Dice control: Legal or not?

This issue is a critical point. I am all for advantage play but am more concerned about massive legal expenses, first offense jail time (its a felony in Nevada) and having a criiminal record. A felony conviction means you cannot own a gun, vote, or many other things.

Enter in this a person calling himself "Jim Dice". JD assures us that all is fine and that this is perfectly legal. However, he offers NOTHING in substantiation other than what he says someone allegedly once said. Can we use his opinion (or wishful thinking) as our legal defense? Where is his evidence supporting this statement?

On the other hand, I have posted the law as stated in the Nevada Statutes (see below post).

It appears to me that absent anything of any substance (Court ruling, statement in writing by Gaming Control Board or Commission) allowing the physical altering of outcomes, we have to assume that the law regarding cheating (which includes altering of the outcomes of a game) is accurate and playing this way is very risky.

As for Jim Dice, don't drop the soap!

are valid, why should someone be more concerned about breaking the law, e.g., accused of altering the outcome of an event in Nevada, while the same law is currently being broken by those casinos that use the MindPlay gaming table?

As long as Nevada currently allows the use of MindPlay, I doubt seriously that anyone has anything to really fear regarding "dice setting."

I understand that Nevada is considered a "third world country" as it relates to laws and civil rights, but I'm not sure they want to piss up Superman's cape (the feds) too often.

It's also in the casinos best interest, (granted, that's never stopped them in the past from doing stupid things) to continue to allow players to "throw" dice. There will always be someone who can do the extraordinary, and be able to beat all odds. Yet this is one gamble, that Binny would have never backed down from, and I doubt today's casinos will either. There are just too many options they can employ to assure that the throws are random.

My guess is that the casino's craps hold will increase now that SW is selling his book.

So my conclusion as to whether or not anyone has anything to fear as to breaking any laws due to the magical "dice setting" skills of present and future legions of players, is, IMHO, moot!

cheers
bfb

and nobody is around to see it fall, does the tree make a sound ?

or in other words

Let us assume dice control is illegal. Somebody I goe into casino X and roll point after point ( repeat in head until bored of doing so ), who is going to prove that I was dice controlling ?

Sure I set the dice before my roll ( NO SLIDES ) but so do alot of other craps players who normally lose.

How can dice control be proven ?

Sorry, but this is a bad argument. You assume facts not in evidence, to use courtroom parlance. In this case, you assume that "prove" means "prove by showing that it is 100% certain that it happened." In a court, the jury is the final arbiter of facts, and who knows what they would do with such a case, depending on how it was painted by the prosecution?

Take the O.J. case, as a reference point. Or one of several other high-profile cases such as where someone tried to break into a house by climbing in through a skylight, fell, hurt himself, and sued the homeowner and _won_.

I'd not want to have my life hanging in the balance on such a technical point that would have way too much judgement/subjectivity in the process...

I'd be willing to try the technique, if I could master it, _after_ someone else had been arrested for cheating using the same technique, tried, and found innocent. And after the state AG had issued an opinion that dice control is not cheating, because the casinos could simply stop letting players role and leave that as a function of one of the dealers... If people won't play without throwing the dice, then the casino has a problem to solve, let them roll to get them to play, or let the dealer roll and have an empty table...

But boy, I would not want to risk a felony conviction in Nevada to be the "trial balloon" for testing whether this is cheating or not... I'd gleefully leave that to someone else. :)

I agree with Stainless Steel. The price on relying on fairness from the casino or courts is way too high. Weather it is difficult to prove, prosecutable; etc. is a small point. The risk of a felony case is still way too high until it is clealry deemed legal by the authorities.

I look forward to OTHERS testing this. In the meantime dicethrowers, don't drop the soap!

'In a court, the jury is the final arbiter of facts, and who knows what they would do with such a case, depending on how it was painted by the prosecution? '

We, as AP'ers, run the risk of being arrested, detained and tried in front of a jury for something we do not do. Case in point would be an AP getting detained and arrested for marking cards at a major strip casino when in actual fact he was just taking advantage of dealer sloppiness. Had he made it to court on this charge he would have been at the mercy of a jury, and by your reasoning how something is painted by the prosecution.

