Host can't pay out everyone, what to do? (2 Viewers)

[MeridianFC]

The problems brought about by the nature of the game the OP attended are one reason I don't play casino stakes in home games. I mean I understand why folks may do it (no casinos near by, rake avoidance, more money than sense) but the second the stakes rise to the level a gaming control board would be involved it seems, well not very home game like. That said everyone is comfortable with different things, but me I get twitchy in games not based around very good bar tabs.

 

[JustinInMN]

Are other winners getting paid (big winners) outside of yourself?

It may suck to not collect but why does host owe anyone — no rake, he’s not making money. Granted if these are all friends I’ve seen people go on payment plans. If strangers are in the game then they should definitely pay the winners out.

Simple, the host made the decision to do the loan on his own. He has the responsibility on his own. That shouldn't need explaining.

 

[JustinInMN]

So at this point, I think if it's been a month, @Rhodeman77 is absolutely justified in putting the host "on a plan." Take the debt, divide it by 6 and let him know he has to make monthly payments to be good. The host should take the hint this is what he needs to be doing to the losing player. A month with no action is not acceptable. If host doesn't come through on this, then you have an obligation to name names to the poker community and ruin the reputation of his game.

There's no guarantee host will come through, or maybe he will offer to settle for less so something positive comes out of this.

All of the wrongdoing is on the host's part here and every suggestion to the contrary is asinine. Host solely made the credit decisions. Suggestion that @Rhodeman77 needed to intervene on a private matter is ridiculous.

Now what is in @Rhodeman77's control is when to leave the game. I admit what I am about to say is easy to spot in retrospect, but I would say next time you are in this spot and see a lot of credit going to a player that's burning it off like that and you lack history with that host, you might take that as a sign to cash out early and try and sidestep the issue.

Sometimes you trust the wrong people. I was one of the unfortunate to trust @MoscowRadio with design money 5 years ago, nothing to be done, though I guess that loss was considerably lower.

 

[Rhodeman77]

So at this point, I think if it's been a month, @Rhodeman77 is absolutely justified in putting the host "on a plan." Take the debt, divide it by 6 and let him know he has to make monthly payments to be good. The host should take the hint this is what he needs to be doing to the losing player. A month with no action is not acceptable. If host doesn't come through on this, then you have an obligation to name names to the poker community and ruin the reputation of his game.

There's no guarantee host will come through, or maybe he will offer to settle for less so something positive comes out of this.

All of the wrongdoing is on the host's part here and every suggestion to the contrary is asinine. Host solely made the credit decisions. Suggestion that @Rhodeman77 needed to intervene on a private matter is ridiculous.

Now what is in @Rhodeman77's control is when to leave the game. I admit what I am about to say is easy to spot in retrospect, but I would say next time you are in this spot and see a lot of credit going to a player that's burning it off like that and you lack history with that host, you might take that as a sign to cash out early and try and sidestep the issue.

Sometimes you trust the wrong people. I was one of the unfortunate to trust @MoscowRadio with design money 5 years ago, nothing to be done, though I guess that loss was considerably lower.

Great point about leaving, but we all also know if you are the “new guy” or even a regular and are up a lot and are the first to leave you can almost guarantee you won’t be invited back. Hit and run in a private game is a death sentence for invites and that label can get attached to you for other games. While not as bad a cheat, it isn’t much better!

 

[elemeno]

Great point about leaving, but we all also know if you are the “new guy” or even a regular and are up a lot and are the first to leave you can almost guarantee you won’t be invited back. Hit and run in a private game is a death sentence for invites and that label can get attached to you for other games. While not as bad a cheat, it isn’t much better!

Lots of interesting perspectives in this thread. Have you decided what you’re going to do?

 

[Rhodeman77]

Lots of interesting perspectives in this thread. Have you decided what you’re going to do?

Well, I thought I’d ask PCF to help cover the shortfall, seems to be the trend.

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/our-family-needs-your-help.118805/#post-2441955

 

[JustinInMN]

Great point about leaving, but we all also know if you are the “new guy” or even a regular and are up a lot and are the first to leave you can almost guarantee you won’t be invited back. Hit and run in a private game is a death sentence for invites and that label can get attached to you for other games. While not as bad a cheat, it isn’t much better!

Yeah this is a good point, I don't think I would even make this call unless I was pretty sure I wasn't coming back.

But back on my first point, enough time has passed where you can be asking what has he done to collect from the BL. Let him know you expect to hear some resolution in the next few days, even if it's installments.

