Originally Posted by
Jayjami
As long as you can get a refund for your buy-in, no harm no foul. I like the Orleans tourneys. I occasionally play the weeknight HORSE and Omaha/Stud 8 events. Hard to find limit events these days.
I wouldn't go that far. If it's simply a matter of, "We'll give you the buyin back if you catch us being shady", that is exactly what allows negative check-off scams (where only those who complain are made whole) to flourish.
I think timing is everything here.
If you announce a $500k guarantee event for a year from now, and then slash it to $250k the next day (but still a year away), is that okay? Almost everyone would say yes.
What about 6 months? Most would probably still say okay.
What about one month? Some would balk at this, but most would likely still be okay.
What about one day? No, that's unethical. Not enough notice.
What about one minute? Obviously not.
One week is kind of in the zone right in between acceptable and unethical, given that this is a locals casino. I've discussed the "guarantee" situation on radio a few times. Casinos have to understand that, if they derive the benefits of a guarantee tournament (more show up from it), they need to eat whatever overlay they get, and not pull shenanigans to avoid it. I always said, "If you can't deal with the ramifications of a guarantee, don't have one."
However, this is a bit of a different situation. I have to imagine that very few register for the Orleans events more than a week in advance, so this doesn't look like a case where they failed to reach the guarantee, and then lowered it in order to avoid an overlay. Here registration basically hasn't gotten going yet, and they realized the market for these wasn't what they thought, so they lowered it. Not good, but not horrible.