Gaming Gurus: Strategy Expert Article Archive - Page 666

Pot Odds Are Important in Any Kind of Poker

You're in a Texas Hold'em hand with a pair of 10s in the pocket. You raised before the flop and got re-raised by a player on your left. Everybody else folds and the flop comes down: A – K – 5 You test the waters with another bet and your opponent pops you again...read more

Bingo Slots in Florida

Frank: We recently went to Seminole Hard Rock Casino, Tampa, Florida. They have the slot machines that have the "Bingo Game" on each and every machine in the place. If you do not get a bingo on the card at the top of the machine screen, you obviously do not get any type of payoff when the reels stop...read more

American Casino Guide Features Coupons Galore; Vegas Picture Book Super

Call it dual-action value with thousands of dollars worth of coupons to save visitors money in Nevada and elsewhere while offering a handy time-saving guide to the casinos of each state. The title? The 2006 American Casino Guide (496 pages, paperbound, $16.95). For those who have never visited Las Vegas there's a visual treat titled We All Live in Las Vegas -- more than 300 color photos of the city by Francois Paolini (168 pages, hardbound, coffee-table format, $34.95). These are two new arrivals at Gambler's Book Shop in Las Vegas, and each would make a nice holiday gift for a friend or relative. The Guide, compiled by Steve Bourie, starts with advice on playing the casino games in the first 100 pages then moves to a description of what each state offers, in alphabetical order, in the way of games, prices you can expect to pay for rooms, the establishment's web site, whether there are RV facilities, with a state map showing where the casino is located, key phone numbers and, of course, addresses. For Nevada and Atlantic City casinos there are more detailed street maps...read more

Casino Travels with Benjamin

It's eight o'clock on a weekday evening and I'm in the car driving 35 miles to a Midwest riverboat casino. Figure I'll spend several hours there, return home at one o'clock in the morning and be up at the crack of dawn to get ready for work. Am I nuts? Nope...read more

Why Your Gambling Goals May Defy What the Math Says To Expect.

In baccarat, considering only rounds that don't tie, the probabilities of winning are 49.3 percent for Player and 50.7 percent for Banker. This is sometimes expressed as "Player should (or is expected to) win 493 out of every thousand hands, and Banker should (or is expected to) win 507 out of a thousand." But don't expect what the math says you should...read more

New Video Poker Games

Among game manufacturers, International Game Technology has been the king of video poker from the very beginning. So naturally enough, it was IGT who had the biggest display of new video poker games at the gaming industry's big fall trade show, the Global Gaming Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Opponents Poker...read more

Can you beat the slots?

Can you really beat or win at slots? In the long run, no. The more you play, the closer the payback you experience will get to the actual payback of the machine. I can think of two exceptions, however. Some video poker machines pay back more than 100%...read more

Taking a Marker

I was working in the big time, dealing craps at the biggest brashest hotel in Vegas, the Dunes Hotel and Country Club. It was a lot different than the Mint, where I used to work. At the Mint, eighteen across meant three dollars on each of the numbers, or eighteen people passed out at the bar...read more

Pigs - 7, Hogs - 0

A few weeks ago, I was playing video poker - full pay deuces wild - when another woman sat down at the machine next to me. Of course, I wanted to tell her not to play at that machine because the payout schedule was not full pay, that full pay was at the next machine over...read more

Pips, passes, pairs, and ribs to spare

Dear Mark, Your last week's column describing pips was not totally accurate. It has been my experience dealing in a casino that what you call a pip below the rank of a card is not actually a pip. Could you please clarify your original answer? David B...read more