The reason the host's action is so scummy is he just arbitrarily decided to deflect the responsibility from his loan decision to you. And I would be clear that's how you feel about what happened and that you expect him to do the work to make you whole.

It just seems to me this is the next step unless you are willing to let it go.

 

[TheRealTeddyKGB]

I'll pay $10 @Moxie Mike but this has to be cleaner lol!

 

[Tonysquander]

View attachment 1318205
I'll pay $10 @Moxie Mike but this has to be cleaner lol!

That's where all the flavor is!

 

[upNdown]

That's where all the flavor is!

Want to see a bunch of dug-into-their-beliefs hobbiest whackos? Check out cast iron.

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

Want to see a bunch of dug-into-their-beliefs hobbiest whackos? Check out cast iron.

My wife's a die-hard. I mess up every single time I use it; scrub too much, scrub too little, pan was too hot or too cold. The thing's a Mensa puzzle.

 

[Moxie Mike]

I'll pay $10 @Moxie Mike but this has to be cleaner lol!

It was clean at the beginning of the night, if that helps at all. And scrubbing all that burnt cheese yesterday was a real PITA. The things I do for people

 

[Sparkynutz]

Great point about leaving, but we all also know if you are the “new guy” or even a regular and are up a lot and are the first to leave you can almost guarantee you won’t be invited back. Hit and run in a private game is a death sentence for invites and that label can get attached to you for other games. While not as bad a cheat, it isn’t much better!

Or everybody just speak up and cut the guy off. Buddy of mine kept rebuying and going all in within 2-3 hands multiple times. All of us told him to stop. He was drunk as a skunk and all pissed off when I told him he lost enough and asked for his keys then drove him home shortly after. His wife was pretty pissed but glad I did what I did.

 

[JustinInMN]

As I see the comments, they look to me like people want to play heads and Hero wins, tails and the host sucks up the loss. It is an unraked game. The host has no way to recover losses with "profits" from hosting the game. That seems like a pretty unrealistic ask to me.

For things like a banking error, this logic makes sense. But that's not what this is. The host is making a decision to loan a player money. It's between the borrower and the lender.

As noted, the stakes are huge and there are good reasons not to have cash in full at the table. It seems preferable to have cash transferred when chips are handed over. No doubt the host would prefer that too.

I can understand this to a point.

Most of us know "those" sorts of players who seem to never have enough bankable cash, for all sorts of reasons. We like them because they spew chips. We are happy the host isn't sending them home, rather extending credit to keep the game going and juicy. No doubt the big winners often can trace their good fortune to the whale dusting off buy in after buy in.

This time the whale cannot/ will not cover the marker. I can't help but note that Hero didn't object to host extending unsecured credit to the weak spot at the table. And only now finds his voice to object. Tough luck. Hero and the other big winners have feasted off the whale for a while. This is the cost of doing business. Hero is well advised to carefully consider what is in his long term benefit. Making an ass of himself doesn't seem to be the obvious best choice.

It is not the hero's place to interject on what the lender chooses to do with the borrower. Hero cannot object and expect to continue. Hero could have left the game, that was the only option if he had discomfort, but even that has repercussions.

These sorts of losses should be shared somehow among the winners and the Host. The host shouldn't be incurring all the risk since he/she isn't getting the bulk of the profits.

This take is awful because it completely absolves the lender of a lending decision that he alone made. And to boot, he just arbitrarily assigned the loss the newest player in the game. I can't believe you are defending this in the slightest.

@Rhodeman77 has done nothing wrong, but the reality is he is probably going to pay a price for trusting the wrong host. I guess I can agree to the "cost of doing business" in those terms. When you play in new games, you are certainly relying on reputation to get paid and that needs to play into the calculation of how much risk one is willing to take. I can sympathize with a host making an occasional banking error, but not in making a bad loan.

The responsibility lies with the host. Unfortunately, it's a far from ideal world.

 

[bigdonkey]

Great point about leaving, but we all also know if you are the “new guy” or even a regular and are up a lot and are the first to leave you can almost guarantee you won’t be invited back. Hit and run in a private game is a death sentence for invites and that label can get attached to you for other games. While not as bad a cheat, it isn’t much better!

True, but the suggestion was to get up and leave early if you get the feeling something sketchy is going on. If you are leaving early for that reason, do you even care if you aren't invited back. Are you even planning on going back to the place you felt you had to get out of Dodge from if you do get invited back?

 

[Tonystark137]

Not to throw the thread off...

but a legit question of where does the line lie for

first to leave you can almost guarantee you won’t be invited back.

