California Player Banked Games -- How do they work ??

I'm curious, does anyone out there in 2+2 land understand the theory and practice of the pseudo player banked games in California? FYI I don't actually play these games (-EV), just curious.

By law, the California cardrooms cannot offer house banked games, but a variety of games are approved if it is player vs. player. The house makes its money by charging a collection or time fee. Games approved this way include pai gow, pai gow tiles, baccarat, various blackjack like games, some proprietary games (Caribbean Stud, etc), pan, maybe backgammon, and of course poker.

This is the reason that there is no percentage rake in California poker, and we are stuck with the "drop on flop" and the "modified drop" non-sense. But I'm curious about the player/banker games, not pan or poker, ITT. Here is what I have heard and seen...

Back in the 1980s a friend was a big backgammon player. He said there were a few places, i think he said restaurant/bars in LA, that offered backgammon cash games with a time fee.

All the other games feature two employees. The dealer works for the house and deals the cards, but does not play or bank the game, just like poker. The prop player, sometimes called the "chip sitter", is someone's employee and their job is to take any action that the customer-players don't cover. Since, like craps, the vast amount of customer-players bet the "do" (player side), the prop player in fact usually ends up taking the "don't" (banker side). Or at least that's my impression.

Before the Indian Gaming Initiatives the Indian casinos had to follow the same rules. Another friend was a blackjack dealer at one of these casinos. They said that any customer-player could walk up to a blackjack table with a certain minimum amount of money and bank that game. There were prop players, who were uniformed casino employees, available to bank the game if no customer-player was banking the game.

I remember at some point this Indian casino make a big announcement that they were creating a "players bank" for these games. They stated that they were "donating" a certain very large amount to this bank, and that it was set up in such a way that the Indian casino could never get this money back. After the Indian Gaming Initiatives passed, the Indian casino's were allowed to offer house banked games, and the prop players disappeared.

Currently, the two closest cardrooms to me offer pai gow and blackjack. Pai gow has a collection on the players side (although they run no-collection at certain times as a promotion). The blackjack game was originally run with a collection on the players side, but now after some player unfriendly rule changes, the game is offered with no collection. There is a collection on the banker side in all these games, I believe.

The prop-players wear street clothes and have official California State badges that identify them as prop players and employees of a different company than the cardroom. The dealers wear cardroom uniforms and have official city government badges that identify them as casino workers and employees of the cardroom. The floor people supervise both the poker tables and the table games. It is not clear to me that anyone supervises the prop players.

Finally, and this might be gossip, one cardroom floor person claimed that the other cardroom was actually using their own employees as prop players, and that this is illegal.

So I have some questions.....

1) Was backgammon every offered as a legal cash game in California? Is it anymore? The California Attorney General website has a list of every legal cardroom along with every game they have been approved to offer (along with the rules and drop, pretty interesting if not quite up to date). Would backgammon be on this list if offered somewhere?

2) What happened the "players banks" at the Indian casinos?

3) There are companies that are setup to provide prop-players to these cardrooms. These companies hire and pay the prop-players, and provide the prop player's bankroll to play these games. If they paid the same collection that the customer-players pay they are playing a -EV game at a high volume, and paying an employee to do this. How can these companies possibly make any money?

4) I've asked some prop players, and some floor people about this. The answer I get is that they pay a different, lower collection, maybe, kinda. Basically I never get a credible or coherent answer. Two reasons come to mind, that these employees are not privy to these details, or that these details are considered proprietary and they are not supposed to discuss them. Does any one have any credible or coherent answer here? Is this information a matter of public record?

5) Customer-players are not allowed to simply bank the game anymore. They are may only bank two hands per round, or one hand per round, or something (this varies by cardroom and game it seems). The prop-players are allowed to bank every hand of course. So, are the cardrooms allowed to effectively discriminate against customer-players by offering them higher collection and less opportunity to be banker than the prop-players? Is this ability to discriminate, if it exists, a matter of public record?

6) What relationship do the companies that provide the prop-players have with the owners of the cardroom. Are they basically fronts, owned by the cardroom's sister or something? They obviously are the exclusive vendor of prop player services at the cardroom. Does money change hands to establish this relationship, and if so which way?