Gaming Gurus: Strategy Expert Article Archive - Page 350

Player positions at the craps tables

Names of Positions at the Craps Tablesby Billy the KidCraps tables are divided in two halves, each serviced by a "base dealer." The bets are booked and placed according to where a player is standing. To find out how and when the bets are paid please go to the odds and edges section on the front page.Each half of the craps table is also divided in half because the craps layouts are divided into box sections where the dealers place the bets, and these boxes must be kept in an orderly fashion so that the base dealer, box and stick can stay on the same page.When you look at the place bet and come bet boxes, you will see that there isn't enough room to put all of the bets in line, so the dealers put the bets either on the front or back part of the number box...read more

Blackjack deck penetration

Just what is it deck penetration? At blackjack, it is the question of how far down into the deck will the cut card appear, which requires the dealer to stop dealing cards and shuffle the decks.This is important to a card counter, because with that knowledge; what cards remain to be played is a very high advantage to the player because only a small number of cards remain...read more

Deal Me In: Varying pays of Pai Gow

Dear Mark: I was playing Pai Gow Poker with a side bet on a high hand. I received a wild card, which I used as the five of hearts for a straight flush (hearts 2-7), along with a five and three of diamonds in the front. This gave a nice payout for the side bet, while I pushed the main wager...read more

How To Handle Losing Streaks

If your go to the casino on a regular basis you have undoubtedly had your share of winning and losing sessions. The excitement of gambling comes from the anticipation that the next spin of the slot machine or hand of cards may be winner. When we visit the casino we hope that we will get lucky and hit a streak of winning hands that will allow us to take home a little extra money from our gambling session...read more

IT's innovation machine selection!

In recent weeks I’ve written about playing Deuces Wild on a quarter Triple Play Poker machine, and about the stacked symbols and the resulting volatility on penny Cherry Mischief slot machines.Both were games I played during a two-night, three-casino swing I took in July with my wife Marcy...read more

Ask the Slot Expert: Which machines pay better?

In a recent question the person asked (in part): You press the stop button and the RNG takes a number the "seed" which I understand to be typically based on the milliseconds... Which brings up my question. He said when you hit "STOP." When you hit stop and don't just let the reels spin to completion, does the machine then have to compute different payouts for all the next spins to maintain the payout amount, like 98 percent, for example? Thank you,Chris Dear Chris, Casinos don't like players who have skill...read more

Stop loss for advantage craps players is a fool's errand

What about "stop losses," a favorite idea in gambling circles? Is this concept nonsense for dice controllers?No, it isn't when you truly understand the concept as it relates to controlled shooters.There are only three reasons to leave a craps table when you are an advantage player:1...read more

Perfect Math, Real House Edge

The house edge for a pass line bet with no odds is approximately 1.41 percent. This is a low house edge compared to other table games and even to other craps bets. The casino extracts its edge in one of two ways – paying the player less than fair odds or by winning more decisions than it loses...read more

Straight flush or four aces?

A shuffle through the Gaming mailbag:QUESTION. Can you explain why the payoff for a straight flush is less than the payoff for four aces, when in poker the straight flush beats the four aces? Regardless of whether the machine is Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Poker, etc, the amount for the straight flush is always the same, even though those machines offer additional payouts with other fours of a kind.ANSWER...read more

The law of large numbers and the anarchy of small samples

The statistical “law of large numbers” tells analysts their degree of confidence in anticipating the collective outcomes of many operations whose individual probabilities are known. Anarchy reigns, however, for the combined results of relatively few transactions...read more