Category: English

There are some games in the casino that should be avoided at all costs. Barring a lucky streak akin to being struck by lightning, these games are weighted so much in the casino’s favour it is foolish to even consider playing them. Try to avoid the temptation at all costs.

THE CASINO’S BEST AND WORST BETS
GAME         BET                 HOUSE ADVANTAGE

Baccarat     Banker                 1.17%
Baccarat     Player                 1.63%
Craps         Pass Line             1.46%
Craps         Pass Line with double odds     0.61%
Craps         Pass Line with 5x odds         0.32%
Craps         Pass Line with lOx odds     0.18%
Roulette     Single "0"             2.7%
Roulette     Double "00"             5.6%
Blackjack     Single Pack*             0.0%
Blackjack     Double Packs*             0.35%
Blackjack     Four Packs*             0.52%
Blackjack     Eight Packs*             0.61%
Big Six Wheel     $5 Spot             11.1%,
Keno         One Spot, 2-1 payoff         25.0%
Big Six Wheel     Joker                 14.8%
Sic Bo         Small or Big             2.8%
Sic Bo         Two of a Kind            37.5%
        

Linked Progressive Slot Machines
The "life-changing" prizes of the million-dollar-plus jackpots carry even greater odds than being struck by lightning. These machines are joined with others in many other casinos, giving you the chance to compete against billions of other combinations conjured up by the random number generator. Unless you believe a higher force is looking to provide you with a trouble-free life – and there must be plenty of people who do, judging from the receipts from state lotteries – avoid the multi-casino linked progressive slot machines. Unless you win the big prize, you’re just making a donation because the chance you will even break even is almost nil.

In-house progressive slot machines with payouts in the hundreds of thousands are a little better, but not much.

BIG SIX WHEEL AND SIC BO
With a casino advantage between 11 per cent and 22 per cent, the Big Six Wheel, money wheel or wheel of fortune ranks as one of the worst bets in the house. Sure, you’ve seen the game on piers and in amusement arcades lined up in great rows, but the casino version isn’t any better. And you can’t even win a fluffy stuffed animal.

Sic Bo is the Oriental version of the Big Six Wheel. Instead of a wheel, however, it uses dice in a cage. On most bets, the house advantage ranges between 8 and 48 per cent. The only saving graces are the "big" and "small" bets which offer a much more reasonable 2.8 per cent house advantage. If you play, don’t be tempted to place any other bets.
 

KENO
This relative to bingo is actually more like a lottery. From a pool of 80 numbers, you can pick anywhere between one and 20 numbers. The odds are determined by each house, but the house advantage is generally greater than 20 per cent.

The one good thing about keno is that it offers you the least amount of losses per hour if you’re betting £1 for each game. Since there are rarely more than six games an hour, you can relax in the keno lounge and keep guzzling those free drinks without worrying that you’re going to mess up your keno strategy. In fact, there is no valid keno strategy!

That said, anyone can be a winner at any casino game over the short term. The deviations from the long-tenn advantage for the casino can sometimes swing wildly. Everyone has heard of players who have been "struck by lightning" and won the multi-million pound progressive jackpots, or those who win the lottery.

There are inveterate keno players who swear that they can overcome the hefty disadvantage they face when playing their favourite game. But beware.

Roulette, craps, baccarat blackjack and every other casino game has the same stories of gamblers struck by "dumb luck". Sure, it’s all possible, but to make it anywhere close to probable, you’re got to play the games that give you the most chances to win, and you’re got to use all your resources to give yourself an advantage.

Take a look at Las Vegas today. Las Vegas Boulevard, the famous Strip, added new hotels at a rate of two per year during the Nineties, and the pace of additions seems to be continuing in this century both on and off the Strip. Excalibur, MGM Grand, Treasure Island, Luxor, New York-New York, Paris, Monte Carlo, Rio, Bellagio, Venetian, The Palms and others will soon be joined by Wynn Las Vegas, mognl Steve Wynn’s first fabulous creation of the new century on the site of the old Desert Inn. Atlantic City’s 12 casinos are jammed for every hour of the 24 hours they’re open. Even in sleepy Biloxi, Mississippi, casino action is non-stop, with more dock-side casinos being added year after year.

What should this expansion tell you? No, there isn’t the need for new hotel rooms in Las Vegas. No, the beaches in Atlantic City aren’t the most beautiful in the world. And no, people don’t frequent the dock-side casinos in Biloxi because they yearn for riverboat gambling of days past. This should tell you that the casinos make so much money that American casino companies are falling over themselves – and spending hundreds of millions of dollars – to build the next one. And why are they making so much money? Because the games offered in casinos don’t offer players much chance of winning. The tables have a built in house advantage, and the slot machines are simply computers programmed to win more for the casino than they payout.