Been at games it was my first time playing, I ran good, I played ok. Wasn't the first one to leave , told the table I be leaving in 30-40 minutes, but there were still players that wanted to stay on after that time.

Was like 1-2Am and I was tired. Would be consider ok to leave? Consider a hit and run?

 

[Rhodeman77]

True, but the suggestion was to get up and leave early if you get the feeling something sketchy is going on. If you are leaving early for that reason, do you even care if you aren't invited back. Are you even planning on going back to the place you felt you had to get out of Dodge from if you do get invited back?

If I know something sketchy is going on, sure, running out the door asap. But what if this guy is WW level rich and dropping $20k is what he does for fun on a Saturday night and I am now burning a game that could be very profitable long term?

To leave a game that you are up big in early without being very sure something fishy is happening is -EV.

 

[Rhodeman77]

Not to throw the thread off...

but a legit question of where does the line lie for

Been at games it was my first time playing, I ran good, I played ok. Wasn't the first one to leave , told the table I be leaving in 30-40 minutes, but there were still players that wanted to stay on after that time.

Was like 1-2Am and I was tired. Would be consider ok to leave? Consider a hit and run?

Anytime after 1am I would say is safe to leave.

I have never had this problem though, 99.9% of the time I am shutting down the game. I will play very short handed. Even heads up (have done it a ton). Nobody has ever accused me of a H&R lol.

 

[krafticus]

After more thought, I've come to the following conclusion:
we all agree this is on the host, and he should come up with the difference; however, if he doesn't ... what recourse do we really have?

Honestly, you can threaten violence, legal, or blacklisting .. but will that really accomplish the desired result? I mean really, at this point, it's kind of like a "what are you going to do about it?" from the host knowing there is nothing really. I stand by my original "nothing good will come out of this".

- If OP doesn't get his share, he can share the experience, and maybe the game goes south
- If OP doesn't get his share, and the game goes on .. what is there really anything .. legally .. that can be done?
- If OP does get his share, would he really want to go back and potentially go through this again?

I don't know .. I hope OP is made whole.

Is there cross-over from that game to your game, and could it jeopardize your game. Hopefully not

 

[upNdown]

The host is making a decision to loan a player money.

I don’t know if that’s entirely true. Hero reports that the custom of this game is to settle up everything at the end of the night. It seems likely that host assumed the guy would pay up at the end of the night. So he probably didn’t actually choose to make a loan; the host and the game got stiffed.

And to boot, he just arbitrarily assigned the loss the newest player in the game.

I’ve seen a couple of people take this angle and it seems a little crazy to me. He did nothing of the sort. He didn’t pay the two biggest winners. Seems like a normal decision to me (once you get past the unforgivable fact that the host couldbt/wouldnt pay everybody.)

I can't believe you are defending this in the slightest.

Without defending the host, I can get on board with some of what the Dr. is saying. People replying here saying “theft” and suggesting violence violence and/or taking collateral - I think they’re wrong. You don’t have to be one extreme or the other. The host screwed up and he should try to get the money to make good. And he’s a shit-host. But unless this is a pattern with this host or this was some sort of insidious plan (and there’s zero evidence for either) then what’s the point of beating up the host? He had good intentions, he put on a good game, and it didn’t work out. And again, assuming Hero got back at least his buy-in, he hasn’t actually lost anything - he just simply hasn’t been paid money that was never there.

 

[bigdonkey]

If I know something sketchy is going on, sure, running out the door asap. But what if this guy is WW level rich and dropping $20k is what he does for fun on a Saturday night and I am now burning a game that could be very profitable long term?

To leave a game that you are up big in early without being very sure something fishy is happening is -EV.

I'm not advocating leaving early or not leaving early. I'm just pointing out that if things are so bad you need to leave early, getting invited back is probably not a consideration.

If your judgment is that things are fishy, but you choose to stay, then you risk getting stuck. Only the player in the situation can make that call, and it'll be different for everyone.

 

[krafticus]

Not to throw the thread off...

but a legit question of where does the line lie for

Been at games it was my first time playing, I ran good, I played ok. Wasn't the first one to leave , told the table I be leaving in 30-40 minutes, but there were still players that wanted to stay on after that time.

Was like 1-2Am and I was tired. Would be consider ok to leave? Consider a hit and run?

I've had plenty of games when people announce that they are leaving. Some were up, some down, and some even. On several occasions, said player wins a HUGE pot right before the time they announced they were leaving, and plays another hand or two and leaves because they already announced they were leaving. No issues at all with that. Its the sit down, play 20-30 minutes, double/triple up .. play a hand or two, and leave..

