about Griffins and the Fair credit reporting act

I have a card counter friend who is interested in suing Griffins to find out if he's in their book, using this law. I've seen it mentioned here in the past, and would like to know if anyone here is actually interested in helping him, or even discuss some sort of class action suit to force this book open all the way. He was playing in a casino (Florida boat) and a PB threatened to report him to Griffins, so could this casino also be named in this lawsuit? A note: he is undoubtedly in this book due to his playing at other casinos also, and maybe due to a cheating accusation which was later proven to be unfounded. My friend is dead serious (obsessed?) in this and has the time and energy to pursue this to the end, and if anyone else out there is too please let me know. Thank you for reading this.

which is to pay someone who works surveillance.

Also, he could retaliate against the casino that he was going to report them to Griffin. Griffin prohibits members from telling people that they are in the book or are going to be put in the book. Additionally, a casino has no control over what goes into the book. The casino simply makes a report. Griffin decides what is worthy of inclusion. Only counters who are either connected with teams, play for extremely high stakes, or who continuously get reports from lots of different casinos are included. Even then, the book is too big to be effective and generally sits on a shelf gathering dust. More dangerous are the flyers and emails sent out to area casinos.

DD: His question concerns whether one can successfully sue Griffin over involuntary inclusion in their book, with it's subsequent distribution to casinos. Not having read the law I can't say--but I've been led to believe by knowledgeable people there may be a basis for hope in this area! This may well be worth pursuing if you have the time and money. Maybe we should be encouraging people with these resources to take a shot at these asses!

or any other casino gaming laws, since all gambling occurs in international waters -- 3 miles off the coast on the East coast, and 9 miles (I think) on the West coast. It's unlikely that a lawsuit or complaint would hold up, but anybody can file a civil lawsuit against anybody for almost any reason....
Many very good card counters have been banned from Florida boats; many good card counters who aren't winning are allowed to play as long as they lose. Casinos hate consistent winners, regardless of the betting system they use.

and they know it. But it appeared he only wanted to petition them to find what information they included. Someone cannot put out a publication and use your image for profit without getting a signed consent form. Lots of people have looked into law suits but it is tricky and involves financial risk. If the Griffin book were highly effective then I suspect more people would be looking into law suits. Nearly all successful pros are in Griffin and it hardly slows them down a beat. Except for the most clueless casinos, by the time they take out the book and look for you they've already made you as a counter. This is certainly the case for Vegas casinos. It takes less time to count down a few decks than to wade through a huge book looking for pictures of the suspected counter.

Florida boats aren't subject to state laws...or any other casino gaming laws, since all gambling occurs in international waters-- 3 miles off the coast on the East coast, and 9 miles (I think) on the West coast.

There's a post on the Vegas Life page where a Las Vegas casino (Rio) succesfully sued a Costa Rica-based Internet gambling operation with no physical address (follow link below). What would make you think that a ship that sails from and ports in the States is immune from U.S. civil laws but a virtual offshore casino is not?

Learn to think around the corners.

Buick

I started researching this issue about a year ago myself. It appears that any Casino with gross annual revenues over 1 million is classified by the Feds as a "financial institution" thus subjecting them to the provisions of the Gramm Leach Bliley act. Title V of the act deals with prohibitions concerning disclosure of non personal information which is so broad that it even includes prohibiting disclosure of a customers name or address. So not only can't a Casino disclose or share information from Griffin without violating the law, they can't share information with other Casino's via "flyers" as well.

The GLB Act also applies to private investigators which upset the Private Investigators Association so much that they formed a group called CAFPA (Coalition to Amend the Financial Privacy Act) and were successful in amending the Act ONLY in the cases involving the collection of Child support payments. Below, I have included a link to a letter written by the President of the Washington Association of Legal Investigators to the Federal Trade Commission regarding the restrictions, which confirms that even the use of a persons name is restricted under the Act. If you or anyone else is interested, I have links to numerous articles and the actual Federal regulations regarding the GLB.

