Dealing with rude players

John,

I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Lake Tahoe. I truly enjoyed most of my time there. I know my question is a little out of the ordinary but hope you may take time to answer it anyway.

While playing a machine that I was winning on, a very vulgar and rude group of people crowded in beside me and started with the most disgusting conversation I have ever heard. I am not a prude but this was offensive to all the players sitting near me, including several older women.

Is there anything I could have done to get them out of there besides getting myself arrested for knocking their teeth out?

Rodger

Dear Rodger,

Knocking their teeth out is definitely one possibility, but doing that wouldn't get the rude crowd ejected — it would get you thrown out!

It certainly is tough to leave a game on which you're winning when the atmosphere changes for the worse. All of my atmosphere changes have been with smokers sitting next to me, but friends have had to deal with players with poor personal hygiene or inappropriate ideas about what is proper behavior in public.

In your case, I think you would have been justified in asking a slot attendant or security guard to ask the crowd to either postpone the conversation or, at least, speak quietly. But since the crowd was right beside you, better choices might have been to either ignore them or move. To avoid a confrontation, I think your best choice would have been to move somewhere else and tell casino personnel that the crowd is creating a disturbance.

Best of luck in and out of the casinos,
John

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert, at slotexpert@comcast.net. Because of the volume of mail I receive, I regret that I can't reply to every question.