Tickets for Tracking Players in Casinos? 157
aws910 asks: "I was in Las Vegas recently, and I noticed that most machines now give barcoded tickets as payment instead of coins. These tickets can then be used in other machines as a wager instead of paper money. A basic slot strategy is to move from one machine to another, and play machines in certain areas of the casino floor to improve your odds. With the ticket system, It seems all too easy for someone to build a system to track a player from one machine to another, giving the house the ability to kill the player's (already slim) edge. If a machine knows how much you've already won as soon as you sit down, do you think it will give you good odds? I couldn't find any articles on it. What does Slashdot think about this?"
While tracking is probably legal (Score:1, Interesting)
Already done! (Score:3, Insightful)
These systems already provided plenty of tracking. So the tickets are just a logical extension of this system really.
Assuming I already used a card, I would be happy to slip a ticket in my wallet rather than carry around buckets of heavy coins.
Re:Already done! (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, you have to factor in the megajackpots into those odds, but they're not as bad as some forms of gambling.
Re:Already done! (Score:2)
Actually that's very wrong. Many slots pay out 98%-99% and advertise as such. So you lose $1 for every $100 you bet. Just think Office Space scams...volume, volume, volume.
Re:Already done! (Score:2)
Actually, you're very wrong. On average, most casinos pay out in the 90% - 95% range and somewhere in their casino they have at least one machine that pays out 98% and if you read the fine print in their ads you'll see that their slots pat out "UP TO 98%" or "AS MUCH AS 98%".
The actual pay out percentages are also based on the cash amount required to play the machine with higher value mac
Re:Already done! (Score:2)
As long as, statistically, the machines pay out less than they take in, they are making some amount of money on the machine, plus whatever you spend in the rest of the place. The less you lose, the more times you will play, the more drinks you will consume, etc.
There's probably some very complex optimization equations at stake, taking into account the different machines
Re:Already done! (Score:2)
No offense, but do you think that if it were possible to sit at the nickel slots and double your money even 80% of the time that someone else wouldn't have figured this out and exploited the heck out of it?
Re:Already done! (Score:2)
If you are a big spender, you can get a statement at the end of the year that lists it all, for tax purposes.
I think ... (Score:2)
And besides, what "slim" edge? There's no edge -- anything that gives a player an edge is called "cheating" by the casinos. If there were a reliable way to exploit any "edge" in a casino it would go out of business in a week.*
*And yes, I've read all the stories about people with fiendishly complicated systems who do actually
working systems aren't always complicated (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, here's a system that worked a few years ago:
(1) Find a bank of "Piggy Bankin'" slot machines.
(2) Walk down the row, pushing a button on each machine, causing it to "wake up" from attract mode and display how many coins are in the bank.
(3) If the number of coins in the bank is greater than 30, camp out at that machine and play one coin at a time until you "break the bank", then immediately cash out. and stop playing.
(4) go find another batch of Piggies, or hover in the background while people play these for a while so as to build the banks back up so you can tear them down again.
If the bank was at $40, your expected income was $20 (subtract 20 from the bank to get the expected value), and it should take less than 20 minutes of play to "earn" it.
Sadly, you won't find banks of original Piggies anymore, and even if you did, you wouldn't find them with large untapped jackpots because too many other advantage players know about them. So I'm not giving anything up by telling you about it now. There are other similar opportunities around, but (a) they tend to be short-lived or otherwise limited in scope, and (b) players who exploit them too aggressively tend to get barred.
Re:working systems aren't always complicated (Score:2)
"due for a win" isn't quite right with piggies (Score:3, Interesting)
Er, no. The piggy has a per-machine progressive - when a certain random event occurs it "adds a coin to the piggy bank." When you get the "break the bank" symbol it pays you whatever is in the piggy bank. The bank starts out at a value of 5, 10, or 15 coins, and on average the bank generally breaks at around a value of 19 coins, making
Re:"due for a win" isn't quite right with piggies (Score:2)
Re:I think ... (Score:2)
Then you have a pretty narrow view of the universe.
