I had almost the exact same situation occur, but nobody threw down the extra bet. I had about $19k on me and finally the floorman agreed that I could bank even with < $20k since I fully cover. This was after a lot of back and forth.

Then he decided the bank had to be in chips, I can't have any cash at all. Which meant I had to fill out a CTR, so I gave up.

Strange yet true. If you win a jackpot at a table game - say $10 or 20k you don't have to fill out a tax form since you won the bet another player a la poker. It was not paid out by a cardroom. Not filling out forms for cashing out over $5000 is another issue.

Cardrooms wouldn't bother to hire dark props to prevent players from banking. There are enough bums hanging around trying to get lucky that will gladly do it for free.

Cardrooms will face a lot of heat from the gaming commission if they don't offer the player bank to other players and someone complains to the commission.

Cardrooms and corporations are usually related in someway anyway and not completely independent. Cardroom a is affilliated with Corp at cardroom a . Or cardroom b owns Corp at cardroom c and vice versa.

The amount won by the Corp at most table games probably won't compare to amount of commission the house drops.

Most people thinking of striking it rich player banking are neglect to tip the dealers. Not tipping on the cardroom industry makes you person non grata. $5 tips per down won't cut it either. $5 at the table game side is equivilent to $1 at the poker side.

If you admit the cardrooms and the corporations are making an end run around the legal restrictions, then why would you expect us to believe they won't attempt to protect their interests in banking?

The corporation can dissuade player banking by just not going behind a player bank. It's just more efficient. As a player, do you want to worry about a player bank not covering your bonus bets which pays out 40:1 or 200+:1? What about in blackjack where you hit a natural 21, but because the player bank ran out of money you don't get paid?

Corporations can certainly go behind a players bank. In small games, however, that creates more head ache. Cum-cuming, splitting banks, multiple banks.

The trend towards games with bonuses certainly favors corporation banking.

On the flip side, other games a predominantly player banked. IE, Doublehand and Paigow Tiles. Would a corporation benefit from always banking? Absolutely. Would a cardroom want that to happen? Probably not. Players tip dealers at a far greater clip.

NiceTrade's issue isn't a big deal. There was another thread where a player was barred from Matrix for banking blackjack as a corporation because he went in with his friends? Yeah that's shadier.

Bay 101 told me I need 100k to bank 3 card poker. Obviously nobody has that kind of cash so the corporation becomes the de-facto bank.

At M8trix What is not clear to me is do you have to play, or just be seated at the table to bank? They told me I must play at least 2 hands before I can bank but I'm not sure if that's a lie or not. The corporation never play any hand. This whole scenario is so Wild West, shady, and definitely has organized crime involved. There is NO way the corporations aren't kicking back money to the casino.

For those who did contact gaming control board or AG what was the response?

In california players can bank games in non indian casinos
My poker bankroll is about 35k and I am thinking about banking california games as well with the same roll.

If you just bank Pai Gow poker and blackjack as a player every 2 hands.
How profitable can it be and what should your bankroll be?
I feel like it would be a slow win rate unless you get players betting big all the time.

For blackjack, the house edge is like 0.7% (0.007 units) and the variance is 1.2 units. This gives a longest losing stretch of 250k hands and a bankroll of 500 units.

How do these player banked games worked:

- who handles security / game integrity?
- how does the casino make money?

... etc

The house takes a collection fee for every 50$ is 50 cents
Also I am a poker dealer at that casino
I rarely see people win at the black jack table. Every time I deal blackjack I usually kill everyone.


It is a 6 deck shoe

The thing is is that that isn't the real house edge. Nearly all players play suboptimally, many substantially so.

Most banking is done by a banking corporation.

Then the House adds a bunch of side bets with huge potential payoffs, so that the other players can't bank.

Why the House would change the rules to favor the banking corporation, when they're not supposed to have an interest in the banking corporation winning, I leave as an exercise for the reader.

I don't understand what this is about. Player banking means you take the place of the house and they stand to win nothing? Why would they provide you with the accomodations to play for free?

I've been told I *must* have $25k to bank certain games. I also question the requirement that I play 2 hands when the corporation isn't forced to play hands.

I've never been barred, and haven't banked in LA, but I wish you luck. I have been refused action as a player by the corporation, though.

I've also had the corporation tell the casino to change their procedures, and the casino complied. Didn't seem very fair, but I don't know if it is illegal.

California doesn't allow the "house" (meaning the casino) to have any interest in the outcome of any gambling game. That's why the drop in poker is based off if there's a flop, turn, river and not based on pot size at all. It'd be illegal to look at the pot size to determine how much to rake. They're just charging for a service. To get around this and have blackjack and other table games they take a collection of typically $1 every hand from everyone playing table games and the players take turns being the house and booking everyone's bets. This makes table games horrible in California because you're paying rake on top of it being a -EV game.

Additionally, there's a company known as the corporation that pays people to sit down and act as the player bank every hand, and the problem OP has with that is because the casinos are basically colluding with the corporation to stop people from ever taking the corporation's action. They likely have some sort of arrangement under the table.

Here's a thought...

Why don't gamblers in California only play table games at tribal casinos and boycott table games at non-tribal casinos...

If enough gamblers do this then California has to change the laws to be exactly like tribal casinos regarding table games

Tribal casinos have their own problems, notably that they're run by tribal cartels with little oversight.

Also banking is a unique situation mathematically, and not something you can do at tribal casinos.

Also tribal casinos are, for the most part, located far away from population centers. There are a few that are grandfathered in, and recent compacts signed have been more and more lax about this unofficial rule, but in general for most of the population to get to a tribal casino it's a day trip.

Thanks a lot for the very in-deph explanation.

It took me this long to revisit the thread and find your reply, sorry for that.

So in this case there's a dumb law that creates a situation where the casinos are killing the players, because they have to play "jumping the legal hoops" to be able to charge a reasonable amount for their games. I can't say I blame the casinos for doing this. As long as the law allows them to do it, they will of course do that. I can see how, from a players' perspective, it looks like they're being cheated, and in a way they are because the games are much worse because of this, but that's because of the dumb laws. It's not really the casinos' fault.

That's simply not true alwayscall. They could easily charge a "reasonable" amount by raising the commissions. But instead they're choosing to break the law and collude. They're cheating.

What they're doing is like a poker house hiring a shill instead of raising the rake.

Heard thru the grapevine the current corporation at Bicycle is getting out. Not sure if true but may be an indicator of something else going on there.

This does not make sense...

I bet $500. If I win the hand then I only win $5 instead of $500??????

No, you win the full $500. The Corporation will cover whatever action the player-banker doesn't. It's the main service of the Corporation, to make sure all action is covered.

It really depends on the corporation and whether they go behind or not (cover the remaining action). In the case the corporation doesn't go behind the action not covered by the bank is returned win or lose.

Games with bonus bets implicitly favor having the corporation bank.. Imagine you're playing black jack with a bust bonus. You're putting $10 or $25 on the bust but the player bank only has enough to cover the base bets and 1x the bonus bets. I don't know the math on that someone's not going to be happy if the bank doesn't cover.

Hustler corporation @ Gardena out as of Monday. Don't know who new corp is.

This player/banking stuff sounds like a scam. Why do people play if they know that their winning hands won't get paid? In that case if their lose then they don't need to lose their bets either (if they can't win their full bets).