Gaming Gurus: Strategy Expert Article Archive - Page 162

Ask the Slot Expert: Experiences playing 88 Fortunes

Question: I read your response to the question on the 88 Fortunes bonus round with great interest. It is interesting to watch the player next to you carefully selecting the bonus coins as if what they selected had any influence on the predetermined outcome...read more

Summing it up

Time goes fast, doesn’t it? My nephew has a great way to explain why the older you get, the faster it goes. He says it is the equivalent of miles per hour. When you are seven years old, you are going a mere seven miles-per-hour which is relatively slow, but when you are 70 years old, well then my friend, your speed is 70 miles per hour...read more

Paul's neighbor's roulette system

When I hear from Paul, I expect a video poker question. I’ve mentioned him before, a student at a seminar in the 1990s who has contacted me from time to time ever since.Imagine my surprise when I opened an e-mail from Paul, and it was about roulette.“You know me,” he said...read more

Another system

From Charles – Here's another betting system.This also works for Place 6.1) Walk up to the table with $38.2) Place 8 for $30 and have $1.00 chip ready.3) When the 8 gets rolled the first time, simply drop a $1.00 Chip to the dealer and press to $66.4) Have your remaining $7.00 chips ready.5) When the 8 gets rolled a second time, simply drop your remaining $7.00 chips to the dealer and press to $150.6) When the 8 gets rolled a third time, simply ask the dealer to press to $300 (Dealer will hand you a $25.00 chip.Now you have only $13.00 at risk...read more

Why are slot percentages better than table games?

QUESTION: I was looking at the New Jersey revenue report for May, and I noticed something that struck me as really odd.At Borgata, it listed the casino win percentage as 15.1% on tables and 8.5% on slots. That means it paid players 84.9% on tables and 91.5% on slots right? The slots had higher payback percentages.It was the same at every other casino except Ocean City, which kept 6.2% on tables and 9.5% on slots.I’ve always thought the tables were the higher paying games and the slots were the bad bets, but this looks like it’s just the opposite.ANSWER: Table games almost always pay more to players than slots do...read more

Ask the Slot Expert: Advantage play on VLTs in Washington

Question: Your article on 88 Fortunes was helpful. I am in Washington state with VLTs and the rice bowl does indeed appear to be deceptive. I am reading around trying to determine which machines at my local casino might have advantage play and, for that matter, if the RNG machine titles that are good for advantage play are also good for advantage play in Washington state...read more

A bigger bucket redux

In 1991 (or thereabouts) my wife the Beautiful AP wrote an article titled “A Bigger Bucket.” I thought it captured the real reason people played slots, at least symbolically.Now, I know players all have various reasons for risking their hard-earned money on machines programmed to take that money and, strange as this might sound to a non-slot-player, get those very players to enjoy the process of actually losing their money.But are the common threads we usually use to describe why people play the machines all that encompassing? AP didn’t think so...read more

Video poker games that are not draw poker

All major video poker games are based on five-card draw poker, to the point it’s a novelty or rarity to find one that’s not.That sometimes puzzles players such as Marc, a Pennsylvania reader who wrote to ask why stud poker wasn’t better represented.“Texas Hold’em is the most popular game in poker rooms,” he wrote...read more

More special decks for blackjack

If you are a card counter, many times, when sitting at third base at a blackjack game, it can be difficult to see the specific denomination of a card across the table at first base or the player next to first.During the course of a game cards can get partially covered up by other cards or chips and you can’t always see the numbers or pits...read more

Smell slot machines

QUESTION: Three-dimensional imaging on slot machines has gotten really good, and you wrote that Sphinx 4-D adds touch to the mix. Then you have the games with the motion chairs, so at least some of the games are going for a full-sensory experience.My question is, with all that, why don’t we have games with sense of smell? They use vision, hearing, touch, so why can’t you smell the ocean on the Reel ’Em In games or the candy on Candy Bars? I can almost taste it.ANSWER: Smell as a slot attraction was tried in Lucy and the Chocolate Factory, and IGT nickel video slot introduced in 2002.Based on one of the most popular episodes of “I Love Lucy,” the game had 12 paylines and a bonus event in which players touched the screen to pick chocolates off a factory line...read more