You might well have said "I think that people go to movies because they're addicted, stupid, or drunk. Often a combination."
I know a guy - he's a CEO of a large company. Not stupid. Not addicted, and he doesn't drink.
He gambles because he likes it. I asked him about it, and he says that it's entertainment for him - like going to a concert or an expensive rest
Re:I think ... (Score:2)
Winning at a Casino (Score:2)
Re:I think ... (Score:2)
Re:I think ... (Score:3, Informative)
Somewhere in hyperspace thate is a "perfect" set of odds for any event. In a fully informed world, the bookmaker and the betters would know this, the bookmaker would set odds that reflected this (minus a cut for his profit) and the betters would lose money at a steady rate.
In the real world, however, some betters will bet unreasonably - because they like the
Re:I think ... (Score:2)
The bookmaker then makes money on the commission that losing bettors pay.
This is why a sports bettor has to have a
Re:I think ... (Score:2)
What you say is true, exept that they adjust for an equal *weight* of bets - money*bookmakers estimate of true odds. If an ace team meets a second rate one, they *don't* want the money to split evenly. If the bookie reckons the aces are 90% likely to win, what they want is 10% of betters to back the aces and 90% to back the outsiders. If everybody backs the "sensible" winner, the bookie loses
Re:I think ... (Score:2)
If there's assloads of idiots (Jets fans are legendary for this...) putting money irrationally on one team to cover the spread, the spread moves in the opposite direction (because the bookie is trying to get more action on the other side). The idea is exactly the same, just that rather than move the odds, he moves the handicap.
Also, against -110, you only need to win 10% more often than you lose, or 11/21 of the time, or 52.4%. There's also a plethora of sports books that offer -107 (where you have to b
Re:I think ... (Score:2)
Yeah, laying off is de rigeur in the bookie industry, especially among the more conservative books.
Casinos Can't Change the Odds! (Score:4, Informative)
Besides... moving from one machine to another does not improve your odds any better then those idiots who bet black when X number of reds have appeared in succession on a roulette table... The only ones who this will "help" are the casinos themselves (better tracking of prolific players), said prolific players (getting comps, etc.) and of course the tax man.
Re:Casinos Can't Change the Odds! (Score:4, Informative)
An aside would be that many machines have an accumulating jackpot since the last win, for which it makes sense to just pick the one with highest pot to maximize your intake if you hit jackpot.
A simple Occam razorish explanation will also to be that the casino *doesn't* need to do this to earn their big bucks. And they earn their big bucks by having a tiny skew in their basic odds (like giving 0.51 odds to themselves v.s. 0.49 odds to you) thus gives them a slight edge, that is multiplied by the volume of transaction to give them a big profit. All they need is to guarantee volume and prevent cheating. Maybe the tickets is just efficiency and to make it possible and easier to track cheaters. To imply that they would tweak the odds is just tinfoil hatting simply because they don't need to. And that is probably illegal.
Re:Casinos Can't Change the Odds! (Score:2, Informative)
9700 - no win
200 - 4x prize
80 - 8x prize
15 - 20x prize
4 - 50x prize
1 - 200x prize
After the pool is generated the system verifies there are no
Its also a commonly held fallacy (Score:2)
This does not equal predictable odds for you. The payout is based on the Casino's preference and in Vegas,
the total casion's payout percentages are btwn 86.7% & 93.4%. [reviewjournal.com]
The reason Casino's have implemented tickets or magnetic swipe cards is so that they can actively track the
amount of cash going in and around the casino. This allows them to play with the odds and to watch for
cheaters. Before they h
Re:Casinos Can't Change the Odds! (Score:2)
As for pre-determined payoffs - well since the tree of outcomes of events are fixed, you can argue that it is predetermined. However, if nobody knows the sequence (if you cannot examine the ROM, etc) then it is as good as random anyway isn't it? Also, the site argues that some challenges are rigged such that if y
Re:Casinos Can't Change the Odds! (Score:2)
And you trust them to faithfully observe the law because this industry has already impressed you with the ethical standards they have shown so far?
