Gaming Gurus: Strategy Expert Article Archive - Page 434

A shuffle through the gaming mailbag

Q. The random number generator on a slot machine stops as soon as you press the button or pull the handle. So how does the RNG work when you play a cascading machine? You don't press any buttons, you just watch. So how does the RNG determine what comes up and when to stop? A...read more

No free drinks at Wynn video poker?

I really love your online articles and insight into casinos. Here's a gripe from a couple of bar/poker slot drinkers. A recent trip to Vegas brought this cheap touch out. Every casino gave us free comp drinks at their poker slot bars, we generally hang out several hours, several hundred bucks. At the Wynn hotel, when our wives were drinking champagne at the penny slots, we could not get free comps at the bar...read more

En prison in roulette

Dear Frank: The more I try to learn, the more I realize I don't know half of what I thought I did! Reference your article entitled "Ten Resolutions for 2010" in the February Casino Player, page 29, the statement: "At roulette, only play games that give you back half your wager when outside propositions are hit...read more

Annoying people at the craps table

Dear Frank, I just read your article in the July 2010 issue of Southern Gaming and Destinations. You are right on target, but you left out one of the most annoying types of people in the casino! I call them the "rail birds" or "tourists." They come by the craps table and find an empty position and park, never putting a dime in the game, and ask all kinds of questions and offer advice...read more

Busting popular card-counting myths

Card counting has always intrigued the general public because of its classic David (the card counter) versus Goliath (the casinos) aspect. Unfortunately, too many folks have the wrong idea about what card counting is and how it works. Misinformation about card counting has appeared in books, magazines, on the Internet and even in movies...read more

The first dice controllers: The Captain, the Arm and Jimmy P.

I am a strong advocate of dice control, the ability of some players through skill and training to influence the dice, reduce the house edge, and get the edge over some bets at the game of craps. I learned about this in the late 1980s from the Captain, an Atlantic City legend, who first developed a method for shooting the dice with control in the modern casino where the back wall is lined with foam rubber pyramids to randomize the game...read more

Horseshoe Poker Tournament a Preview of November 9?

The biggest and richest poker tournament ever held in the Midwest is coming to Horseshoe Casino Hammond October 15 - 28 when players from around the world will gather there for the World Series of Poker Circuit Event. Last year's tournament, which was far and away the most successful on the national tour, had more than 6,000 players and a total prize pool of $3.5 million...read more

Comparing tax situations at tables and slots

Three Card Poker is not one of my wheelhouse games. I prefer the games with larger skill elements, and tend to look first at blackjack and video poker. Still, Three Card Poker is a nice change of pace, an easy game that's kind of fun, and its biggest-paying hands — straight flushes and threes-of-a-kind — come up frequently enough that anyone who plays often is going to have a nice payday every now and again. So one recent casino afternoon, I found myself settled in at a $5 Three Card Poker table, betting the minimum both on the ante-bet portion, where the player's hand must beat the dealer's, and on Pair Plus, where any pair or better wins, regardless of the dealer's hand. The big hands didn't come my way...read more

Is the theory of streaks valid despite what the gurus say?

Lots of solid citizens believe gambling runs in streaks and that talk about randomness is guru gobbledygook. The idea is that to win big on a small stake in a non-jackpot game, you have to amass larger and larger payoffs using "the house's money" to press your bets during hot streaks...read more

Do slot machines wear out?

Mr. Robison, I read an assortment of the letters to you in CCT. Most are a lot of fun. I've come to a question for you based on something you wrote long ago on September 17, 1999. You wrote that "Not only is a machine just as loose at the end of the month as it was in the beginning of the month, it's also just as loose at the end of its life as it was at the beginning of its life." Can you tell me something about the life of a slot machine? Does it wear out? Do the flicks inspiring the RNG get set into any kind of patterns they didn't have when made? Are machines or parts of them tested against such a thing? Thanks, Mitch Dear Mitch, Slot machines start their lives when they're brought to the slot manufacturer's factory by the slot stork -- No, you know I'm being a smart aleck...read more