I'm a believer in the US system, but the legal system has its unique problems IMHO. I've seen way too many strange things done that could make a good fiction story.

Everyone has seen the Texas case where an officer manufactured evidence and was eventually uncovered, causing dozens of people to be released from prison after serving for years. How did the jury let that happen? Implicit trust in the police? Misplaced. Not always of course. But there are bad apples in every group. Which leaves me believing like Chappy, "let someone _else_ be the one to test the theory and establish precedent, not me..." :)

I would never have counted the first card had there not been plenty of case law showing that it is considered legal. When I started, my wife was more than a little worried until I showed her case after case where card counters were _not_ cheaters... Maybe one day, when there is ample case law about non-random dice throwing, I'll give that a whirl.

Meanwhile I intend to enjoy my freedom, and exercise it by not doing things that could backfire in ways unimagined.

It goes without saying that Stanford's book is aimed at advantage players.

"Meanwhile I intend to enjoy my freedom, and exercise it by not doing things that could backfire in ways unimagined."

Clearly that leaves out counting, shuffle tracking, skillful video poker, etc. etc. Indeed, many, if not most, casino personel believe it is cheating to try to defeat the house edge which has been ordained from on high. I don't believe Chappy can explain why card counting is legal, under his theory.

ETF

Sorry, but I don't agree. I might not be a "ground-breaker" since Uston and others have already been through the court system in multiple states, and produced legal decisions that counting is not cheating. So I feel safe today doing what I do, by standing on the shoulders of those that went long before me and who +were+ willing to risk all back then for advantage play.

Today I'm more than willing to apply my counting skills in a casino, and have been doing so for several years, although I am certainly not a purple-chipper, and have only been a black chipper twice that I can recall...

I don't think it is a requirement that to be called an "advantage player", one must take exceptional risks with being locked up for years based on the whim of a jury.

No, I'm not the same type of "advantage player" that had to survive the back-roomings, the trips into the desert where there were no returns, privacy invasion, broken fingers, etc. If that's a requirement, then perhaps I'm "out".

I have a pretty good sense of the difference between "cheating" and "advantage play". At the present, I'm fairly sure that skillful dice tossing is not cheating, since the casino requires that you toss the things to play the game, and so long as you don't physically alter them, proving cheating will be extremely difficult. But, by the same token, I'm not willing to put my career, my job, and my family at risk by taking an unnecessary chance.

I call myself a "specialized advantage player." I'm specializing in BJ only, for the time being. For those of you that tackle every casino game, you certainly have my respect and admiration. If I have to take chances that have potentially dire consequences to earn your respect, I probably never will. Whether that is important or not, I'm not the right person to say...

I have nothing bad to say about Stanford. I admire what he has done. And if he can do what he says with dice, more power to him. I simply don't want to take that kind of chance myself, not that I have ever made a single bet on the craps table anyway, as I have not. So don't take me as one of those "kooks" that inhabit here, rge21, ap.com, and tend to engage more in insults and infighting than anything else. I have no ulterior motive, no agenda, other than the classic AP agenda of taking as much money from the casino coffers as I possibly can, given my skill level, betting level, and playing time. :)

In reading/posting at the three major BJ web sites, I find it hard to discern who is good, who is bad, and who is nuts, other than by the answers I get to my questions. Don S. has taken lots of time to answer my questions even when I repeatedly do not understand a detail. Ouchez has done the same. Bigplayer has answered questions I have asked. Rather than naming all the good interactions I have had, I'll just say most have been friendly and helpful. What's with the apparent factions that hate each other I don't know. I hate to see people that I respect behave as I have seen them behave, but that's beyond my control.

If I don't "fit in" then I certainly apologize...

by allowing you to shoot the dice, you are expected by the rules of the game, to attempt to control the dice...that's the entire object of the game and the reason why the players are allowed to shoot the dice. This entire discussion is silly and Chappy worries too much. Players are expected to try to overcome the random nature of the game (generally a futile exercise)

Regardless, the discussion at hand should not be whether dice control is legal...it obviously is...the real question is what is the chance that the state could try to charge you with cheating....well, an enterprising DA can try to charge you with anything...that doesn't mean that a jury won't laugh him right out of court.