LOL.
Re:Casinos Can't Change the Odds! (Score:2)
Re:Casinos Can't Change the Odds! (Score:2)
Re:Casinos Can't Change the Odds! (Score:2)
Naive? (Score:3, Informative)
(Why anyone considers casinos worth spending time/money at is a discussion left for another day.)
Re:Naive? (Score:5, Informative)
Now it may help the casinos figure out how to set up the floor to maximize revenue or something, sort of like, people who like game X tend to like game Y but not Z, so lets move these slots over there.
But then again if you are in a casino you are a bit of a fool.
Re:Naive? (Score:2)
Slot machines typically don't have their payout rate (or odds) stamped on the front. In fact, I've never, ever seen one with it. For most modern slots, you have to look inside at the games rom to even determine the payout rate. Payoff rates also tend to vary from machine to machine even within the same line. (That is, the machines to the left and right of a mach
Re:Naive? (Score:2)
and around here iirc there's a law stating how much of the money that gets put in the machine can keep to itself(that is, the law states the odds). and the odds aren't generally advertised and if they were, screw them, they're not generally going to tell the full algorithm for deciding if you win or not, as that can be quite complex already as all machines are software controlled more or less, usually more. your chances of winning inc
Re:Naive? (Score:2)
Naa, they're not rigged. There are strict laws in Nevada anyway, and most gaming laws in the US are modelled after Nevada's simply because they have stood the test of time. That's not to say that the odds aren't stacked heavilly toward the casino -- but it is a purely random game. When you trigger the start of the game (button, handle, etc...) the machine loads a different odds table based strictly on the amount of money you put i
Re:Naive? (Score:2)
It ain't random. It's statistical, designed to mimic randomness.
Re:Naive? (Score:2)
Law Of Averages + Slot machines (Score:2)
Hmmmmm... (Score:1)
Doesn't work like that (Score:5, Interesting)
edge?? EDGE???? (Score:2, Informative)
Are you joking? I thought this board was supposed to inhabited with math-clueful types.
Just so we're clear - there's no player edge on slots - it's advertised to go up to 97.8% payback and is more usually at 90% [lasvegasadvisor.com]
Re:edge?? EDGE???? (Score:2)
free booze!!!
fck, if we had that kind of casinos within 400km radius i'd be there every other night playing slots with pennies...
Re:edge?? EDGE???? (Score:2)
Re:edge?? EDGE???? (Score:2)
It is over the course of a long period of time (like a year, or machine lifetime perhaps.) Statistical bell curves and all that biz.
you've lost before you started (Score:1, Insightful)
statistically speaking, you leave with less than you came in. it's like day traders.. occasionally someone has some good luck but the vast majority of small-time day traders and gamblers lose money. It's in the numbers and you can't change it.
So what if one machine pays out less or more than the other? They've got the system as a whole turning out exactly the profit margin they want. You think Microsoft and
As I sit here.... (Score:3, Informative)
a slot strategy? what? (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought the basic slot strategy was continue to press the "spin" button until all your money disappears? In that case, this card idea makes it so much easier!!
On another note, have you considered actually investing the money in short term stocks or doing some intense day trading? The thrill is the same as gambling, except the odds are actually in your favor to mak
Pointless (Score:3, Insightful)
The casino doesn't care whether YOU win or lose (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose a slot machine has a payout schedule such that, on average, the machine pays out 97% of the amount it takes in. Somebody will win the occasional big payout but most people will lose, and the losses will tend to more than cover the wins.Why should the casino care whether the payouts go to you rather than the next guy? All they care about is that the overall odds are in their favor, and they are. Somebody will win the jackpots, and it might as well be you as much as anybody else. You don't scare them.
