Breaking the bank
In
In
Mark Bowden reports in The Atlantic that blackjack player Don Johnson broke the bank in 2011 winning nearly $6 million at Atlantic City's Tropicana casino after previously taking the Borgata for $5 million and Caesars for $4 million. The Tropicana refused to continue playing with Johnson on the terms the casino had negotiated after Johnson won $5.8 million, the Borgata cut Johnson off at $5 million, and the dealer at Caesars refused to fill Johnson's chip tray once his earnings topped $4 million. Johnson had reportedly negotiated terms with the Tropicana that included a hand-shuffled six-deck shoe; the right to split and double down on up to four hands at once; and a “soft 17" whittling the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent so in effect, Johnson was playing a 50–50 game against the house, and with the 20% "loss rebate", Johnson was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played.[2]
In 2005, British investor Paul Newey nearly broke the bank at Birmingham's Genting Casino Star City, where he won £3 million and forced owner Stanley Leisure to issue a profit warning and caused the casino value to decline by 12%.[3]
Breaking the bank occurs only if the house fails to cap the total amount payable on a winning bet in a way that bears some reasonable relationship to the total amount of money in play. In contrast, parimutuel betting by its very nature does impose such a cap, and hence the bank cannot be broken.
References
- ^ Noah Goldman (2003-09-15). "A Textbook Case MIT Students Break the Bank in Las Vegas". ABC News. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-02-11.
- ^ Bowden, Mark (February 27, 2012). "The Man Who Broke Atlantic City". The Atlantic.
- ^ Strachan, Ian (2017-01-26). "Rich List 2017: No.20 - Paul Newey". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 2018-02-26.