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Casinos employ lots of techniques to make you lose more money. One subtle method is called stepping up. This is used when players start winning a lot and is particularly common on roulette. It’s an effective way for casinos to recoup losses and is so deftly implemented that players don’t realise what has occurred until it’s too late.

What happens is a player will for example be betting on roulette with £5 chips. With a big win of say 200 chips, the casino will typically pay out 100 chips in £5 chips and a stack of £25 cash chips. Payouts are made up and passed across the table so quickly that the customer has little chance to complain. Players are also less likely to object to the way the payout has been made up as they are in a good mood because they are winning.

The casino is aware that had they given you a £500 chip or five £100 chips that you would be more likely to slip these chips in your pocket and maybe cash them in. However a stack of chips is too bulky to put in your pocket so you leave it sitting on the table.

What happens when you run out of £5 chips to bet with is that you slip on a few £25 chips. The casino has effectively increased your stakes five-fold without you realising what is going on. If you’re not careful after one spin your stack of £25 chips has disappeared. They have effectively recovered their losses in one fifth of the time that it would normally have taken you to lose the money.

Once they’ve got you betting with £25 cash chips, they will mark up a colour to £25. These are the normal colour chips that everyone plays with on the table. You may for example be playing with blue chips at the table minimum of £5. The casino will mark for example the yellow chips at £25. The actual chips do not have the value marked on them like the cash chips; the only indication to the player that the chips are worth more is the sign hanging over the table. And no one looks up when playing roulette they’re all looking at the table. It’s therefore very easy to forget that you are now playing with more expensive chips.

If however you continue winning, they’ll take you a step further; you’ll start receiving stacks of £100 chips in your payout. After a few spins your stake level has increased twenty fold. The ball is quickly spun giving you no time to exchange your chips for lower denominations so you start betting with the £100 chips. Now that they’ve got you betting with £100 chips, if you then start losing they’ll get their money back in a 20^th of the time.

Because you are now playing with a colour that is marked up, you forget that each stack is worth £2000. After all they look just like the stacks of £100 that you were playing with. Even if after a couple of spins you decide to quit, your winnings have been drastically cut. If you lose all your winnings the temptation is to try to win them back by continuing to bet high stakes which is a quick route to financial ruin.

To combat this technique you must be prepared. You need to take control of how you manage your money and not leave it in the hands of the casino. When you get a big win know exactly how many chips you have won and ask for the payout to be made up how you want it. In each payout take only enough chips to play a couple of spins. If you continually have to go to your pocket to get a chip to make a buy in, you are more conscious of how much you are losing. By stepping out of stepping up you can ensure that your winnings stay in your hands and not back in the casino’s.

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