When you say "A basic slot strategy is to move from one machine to another, and play machines in certain areas of the casino floor to improve your odds.", you are talking nonsense. Switching machines doesn't change your odds*, so the casinos don't need to do anything special to foil that strategy. You can't combine negative expectation bets to get a positive expectation bet.
(* actually, there's an exception to that rule, and I've made money exploiting it, but I gather you're not talking about wonging into machines with unusually high per-machine progressives. That's gotten pretty hard to do lately due to stiff competition and "anti-flea" features built into the newest machines by the manufacturers. But it was fun while it lasted, eh?)
Completely silly. (Score:2)
Customer management, in this case, could be a little more complex than you seem to believe. Gambling is most addictive when the pattern of reward is very specific. A customer has very little idea how everyone else is doing, and a very good idea of how he is doing.
In order to keep him gambling the most money, it makes sense to present him, in particular, with a pattern of reward that encourages him to lose the most money. For example, I wo
Re:Completely silly. (Score:2)
And luckily enough for the casinos, just letting the machines follow their normal default behavior does exactly this! No further per-client tweaking is required to accomplish it.
To the degree that a little further tweaking /is/ useful, they can do that via the mechanism of comps. The standard thing is to give the biggest expected losers a consolation prize of free meals, shows, airfar
Re:Completely silly. (Score:2)
Not true. Over the long term, distributions will be normal (and conducive to continued gambling) certainly. However, over the short term (say, an hour's play) all sorts of non-optimal patterns will emerge.
Last time I was on a cruise ship, I watched people gamble for hours. Fascinating, really. Cruise ship gamblers are often c
Re:Completely silly. (Score:2)
Fortunately, they're one of the most highly regulated industries out there; I doubt they're allowed to change the odds on machines based on customer identity. Of course, gamblers are generally uninformed, unintellighent and superstitious, so believe what yo
Agreed, they probably don't do this.. (Score:2)
I was only responding to the notion that they would have no interest in doing so (see top post). It's likely, rather, the casinos will use identity tracking for research and/or other kinds of compensation.
Re:The casino doesn't care whether YOU win or lose (Score:2)
Tell me about it. My thing was full-pay video poker, but that has gotten difficult to find in Las Vegas and downright impossible elsewhere.
I wasn't aware slot machines ever got into positive return territory, even with high progressives - how do you know the base payout (and jackpot frequency for that mattter) in order to calculate the progressive's effect on net payout?
Re:The casino doesn't care whether YOU win or lose (Score:2, Interesting)
Base payout rates can be known or roughly guessed at through a combination of public and private (insider) knowledge. Having somebody who maintains slot machines or runs a casino in your circle of acquaintances helps a lot. :-) The Piggy bonus came around often enough that p
Naah, different scam (Score:2)
However, the tickets are an extra (and legal) moneymaker beyond increased efficiency.
Unlike coins, they aren't redeemable at other casinos, making it just a little harder to take your funds elsewhere. Customer retention is good.
Like a gift certificate, there will be some percentage of them that go unredeemed, becoming pure profit for
are you insane ? (Score:2)
No wonder Vegas makes good money if someone that has a good degree that hopefully includes mathematics, statistics, and probabilities
You were kidding about that strategy comment right ?
Flip a coin 100 times - all heads... what is the chance of flipping it again and getting 101 heads in a row ???
If you want a game where you can have strategy learn to play blackjack well, REALLY well. The only game where you can statistically beat the house over a LONG period
Re:are you insane ? (Score:2)
Mmm - blackjack. It all depends on the exact house rules, but the only casino I've ever visited has quite generous rules.
Blackjack is the only game I play, and I really enjoy it when the rules are fair - also I've been quite lucky, a
Re:are you insane ? (Score:2)
I understand it now, but for some reason it took me a long time to really understand this concept...
Now I know:
The odds of getting 101 heads in a row is equal to the odds of getting 100 heads in a row followed by a tails.
As far as strategy, there are some valid strategies (see the Piggy Bankin' comment), but they'll probably get you thrown out of the casino if it's obvious what you're doing.
