Game integrity not worth much at the Flamingo

One of the TV commercials that I probably saw a thousand times in my misspent, lazy youth featured some grizzled old cowboys playing poker, while one of them (or maybe more--I can't remember for sure) is eating a chocolate bar. One of them scowls, "These cards are marked!" Another one chimes in, "They're a mess!" A third one says, "A chocolate mess!" Sure enough, there are chocolaty fingerprints all over the cards. The players are up in arms--literally. But just before they shoot the guy with the sticky fingers, the M&M guys show up and save the day, because you can enjoy those candies without getting chocolate all over your hands. (Sadly and astonishingly, it seems that nobody has put this classic spot up on the web anywhere. I wanted to link to it or embed it here, but couldn't locate it.)

You see, there was a time when poker players and dealers actually cared about marked cards.

It appears that those days are gone--at least at the Flamingo, where I was playing last night.

I was one of ten players starting up a new table. On one of the first hands, when I looked down at my face-down hole cards, I instantly noticed a crease along one of the short edges of one of the cards. I noted that it was the 7 of spades. I was in Seat 1, so as I folded, I pointed out the crease to the dealer and suggested having the card replaced. She squinted and tilted the card this way and that, but said she couldn't see the crease. I pointed to it again. She finally saw it, but said, "I don't think anybody could see that from across the table," stuffed it in the muck with the rest of the deck, and moved on.

I wonder who at the Flamingo decided that the standard for deciding to replace a card is whether the distinctive flaw can be seen from "across the table," and when this rule was implemented, and where it is written down. It's an absurd criterion. I only need to be able to see it when it's lying on the table in front of the player next to me in order to gain an advantage. Additionally, if I'm sitting next to the dealer and can see every card from up-close as it is mucked, I don't need Superman's telescopic vision to see prominent marks or creases.

Suppose I'm in the big blind and get to see a free flop while holding the 7-2. The flop is, say, 7-7-K. Now, I like my trip sevens, but I would normally have to worry that somebody else has the last 7 in the deck with any kicker bigger than my deuce. On this hand, however, maybe I noticed that creased 7 of spades pass right in front of me as the player to my left mucked it from first position before the flop. Knowing that that card is out of play gives me an enormous amount of leverage in the hand--and I didn't have to be able to spot the flaw from "across the table."

Anyway, I decide not to put up a big fuss about it yet. I'll just wait and do my usual process (which I explained in a previous post here). Maybe an hour later I looked down at my hole cards and spotted that pesky edge crease again. Sure enough, it was the same 7s. Now I had proven to myself that I could identify it with confidence, and would prove that fact to the dealer at the next opportunity. It was maybe half an hour later that the crease caught my eye again as it headed for the muck, folded by another player. I asked the dealer to check the card, and if it was the 7s, they should probably replace it. It was, and they did. This dealer didn't fuss or argue about it, just called for a new card. I liked her for that.

She lost my endorsement, however, just a few minutes later. I was dealt the ace and king of spades. The ace had an enormous dimple in the center. I have no idea what caused it, but it looked as though somebody had tried to punch a hole in the center, but didn't quite penetrate. It was large enough that the other card couldn't lie flat on top of it, but wobbled like a teeter-totter. This had to be quite new, because I surely would have noticed it before.

When the hand was over, I pointed out the dimple to the dealer. She called for the replacement, but clearly didn't think it necessary. No less than three times while she was waiting for the floor to respond, she told me that I could find flaws like that in every deck in the room, and it really didn't need replacing. She ended each of these little speeches with a chuckle, presumably so that I wouldn't resent her comments, but they were unmistakably calculated to try to keep me from asking for any more card replacements. She said that the fingernails of female players often put little marks in the cards.

I understand that, and know the kind of tiny marks she's talking about, but this was ten or twenty times more prominent than that. It was a preposterous comparison to make.

A few weeks ago I was playing at Imperial Palace. On my first hand, I noticed a small but visible crease in one of the cards. I dutifully pointed it out to the dealer, who smiled, and told me that I'd find those on most of the cards. At first I was annoyed that he was ignoring my concern, but as I was dealt more hands, I learned that he was entirely correct. Apparently that room has one or more out-of-tune Shufflemasters that is putting a little crease on cards as they run through it. The majority of the cards have one or two such marks, all in the same location (or in symmetrical locations, if the card has been marked twice, once in each orientation). It's kind of strange, but it's not a problem, because the ubiquity of the marks means that they don't give away any useful information.

That was not the situation at the Flamingo with either of the two damaged cards I noticed. I'm not making mountains out of molehills.

When I was in poker dealer school, I bought, for practice purposes, a deck of top-grade Kem plastic cards, the brand used in most poker rooms. I think it cost $30. I assume that the casinos get them substantially cheaper than that, buying in large quantities--especially a huge chain like Harrah's that is buying thousands of decks at a time. So let's assume that the Flamingo can get a deck for about $10 each. That's about 20 cents per card, or about 4% of the amount of the $5 maximum rake that they take on one hand. Yet they balk at replacing cards that have become so damaged that they are readily identifiable to any player who is paying attention.

How much is game integrity worth to the people that run the Flamingo poker room? Less than 20 cents, for sure, since they put up a fuss about spending that much to protect it.


Addendum, July 5, 2008

Many thanks to commenter "Michael" for pointing me to this: