Gaming Gurus: Strategy Expert Article Archive - Page 456

Casinos Make Dining and Gambling a Perfect Pair

If the only dining experience you associate with a gambling outing is the cliché bargain buffet or mundane snack shop, you're in for a pleasant surprise at casino destinations in the greater Chicago area. Most properties have followed the examples set by Atlantic City and Las Vegas to create a complete entertainment experience above and beyond what the slots and table games offer. Frank Freedman, assistant general manager at Four Winds Casino Resort in New Buffalo, Michigan, said: "I think a very big statement was made when Borgata opened in Atlantic City in 2003 and placed a very large emphasis on the non-gaming amenities. "The other properties followed suit," he continued, "with the realization that there's a whole other demographic out there that may not particularly be gamers but enjoy great entertainment, great food and beverage, shopping and the like." Four Winds typifies the priority that has been placed on making casino entertainment appealing to a broad spectrum. Dining options include Copper Rock Steakhouse, The Buffet, Willowbrook Café, and Timbers Fast Food & Deli. In addition there are four lounges, including a receiving bar at Copper Rock plus the Martini Bar, Sports Bar, and Stage Bar. "Statistically, the majority of gamers who visit the property come with a significant other who may or may not be a gamer," Freedman said...read more

RNGs and secondary decisions

There are slot machine myths that have waned through the years or become obsolete because of technology. I can't remember the last time I heard from anyone who believed that you were better off playing slots with fresh money, because the machine could detect the warmth of coins fresh out of the game's hopper. That was never true, but a few players believed it...read more

Requesting win/loss statements online

Some casinos make it easy to request the statements online, but their rules state that you have to go to the casino and show them valid IDs to get a printed statement. Nothing sent by e-mail or US mail. I guess the only advantage to requesting the statement online at these casinos is the you don't have to wait for the statement to be prepared. Then again, preparing a win/loss statement is a common enough request that it should be easy for a slot club rep to generate the statement and it will probably take them longer to find a preprinted statement than to just print one on the spot. Regardless of how easy a casino makes it to get a win/loss statement, players should keep their own win/loss diaries. Best of luck in and out of the casinos, John Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert, at slotexpert@comcast.net...read more

Basic Strategy in blackjack sometimes differs little from next best

Surprisingly few blackjack buffs actually know what's behind Basic Strategy. Ask around. Representative answers range from polling the experts about their preferences in every instance to watching lots of games and seeing which decisions win most often. In reality, the rules are based on the "expectation" for each triad of two player cards and one dealer up-card...read more

A dice control success story

To Frank and the Gentlemen and Ladies of the Dice Control Art: This is the first time I have contacted you. I am a farmer living in the SE Minnesota area. The nearest table to my home is 63 miles away. I am somewhat skilled at dice delivery and thanks to your books, all of which I do own, and I can say with the shifty eyes of a BS gambler that I do make a modest living off the tables of the river boats in the area. SHB Dear SHB: Congratulations on your continued wins...read more

Does the 5-Count work only on dice controllers?

Dear Frank, I did as you instructed. I read all the info about the 5-Count at www.goldentouchcraps.com. Let me see if I get this one thing straight. What you are saying is that the 5-Count works, and only works with dice control/rhythmic rolling? So without the 5-Count, dice control alone would make it impossible to beat the game of craps? So using the 5-Count to simply chart is a failed or flawed idea? I've read your books on craps...read more

Frank Scoblete Presents: Pai gow poker by The Goddess

Pai Gow has its roots in ancient China where it was played with dominoes. No one knows exactly how old the game is, but it goes back hundreds of years in time. The domino tiles were separated into different groups, which symbolized military and civilian units, and was a very complicated game to play. In the late 1980s, Fred Wolf owned the Commerce Casino in California and believed the game had great potential as a card game...read more

You're an idiot!

I sometimes receive compliments from readers on something that I write about blackjack. But I also sometimes receive scathing e-mails or letters that basically say what an idiot I am. Trust me when I say you have to have a tough skin to be in this business of writing about blackjack and casino gambling in general...read more

Is Atlantic City blackjack dying a slow death?

We can remember going to Showboat in the 1990s and there were seemingly acres of blackjack tables. Same held true for every casino in Atlantic City. While there were always non-blackjack tables spread out here and there, if you said "table game," invariably you would be referring to blackjack. Now as you walk the somewhat empty floors where those hundreds of blackjack tables used to vie with one another for supremacy, you note dozens upon dozens of "new" table games such as Let It Ride, Caribbean Stud, Three-Card Poker, Four-Card Poker, Casino War, pai gow poker, mini-baccarat, Texas Hold'em Bonus, and others. True, the slot machines have essentially defined American casino gambling ever since 1984, when both Vegas and Atlantic City made more money for the first time from the machines than from the table games...read more

The Two Worlds of Casino Gambling

Las Vegas is much more than the unofficial "Gambling Capital of the World." The city is really two gambling worlds in one. There are the mega resorts, which cater to the tourists and the high rollers, as well as the properties that have become known as "locals," which are casinos that build strong bases of regular customers among the area's residents and destination visitors. "Locals" casinos are well-known for their low-minimum table games, large inventories of video poker with strong pay tables, friendly staff and good food at affordable prices. U.S...read more