The Movable Buffet: Dispatches from Las Vegas by Richard Abowitz

Can you beat the dealer with an iPhone?

I asked gambling expert Anthony Curtis about the blackjack iPhone app that gaming regulators warned casinos to be on the lookout for. Despite having significantly greater knowledge than I, including being someone who can actually count cards (many say they can, but I actually have watched Curtis do it in a Vegas casino), Curtis concluded as I did that this device is more likely to get a weekend warrior in a whole mess of trouble than allow him to beat the dealer. Curtis offered the Buffet this summary of a post he has written on the new app on his Las Vegas Advisor site:

"1) The iPhone app is not the road to riches playing blackjack. It can yield a slight player advantage if used perfectly, but most who try won't be able to. And those who can use it to their advantage will have difficulty playing for any length of time without being discovered.

2) The iPhone app is not a danger to casinos (see #1). A California casino may have encountered players trying to use the app, but reports of big losses are likely apocryphal.

3) Those who try to use the app at the tables risk severe repercussions, including the possibility of jail. Those who unwittingly use a cell phone at the tables may attract casino scrutiny."
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Blackjack: Cheating made easy with iPhones and even iPods

3288116266_a60ce50ec7 How does the iPhone's blackjack cheating application work?

The Gaming Control Board has posted on its site the warning it sent to casinos in Las Vegas Feb. 5 concerning the new application that I blogged about Monday. This application can be used to cheat at blackjack in Vegas resorts by keeping the count as well as the professionals. I say cheat because, unlike the counting attempted by players in their heads, bringing a device with you to figure out the count on blackjack becomes a felony in Nevada.

These details can be a bit esoteric to people who do not count cards or play blackjack, but for those who are interested, here is the Gaming Control Board's description:
This Blackjack Card Counting program can be utilized on either the Apple I-Phone or the Apple IPod touch (portable music player). Once this program is installed on the phone through the I-tunes website it can make counting cards easy. The program calculates the "True Count" and does it significantly more accurately. The card counting program uses a choice of four (4) card counting strategies. For each strategy the user presses the button that contains the face cards as they are drawn from the deck. Depending on the strategy and on the value of the card the button will either add or subtract 1 or 2 from the "Running Count." The program can utilize the following card counting methods including Hi-Low, Hi-Op I, Hi-Op II, and Omega II.

This program can be used in the "Stealth Mode." When the program is used in the "Stealth Mode" the screen of the phone will remain shut off, and as long as the user knows where the keys are located the program can be run effortlessly without detection... ."
Of course, "without detection" is relative, and resorts are expert at detecting supposedly undetectable devices that allow people to cheat at cards and slots. And I doubt that resorts will have any problems using security to catch anyone bringing this illegal assistance to aid them at a Vegas casino's blackjack tables. For those who might harbor any delusions that this is a legal activity, the letter concludes by warning:
Just as a reminder, use of this type of program or possession of a device with this type of program on it (with the intent to use it), in a licensed gaming establishment, is a violation of NRS 465.075.

And that means felony charges. Hardly, a fun way to enjoy a Vegas vacation.

Photo: Sarah Gerke
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Blackjack: Cheating with an iPhone

Strip There's a new card-counting iPhone application that could make blackjack a lot more profitable. The Nevada Gaming Control Board has warned casinos about this tool, which uses a variety of methods to produce an accurate count and can be operated stealthily. In theory, this could make someone like me, a non-gambler, as good as the best counter in Vegas. And this is where regular folks can easily become criminals, because although it is legal to count with your head and eyes in Vegas, it is a felony to use a device to assist you with card counting in Nevada.  Howart Stutz reports in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

"The program calculates the true count and does it significantly more accurately," according to a Gaming Control Board memorandum sent to casino operators last week warning of the electronic device.

I don't gamble. And, in many cases, my ignorance of the most basic aspects of Nevada's leading revenue generator can embarrass me. Recently, I was sent to make a Super Bowl bet for a friend with no clue that the sportsbook windows don't take Visa bank cards. Until recently, you could not have a cellphone in a sportsbook either. Now, you can have your cell at the sportsbook, but due to that new app, soon your iPhone might not be welcome on the casino floor at all.

To backtrack: I have a couple of good reasons for not gambling. The first one is that I do not find it fun.

I once interviewed a high-end Vegas escort while doing a story on a high roller who was paying her thousands a night to keep him company during his Vegas spree. We were sitting, watching him play hand after hand, betting $40,000 on each hand. I asked her about the hardest part of her job. She pointed to the man playing blackjack. "Trying to act like I care about every hand. Watching cards is the worst part of the job." I agree. Even when I'm the one playing, I have a hard time staying interested.

