Heat

More on Eavesdropping

More on Eavesdropping

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On my recent Gambling With an Edge appearance, Richard, Bob, and I talked about Blake’s article on eavesdropping. I thought it was an interesting conversation because this is something that I use on a regularly basis. I may hear something coming from the pit crew that I don’t like and decide it’s time to save the play for another day or shift. Or, I may hear something I do like and decide that it’s time to ramp up the aggression. Either way, I find ways to gain value from paying attention.

On a recent trip, a couple of associates and I were playing when we noticed a lot of sudden commotion in the pit. I figured this was likely due to the stack of orange chips we had pocketed, but just to be sure I paid very close attention to find out what the pit crew was talking about.

In this instance, all I could hear was discussion about who had what chips, which wasn’t very useful. They seemed to be quite interested in me, in particular, and not so much so in my partners, so we decided to play on. Long story short, they ended up finding out who I was and now none of us are able to play in that particular region or casino in the near future. If I heard them say something more telling of what was to come, I may have been able to avoid any major fallout by just getting out of their hair.

In other, clearer, instances I’ve actually seen the pit mulling over a picture that was obviously me, so that gave me a pretty clear indication that it was time to go. In one extreme instance, I turned around in my chair and was staring directly at an 8.5×11″ photo of my face as a pit boss rushed into the pit with it to show her pals what she found. No reason to stick around after that.

Leaving before things escalate can sometimes help you avoid collateral damage, which is good. Leaving a great opportunity when you could have kept playing for hours longer without issue, on the other hand, is not good.

Many times I’ve heard pit crew talk about the count, or pretend to count me down, or openly debate as to whether or not I am counting when I am definitely not counting. Or they may be staring at a pic that is obviously not me. In instances like these, I am happy because I know I will easily pass inspection, and they most likely don’t even know who I am.

Recently, I actually was counting cards, when  I heard a pit boss say to another employee: “if he’s counting he’s really bad cause there’s already a lot of aces gone and he raised his bet.” In that instance I decided I might as well stick around for a bit.

Some APs get nervous easily and think any commotion in the pit is about them, causing them to call off plays too early. Eavesdropping helps. Often, the commotion has nothing to do with you. Other times, it may have something to do with you but isn’t play-related, like when your BP approaching the CTR threshold and the casino is worried about missing a buy in.

Maybe there’s someone else in your pit betting big, or getting a marker, or being a drunk idiot, or hitting on a dealer too aggressively, and so on. The bottom line is that it’s not always about you, but sometimes it is, and the more you hear, the better the decisions you’ll make will be.

Keep Your Eyes Open, and Your Ears, too

Keep Your Eyes Open, and Your Ears, too

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Some of the best APs are ones that are hyper-aware of their surroundings. Veteran players can sense a backoff or barring long before the major signs appear; they also frequently play through situations that other players would identify as dangerous heat.

Some of this improved judgment comes only with experience, but a lot of it can be learned relatively quickly. One of my favorite tools for refining judgment at the tables is good old fashioned eavesdropping.

I’ve been in plenty of situations where I was sure the axe was about to drop, only for a partner to inform me that there was no heat at all. They’d been listening in on a conversation in the pit, and the heat was directed somewhere else entirely. Or, there actually was a lot of attention on me, but for reasons that weren’t at all worth worrying about.

Often, a money player on an attention-heavy game will take a bathroom break, at which point the pit and dealer will start openly gossiping about them! What may have originally felt like dangerous heat often turns out to just be the pit’s surprise at a player being so foolish with their money.

In one case, a partner of mine was receiving intense scrutiny on a game, so he decided to take a break to evaluate the safety of continuing play. Our table had a hovering pit boss, endless phone calls, visitors from other pits—the works.

While he was gone, the pit boss came over to chat with the dealer, specifically about this player’s conspicuous buy-ins. I had suspected that much of his heat was due to buying in heavy on a players card with little recorded play; a big chunk of his buy-in was in chips, which can look suspicious if a card doesn’t have a lot of recent play on it. The pit boss’s questions confirmed my suspicion.

After the boss walked away to answer another phone call, I mentioned to the dealer that I’d seen this player over at a craps table earlier. When the boss returned, the dealer told her that my partner had been playing craps earlier, which explained the chips. The boss was visibly relieved, and the phone calls and visitors subsided very shortly after.

In this case, my partner had already left the casino, assuming that his heat was too much to play through. It turned out that it was just buy-in heat that required a little suggestion to cool down. There was still money to be made, but we may not have known it if I hadn’t been listening closely.

Sometimes, you can figure out what the pit knows and what they don’t know, simply because they’ll tell you so.

If you’re betting big and making strange plays, then you’ll frequently get a lot of attention. If this attention is of the this guy is going to lose his ass variety, then you probably have nothing to worry about. If it’s something more along the lines of this guy is making some strange plays that seem to win more often than they should, and I want to know why, then you may need to make some adjustments.

Knowing the difference is often impossible by visual cues alone, but a listener at the table will frequently be able to sort it out in the absence of the player in question. Knowing why a pit is concerned tells you a lot about their sophistication with regard to various plays, and that can translate to lots of extra EV—if you’re paying attention.

Another valuable application for eavesdropping occurs when serious heat has occurred, and an estimation of the damages is useful in determining whether or not a casino or dealer can be played in the future.

I’ve had partners tossed on hole card games, only to learn that they were nailed due to heat that had nothing to do with the actual play. I’ve had flashing dealers corrected while I was away from the table, which is normally cause to leave immediately, but a keen-eared partner was able to rate the incident as fairly innocuous based on the conversation between the pit and the dealer.

Eavesdropping is not limited to team play, either. If I’ve learned anything in the eavesdropping game, it’s that people have a very poor estimation of audibility. Just as APs have a terrible tendency to talk about a play in hushed yet still fully audible levels at the table (cringe), casino personnel have a tendency to talk openly about players as long as they’re an arm’s length or so away. This especially applies to phone conversations.

One of the most common bits of advice is for APs to keep their eyes open. There’s value to be had in unexpected places, and the alert player stands a better shot at finding it than one with blinders on. But why stop there? Keep your ears open, too, as value also comes from knowing what your opponents know. You’d be surprised at how often they spill the beans when they think no one is listening.

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

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.

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.