Bad blackjack and bad craps

19 October 2014

By John Grochowski

QUESTION: I have a neighbor who works for a casino, and I was bending his ear, telling him the blackjack games were getting too tight. They're still paying 3-2 on blackjacks here, but they all hit soft 17, even on a six-deck game, and some are double on 9, 10, 11 only with some other bad rules.

I guess he got tired of listening to me, because he finally said, "So play something else, or don't play."

Is that what it comes down to? I thought business was bad. Wouldn't it help to make the games better?

ANSWER: That’s probably a thought that has crossed the mind of every player who knows the games well enough to have an opinion. In a period when business is slack, when we see three Atlantic City casinos closing, why are the games getting tighter instead of looser? Isn’t it backward thinking to tighten the games to put the squeeze on players who have kept coming instead of loosening them to attract additional business?

I asked an exec at a Midwest property that had lost business in the face of new competition if given the new reality of the marketplace, any consideration had been given to moving more midmarket, with lower minimum bets and better playing rules. He said, “We need the games to make a certain amount of money per unit.”

Later, I called on an old acquaintance and longtime source, a retired casino general manager. In his opinion, today’s operators are inclined to sell the sizzle of resort side of the business, and try to sell the casino end of things with rewards programs and promotions. But, he said, selling gambling comes down to pushing the latest new slot machines, rather than games with lower house edges.

That operators should try to sell slots as their prime gambling attraction is only natural. Slots account for 80 percent-plus of gaming revenues, and even more in some markets. Blackjack and video poker players who really care about the odds and their shot to win are a diminishing share of the market.

There is another side to it. A different, current exec told me, “If I make my games looser, so will the competition, and we end up with an arms race where neither one of us makes money from the games. I’m not going to get into that vicious circle.”


QUESTION: What do you think about betting any 7 (in craps) when the shooter has been really hot? There has to be a 7 eventually, right? I was thinking the other night when the shooter made five passes in a row, that after there was a point, instead of the odds, I might be better off to bet on 7.

ANSWER: You’d be trading a free odds bet with no house edge for an any 7s bet with a 16.67 percent house edge. That’s not a trade I’d make, no matter how long it had been since the last 7.

Not only that, the free odds bet stays in action until the shooter either makes his point or 7s out. The any 7s bet is a one-roll bet, and you could have to replenish many times over before the shooter’s next 7.

That it has been a long time since the last 7 has no impact on the likelihood that there will be a 7 on the next roll, or the next, or the next. Six of the 36 two-dice combinations are 7s, so there is a 1 in 6 chance the shooter rolls a 7 on any given roll. The dice have no memory – they don’t know how long it’s been since the last 7, and they don’t have to go into any makeup time. If the shooter has gone 20 rolls without a 7, the chance of a 7 on the next roll is 1 in 6. If the shooter has rolled five consecutive 7s on comeouts, the chance of a 7 on the next roll is still 1 in 6.

A 1 in 6 chance is the same as true odds of 5-1, but the casino pays only 4-1 to get its 16.67-percent edge. That’s a bet to avoid, no matter what kind of streak the shooter has been on.