Also, I like to gamble as though I don't care. At the blackjack table, I have no problem asking for another card when I'm at 18.  This practice doesn't technically affect other players, but such stupid playing infuriates them, and they truly believe that I cost them money with my bad choices.  But the laws of chance don't work that way. Still, explaining why my behavior cannot, mathematically, hurt them doesn't win friends when so much money is at stake and the game is taken so seriously.

But my major reason for not gambling can be traced to an adventure I had with an expert card counter shortly after I moved to Vegas. We went to an older casino that still dealt from a single deck, which makes the counting easier. When counting, a player knows the moment when the house's slight advantage in the game shifts to the player.  That's when the counter will place his or her big bets.  But even with that knowledge, the player's advantage is slight. A great card counter could easily lose every hand, even when, theoretically, he or she has the advantage.  That wasn't my experience.  I doubled my money in under an hour.  And yet, I had no idea why.  The card counter's explanations were esoteric and complex to me.  I knew that without that counter sitting next to me, telling me exactly what to bet and when, I would be doomed.   I haven't played blackjack since.

Counting is legal in Nevada, but it is so hard to do right that I suspect casinos make a fortune off tourists who have read a couple of books on counting and come to Vegas to try their luck. It isn't that counting cards is harder to understand than any advanced math -- it is only statistics in a broad sense -- but with the speed of play and multiple decks used by most casinos, you really have to be a math wizard to pull it off. And the few people with those kinds of math skills can find a job a lot less risky than blackjack.

Now, with the iPhone app, the risk increases -- you're not just risking your money, you're risking arrest.

Photo: Sarah Gerke

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Should Vegas let 18-year-olds gamble?

Slots The Las Vegas Sun has a story that raises an approach to help the Las Vegas economy that I honestly had not considered before: letting teenagers gamble. According to the Sun, at a recent forum, a gaming industry attorney asked Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Dennis Neilander his thought on lowering the gambling age to 18 in Nevada. Apparently, that is already the age at many tribal casinos in California. Without supporting or opposing that question, Neilander said he would take the idea to Nevada lawmakers. Of course, as Neilander reminded the audience, lowering the gambling age to 18 would have to be carefully scrutinized, meaning a long bureaucratic process before anything happens.

Anyway, this is one issue, off the top of my head, that I have no opinion on. That may surprise you, but it is hard for me to be totally comfortable with dropping the age to 18. You see too much of the dark side of gambling when you live here to want teenagers exercising those judgments, new credit cards in pocket. I would not have made good choices at that age. But I am also not at all opposed in any way to Nevada's primary industry. Adults get to make choices and overwhelmingly -- win, or, more often, lose a little -- they enjoy Vegas.

For example, last night I spoke to some tourists who had a blast losing $40 on craps at a casino. The entertainment was worth the loss. I am fine with that. Still, lowering the gambling age to include teenagers seems an extreme and sleazy way to solve our economic woes.

Of course, there is also the fairness issue. It is almost inconceivable to consider that when Sheldon Adelson flies a bunch of wounded veterans to the Venetian for a few days, as he just did, that some of them might be deemed by our laws too young to even play the penny slots.

It is a thorny issue. I welcome your opinion.
(photo by Sarah Gerke)
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Cellphone ban at the sports book may end

My California friends may no longer be able to drive with their hand-held cellphones, but soon Nevada sports books may finally welcome cellphones for the first time.

One of the oddities of Vegas I have never understood is the ban on cellphone use in casino sports books. This isn't because they are annoying. If you are in a casino you are not allowed to use your cellphone in the sports book by posted law. Today the Review-Journal reports that the Gaming Control Board is thinking of changing the law. But why does the law exist in the first place? According to the article: "The decades-old band was enacted to keep betting lines from being transmitted outside the state and to discourage layoff wagering by illegal bookmakers inside Nevada casinos." Sadly, that makes no sense to me as a non-gambler. Who cares what people out of state know and what is a layoff wager? So, as I do when stumped by our town's major industry, I went to the gambling consumer website LasVegasAdvisor.com's publisher Anthony Curtis with my ignorance. Curtis offers this explanation of the cellphone ban in casino sports books:

"The famous Federal Wire Wager Act (called, simply, 'the Wire Act') is a 1961 law that prohibits the transmission of betting lines from state-to-state. The sports book law was partially to comply with that. (This law has had a lot to do with all the ambiguity tied to gambling on the Net, by the way.) Layoff wagering refers to illegal bookies using agents ("runners" or "messengers") to help them balance their own books by betting off excess amounts here in town. They often like to hedge their positions when they get too much money on one side. This law has always been foolish, because it didn't deter either of these things, but it did inconvenience many a good and legal customer."

And it still does. But I feel better now as the ban never made sense even to the people who do get gambling.

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Poker: luck or skill?

