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The mixed ruling issued by an appeals court for an MIT Blackjack Team member has given rise to several questions on how casinos deal with card counters once restrictions imposed on them are lifted.
The ruling is related to Laurie Tsao, who was labeled as an “advantage gambler” by Caesars Entertainment Casino and asked to leave the casino five times on grounds that she was trespassing. Caesars, however, continued offering her free rooms and invited her to accept a free room in Las Vegas during the NCAA basketball season, a move that sent her back to the casino and led to her subsequent arrest in 2008.
While the appeals panel agreed with the ruling of a lower court and dismissed Laurie’s complaints that she was wrongly arrested and that the police officer who arrested her and the casino that demanded her arrest had both violated her constitutional rights, the appeals court reversed the ruling.
The gambling laws of Nevada give casinos the right to eject card counters from their premises, and a card counter who refuses to leave can get punished. However, the court ruling takes into consideration a casino’s treatment of card counters after the ban restrictions are lifted.
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