Gaming Gurus: Strategy Expert Article Archive - Page 158

Dealing with dealers

I wouldn’t want to be a dealer. No way. Dealing with the public can be a challenge, but dealing with the public while they are gambling and drinking can be downright annoying and sometimes frightening.Most players, say 99% of them, are good players in terms of their manners and how they play the game...read more

Sports Betting

My friend Gary is a retired science teacher I’ve known since college days. He’s not really a casino player, but he does love football with a little something riding on the outcome.Mostly, that takes the form of confidence pools where you pick winners in order of confidence and 100-square pools.The spread of legal sports betting has Gary intrigued enough that casino ventures are on his horizon...read more

Tackling those slot machines

ABBY: I think our biggest sin as casino gamblers is to play the slots exclusively. Why is that so? Because of those house edges of 10% or more on some machines, the chances of even being close to the casino in a given period of time are remote...read more

A huge roulette win

QUESTION: Have you seen the video where the man wins $3.5 million in one bet at roulette? He has a big stack on one number, and when it comes up, he goes crazy, hugging and dancing with everyone around him.I’m wondering why the video exists...read more

Ask the Slot Expert: Slot machine paytable quiz

Sometimes it's difficult to figure out why a machine has paid you what it paid you when the game has multiplying wild symbols. A few days ago I was playing a three-reel, single-line video slot from Everi called Fascination. I had a few combinations land on the payline that took me a while to figure out why they paid what they did...read more

Sic bo

If you have a checkbook handy, now would be a good time to take it out and write a check to your favorite casino that offers the game of sic bo. The game is that bad, so if you are flirting with playing, it save yourself the heartache and just write a check...read more

Those Asian slot games

Asian-themed games have been rising part of the slot machine mix for a number of years now, and not just because of the rise of gaming in Macau and the Pacific Rim. American players enthusiastically explore the imagery and bonus events.You can be sure the latest offerings from slot maker will include Asian themes...read more

Craps payouts

Hello Stickman,Per your article in Casino City Times and RGT Online, you stated that the point numbers6 and 8 are paid at the rate of 7 to 6. If I'm not mistaken, isn't the payout at 6 to 5for the point numbers 6 and 8?Also, was back in Vegas this April and the Four Queens no longer offers 10x odds on all thepoint numbers and also still in place at the Four Queens, El Cortez and Main Street Station isthe rule that all bets on the table, including the "taking or laying of odds" must be equal to the line bet, which is $5 at these three casinos...read more

Even-money bets at roulette and back betting blackjack

QUESTION: I know roulette doesn’t have the lowest house edge, but don’t the even-money bets like red or black and odd or even have the highest percentage of winners? You win almost half the time. It’s almost a coin flip.ANSWER: I wouldn’t go so far as to call roulette almost a coin flip, and there are several games with higher percentages of winners for players.If the roulette wheel had only numbers 1 through 36, with 18 red and 18 black, then red or black would be a coin flip with 50 percent winners on either side.But a standard American double-zero wheel has 38 numbers...read more

Ask the Slot Expert: PAR sheets for today's slots

Question: I’ve seen PAR sheets for older machines, but do PAR sheets exist for the latest generation of slots – for instance, Dragon Link, Lightning Link or Mighty Cash machines? These latest generation machines seem at least an order of magnitude more complex than earlier machines, and I am wondering if the Volatility Index is still published...read more