Gaming Gurus: Strategy Expert Article Archive - Page 200

Why are they still called slot machines?

QUESTION: The name “slot machine” comes from the coin slot, right? Now that machines don’t have slots, do you think that will change?ANSWER: It won’t change anytime soon. After more than a century of use, the name is so ingrained that even online players who risk no money in social casinos refer to the games as “slots.” Maybe as skill-based games without any semblance of reels claim a place in casinos, the terminology will start to evolve.Incidentally, the name “slot machine” originally referred to any coin-operated device, such as vending machines...read more

Ask the Slot Expert: Where I hit my royals

Question: Always enjoy your articles and the information you publish. I just read your latest about royal flushes and the percentages of hitting a royal vs. how many cards to the royal you were dealt. We live in the S. Lake Tahoe area, so we play at the five casinos they have here...read more

When play is work

I’ve heard them and I am sure you have heard them; in fact, just about everyone I know has heard them. Their famous quote is this: “I need a vacation from my vacation!”Even a singular one-day trip to the casino can elicit some such statement as “Oh, brother, I am beat” or “What an exhausting day I had!”I don’t really need to say such sentences, since my trips to the casinos are not characterized by endless hours at the tables or machines...read more

Craps tales

About a month ago, I wrote about Herm, a don’t pass player who said he mostly was left alone by craps players who prefer to bet with the shooter, but that he’d sometimes come across a player who made it a personal issue.Other readers have sent me their own craps yarns...read more

Best casino comp tips

Gambling at the casino can be a lot of fun, but so is getting some free things for your time and action. Earning casino complementary items with your slot or table game play is a benefit offered by most casinos in the US. “Comps”, which is the industry term for complementary items offered by casinos, can be especially rewarding.Comps are designed to keep customers loyal to a specific casino...read more

Russian hackers

QUESTION: Have you heard about the Russian slot hack where they could predict the next spin? They won money at casinos around the world. If random number generators are truly random, how is that even possible? You can’t predict random.ANSWER: The phrase I’ve often used in describing random number generators is, “as random as humans can program a computer to be.” Nothing we do is truly random, and a physics-loving friend has said to me, “Nothing in the universe above quantum level is random, and even there, we’re not sure.”RNGs can come close enough that results appear random...read more

Ask the Slot Expert: How many cards I held when I hit my royals

A few weeks ago I addressed an incorrect statement I overheard about royal flush probabilities. This person said he had read an article that said that you're more likely to get a royal flush when you're dealt three cards to the royal than when you're dealt four cards to it. Of course, that statement is wrong...read more

Money matters

FROM MAX: I want to know what the best money management plan to use when I play is. I know I can’t win with money management, but at least I can control my overall losses. My wife always checks our bank account, and she notices when I take money out to go casino gambling.FRANK RESPONDS: What money should you use to gamble with in a casino? Your daughter, Little Lulu, needs braces on her teeth and your wife is insistent that the family go on vacation to some remote national park and everyone will sleep in tents, get bitten by mosquitoes, and where your son, Big “Bull” Biff, will delight everyone in the middle of the night with his gift for cutting monstrously loud and hideous-smelling farts.Your camping money can come from your normal workday bank account; after all, it is for the sour Little Lulu, the odorous Big “Bull” Biff and your wife Nabby’s vacation...read more

Quittin' time

In the epic Academy Award-winning movie Gone with the Wind, Big Ben, a delightfully happy slave who works tirelessly in the brutally hot cotton fields, calls out the end of the work day by saying, “It’s quittin’ time!” and all the other happy slaves end their day of backbreaking work for their kind and gentle masters.Yes, Gone with the Wind, an otherwise intense and articulate portrayal of life in the Civil War South, didn’t get the slavery thing quite right...read more

Fooling slots redux

A column on a woman’s attempt to beat slots by fooling the random number generator into thinking she was a big player drew several questions from readers.Her theory was that making big bets early would establish her as a potential big player, and since casinos want to reward big players, she would get a better payback percentage...read more