I am baffled by poker. I don't even know the rules. Yet, over the past few years I keep meeting and interviewing people who call themselves professional poker players.  So, with the World Series of Poker progressing now at the Rio, I am once again forced to deal with my poker confusion. It all boils down to what should be a simple question: is poker a game of luck or skill? I notice reading about the WSOP that even at this early stage many of the ex-champions have been eliminated and yet a handful of Hollywood stars are still in there playing. I know this would not likely be the case if the tournament was for chess or tennis. Anyone think Jennifer Tilly is going to best Serena Williams after some serious practice? How about a chess match where Ben Affleck checkmates the living remains of Bobby Fischer?  Yet, in poker this sort of thing happens every year. Frequently unknowns come out winners like last year with winner Jamie Gold. This year Gold was swiftly eliminated.  See what I mean?

So, I asked Las Vegas Advisor editor and publisher Anthony Curtis, who is one of the premiere experts on gambling in Las Vegas, for his opinion.  Though Curtis shows nuance in his answer, he clearly falls on the side of skill for poker:
 
"Poker combines skill and luck, perhaps better than any other game, which helps explain its popularity. In a field of 6,500, where less than 10% of the participants are at the highest skill level, it figures that many unknowns will advance far. But you are likely to see the pros over-represented when you get down to the last several-hundred. In poker, luck can dominate in the short term, but overall, skill is the dominant factor. Poker is, without question, a game of skill."
 
I don't know if I am convinced. What do you think?
 

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Mark Lindquist: brat to prosecutor

Author Mark Lindquist is in Vegas and would I like to interview him? Yeah, for starters, to find out what he is doing in Vegas?

Lindquist had the fortune or misfortune to be associated with the literary brat pack of the 80s, and, over the years, his books have enjoyed blurbs of endorsement from all the big players in that gang: Tama Janowitz, Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney. When the 80s became the 90s, Lindquist once again found himself with a view of the zeitgeist. He was living in Seattle watching the grunge scene develop, out of which came his book Never Mind Nirvana. Lindquist, who was once named by People magazine as one of the most eligible bachelors in America, released his latest novel last month: King of Methlehem. Though continuing Lindquist's fascination with pop culture, this novel is about speed freaks called tweekers, and draws more than any of his other work on Lindquist's day job working as a prosecutor in Pierce County and his life in Tacoma, Washington.
 
None of this, of course, explains why he was in Vegas. Lindquist says: "I asked my publicist to send the book tour through Vegas and she laughed at me. So, I asked her if she could end it in Vegas and I would take care of it from there."
 
When the confused publicist spoke to me she described Lindquist's time in Vegas as some sort of personal trip.  She had no idea why he was here, she admitted. There was obviously no reading for him in Vegas. But by the time Lindquist and I met on Friday,  in a coffee shop at the Rio, I knew exactly why he was here, though we had yet to discuss it at all. In fact, I knew the moment I pulled up to the Valet. There is only one reason someone stays at the Rio this time of year: The World Series of Poker. Still, I asked:
 
Richard Abowitz: So, what brings you to Vegas, if not promoting your book?
 
Mark Lindquist: I came here to relax and play poker.
 
Q: Have you been a poker player for awhile?
 
A: I have been a poker player my whole life. In fact, I missed my regular poker game last night in Los Angeles because I was giving a reading at Book Soup. I gave the reading and then Vegas. But if I wasn't doing the reading, I would have been at my home game.
 
Q: Do you read all of the poker books?
 
A: Not all of them. But I read Phil Gordon's books.
 
Q:  You don't seem like a brat at all. So, which brat pack do you fall into. There is the literary brat pack and then you also wrote movies. According, to the Wikipedia you even dated Molly Ringwald?
 
A: They put that on there? Obviously, I have my own site where I have more control of content. They slap that label on you: the literary brat pack. I guess there were a couple reasons. I had the same editor on my first novel as Bright Lights Big City. That was just a couple years before my book. I was also hanging out with Jay and Bret a lot. And, I guess, that will do it.
 
Q: Do you feel you have affinities with them as a writer?
 
A: We are really much different writers. The common denominator is a fascination with popular culture. I'm a pop culture junkie and Bret is a pop culture junkie. Jay is really a bit more stodgy and a student of classic literature. But his book Bright Lights Big City became this pop culture sensation.
 
Q: So, what made you go to law school in the midst of being a hot writer?
 
A: I always planned to go to law school after college. But I thought I would take a couple years off first to enjoy life. Then I started writing. I became successful very quickly. Much more quickly than I thought. I was liking it. I felt like I was in the right place at the right time.  So, I just kept putting law school off. But I never made my living from my books and freelancing. I made my money as a screenwriter. Eventually, I just burned out on screen writing.  I remember debating if I should go to Europe for a couple years or law school. Law school won out. I wasn't sure I wanted to practice law. But when I stepped into a prosecutor's office as an intern it was like entering a movie. It was so dramatic and energy charged. Criminal law is where the stories are.
 
