[Terry]

[ QUOTE ]
Once again, you show your ignorance. The craps dealers wouldn't be able to recognize a good controlled throw if they saw it, because to an observer it doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary.

[/ QUOTE ]

/sigh
The ignorance of someone with more than 30 years experience.

Ok, you asked for it.

When you (read "you" as you personally, or as any of the people foolish enough to spend money on a dice control system and try it out [even if that person is a well known and respected gambling author]) take a place at the rail at a craps table, you either begin betting right away, which marks you as a loser, because you are betting on the rolls of a "non-professional" shooter, or you wait until it is your turn to shoot.

If you don't start playing pretty much immediately, you are noted by the crew working the game as "out of the ordinary." They don't know what your story is just yet, but they know you aren't a typical tourist ... and they know they won't be making any money (tokes) from you, so they won't feel any desire to bend any rules for you.

When your turn to shoot comes and the stickman pushes you the dice, you may fiddle-fart around with the dice to get them "set" for your system, in which case the stickman tells you to "Pick 'em up and shoot 'em." If you continue to hold up the game despite the stickman's and then boxman's requests, you are now suspected of being a jerk out to yank their chain ... not actually uncommon, but still "out of the ordinary."

If you have practiced your set-up and quickly arrange the dice to your liking, it may take them two or three rolls to see what you are up to (since a player who fully understands the layout of the spots on the dice and can quickly arrange them is "out of the ordinary") ... except ...

The instant you throw the dice in that peculiar lofting arc, everybody working in the pit knows what you're trying to do. You may think it looks normal, but to the guys in the pit, who have seen many thousands of rolls, it is most definitely "out of the ordinary."

If the dice don't bounce and roll off the wall, you will get one nasty look and told once to "Bounce them off the back wall." If you do the same thing again, the stickman and / or the boxman will yell "No roll." and the stickman will knock the dice off the number they landed on as quickly as he can.

Depending on the class of the joint, you will either be told loudly and openly about your actions or a guy in a suit will come out of the pit and tell you quietly, but you will be told that if you don't bounce the dice off the wall you will not be allowed to shoot. They aren't talking about bouncing them 1 inch off the wall, nor about having them "slide" a little bit out of the corner after dropping nearly dead.

It doesn't take any great mental ability to be a Craps dealer, but you aren't dealing with idiots. Most likely, some of those guys in the pit have been watching dice roll since before you were born. They have seen your act hundreds of times before. They knew you were "out of the ordinary" within seconds of your arrival at the table, and they knew what you were trying to do the instant you let go of the dice on your first shot.

If they continue to let you shoot, it is for one reason and one reason only -- they know you aren't good enough to pose a threat. And even if they stopped you, it doesn't mean they feared you or that they were trying to break your concentration or that they were trying to interrupt your "flow". They stopped you because you were holding up the game, and maybe just because you were being a jerk.

Ah, yes. Excuse me for highlighting your ignorance, but it simply doesn't pay to try to buffalo someone with many years of experience who knows what he's talking about. What you think "to an observer ... doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary" will, in actuality immediately grab the attention of an experienced observer from the other end of the pit.

There are probably many things about which you know more than I do, but on this, good fellow, you are badly mistaken.

I hope I've persuaded at least one person to not waste his money by giving it to some gambling system scamster or to a (sadly) mistaken but otherwise respectable author.

/sigh