 

[Jimulacrum]

This take is awful because it completely absolves the lender of a lending decision that he alone made. And to boot, he just arbitrarily assigned the loss the newest player in the game. I can't believe you are defending this in the slightest.

I don't even think this approach (making the winning players eat a loss caused by poor banking) is appropriate for honest mistakes.

I have a guy who plays in my tournament league who is physically incapable of being a responsible adult. Let's call him Aaron.

He can't sit down for 10 minutes without having to go smoke a cigarette, use the bathroom, get another beer, talk to the random person who just showed up, whatever. After he busted early from one tournament, he got a cash game started and was running the bank because I was still in the tournament and no one stopped him. (Cheeseburger stakes, $20 max at a time.)

To say it was amateur hour is an insult to amateurs. Aaron's idea of managing the money was just throwing it willy-nilly into a big, disorganized pile in the middle of the open chip case. Dude wasn't even at the table half the time. He'd wander off for 15 minutes at a time to do whatever, repeatedly. If he was away, he'd let everyone and anyone help themselves to chips on the honor system.

Usually I would take over the bank when I'm out of the tournament because I run all the poker games. I absolutely refused to do it this time. I just said if this is how he wants to run bank, he can run it all the way to the end, and if it's short, he's eating the shortage.

After I sat down, a couple players loaned each other money to buy in. Like, actual cash to put in the purse, not promises. Aaron watched this with interest and said, "Oh, we're doing loaners now? Okay!" Then he proceeded to issue himself a $20 rebuy from the case with no cash exchanged. I asked him, "Are you going to cover that?" "Uh, yeah," he said.

I wasn't planning to let him pull another one, and thankfully it didn't come to that.

When the game broke and it was time to balance out, he came up about $20 short (beyond his self-issued loan). Thankfully he had won a bit during the game, so he was able to cover his loan and the shortage. I would never have compelled or even asked anyone else to cover it. He chose to act as banker, and it was entirely his fault the bank was short. (I forbade him from ever running bank again after that.)

This is an extreme example, but it's illustrative: bank errors seldom happen with a competent, responsible banker, and that's the kind of banker a game should have. If you're not that, don't run the bank, and certainly don't issue credit to anyone.

But if all that fails, and you end up with a banker who's not up to the task, or who wants to make sloppy credit arrangements with compulsive gamblers, it's entirely on the banker because the banker is responsible for all the decision-making and all the actions. Players, whether they win or lose, should never be asked to eat a banking shortage unless it's for a truly exceptional reason (like the game got robbed). Shortages resulting from the banker's ineptitude, bad decisions, or bad faith should never be anyone else's problem.

 

[Hornet]

Players, whether they win or lose, should never be asked to eat a banking shortage unless it's for a truly exceptional reason (like the game got robbed). Shortages resulting from the banker's ineptitude, bad decisions, or bad faith should never be anyone else's problem.

I often bank in my game, and we play for fairly large stakes. We are all friends. I wouldn’t bank if I was being asked to take all of the risk. And I wouldn’t expect others banking to take all of the risk. Although I agree that the banker bears primary responsibility, players have some responsibility as well, at least to verify a cash out. We all share in shortages, which are few and far between, and that’s our preference.

 

[JustinInMN]

After more thought, I've come to the following conclusion:
we all agree this is on the host, and he should come up with the difference;

Apparently @DrStrange has a problem with this conclusion

Honestly, you can threaten violence, legal, or blacklisting .. but will that really accomplish the desired result? I mean really, at this point, it's kind of like a "what are you going to do about it?" from the host knowing there is nothing really. I stand by my original "nothing good will come out of this".

This is the sad truth. Assigning responsibility and making corrective action are two very different things.

- If OP doesn't get his share, he can share the experience, and maybe the game goes south
- If OP doesn't get his share, and the game goes on .. what is there really anything .. legally .. that can be done?
- If OP does get his share, would he really want to go back and potentially go through this again?

I don't know .. I hope OP is made whole.

Is there cross-over from that game to your game, and could it jeopardize your game. Hopefully not

We obviously can hope host will do the right thing, but if he doesn't, I think @Rhodeman77 would be completely justified to spread the word about what happened and who's involved so hopefully no one else gets whacked like this again.

 

[TomC727]

I think since it’s been over a month without a resolution, it’s time for @Rhodeman77 to start singing, that this host and game cannot be trusted.

On top of that, to quote Sebastian Maniscalco - “Aren’t You Embarrassed?” For a host to allow this to happen initially is appauling. For this to continue for over a month without a resolution or plan is downright bullshit.