Re:are you insane ? (Score:2)
Simple - if it's the same coin, and it came up heads 100 times in a row, chances are it would come up heads on the 101st throw.
The odds of 100 heads in a row are so small that it leads one to believe that there is something abnormal about the coin that causes it to come up heads more often than tails.
If you have something that is supposed to be 50/50 odds, and it consistantly favours one outcome o
Re:are you insane ? (Score:2)
Yeah, it sucks when you lose, but that's why you need to have enough control to quit when you're ahead (and more importantly, quit when you hit a hard limit so you don't end up leaving with nothing - it's a long walk thru the desert back home from Vegas)
For some reason I tend to do well in Nevada casinos (Vegas a
Re:are you insane ? (Score:2)
A person with a good system can slant the 0.5% advantage that the house has in his favor.
It doesn't take a degree. All it takes is system that you can use without getting caught. It's not illegal to count cards, but the casinos have the legal right to refuse to gamble with you. If they think you're accurately counting cards, they
If you're that paranoid... (Score:2)
Hey, it's hardly rocket science, is it?
Slot machine odds (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean (of course) not that they modify any odds, but that they can "comp" certian guests and give free meals, shows, etc. to guest to 'perceive' they got something for all the cash they lost at the slot machines and more likely to return and/or spend more gambling. And after all the 'odds' we are speaking about is really return on investment (negative in most cases).
As far as Nevada gaming commision goes, slot machines don't have to meet any 'perfectly random' requirement. Machines can be (I mean ARE IN FACT) designed to payout differently depending on how full they are, where in the casino they are (ie. by the entrances/exits), what time of day, what time they were last serviced. What the casino must maintain is an overall average payout (usually around 95% on the strip and 98%+ in the suburbs).. Which means best case you are losing money over the long run.
However, many professional gamblers make a living playing video poker which *if* you play *perfectly* can payout >100%.. I've heard that 40hrs/wk in front of a video poker machine can earn you at least $20k/yr (asuming you have enough cash to ride out a losing streak) (Oh and don't believe what you hear on Travel Channel or ABC about casinos and resorts, they are designed to bring in customers
Bad strategy (Score:2)
Slots are required to pay a certain amount over a period of time... switching machines reduces the chances that you'll hit a jackpot.
Nevada Gaming Commision (Score:2)
The NGC as strict rules regarding slot machine operations and regular surprise spot checks to insure that only NGC authorized chips are in use in the slots.
Think of them as giant videogames, the game is run my ROM chips that control the payoff rate of the machine. There is no magic button that the casino manager can hit to cause a machine to pay/not-pay. A casino in violation _will_ recieve stiff fines (stiff enough to actually make a casion think)
An easy work around (Score:2)
In any event this is kind of a moot point since most people are playing for a free buffet and use those cards.
I hate to tell ya this.... (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, I play at Casino Niagra [discoverniagara.com] once or twice a month on average. (I live in new york, so Niagra Falls isn't that far away.) Every month the casino sends me a mailing that has 2 $10 coupons in it. I have heard that other people
Casinos WANT you to WIN (Score:2)
A Casion wants you personally to win. They make their money by getting a lot of people in, and most of them lose, but they love nothing more than when you win, and go home and tell your friends. Think about it, those who go to vegas and win are always telling their friends and family how much they made, often over a year latter they are still bragging. There is no better advertising than word of mouth from winners. Best of all, individulals can lie, saying things (in complete ignorance) that would be i
Portable printer? (Score:2)
More to the point, how long until an 'innovative' casino takes advantage of the ephemeral (no chips/coins to count) nature of this and causes computer records to change things in their favor. Yes the various gaming comission types and auditors would frown on it, but done cleverly enough it could be pulled off (and probably already is).
Slots? (Score:2)
A basic slot strategy is to move from one machine to another, and play machines in certain areas of the casino floor to improve your odds.
Eh, excuse me, but I really doubt you can change odds on slots.
