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"Cardcounting" is technically legal, but frowned upon by casinos, because it violates the "unwritten law" that casinos are supposed to come out ahead. When card counters are caught, casinos can expel them under threat of being charged with trespassing.

But apparently casinos sometimes do more than that, like refusing to cash out their chips, or taking card counters to back rooms for questioning. (Detention and questioning are powers supposedly reserved for law enforcement. The casinos are only supposed to detain people until the police arrive.)

How do casinos manage to conduct such "extrajudicial" proceedings? Do the police and courts turn a blind eye to them because the casinos are important to the local economy?

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Libra
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1 Answers1

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Extrajudicial implies there is some weight of law behind the casino behaviors you describe.

I don't think there is.

For example, refusing to cash out chips could just be a management intimidation tactic to try to coerce the customer into agreeing to be "questioned." Which the customer would be under no legal obligation to do.

Card counting can't be proven if the counter is not using a device of any kind. The casino can refuse to serve the customer and expel the customer but they can't unilaterally keep the customer's money by not cashing the customer's chips without a judgment.

I am not an attorney. This answer is not legal advice.

Alexanne Senger
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