My first reaction is TIP him/her....
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/16/NS061HL06U.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/16/NS061HL06U.DTL
When a dealer mispays: What should you do?
Matt Villano
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Old-school gamblers will tell you that honesty has no place in a casino. They'll say that because the house is out to take your money, you should jump at any chance you have to fight back. And for the most part, they're right.
Still, certain situations on the felt can create uncomfortable dilemmas. A faithful reader recently inquired about this very point. The question: What should you do when a dealer mispays to your advantage? Should you speak up and come clean or do you, to quote the Steve Miller Band, take the money and run?
The answer will be different for all of us, and it depends on a number of factors.
Your buy-in: If the dealer overpays you one unit on a $5 or $10 bet, honesty might be worth more than a few bucks. But if the dealer overpays you by a magnitude of greater than 2:1 on a multi-unit bet, you may want to consider taking the extra cash and heading for the hills. This happened to me on a recent trip to Las Vegas: After a mispay of $40 on a 4:1 bonus bet, I quietly took my extra cash and beelined for the elevators.
Your conscience: The casino always gets its due. Thanks to all of those cameras in the ceiling, somebody somewhere eventually will discover the dealer's error and see to it that the dealer makes good with money out of their paychecks. If you're the sensitive type, the kind of gambler who might feel guilty taking money that a dealer ultimately will have to pay out of pocket, come clean.
The frequency with which you visit the casino: If you're a regular at the casino in question and you know some of the dealers and pit bosses by name, once they hear about the incident, they may think less of you for not speaking up. In this scenario, you've got to weigh the importance of your personal relationships against your interest in hanging on to some extra cash.
Your belief in "what goes around comes around": Odds and superstition are at opposite ends of the gambling spectrum, but if you're a firm believer in the karmic equation, it's probably a good idea to stay on the right side and speak up. Here, the thinking is that if you cash in profits resulting from dishonesty, you'll pay for it later (and you will lose horribly on a big pot).
If you do decide to speak up about a mispay, talk directly to the dealer in question. The dealer inevitably will have to call over a pit boss, but ratting out the dealer to that pit boss directly is bad form. It also could get a dealer fired.
If you opt to keep the mispay under wraps, make sure you stay totally quiet and cash out before anyone (including other players) notices what's transpired. As tempting as it might be to press your luck, Steve Miller had it right - take the money and run.
- Matt Villano, 96hours@sfchronicle.com