 

[JustinInMN]

I don’t know if that’s entirely true. Hero reports that the custom of this game is to settle up everything at the end of the night. It seems likely that host assumed the guy would pay up at the end of the night. So he probably didn’t actually choose to make a loan; the host and the game got stiffed.

Even if I accept this at face value, I can't square this as an out for the host. He is the one that set up this culture, he has to take responsibility for when it doesn't go according to plan.

’ve seen a couple of people take this angle and it seems a little crazy to me. He did nothing of the sort. He didn’t pay the two biggest winners. Seems like a normal decision to me (once you get past the unforgivable fact that the host couldbt/wouldnt pay everybody.)

Distributing the loss is considerably more fair than picking and choosing which players are made whole versus which ones get stiffed. There probably should have been a uniform haircut on cashout based on percentage, and the host should make out markers for the haircuts.

Very irresponsible for a host to just arbitrarily decide which two don't get paid, even if there's a convenience argument for stiffing the biggest winners. That decision is what has invited the suspicion about this being a setup.

 

[Jimulacrum]

I often bank in my game, and we play for fairly large stakes. We are all friends. I wouldn’t bank if I was being asked to take all of the risk. And I wouldn’t expect others banking to take all of the risk. Although I agree that the banker bears primary responsibility, players have some responsibility as well, at least to verify a cash out.

Sure, players should verify their cash-outs, but that's a responsibility to check that their own funds are in line. They're not responsible for auditing the bank itself at any point. Any mistakes made there are not the doing of the players.

We all share in shortages, which are few and far between, and that’s our preference.

Obviously I disagree with this approach. But if it's agreed to in advance by everyone, then I guess that's your prerogative.

I'm assuming you run the bank with a sense of integrity and propriety, and don't issue naked credit or let it be a free-for-all like my guy Aaron, so it's unlikely to be a major issue. At most, a minor issue, once in a while.

But man, I have played in plenty of games where the banking practices make me cringe. I've even worked in an actual bank and seen actual bank tellers mismanage things. In the general case, I am unwilling (as a player) to agree to cover the banker's errors because in the general case, I don't trust other people to handle money appropriately.

 

[JustinInMN]

I don't even think this approach (making the winning players eat a loss caused by poor banking) is appropriate for honest mistakes.

I hear you loud and clear on this one. I was just trying to relate to @DrStrange 's point that banking is a no win proposition in an unranked game, but it's an necessary job and one that requires high skill as you point out.

I haven't never had a banking error in the past 6 years of hosting. Closest I came was being a dollar high and realizing I was short one chip in the bank. Sure enough, when I went to take my table apart for storage, I found an uncashed dollar chip stuck under the rail in my spot.

But I am reminded of one of the first "bigger games" (in my opinion six years ago anyway, but it was 25¢-50¢ 60 max) I hosted. I was still in the set up a vinyl octagon table in my living room stage of hosting. We ended up with about $800 in the room as memory serves and I was just pocketing the buy ins. It became warm in the house so I took off my hoodie during a quick break. As we were getting close to breaking the game, I realized I didn't know where the bankroll was for the game. The players were a mix of friends, and other people from other games, so i didn't think anyone would have stolen it, but I couldn't dismiss that thought either.

I knew I had the money in my casino bankroll, so without saying a word to anyone, I paid everyone out of that and would figure it out later. My rep as a host mattered more in that moment.

So everyone left, and I started search everywhere I had been to see if I had dropped it somewhere. I then decided to change for bed, and sure enough, I found the money in my back pocket all along. I must have moved it there when I changed out of my sweatshirt as I was making an effort to keep the game money separate from my buy in money.

But how much damage would I have done if I accused players of stealing with no basis? I was prepared to eat that $800 as a lesson and it's valuable to my reputation, even if none of those players are on PCF.

It also wasn't long after that I acquired my present day "poker cabinet."

Point is, hosting may be a no-win job, but it's important not to put things on your players. The host in the original post does not have a shred of that integrity and it needs to be made known.

 

[JustinInMN]

Sure, players should verify their cash-outs, but that's a responsibility to check that their own funds are in line. They're not responsible for auditing the bank itself at any point. Any mistakes made there are not the doing of the players.

Obviously I disagree with this approach. But if it's agreed to in advance by everyone, then I guess that's your prerogative.

I very much agree with your point here, but given the circumstances surrounding the original post, sharing the loss is the least bad option. Just stiffing two players while making the others whole is inexcusable.

And I would still say the host needs LP to make up the shortfall in the future or eat the loss himself.