Mathematics plays the most important role in the casino. The mathematicians who developed the rules of the various games that give the house its guaranteed wins are some of the casinos’ most valued consultants.
 
Slot machines are easy. They are essentially computers that can be programmed to pay back a certain amount of the money deposited in them. A little device known as the "random number generator", an essential element in many different kinds of computers, determines when jackpots are hit, how many are hit, and for how much. No one can tell when it will happen, but casino executives know one thing: when the day is over, a pre-determined amount of money will be added to the bottom line, courtesy of the "slots".

Sure, you can win at slot machines. They all hit jackpots, and if you’re lucky enough to be playing the machine when the jackpot hits, you could be a winner. But if you continue iD play ad infinitum, you will lose. It’s the law of averages, and it’s a law that has no loopholes.

Video poker is different. If you know what machines to look for and how to play those machines when you find them, you can reduce the house advantage to zero, or even less – an actual player-advantage game. But to beat that house advantage, you have to get your share of the jackpots – royal flushes, fives-of-a-kind, or whatever the top award might be. And that factor is dependent upon our old friend, the random number generator. Video poker gives you some control over the results by making your decisions matter. A skilful player will have a better idea of which cards to discard, and so on.

That’s where we draw the line in the casino. You have the best chance to win when you play games in which you have some control over the outcome.

Casinos can be imposing, overwhelming places. Other, more experienced players can often make a newcomer feel intimidated and unwelcome. These situations can easily be avoided by knowing the basics of casino etiquette.

For many new players, the slot machines are the most familiar and least threatening of all the games in a casino. It’s easy to plop in a coin, or buy a stack of coins and sit for hours in front of one machine spinning reels or playing cartoon bonus rounds. Virtually all modern slot machines now take notes, and an increasing number payout in tickets that can either be cashed at the cage or simply taken to another machine and used like cash. In many casinos, this new type of gambling has made any contact with a cashier completely obsolete.

The note machines will take any denomination from £1 upwards. After the note is inserted, the machines will most likely register credits on the machine rather than spit out the corresponding number of coins or tokens. If you prefer to play with coins, however, it’s simply a matter of hitting the cash button that will spill the coins into the pay-out tray of the slot machine. Of course, with the increasing number of ticket-printing machines in modern casinos, even this tried-and-true practice may be on its way to becoming obsolete.

Choosing which slot machine to play is generally as simple as deciding what denomination you want to use. Remember two things: the larger the denomination, the larger the payout; and slot machines are programmed to win.

Casino executives love slot machines, which is a good reason why you should not. In the past 20 years, the percentage of casino revenue taken by slot machines has changed places with that of table games. It used to be that the table games accounted for over 60 per cent of casino revenue. Slot machines were provided for their entertainment value and aimed at the wives of the table game players.

Things began to change as table game players got older, and began to disappear. Newer casino customers weren’t comfortable with table games, but responded to the more modem and recognizable slot machines. With credit- or debit-card machines, computers and televisions now ingrained in our culture, slot machines became the choice of many of the casinos’ younger customers.

Today, slot machines account for over 70 per cent of casino revenue. In some places, it’s even higher. Table games, meanwhile, have undergone a dramatic decline in interest. Players continue to disappear, and attracting new table-game players is costly for the casinos.

Because most table games offer a house edge that is significantly less than most slot machines, casino executives don’t lose any sleep over players moving from those games to slot machines.

Even slot machines that have good payout percentages (the ratio of money returned to the player to the money played) generally pay back far less than a player can achieve by playing intelligently at a craps table, blackjack or in the baccarat pit. Even American roulette tables pay back more than the average slot machine payout.

Yes, slot machines are fun and non-intimidating, but they also take your money faster than any major table game. And, by sitting in front of a slot machine the entire day, you miss out on the social interaction that can be so rewarding in the casino. Break down the barriers and give table games a try.

The legal status of gambling has changed markedly in the past 25 years. From the introduction of casinos to Atlantic City in 1978 to the explosion of Indian gaming in North America, some form of gambling is legal in almost every state and province. Australia and New Zealand have large gaming industries, while the UK, France, Germany and other Western European countries allow various foorms of casino gambling. And the nations of Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia are all increasingly allowing more forms of gambling. In most parts of the world, patrons are now able to drive to a casino.

The types of casinos vary widely, however. In the UK, for example, patrons must be “members” of a casino in order to play. In France, on the other hand, the general public is free to enter. In Australia, gamblers can play slot machines in small clubs or large casinos.

