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The Gambling Times They Are A'Changin
by Frank Scoblete
When the original Gambling Times was being published (before it morphed to WIN magazine and gave me my start in this industry), gaming euphoria was just starting to spread across the land. Atlantic City was new and full of promise, and the mob still had a hold on some of Vegas' more interesting properties. Ken Uston was organizing teams that would take millions of dollars from the casinos at blackjack; books on card counting were hitting the best-seller's lists, and table games were, if not king, then at least still the princes of the casino kingdoms.
Craps players were still the lions of the tableland, but blackjack players were beginning to outnumber them by over two to one; and the late, great Lenny Frome was "a voice crying in the wilderness" to make way for a new and, at times, beatable game called video poker. In the background of it all, like a harbinger of things to come, was the infernal noise of the slot machines, the haven of wives, girlfriends, and those men who didn't have the belladonnas to step up to the he-man's world of the tables.
Ah, that was a millennium ago.
Now, in 2001, the casino odyssey is the jingle-jangle of the coins; the bells, whistles and music of the computerized mechanical marvels that twinkle like stars in the galaxy and gobble up revenue like massive black holes. Fully two-thirds of Las Vegas' casino gross comes from the machines; Atlantic City slots take up even more thanks in large part to the day-tripping East Coast senior citizens; and in Mississippi, the Dixie land of cotton and, by now, long forgotten old-time tales, the machines account for a staggering 90 percent of the take -- give or get a coin or two. Of course, video poker has achieved a huge beachhead in some parts of the country, most notably in the "local's casinos" of Las Vegas and its environs, and some video poker players actually make a living grinding out their small percentage edges with their cashbacks and buffet comps.
But slots are far and away king, and slot players now strut through the casinos like Caesars surveying their Gauls, whereas in the past they skulked to their machines on the outskirts of the tableland and didn't have the gall to raise their heads too high lest they be scoffed at.
And what of these newfangled machines? Paybacks range from 83 percent in some regions of the land to 98 percent, sometimes more, in other parts, depending on denomination and type. Most nickel machines, or at least the average of most nickel machines, will range in the high 80s to low 90s percent in Vegas and other venues; while quarters can return as much as 95-96 percent in Nevada to 91-92 percent in Atlantic City and Mississippi. On dollars and higher denominations, where the big boys and girls play, you can find Vegas and Mississippi coming in with returns of 96-97 percent; Atlantic City at around 95 percent.
But what do the above percentages mean? In the gambling wars where your money is your lifeblood, is a 98-percent return on a slot machine really that good a deal? If we state the percentage-return in table-game terms, that 98-percent return becomes a two percent edge for the casino. And it can be a killer!
Now, table-game players, schooled in percentages and odds and endgames will often say that a two-percent edge for the casino is not that intimidating. With a little luck, and in the short run, it is not that hard to overcome such a slight edge. True, a diet of the following bets that come in around the two-percent mark, will not -- on a given night in tableland -- result in staggering losses. In fact, as things go, these bets at the table games are not all that bad, in the short run, as most come in between 1.5 and 2.5 percent:
1. Place the 6 and 8.
2. Don't Place the 6 & 8.
3. Three-Card Poker
4. Outside even-money bets in roulette (with surrender).
5. Pai Gow poker.
Now, a superficial look at the five bets above might make a person think that playing a slot machine for $1 and playing these table games for $5 would mean that the table-game player will probably lose five times as much money as the slot player. Therefore, the wise recreational casino-goer would be better off playing the slot machine with the 98 percent return and forgoing the tables.
And, of course, the wise recreational casino-goer would be wrong.
In fact, the $1 slot-machine player on a 98-percent return machine will lose much more money on average than the player betting $5 on any one of the above bets. How can that be? Because percentages are merely one-half the story when it comes to casino games; speed is the other half. Rarely do players consider the speed of the games they are playing when they calculate what is or is not a good bet. (Here I am defining "good" in relative terms. Obviously a truly "good" bet is one you are favored to win. But in relative terms, and for most casino gamblers, good is just a "bad" bet that is better than other "bad" bets you could make -- because all have losing expectations.)
Let us take the "placing" of the 6 or 8 at craps as an example. If you place a 6, you must put up $6 to win $7. There are five ways to make a 6 and six ways to make a 7, thus you will see 11 decisions on your money for every 36 rolls of the dice (there are 36 possible outcomes with two six-sided dice). In a given hour of fast play, a craps player who places the 6 for $6 can expect to see his money acted upon approximately 44 times if we assume 144 rolls of the dice in that hour (about one roll every 25 seconds). You'll win 20 of these (total win $140), you'll lose 24 of them, (total loss $144). Your net loss in the long run is a mere $4 per hour. Not too bad.
How does that compare with a one-dollar slot player? If we assume the slot player plays full coin, as most do, and hits the button or pulls the handle at a relatively slow pace of one decision every ten seconds, this is what happens to him in an hour:
Every ten seconds, he puts in three dollars. That's $18 per minute, $1,080 per hour. The casino has a two-percent edge and our slot player can expect to lose, on average, $21.60. The $6 craps player loses four dollars, while the one-dollar slot player loses almost 3.5 times that!
Yes, and that's why today's new casinos are bigger, brighter, more luxurious and wealthier than ever before. That is also why the slot player is wined and dined, and why most advertisements laud a casino's slot club, slot cashback, slot tournaments, slot discounts, slot giveaways, slot hosts, slot change personnel, slot executives... and slots this and slots that. Next time you are in a casino town, just check out the billboards. For every one that mentions table games, you will see ten to twenty that mention something to do with slots.
Oh, the gambling times have changed for sure.
Still, the table games are not a vanished breed or even an endangered species. In fact, because casino gambling has become as American as apple pie, having spread to approximately 40 states, and because more people go to casinos than go to any single entertainment activity in America, (and, yes, Martha, more people go to casinos than there are children who believe in Santa Claus), there are actually more craps tables, more blackjack tables, and more table-game tables of every sort from Let It Ride to Roulette than ever before. It's just that these tables are spread out from casino to casino and venue to venue. At this very moment, as you read these lines, there are more craps players playing craps right now than there were 40 years ago!
And there are still glorious and wonderful opportunities to bring home the bread at games where savvy players can play with a mathematical edge such as at some blackjack and video poker games. There is also now a wealth of literature on possible ways to "physically" beat such games as craps and roulette.
Oh, yes, dear reader, when Gambling Times was in its first incarnation, there were maybe only a handful of opportunities in America, (after all, there was Vegas and the fledgling Atlantic City), and a handful of players who could take advantage of such opportunities. And now? Why now from coast to coast, north and south, in Canada and America, on boats that sail offshore and on boats that churn in place on mid-west rivers, on Indian reservations and on piers, at racetracks and bars, gambling thrives and opportunities abound. You just have to know what to look for and how to play it.
This next century will be characterized as the gambling times for America, for both recreational and professional players, and the reincarnation of this magazine merely means that though the gambling times are a'changin, they may just be changin' for the bettor!
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© 1977 - 2004 Gambling Times Inc. & Green Room Media Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.
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