First, the area you pick can be broader than you realize; Priceline’s interpretation of “downtown” may differ greatly from what most would consider the actual downtown area. Second, if you go blind on one of these, you may even end up staying somewhere that charges an extra fee for parking, or a “resort fee” that gets added onto your bill when you check in. Resort and parking fees can be as high as $40 a night, making your “deal” not much of one after all.

I don’t recommend blindly naming your own price here. I do, however, recommend using this feature when you know what you’re actually bidding on. There are a couple simple ways to narrow it down.

The first, and most obvious, is when there’s only one hotel in your chosen area that meets your criteria. For example, when I go to the Tacoma, Washington area, I always bid on a 4-star hotel in the downtown area. There’s only one 4-star hotel in downtown Tacoma, so I know exactly what I’m bidding on. Using a few different email accounts, I can start low and bid up a few times until I get the hotel for the absolute lowest price they will accept. In this case, I’ve booked the hotel for as low as 1/3 of the listed price.

So what do you do If there’s more than one hotel matching your search criteria? Luckily, others have done some research for you, giving you a pretty good idea of what you’re bidding on by looking at their results given the same same criteria. These results are posted on a free forum at <a href=”http://betterbidding.com/” target=”_blank”>betterbidding.com</a>.

Express Deals: Sometimes you just want to book a hotel and not have to deal with bidding, narrowing it down, or using multiple email accounts in order to make multiple bids. This is where the express deals feature comes in handy. The prices are always considerably cheaper than the posted prices on Priceline’s main page and much cheaper than the hotel’s own listed prices.

As is the case with naming your own price, you aren’t given the name of the hotel you’re booking until the reservation is complete. Fortunately, these are usually easy to narrow down based on available amenities and star ratings. For example, if you see a 3-star express deal for $69 In Tacoma with an 8+ rating and a pool, you can go back to Priceline’s main page and look at the number of hotels that fit that criteria. Usually, there will only be one or two hotels that fit the bill. To narrow it down even further, it’s usually the cheapest of these options that are offering the express deal.

When you’re on the road for work as often as many APs are, quality of life is important. I’ve saved thousands of dollars using these methods, without having to stay in dumps.

Is It Heat, Or Is It Sweat?

Is It Heat, Or Is It Sweat?

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Anyone who has played professionally has heard the term heat or heard a casino described as sweaty. Although those terms are related, there’s a big difference between getting heat and getting sweat from a casino, and it’s important to be able to recognize which is which.

Heat: The casino is not happy, they don’t like what’s going down, and there’s a good chance you will be backed off or 86’ed soon. Common signs include phone conversations about you, multiple suits coming in and out of the pit and taking an obvious interest in you, and repeated requests for a players card after you have already declined.

You may even experience a pit boss standing behind you, trying to see what you’re doing, or rifling through the discards. Worse yet, you might see a pit boss standing on the floor outside of the pit, waiting for security to arrive so they can walk you out. I once had a pit boss sit next to me at a table right before a hand was dealt, to see if I was doing what he thought I might be doing. That was definitely heat.

Sweat: The casino may not be happy, but it’s just because they don’t like your action for what could be a number of reasons. They probably don’t know the play (at least not right away, unless you’re straight counting) and they probably aren’t going to take any action against you without further investigation (which may or may not occur).

Pit personnel in sweaty casinos act like they know you’re up to something—whether or not they actually do—when you hit a certain betting level or win threshold, or even just because you fit the AP profile. Casinos that sweat are generally the lower end places: in Las Vegas, think Jerry’s Nugget, Cannery, Hooters, etc. Go into one of these places and start betting $500 unrated, and you will likely see some sweat.

I call this procedural sweat. The casino goes through these same motions for any unknown player betting what they see as big money.

So how do you determine which one you’re getting? Unfortunately, there’s no cut and dry answer; a lot of it comes from experience. There are, however, a few things to consider that might help you figure it out:

What is the tolerance level and attitude of the place you are playing?

If I flat bet $300 on blackjack at a high end casino that has similar action all over the floor, I don’t expect much attention at all. So if I suddenly start getting a lot of obvious attention, it’s likely heat. If I take that same action to a casino that mostly gets low roller action, they are likely going to immediately act like something big is going down and run all over the pit making phone calls, asking for a players card, and so on. Here, I would attribute this to standard casino sweat.

Have you played at this casino before?



If yes, is this an attitude change for the casino? Did they used to be happy to see you but are suddenly giving you the cold shoulder or acting as if the roof is on fire? This is likely heat.

If no, and you have reason to believe that your face and/or name are clean at this place, then this is likely procedural sweat.

Did the casino’s attitude noticeably change hours into the session, or has it remained constant?



If it changed, this could be heat, or it could be due to other factors, like win amount or buy in amount. These, of course, are not mutually exclusive.

If it remained constant, then the casino is likely just sweating you. it is their procedure to sweat, and they won’t stop until you leave. If you’ve already played for a couple of hours and nothing has changed, you’re probably OK to continue.

Have you had any backoff or 86ing incidents recently (or ever) in the same region?

If you’ve had recent trouble, then any negative attention given right away is likely heat and the result of a flyer from the offending casino. In some regions, the only way to avoid further issues is to just leave town because you are done everywhere (unless you’re good at very drastic look changes).

If you’ve had trouble in the area but not recently, then it’s of course harder to tell. I would generally play through it unless I saw signs of obvious heat.

If you haven’t had any trouble recently, then any attention that occurs right away—assuming you are not using a dirty name and are not a notorious/recognizable player—is likely sweat.

That last point is an entire issue altogether. If your name and/or face are well known by casino personnel, things can be a lot trickier. I will save that discussion for another post.

What is Advantage Play?

What is Advantage Play?

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Imagine you are walking the Vegas strip with your buddies and stopping at casino bars along the way to have some $15 drinks. At your current stop you notice that the people playing bar top blackjack aren’t paying for their drinks. You look at the machine: it’s Game King BJ, $1 denomination.

You figure you might as well gamble the $15 and get a “free” drink, hoping to win, break even, or lose less than $15. At least there’s a chance of coming out better than you would if you just gave up the $15 without trying, right?

Now, these bar top BJ machines are usually terrible for the player, with a casino house edge of around 5 percent on average. Against a 5% house edge, if you play correctly and bet in $1 increments, you expect to lose just $0.05 a hand in the long run.

As long as you play fewer than 300 hands per $15 drink, this is a money-saving venture. You may not realize it, but this is an advantage play.

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