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Profit Skimming -101
What
Is Skimming Simply,
skimming is the process where you subtly remove some of the higher
denomination $25 chips from your rail, and put them into your pocket. You can call it rat-holing or
bleeding-off, or squirreling away, or pocketing or
whatever you want. Why
Skim Profit? As an
ever-improving Precision-Shooter, you will find that your casino profit usually outstrips
your losses. As your shooting skill gets
better and better, so do your profits. To that end,
as a successful Precision-Shooter, you want to shield how good you really are from the
casino. In the gaming industry, success is
generally measured with money. You want to
shield the surest way of determining and measuring your skill from their eyes. You want to
prevent the casino from associating your face with the disappearance of their money. We
skim chips from our rail to make it appear to the casino that either our losses
are much greater or our profits are much lower.
However, YOU
HAVE TO USE COMMON-SENSE, and keep your skimming to gradual, methodical, and REASONABLE
limits. What The Casino Sees
First,
you have to understand that the casino looks at a players chip-rail somewhat differently
than most players do. They are trained to
accurately gauge how many you have and the value of each denomination in your rail. From there, they do a quick calculation of your
current chip-value total. That amount is
generally entered onto your Rating Card every time the Floor-Supervisor updates it
(usually every 15-to-30 minutes).
Why
They Look Numbers
are the life-blood of the casino industry.
Did you know
that casino-gaming is the second most regulated industry in North America. Only the nuclear industry is more heavily
regulated. If you thought the
stock-securities business was as highly controlled, you would be wrong.
The SEC
(Securities Exchange Commission) actually ranks significantly below Gaming in the amount
of controls, checks, balances, restrictions, rules, regulations, procedures, and approved
methods for virtually everything that happens in a casino versus the apparent
inmates-have-taken-over-the-asylum-and-the-warden-is-passed-out-drunk-so-lets-have-a-party
Wall Street controls. The casinos
like to keep track of your buy-in, your average bet, the amount of session-time and your
color-out amounts. Those numbers all figure
into your comp-calculations, and into the big number-hopper of statistics that are fed
into the Player Tracking Computer system. So to
complete the player profile information, they need to know what your chip-balance is in
the event that you walk away from the table without coloring-out. In that case, they know how much you bought-in
for; they have an good estimate of how much time you spent at the tables, and know
approximately how much you left with.
Remember,
they dont need precise-down-to-the-last-dollar-accuracy. Rather, they are just registering a rough-guess
should you exit the table area without coloring-out.
Some casinos are anal-retentive about closely tracking those numbers, while
others take only a passing interest in it.
How
They Estimate A lot of
players divide their chips into colors (white, red, green, black, purple, etc.) By looking at your chips sideway, this method is
easy for a Floor Supervisor to estimate how much you have in your rail. Every 15 to 30 minutes or so, hell mark that
down on your Rating Card, along with what he estimates your average bet on the craps
layout is. Another
example of how they will estimate how much you have on your rail is if the player uses
chip-demarcation. That is when a
player will use the white $1 or $5 red chips to separate each $100 worth of chips. Again, this makes it easy for the Pit Critters to
roughly estimate of how much money you have in your rail at any given time. One other
illustration of player chip-organization, or rather disorganization, is the
barber-pole where every color is mixed in with all of the other ones. This is the most difficult to
guesstimate for the Floor-Supervisor who is filling in your Player Rating
card, but again, in training, this very situation is covered and tested, so some
supes become quite adept at calculating fairly accurate estimates. Now, if you
have been winning, and they have been giving away $25 chips to you like it is Halloween
candy, and there are only a few of those greenies in your rack; then, come on, who are you
trying to fool? You have to do the skimming
with finesse and skill, not like a purse-snatching crack-whore!
How
To Skim Chips I know that I
mentioned this before, but you have to be reasonable when it comes to bleeding-off those
$25 chips. Ive written about this
subject in my
Ask The Mad Professor Part XI article, as
well as the
Whales, Guppies, and All the Other
Fish in the Sea feature.
As well, in
my upcoming Casino Credit Update-Part Four article, I
discuss ways to actually profit from casino marker-discounts through skimming. Again, all of this presumes that you use
reasonable common-sense in your approach. So lets
take this a step at a time, in small easily digestible bites.
(i)
You have to
look at the number of chips that you have in your rack, and the denominations that they
are in. You want a reasonably large number
of chips to work with, especially of the color that you are planning to skim.
(ii)
Take a look
at the dealers working stacks. They
have plenty of each to service the needs of players at one end of the table. Likewise, you need a healthy working
rack from which to carry out your task.
(iii)
If your goal
is to pocket $25 chips, then you have to KEEP a decent reserve of green ($25) chips so
that they dont notice when two or four of them disappear.
(iv)
For example,
you dont squirrel away four chips if it will only leave six or eight of the same
color in your rack. You want a reserve of at
least ten of the same color before you bleed off even two
chips. You want a working reserve of at
least fifteen to twenty chips of the same color before you hive-off four of them into
your pocket. Otherwise, the casino
supervisors will take note of it, and book a portion of your bankroll as
colored-out on your Rating Card.
(v)
Upon
buying-in you dont immediately take all or most of the green and black chips and put
them into your pocket. That just
doesnt make any sense. You have to be
subtle in your actions.
(vi)
If you buy-in
for $1000, you should specifically ask that they dont give you ANY black ($100)
chips. That should give you a starting
inventory of 36 Green $25 chips, 18 Red $5 chips, and 10 White $1 chips (for toking). Thats a good starting point for bleeding-off
about two $25 chips each time AFTER a Floor Supervisor has marked the Rating Cards. At the same time, the mostly green-no
black chip order shows a certain seriousness about your apparent willingness to
gamble with your session-bankroll. That
also improves comp-ratings.
(vii)
If you buy-in
for $100 to $300, then your skimming rate will be much, much lower simply
because you have less $25 chips to camouflage your activities. Again, I discuss this in much greater detail in
my upcoming Casino Credit Update-Part Four article.
What
You Should NOT Do
If
youve just had a decent 20-to-40 minute mini-mega hand, and rolled yourself three or
four or five hundred dollars in newly-minted profit; then it just doesnt make any
sense to have only $100 left in your chip rack.
You
have to use common-sense, and not treat the casino guys as if they are a bunch of idiots.
If
you have rat holed $300 worth of $25 chips (12 chips) in your pocket, there
darn well better be at least 30 or 40 green chips that
are still remaining in your rack.
Be
subtle and nonchalant in you skimming actions, and the results will give you higher comps,
and a LOWER Precision-Shooting profile.
Good Luck &
Good Skill at the Tables
and in Life. Sincerely, The Mad
Professor |
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