one more word from me, this time about casino corruption.
There used to be roving casinos right in the midst of Toronto until they shut them down about 7 years ago. They'd spend three days in this hotel, three days in that empty ballroom, that kind of thing.
Anyways, one of them was actually caught and charged for rigging blackjack decks; taking out some faces and adding some low cards, apparently. I have the newspaper article around somewhere so I know that it's a true story (I was actually working a different casino at the time, and heard a rumour before getting confirmation from the newspaper article).
How on earth somebody spotted this I'll never know as we were using 6 or 8 decks at the time...I forget which as I worked Calgary casinos, too, and it was 6 at one (I think Calgary) and 8 at the other. Anyways, the way it was spotted and the steps they took to contact whatever agency is beyond me as it wasn't explained in the article, the best I can remember.
I guess that when there is money involved there is the possibility of corruption. Further examples of corruption in the Toronto casino industry I can certainly supply; I briefly worked at 5 in Toronto and 4 of those were dishonest in some fashion or another--everything from simply stealing dealer's tips to actually packing up and leaving town with lots of unpaid bills including weeks worth of employee wages.
I tried to contact the Ontario Gaming Commission to inform them of some of what I saw going on and the response was simply that there was nothing that they could do as they can't really police them, being roving casinos and all.
BS, really.
Still not sure why they shut 'em down but I'm not surprised.
I think that the reason why one place got despereate enough to actually rig blackjack decks was because the limits were incredibly low on the tables. $10 blackjack maximum and they had 5-10 Texas Hold-Em. The poker was some gauranteed money for these places but if the blackjack took a hit then it was hard to recover because of the low limits. I remember lots of times where the casino management was panicking because they were taking a hit on blackjack.
One other sorta-funny story, from my Toronto casino adventures (no corruption in Calgary...they have good casinos there).
I started to get real sick of the casino's ripping off my tips and generally being total pussies. Here's what I did. I had been dealing blackjack for years, this after playing it for years, and I had learn to count cards pretty well. It was actually easiest when I was dealing; piece of cake. I starting trying to help the players out--telling them if it was good to double-down, or something, if the deck was still stacked with faces. Just trying to help out however I could with whatever info I had; the count, basic strategy, whatever. Incredibly, most players would have none of it and treated me like the enemy. I got out of the business soon after; started to feel like a bit of a crook, to tell you the truth. Most people are losers, when it comes to gambling. That's the way they've designed it and that's how they control it. Myself; I look at it as entertainment, mostly; if I can make a few bucks then that's a bonus. Sure having fun trying, at least.
Interesting thread.