AFAICT, the best you can do in a casino is playing 21 with basic strategy, modified by counting cards. It requires enough concentration, though, that's it too much like real work.
Plus, if you're too good and obvious (low bets until near the end of the deck when your bets get really high) you'll get esco
Already Slim Edge? (Score:2)
Slashdot thinks that people who play slots lose between 5 and 15 cents every time they pull the lever on the one dollar "pretty blinky light machine."
Slashdot also thinks that people who believe they have an "alread slim edge" in slots are probably the greatest thing ever, since they pay for all the cool hotels and stuff that the rest of us stay at when we're in Vegas.
Tickets don't 'plink', do they? (Score:3, Insightful)
The old ladies spending their social security check on the one-armed bandit will hear a neighbor get a big payout and start playing more fiercely. When they do win they have a crazy Golumn-like look in their eye as they're filling up that bucket full of winnings.
Is the cost of handling coins so high that it's worth forfeiting the extra revenue from that psychology? Even if the machines make an electronic plink sound when you win (along with the bells and sirens) I can't see the alure being the same.
Of course, maybe it's just easier to hit the '$5 bet' button if you don't have to load 20 quarters into the machine.
Personally, I think the best games in Vegas are in the basement of the Excalibur.
Re:Tickets don't 'plink', do they? (Score:2)
I wouldn't be surprised if this is exactly the reason that they're moving to a ticket-based system. It's like the psychology behind chips--it's designed to make you forget that you're actually spending money by providing a layer of abstraction: "Look, it's not a hundred-dollar bill! It's just a black disk with the casino's name on it!" As the poker players say, the guy who invented chips was
And this is why vegas is brightly lit... (Score:2)
In the short run, random runs may give the player a larger than average win or loss, but play long enough and you will confirm the math behind slots every time. The *only* games where you can gain an advantage are Black Jack (and only by counting cards: see articles about the MIT boys who won
Wtf? Math anyone? (Score:2)
Slot machines are mathematically one of the worst thigns you can do with your money at a casino. And that's assuming they're fair chances as published and no manipulation is going on. For that matter, you gani zero advantage moving between slots or any other hokey little slots theory. Slots do not get hot and cold.
The way slots work. (Score:2, Interesting)
I work in a casino... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many advantages to using tickets instead of coins. The primary reason is that it saves us a ton of money. A stack of 200 tickets sitting in the printer can last for days. If the same machine has coins, it might have to have its coin hopper filled multiple times a day. The labor savings from just that are incredible. It also prevents people from having to wait for an attendant to fill an empty hopper when they cash out. Happier customers stay longer, spend more money, and come back more often.
Coins have to be collected, counted, wrapped or bagged, and redistributed, and they are very heavy. My casino has two people to handle the paper distribution. It would take 40-50 additional people to do all coin handling.
Contrary to popular myth, we can't change what a machine does on the fly, nor do we need to. A slot machine has a theoretical mathematical hold percentage that is in our favor. It varies from day to day and week to week, but over the life of the machine it almost always comes very close to the theoretical. We don't need to cheat. We can give you back 99% of what you put in and still make money. Most of the time you'll take your 99% and put it in again. Then we'll take 1% of that. And you'll do it again. And again. That's how we make money.
We don't need to track you with barcoded tickets, we do that with player's club cards. We entice you to use cards by giving you comps based on how much you put into our machines. You don't have to use a card if you don't want to. The only reason the tickets have barcodes is so that the bill validator can read it. The unique number on the ticket is there so that the machine can query the back-end system to validate it as a good ticket. Nothing more.
Re:I work in a casino... (Score:2)
That would be a side benefit. Crooks rarely get away with this kind of stuff... there are far too many cameras.
Finally, I think it's in the casinos interest to keep a person seperated from their actual money as long as practical. An LED display saying 100 credits is
There is one real reason they do this. (Score:2)
It costs money to have change girls walking around 24/7. It costs money to have someone sitting in the change booth waiting to dump your bucket o' change into the counter and hand you the cash equivalent.
