Some Advice for Casino Play

15 August 2020

By Frank Scoblete

Casinos are a little different from your normal day-to-day routine experiences. In spite of the money, lights and glitter you will find on the Las Vegas Strip or your local casino, the average person can have a great time while visiting today’s adult playground, a casino. Just knowing a few tips about casinos and playing in them, can help change the results of that visit, particularly when it comes to your bankroll.

Here are a few tips to help you have more fun, win more and just have a better time than the person sitting next to you:

First, concentrate on the game. Successful gamblers put in a lot of time concentrating on the game they are playing. This doesn’t mean rudeness on your part. Skilled players shouldn’t become involved in idle chatter with follow players. There is just too much at stake. Smile yes, but long conversations should be avoided.

Another especially important tip, particularly when playing blackjack, is don’t tell other players how to play their hands. That will be a tip off to the dealer and maybe the pit boss that you are a skilled player and one that management should watch and maybe ban from playing. The objective is to win, not to talk or make new friends, or show other players how skilled you are, at least while playing the game.

Casinos are not too fond of winning players, particularly blackjack card counters. Be alert to casino counter-measures; premature shuffling, moving the cut card up toward the top of the deck. This will have a bad effect by reducing penetration. Management will sometimes change decks more often than normal, indicating the house is suspicious of you. If you see some of these things happening to you, that is the time to move on, before getting barred.

Maintaining anonymity and a low profile is what your objective is. Remember, you can be the best blackjack player around, but you must be able to play in a casino otherwise all that expertise is wasted.


BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW


• A contest was held in Las Vegas to “Name the Castle” for a new casino on the Las Vegas Strip. On September 28, 1988, the name “Excalibur,” was selected and a $25,000 prize was awarded to the person who submitted it.

• When Charles V, King of France, army besieged the city of Orange, his commanding general gambled away the pay of his soldiers and had to surrender to the city he was besieging.

• Las Vegas has become known as the nation’s plastic surgery Mecca. More than 65 cosmetic surgery clinics and physicians are available in town.

• In 1955 baseball commissioner Ford Frick prohibited all major league ball players from staying overnight in Las Vegas.

• Why are the same color chips used throughout the gaming industry today? A multi-million-dollar fraud was pulled off some years ago because of chip colors. Counterfeiters brought thousands of $1 chips from a Reno casino that was identical in color and marking of a $25 chip at a major Las Vegas casino. New $25 inserts were made and pasted over the $1 chips. Sometime later one didn’t get glued correctly and the fraud was discovered.

• In 1909, the territories of New Mexico and Arizona were forced to outlaw gambling if they wanted to become states.

• Cockfighting, which dates back to ancient Greece and Roman times, was banned in England in 1834. The last state in the US to ban it was Louisiana in June 2007.

• Just before the start of the US civil war, in 1860, riverboat gambling reached a peak of 557 riverboats that allowed gambling on board.

• How old are some of the casinos in Germany? What year did they open? All these casinos are still operating.
Bad Ems - 1720
Bad Kissingen - 1746
Baden Baden - 1748
Wiesbaden – 1771

• It’s been recorded that the greyhound dog has reached speeds of up to 41.7 miles per hour.