Q: Is this job as a prosecutor what is behind the new book, The King of Methlehem?
 
A:  What it has in common with my other books is the obsession with pop culture remains. But the drug is new. I had never written about methamphetamine before. We are swamped at my office, and I am often there on weekends reading police reports. I used to think I would rather be home reading a novel. But then as I started reading through the police reports, I realized, this was dramatic, intense and engaging. Most of what I was reading about was crazy tweeker stories. I could fill your tape with tweeker stories.
 
Q: I've met a few, thank you. But the thing about tweekers is that they are sort of all the same to me. The drug becomes their personality. How did you find enough individuality there to create a character?
 
A: I wrestled with that. What I came up with: what if  I took a tweeker who was smarter and more ambitious than the average tweeker? In other words, he shared the addiction but there was something about him that was bigger and smarter. I based the book very loosely on a tweeker I met in my work as a prosecutor who stood out because he was smarter and more charismatic than the other tweekers. You see these tweekers do these crazy things and it is easy to see them as crude cartoon characters, because they act like crude cartoon characters. I wanted to get in there and see what was human about them.
 
Q: So let's talk poker. Did you put up $10,000 or did you enter a satellite game?
 
A: I put $1,500 up, and I am here until I am knocked out.
 
Q: Do you have any expectations of leaving here with a bracelet?
 
A: No. I look at poker as a lifelong game. I tally up at the end of the year. But this is by far is the largest stakes, I've ever played. But I have been to Vegas often enough to know that the $1,500 is gone.
 
Q: Do you have any good Vegas stories from your other trips?
 
A: None that I will tell on tape.
 
Q: You know, I get that answer a lot?
 
A: Well, they are typical Vegas stories. Just think about the things you've done in Vegas. Vegas is a town for adrenaline junkies. And, prosecutors and gamblers tend to be adrenaline junkies.
 
After the interview, I asked Lindquist to keep me in the loop on how he was doing in the tournament.  I got a call from Lindquist to tell me he was eliminated over the weekend from the World Series of Poker tournament. But  he planned to stay in Vegas until this morning. We made tentative plans for me to show him the town. I got distracted by CineVegas and deadlines and forgot to call him. Then a Blackberry message arrived at 2:58 AM this morning: "Playing poker. Did I miss anything?"  I wrote him back: "I guess that depends if you are winning?"
 
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A Vegas Strategy in Iraq?

Today's LA Times talks about the military recommending a new strategy in Iraq. Julian E. Barnes writes:
As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to 'double down' in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government.
A defense official quoted in the story amplifies:
I think it is worth trying...This is a double down.
So, I went to professional gambler and  "Las Vegas Advisor" publisher Anthony Curtis to find out the strategy behind a 'double down' bet. Curtis notes:
A better term for them in this sense would be to 'redouble efforts.' In fact, I'm sure that's what they mean. Doubling down in blackjack means to wager more on a strong hand. It's a move that invites more risk, but garners an enhanced expected value (when done at the right time). Done at the wrong time, it can be quite harmful to your expected result.
Let's hope the military understands Iraq better than gambling; how scary to consider this: would you take that bet?
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Monthly Statements on Your Gambling Loss?

Vegasgambling_i5r5iykf The Las Vegas Sun looks at a former gambler who is coming after the industry. The morality of gambling is not really an open topic in Las Vegas. If you are really uncomfortable being around it and are opposed to it, don't live here. You will hear the sound of slot machines in every grocery store and corner store. Going to the movies often means going to a casino. And the same is true for concerts or weddings and probably even your friend's kid's bar mitzvah. If nowhere else, casinos are totally respectable here: to work, to play, to celebrate and to hang out.

But the morally and legally sketchy history of the old gambling hall still has a tremendous psychological impact on the corporate world that invests billions in building and marketing and operating the Strip resorts. They fear change.

One result of the hall's shadowy legacy is that the resorts can be gaudy in their charity and ruthless in their politics. As Joni Mitchell is once said to have asked David Geffen: "Why is it so easy for you to be generous and so hard for you to be fair?"

You would have to live here to understand fully just how comfortable and hardcore casinos are when it comes to getting involved in county commission races, lobbying congress and tracking every tidbit of legislation anywhere that might impact them. And, this frequently means coming down hard on opponents. One casino company a few years ago got connected to creating an anonymous flyer attacking a politician who didn't do its bidding. No one gets in office here who has real and significant plans to raise taxes on resorts.

(Photo: Alexander Gallardo / LAT)

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