Now, you can sit down, put $20 into the machine and play to your hearts content and never touch a coin (which means they reduce the number of free moist towelettes they hand out to wash that 'coin residue' off your hands). If you happen to win then you take your barcoded
The Judas Goat (Score:2)
I have a friend, a very beautiful young woman, who likes to gamble. (I know, I know, maybe knowing her disqualifies me for slashdot. But we are just friends.) Anyhow, she is not
Re:The Judas Goat (Score:2)
On the other hand, maybe she just doesn't like to talk about her losses (who wants to be seen as a loser?) and only talks about her wins...
Nonsense (Score:2)
Certain slots MAY be set to pay out > 100%, but they are almost always low-limit (i.e. penny or nickel) slots.
AFAIK, all slots in state-regulated casinos in Nevada pay out at least 90% (as opposed to unregulated slots on Indian reservations which may pay as low as 70%... I'm not criticizing the Native Americans, just adding that for completeness). That means, over a long period of time, for every dollar you wager,
Barcoded Tickets Are Beneficial To Both Sides (Score:2, Informative)
Each slot machine is equipped with a chip that determines the payout for that machine. The gaming control board of each gaming jurisdiction usually requires that the casinos register each machine's payout with them. If the casinos want to change the payout, they have to notify the gaming control board of the change, and then manually open
Blackjack (Score:2)
Blackjack, people. Better odds and more social.
Tracking, advantage play, etc. (Score:2)
RFID Casino tracking, yup, yup (Score:2)
"Knowifi's Casino Marketing Event Manager (cMEM) allows you to track the movement of guests throughout your property. Give your convention or event guest a promotional item with an embedded WiFi tag and find out where they travel on your property and how long they stay in each venue (casino, food & beverage outlets, entertainment, etc.). Now you can have accurate information about whether your promotional events drive customers to the casino.
"Here's how the system works:
"Event attendee
Re:Slots (Score:2)
First quater he put in...
* we were at a casino just to try it out, generaly it's fun to go every year or so and wast
Re:Slots (Score:2)
Re:Slots (Score:2)
Depends on the slot. Do you include Video Poker or Piggy Bankin' machines? If so, there are some players that make a healthy return on investment playing those. Some players have even been barred for playing slots too well. But I'll grant you the general rule still holds for most people most of the time.
Re:Its called "Lost Wages"... (Score:2)
Re:Its called "Lost Wages"... (Score:2)
Because, eventually, if no-one ever wins, no-one will go to the place anymore. A casino is an implementation of the exact scientific formula for extracting the maximum substance without killing the subject.
Re:Its called "Lost Wages"... (Score:2)
Why do you think unregulated gambling is illegal in the first place? As if the government could give a damn about morals and values - they just get their panties in a twist if they don't get their 39.6% of anything over $80,000 a year in the form of income taxes.
With the universally accepted gambling chips as an unregulated new currency (you can even leave them in the donation basket in a Las
Re:Its called "Lost Wages"... (Score:2)
Whoa, mister... you might want to double check your legal facts before you start misquoting things.
After a problem with some counterfeit chips several years back they passed a law in Nevada that it is illegal to use gambling tokens (AKA chips) as currency and they are not to be legally taken out of casinos. Casinos don't mind if you walk off with chips because
Re:Its called "Lost Wages"... (Score:2)
I am just saying that with the chips it would be entirely possible to convert a minimal to mid range set of winning
Re:Its called "Lost Wages"... (Score:2)
Re:Its called "Lost Wages"... (Score:2)
The standing joke at the tables is when someone asks if it's OK to use so-and-so chips here, the dealers will call the boxman over and he'll ask "Is that place still open?". They seem to think that's
Re:Designer of a ticket system.... (Score:2)
EVERY TIME you opened your wallet, even for chips at the craps table, you had to give them your card.
The guy next to me even hit the $500(?) an hour limit and had to wait a while to get more chips.