The discussion is legitimate considering what happens if they try to make an example of someone. The price is very high if prosecuted. Even if I won in court the legal costs would be enormous considering what is at stake for the casinos. As to whether I "worry too much", maybe so in this case. I will gladly play once it is deemed to not be violating the clearly stated cheating statute.

As for the other poster who wants me to explain why counting is not illegal, he must be kidding. Counting does not involve physically interfering with randomness and altering the outcome (specifically outlawed by Nevada's cheating statute).

Bigplayer and others have a reasonable (although not exactly relevant from a legal standpoint) point when they ask who is going to prosecute this and how are they going to prove it?

Reading the law makes it hard to argue against what I have stated and nobody has yet provided anything verifying otherwise. Regardless of what the others may say, until shown otherwise, it is still a felony. I'm rooting for my detractors and hope I'm proven wrong. In the meantime, you'll see me on the sidelines on this one.

Doesnt the fact that they allow you to set the dice make any argument for cheating null & void? Cheating implies hiding something from them. They already know that dice setters are trying to control the outcome, and they allow that. I'd think in court, to prove cheating they have to show you did something that they cannot see. Its a stretch to think they could say to a judge " well we knew what they were doing and allowed it, but because they were really good at what we permitted, its now called cheating".

The current rules of the game allow you to set the dice, so you are playing by the rules. if they start losing money, they can change the rules and ban dice setting. But they cant call a bad dice setter legit but a good dice setter a cheater.

Don't they call good BJ players (card counters) cheaters and bad BJ players gamblers???

Griffin lists counters, cheaters, and terrorists side-by-side in the same book...

The only point for me, which Chappy raised, is "do I want to be prosecuted, have to pay a huge legal bill which I will not be able to recover, and possibly be imprisioned for 10 years to boot?" The answer to any/all of those is "No." After seeing casinos violate constitutional rights (JG case and others that have been backroomed, etc) do you really feel secure and confident that you won't be chosen as an "example" if you have a good night at the table??? Even if you win the case, you probably lose, since the costs will be high (legal bills as well as travel and time lost from work).

Obviously if they didn't want you to "hold" the dice, the dealers would be tossing them. That is clearly a part of the game, and if someone believes that "setting the dice" will help them, all the better, as that produces more action at the table.

Until they say "wait a minute, here's a person that is consistently winning large chunks of money, he is altering the randomness of the dice based on hours of video tape, and we're going to put a stop to it by prosecuting."

That's all it takes. Just getting charged, arrested, and having to fight your way out of a quagmire is (to me) ample justification to not enter until things are clear.

Back in the 15th century, old world maps had places out in the unexplored oceans marked "Here there be dragons." That seems to fit this particular topic pretty well, since the casinos have enough money to put dragons everywhere as they have done in the past...

I'm not going to say more on the topic, because I happen to agree with you that the more we write, the more attendion it brings to the topic, which is always bad from the player's perspective. I hope it is found to be perfectly legal, and that those practicing this "art" are successful. I just personally don't want to be the precedent-setter for the reasons I have given. For those willing to challenge the system, more power to them of course...

that no one will EVER be charged with cheating by merely using dice setting coupled with legal throws. Other countermeasures are too easy to fix the game and make the Stanford Wong golden age of craps the shortest golden age ever. I can think of one or two minor changes to casino procedure that would make the entire issue of advangage crsps impossible.

It has yet to be proven by anyone that they can get an edge at craps using legal throws. All I see here are system sellers making money and casino's getting paranoid.

I'll take your word there, which has (to me) always been solid. Since I don't play craps, I have no opinion or interest in any of this anyway. I've watched once or twice, and really don't see how if you throw the length of the table, hit the end, which had a lot of little foam points on the table I looked at and speed bumps on the surface, how one could affect the roll probabilities.

Of course this coming from someone that believes that removing a single small card from a 52 card deck gives me an advantage worth betting on. :)

But enough of the talk about crap. err craps... :)

So I guess you can never cut the shoe because you will be altering the randomness of the game...