Player at Valley View Casino (Calfornia) claims he was banned from gambling for hitting royal flushes
Posted on a Yahoo group:
Quote:
This was my first experience being kicked out of a California Native American casino for winning. I had played video poker at this casino on and off for a few years now. For the past year I have been playing the $10 NSUD and had not hit a Royal Flush until this past November. Then in December I hit a second Royal Flush. I was only playing about 800 hand sessions 3 or 4 times a month so this was obviously a fluke occurrence.
Last week I got a phone call from a casino manager saying they didn't want me to play there any longer and my account had been closed. He said they review accounts quarterly and mine had been chosen for termination. I asked about my unredeemed points and he said the account was already closed. He said I could speak to the GM and I said I would also take it to the tribal Gaming Commission if necessary since the points were worth about $3000. They called back in about 10 minutes and said they would pay me by check for the value of the points.
When I went in to get the check, everyone was very nice but I was made to sign a letter that I would never gamble at Valley View Casino again. It was not a trespass and I was told I am welcome to come back for the hotel or restaurants. BTW their buffet is probably the best food quality I have ever had anywhere and I don't even eat the lobster. They stressed I hadn't done anything wrong or illegal, but was just too good a player.
If the problem is $10 NSUD or JoB, there are only two machine with these games. It seems likes eliminating the games instead of the players might be a better solution. I see lots of people playing the $5 NSUD there. Perhaps you are OK if you only hit one or two Royals in a quarter. Maybe you might want to take a Valley View vacation after hitting a Royal so as not to risk hitting another and getting singled out in their next quarterly review. Better luck!
The "NSUD or JoB" games he was referring to are two of the highest-return video poker games -- 99.73% "Not So Ugly Deuces" Wild, and 99.54% Jacks or Better.
This is a very "soft ban", as this guy wasn't thrown out of the casino, and in fact they even cashed out his $3,000 in players club points! They just don't want him gambling there anymore, simply because he hit TWO royal flushes in a short time!
These Indian casinos are VERY risk-averse, so this doesn't surprise me. They often get nervous when someone is showing even the slightest sign of being able to beat them, even if the player is clearly playing -EV games.
I suspect that they realized he was only playing the highest-return games, and they realized that at best they only have a small edge over him. The two royals likely triggered them to audit the situation, and this was probably an excuse to get rid of him. Perhaps they were also nervous that he had found an edge in some way, so they are just kicking him from being able to play in their casino before he can do further damage to their funds.
This has some similarity to when Richard "The Quiet Lion" Brodie was banned from Harrah's in 2007 simply for playing high stakes video poker and hitting 4 royals in a short time.
http://www.liontales.com/2007/06/fal...an-empire.html
This also resulted in a ban from the WSOP (because he was banned from all casino games at Caesars Entertainment), but the WSOP ban was lifted after enough poker players complained about the situation.
