Kentucky Derby day is always busy at poker rooms in Florida, but this year it felt like Times Square on New Year\u2019s Eve. For those of you not from Florida, there are at least a dozen poker rooms within two hours of my house, and most of them also have simulcast racing. The racebook crowd spills over into the poker room on Derby day\u2014mint juleps and fancy hats looking out of place next to chip racks and bomb pots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was in town for one of my marathon poker weekends. I don\u2019t get out as much as I used to, but when I do, I play up to sixteen hours, crash at a friend\u2019s place, come back the next morning, repeat, then head home. Derby day was the opener. The room ran a multi-flight tournament series alongside the usual cash tables, so I spent the afternoon and night bouncing between tournaments, a $2\/$5 game, and the cage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suppose it was due to the chaos that the unthinkable happened. They actually made a miscount at the cage. It was inconceivable. And yes, I\u2019m going to use that word, and I do<\/em> think it means what I think it means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or did they really make a mistake?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over fifteen hours I played a tournament flight, busted, made a short cash-game run, re-entered the night flight, busted again, then played cash until my eyes blurred. Lots of buyins meant lots of bills sliding under the bars. As I\u2019m sure you know: casinos track money like air traffic controllers track planes \u2013 every movement is accounted for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, late that night I was three hundred dollars richer than my notes said I should be. I must have miscounted, right? The cage never makes a mistake. Somewhere in the derby-day chaos, the clerk overpaid me by three black chips? Impossible. They never make a miscount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what if they had? If so, that money wasn\u2019t really mine. But then the counter-argument crept in\u2014It\u2019s a casino; they can afford it. Mistakes happen. They\u2019ll write it off.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of my friends would probably keep it. Some of those same friends would never steal from a neighbor, yet they\u2019ll skip scanning a couple of items at self-checkout because \u201cWal-Mart won\u2019t miss it.\u201d Apparently that mindset is everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, casinos don\u2019t shrug off shortages. End-of-shift counts get reconciled against the computer, and if the drawer is short, the employee is on the hook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know what you\u2019re thinking. Steve, they don\u2019t make mistakes at the cage. YOU must have made a miscount. But here\u2019s the thing: Steamin\u2019 Steve never miscounts. Call me a genius or neurotic or both, trust me, I know exactly how many chips are in my stack, and how many bills are in my pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part of me said: Bank error in your favor\u2014move on.<\/em> The other part pictured a manager reviewing camera footage, and a young cashier getting written up. I even rehearsed both conversations: one where I keep quiet and nothing happens, and one where I walk to the cage, admit there must have been some kind of mistake, and hand over some cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Morning arrived. I had another sixteen-hour session planned. I drove back to the poker room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No one stopped me at the door. Security didn\u2019t pounce. The same cage clerk was on duty, smiling like nothing ever went wrong. Play resumed: new cards, typical swings. Yet the three hundreds in my pocket felt heavier than the whole rack of chips on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s where the story pauses\u2014for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I\u2019m throwing it to you. You discover an extra $300 in your roll after a crazy day at the tables. The casino made the miscount and apparently hasn\u2019t noticed. Do you return it? Keep it? Something in between?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vote in the comments below, and in a few days I\u2019ll reveal what I decided and how it played out\u2014because one way or another, that extra money led to an ending I didn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stay tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poll \u2013 Which would you do?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Grind<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Overnight Debate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Your Turn<\/h2>\n\n\n\n