European resorts like Monaco in France, Spain’s Gold Coast and Germany’s Baden-Baden offer different kinds of casino experiences, but they all rely on one thing: the ability of their clients to play … and lose.

An American-style casino is different from the European casino. In most cases, the European casinos are reserved effectively for the middle and upper classes. with entry fees, memberships or location serving as an effective barrier to those who either can’t afford to join or aren’t acceptable as members.

However, in the US, most casinos are open to everyone, with few restrictions on participation – outside of age or criminal background. American casinos, like many aspects of the American culture, are aimed at the masses. They are much more democratic.

All gaming resorts make the lion’s share of their money from the casino, so it is important to them that customers play in their casino as long as possible. Casino executives understand that the longer people play, the more likely they are to lose. Remember, in the short-term, you can profit from deviations from the law of averages, but the longer you play, the more vulnerable you are, and the more likely you are to end up losing.
 
To get you into the casino in a gaming resort that features other entertainment amenities, the house employs a variety of tools. The regulations can vary from country to country and even within a country, so many of these methods do not apply, but in general the idea is to get customers into the casino and keep them there as long as possible.

In Nevada. vou can’t walk anvwhere in a hotel without walking through the casino. Even when you’re checking in, you usually have to walk through the slot machines to get to the front desk. The friendly din of the slot machines is audible whenever you leave your room, encouraging you to slip a few coins into the machine and yank the arm just in case it’s your lucky day.

In the past, many casinos decorated their bedrooms in garish colours and busy designs. This was supposed to make the guests restless and encourage them to return to the casino. You’ll notice that televisions in casino rooms don’t sport a wide variety of channels and, in most cases, there are no minibars, so people are forced to leave their rooms in search of a drink.

Even if you’re eating in a casino restaurant, you’re still not insulated from the games. Keno runners will skip from table to table accepting bets for the next keno game. The keno numbers can be seen from every vantage point in the hotel. Some casinos have designed special slot machines that will let you eat while you make a bid to maximize business.
 
Alcohol plays a large role in keeping you in the casino. Cocktail waitresses circulate frequently through the tables and the slot machines to ply the players with free drinks. Alcohol greases the casino’s cash stream. Even when you want to take a break, casino bars have video-poker machines embedded in the bar that constantly flash their appealing message. It’s difficult to sit still and resist the temptation to try your luck.

Many casinos also pump extra levels of oxygen into their ventilation systems, which gives players a feeling of well-being, making them feel lucky, with the aim that they will increase their bets. However, casino executives defend this practice by saying they are just increasing the flow of fresh air.

Don’t expect to see any clocks in a casino. The executives want you to lose track of time and neither know nor care whether it’s night or day. Windows were never originally included in casino design, but that concept is beginning to change now that most casinos are located in resort areas that have spectacular vistas.

Today’s casinos take advantage of those great views so that when you sit at a gambling table or slot machine you can appreciate the surroundings. You can then return home with tales of the beautiful scenery, even if you never actually left the casino.

High Roller casinos tend to have the same casino games as standard online casinos but with higher betting limits. Most high roller online casinos offer a big range of betting limits from a few cents to hundres of dollars, euro’s or punds so it’s important to pick the level that you are comfortable at. A lot of people prefer to play at the lower limits as it gives them more games whereas others aren’t interested in playing anything other than high stakes games with big payouts. It all depends on personal preference and is one of the great things with online casinos in that the betting range is so much wider than a standard casino.

In almost all high roller casinos you will find the following casino games:

Video Poker: This is an incredibly popular section in most casinos and there is almost always a massive range of different types of Video Poker. As the name suggests the games are based on Poker but are much faster and of course you are not playing against other players. You also have the option of playing multiple hands at the same time which adds to the excitement.

Slots: Most High Roller casinos seem to be competing with each other to see who can offer the biggest selection of slots games. These days some of the slots at online casinos are absolutely fantastic with excellent graphics and some of them offer the opportunity of some tactics, especially with the multi-line slots.

Table games: This is the section that most people identify wth a casino let alone a high roller casino , it includes such classics at Craps, Sic Bo and Roulette and is without a doubt the most popular section of almost any online casino.

Card Games: This includes the casino games which are perhaps most identifiable with high rollers, Blackjack, Baccarat, Tequila Poker and many others. Whenever I think of a traditional high roller casino I immediately think of Blackjack, Baccarat and Roulette as they are the games which are most featured via films and books.

Aside from these games there are many others which you will find at high roller casinos and amongst these are progressive jackpot games which at high roller casinos can offer absolutely massive payouts although not particularly good odds. In summary you won’t really find any casino games at a high roller casino which you can’t find in a regular online casino but the big difference between them is the increased betting limits at a high roller online casino.