A site reader was curious about casinos and player bans. He asked the following:
Do casinos ban you for winning too much? I’ve met quite a few people claiming to have been banned for “winning too much”. I believe they’re banned, but likely for other reasons, haha. Aside from doing things against the rules like card counting, are there really casinos that will ban winners?
Reader question, via email
The short answer is yes. Like you mentioned, casinos can back off players or decline play from players either on a single game, like Blackjack, if they suspect card counting like in your example, or ban a player from a casino altogether. In many ways they’re in the driver’s seat and can decide who or what they’re willing to accept play wise.
Aside from Blackjack, I’ve heard of stories of video poker players being banned who play perfect strategy and would only play on days where promotions could tilt the advantage to the player, for instance. I’ve heard of a couple of players who were advantage players on slots get banned from casinos, but I’ve only heard from a handful of examples like that.
I’ve heard of many more examples of even benign things like players having a few lucky visits in a row leading to offers being revoked, because the casino felt that they were given “enough” through their wins to not need further comps to come back to the casino. Once they started losing again, the comps would resume. I think this is short-sighted given the games are already slanted in favor of the casino, and revoking offers could encourage players to not come back.
I’ve also heard of players being banned because they were recording their slot play on casino floors and the casino didn’t want to allow them to do so, and after a couple of warnings (or sometimes none at all, some claim) they were banned either for a period of time or permanently from being able to return to a casino.
The reality as private operators casinos can generally make these decisions based on whatever criteria they like. This doesn’t necessarily work in their favor if they go overboard on these things, as the stories spread and it just adds more points in the negative column for them. But yes they have (and certainly in the future will) decide to ban a player they think is creating too much of an advantage against the casino on a consistent enough basis.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that players who are saying they were banned for that actually were; that’s a whole other question. But yes, casinos have banned winners, especially those who they think are finding a way to have a clear opportunity against the casino.