Now to address your original question, after digesting all of the information I have obtained, I do not think it's necessary to litigate against a Casino or Griffin for violating the law. The FTC is the "gatekeeper" of this law and has establish very stiff penalties and fines for violators of the GLB. They will even pay an aggrieved party a percentage of the fine they impose. With that in mind, the easiest and least expensive way to stop Casino's and Griffin would be to report them to the FTC and let the Feds go after them. Proceeding in this fashion the hugh costs of litigation would be avoided as the government bears the expense and perhaps the biggest benefit is that even if the casino's appeal the FTC ruling, the case would be heard in a Federal Court rather than Nevada.

Logically, the first step in this process before going to the Feds would be to obtain undeniable proof that the casino's and Griffin disclose your name whether it's in a book, cd rom or a faxed flyer.

Recently, I contacted a Casino where I'm well known as a counter by site as well as by name so I had nothing to lose by asking the question. When I inquired about compliance with the GLB,I was referred to their Chief Legal Counsel which professed that they are in full compliance with the GLB and do not under any circumstances share my name or info with any other casino or company. (yeah right, and the Easter Bunny is real too) He then sounded very nervous when he asked WHY I wanted to know, which leads me to believe they KNOW they're violating the law and just hope that no one reports them. A search of some casino web sites will also contain their privacy statement.

As mentioned previously, I will be happy to share any information and/or links that I have accumulated. Also, many links and a lot of discussion including comments by legal professionals were posted on Green Chip around March 3rd.

May all the dealers blackjacks occur while you're in the bathroom!!!

Card

Eventually somebody will finally get it in their head that it does not take a lawsuit, and the major risk is simply for those who don't wish to be further fingered. Those who are in that catagory are probably not as good as they think they are. Very few would be strong players who would be hurt by a public complaint.

I clicked right over and did some of my own research as you know and appreciate your efforts. IMHO the most vulnerable casinos to this would be the Riverside in Laughlin Nevada and the MGM-Mirage group as they are already under some scrutiny over the issue of whale rebates and inconsistancies in their game protection versus known sorts of advantage plays. This is similar to the heat felt by the casinos owned by the Cashell family allowing certain players to get shuffle machines with regular card peeking. When they went into licensing for the Alamo, some very interesting things surfaced, including that there were firm regulations not to use bent cards through shuffle machines.

Now similar could happen on a bigger scale with these two casinos. See my post on how the rebates given to whales can hide some fairly strong edges for whales playing just under basic strategy. It was on the Vegas BJ board. This inconsistancy mirrors the situation at two of the Cashell casinos that was disclosed in regard to what I mentioned. The Riverside and the MGM-Mirage casinos have the most whale play involving rebates!

With that in mind these are also the two casino ownerships that are most involved IMHO in using Griffin according to several reports in the BJF counter inteligence reports.

It is as simple as adding this obviously illegal circulation of player information to already brewing situations concerning loss rebates. These appear to be the most vulnerable and once there is a public record of such a sucessful complaint there goes Griffin and there goes the right to bar for legitimate advantage playing.

Stay out of the thread. He was so rudely treated the last time he posted on this I am suprised--pleasently that he bothered to answer this time. A sucessful complaint campaign requires many people making complaints to the FTC. And it is amazing that the share in penalties and fines is not approached, as it should be, as an advantage play in itself! DD hit the nail on the head about the shear size and hard to navigate qualities of the Griffin Book and Griffin Gold online. It is amazing that any casino would somehow not trust its own judgement and turn to a listing of some other casino's paranoid reports. Someday some casino is going to be brave and mature and realize just how much business they lose from trying to exclude all advantage play. And hey, if they give an advantage player a few hands of ev what the hell? Don't these casinos realize just how much money they would have to pay in advertising to get people to play otherwise????

Thanks to all for your responses. I'll post a more detailed response in the morning but it's late now. Cardcounter, I'll e-mail you with details in the AM too along with my friend's phone # if you want to discuss it further (he has ATT so if you have ATT Unlimited it won't cost you, or he could call you). One thing you all should know... my friend was specifically threatened by a pit boss with Griffins so that may be a good start.

I agree that these boats can be sued. However on the ticket stub for the local boat here it says that you have 6 months to take any legal action, and it must be taken in the jurisdiction of Broward County. (Whether this disclaimer is legal or not is another question)

Florida boats are not subject to any state regulations. There is no "Florida Gaming Commission" like they have in Miss, NJ, Nevada, or other places where casinos are legal. Basically it's the wild west and they can do anything they want. But that may change soon. My friend has talked to 2 state representatives recently and they seem interested in cracking down on these boats. The fact remains that these boats are using the waterways and docks and possessing gambling devices, even if the gambling itself is outside of their jurisdiction. You may eventually see a referendum on the ballot on this matter. Our stand is that we are pro-gambling where it is properly regulated and anti-gambling where it is not. Senior citizens are being scammed by slot machines that are missing icons, and the table games are totally unregulated and at the mercy of the owners of the boats. If these boats are going to be allowed to continue operating then they should be properly regulated by a Casino Control Commission.

There is no "Florida Gaming Commission" like they have in Miss, NJ, Nevada, or other places where casinos are legal. Basically it's the wild west and they can do anything they want.

The point of the thread was the applicability of the Fair Credit Reporting Act to boat casino owners. This is federal legislation dealing with non-gaming issues. Walter's insertion of whether there is state gaming regulation of these games is not relevant and his statement that it is "...unlikely that a lawsuit or complaint would hold up.." since the games are offshore is simply not true.

Buick

I think the confusion here is Walter brought up a subject which may have been irrelevent to the original message. He posted about using state laws to extract remedies from the casinos and Griffins, which was not the intent of the original post. However, it did bring up another legal matter concerning these boats which may be relevant to blackjack players, but it may have belonged in it's own thread, rather than this one. Thank you for your response.

We believe this issue goes far beyond whether someone is merely "in the book" or whether they want to know if they are in it. It is my friend's contention that casinos who report to Griffins, and Griffins itself, are violating people's civil rights and discriminating against them. People are subject to their financial information being reported to IRS, DEA, treasury department, and other government agencies without their knowledge. It is also unknown exactly who Griffins disseminates this book to. Information gathered could be erroneous, and the victim has no way of knowing about or correcting this potentially false and damaging information. One could be discriminated against due to what is in this "book", or subject to harassment by government agencies or by the casinos. Being on this "blacklist" could impact one's ability to make a living (for example if someone ever wanted to get a job in the casino industry), and/or subject them to unwanted and/or unwarranted government scrutiny. He believes that suing them under civil rights laws and equal protection is the way to go after Griffins and the casinos that use them or report to them. The reason he believes he has a case against Griffins and this casino in this case is because he was harassed by this casino by being specifically threatened with being reported to Griffins, and thus potentially subjecting him to the above civil rights violations merely for the way he (legally) plays blackjack (but someone could also be reported merely based on a pit boss's whim or unfounded suspicion).

I'd think that the court's decision was partially based upon the fact that the internet casino had a Miami-based collection and disbursement agency.
Another question is: Would federal law supercede international maritime regulations, and are there maritime laws that might apply to this case?

But something they are clearly guilty of is unauthorized use of image. This is well established in publishing law. It is because they know they are skating on thin ice that Griffin prohibits clients from telling players or prospective employees that they are being evicted, fired, not hired, etc because they are listed in the Griffin book. They don't want to subject themselves to such liabilities. Griffin advises clients in the book that no reason need be given for evicting someone from the property and none should be given. They would be very upset with this casino for discussing the book with your friend at all.

since the Feds don't get any cut from the casinos other than normal taxes and get nothing from Indian casinos. They've been wanting to get their hands into that money for a long time. The casinos, more so than Griffin, are where to find the big money. They are the contributing photograpers.

I am getting offers for platinum cards in the mail in the names of my casino aliases. So I know that lots of financial information is being distributed.

"I am getting offers for platinum cards in the mail in the names of my casino aliases. So I know that lots of financial information is being distributed."

If this is true, and you don't use these aliases anywhere else, this could be the proof that is needed that information is being disclosed by the casino (but not necessarily to Griffin). In fact, one could invent an alias just for the purpose of obtaining this proof (like making up an e-mail address to prove someone is selling these addresses to spammers).

I once received a offer for a Playboy magazine subscription in the name of an alias I used only at the Mirage. But even if I had kept the solicitation, it would still be difficult to prove that Mirage distributed my info.