In any casino game, there are myths and legends, things people believe that don't quite square with reality. Let's take on a few myths from a table games
player perspective.
MYTH: The third baseman is a team player, and shouldn't take the
dealer's bust card. A third baseman hitting 12 when the dealer has a 2,
for example, is hurting the entire table.
FACT: A player hitting in that situation helps the rest of the table
as often as he hurts it. Anyway, it's the best play for his hand.
Hitting 12 against 2 is what he SHOULD do.
Wouldn't it be nice if we knew whether or not the next card in the
deck would make the dealer's hand go bust? Problem is, we don't know
what the dealer has face down, and we don't know what the next card is.
Sitting at third base, I've drawn a 9 to my 12 for a 21, had the dealer
turn up a 10-value card, then draw another 10 to bust. The entire table
won, but if I hadn't hit, the dealer would have had a 9 and the whole
table would have lost.
I've also drawn a card that would have busted the dealer. Most often,
though, the dealer has something less than a 10-value face down, and NO
one-card draw can bust the dealer's hand.
Unless other players are willing to pay for losses, the third
baseman's responsibility is to make the play that's best for his or her
own hand.
MYTH: A hot craps table is likely to stay hot, a cold table is likely to stay cold.
FACT: Average results on a table after a hot streak are the same as
after a cold streak. Odds of the game don't change, regardless of how
hot or cold the shooters have bene.
Craps players are always looking for hot tables, and avoiding cold
ones. But unless you're dealing with controlled rollers, a la Frank
Scoblete and his Golden Touch Craps team, I've never really seen a
reason why a hot table should stay hot, or a cold table stay cold. We
are dealing with dice, after all, that don't know what the previous
results have been.
Several years ago, I put it to the test. For nearly a year, every
time I was in a casino in the Midwest, South and in Nevada, I stopped
by a craps table, waited until I saw two consecutive passes, then
tracked the result of the next decision -- not as good a sample as a
million-hand computer run, but a lot more time-consuming.
The result: Pass bettors won 489 wagers and lost 511 on the next
sequence after two consecutive wins. There was no tendency for the dice
to stay hot.
I also watched 1,000 trials that started with two don't passes, then
charted the next decision. The dice passed 496 times in those 1,000
trials a mere three more passes than the expected average. There was no
tendency for cold dice to stay cold, either.
Now, a thousand trials each way isn't enough to satisfy a
statistician, but if hot tables stay hot and cold tables stay cold,
well, you can't prove it by me.
MYTH: Just as in blackjack, counting cards can help you win.
FACT: Counting cards in baccarat doesn't help in any practical way.
Favorable situations in baccarat are really rare. The late Peter Griffin wrote in The Theory of Blackjack
that a baccarat player who doesn't bet unless he has an advantage can
squeeze an edge of about 0.7 percent of his maximum bets on banker and
player. However, that player might play only about three hands per eight
hours. That's watching, not playing.
For bets on ties, it's theoretically possible to count down to a 24
percent edge with six cards remaining, provided all the cards are dealt
out.
In the real world, nobody deals out all the cards, and with one-half
deck cut out of play, the bettor's potential edge on the last hand
shrinks to just 0.08 percent. With just a small reservation, we can say
the myth of the baccarat card counter is JUST a myth.
MYTH: An experienced roulette dealer can make the ball land where he pleases.
FACT: Dealers I know scoff at the notion they can hit a number at
will. With the wheel spinning one way, the ball going in the opposite
direction, bouncing on the surface and from fret to fret separating the
numbers, there are far too many physical variables for a dealer to
control where the ball will land.
Anyway, the last thing the casino wants is a dealer who can hit a
number at will. As long as the results are random, the casino makes its
money. However, if a dealer could control what numbers were coming up,
there'd be a chance someone would be in on the secret and take a lot of
money from the casino. Random games mean big profits for the operators.
Taking the randomness out increases operator risk.
Showing posts with label craps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label craps. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
How does the house edge work?
The house edge remains a mysterious thing to casino players, including the one who asked me recently about roulette.
"Does a 5.26 percent house edge mean the house wins 52.6 percent of all spins?"
That wouldn't be a bad guess if every wager paid even money, and the house edge was made up entirely of the difference between the frequency of house wins and the frequency of player wins. In the red-black wager at roulette, where winners are paid even money, the house wins 52.63 percent of rolls, the player wins 47.37 percent. Subtract 47.37 from 52.63 and you get the 5.26 percent house edge.
It is the difference between win percentage and loss percentage that's important, and you can't just multiply the house edge by 10 and get the percentage of losing wagers. Roulette is a bit of a coincidence that way.
Take craps and the pass line wager, another even-money payoff. The house has a 1.41 percent edge.
Obviously, it wins more than 14.1 percent of the time. Instead, if you want to know the frequency of house wins, divide that 1.41 percent house edge in half, then add the result to 50 percent. The house wins 50.705 percent of wagers, the player wins 49.295 percent. Do the basic subtraction, and you get a difference of 1.41 percent --- the house edge.
Things get more complicated when payoffs get bigger. Let's go back to roulette and single-number bets. A double-zero roulette wheel has 38 numbers, with 1 through 36 as well as 0 and 00. Any time you bet on a single number, you have one way to win, and 37 ways to loses.
Yet the house edge is the same 5.26 percent as it is on red-black, odd-even or first 18-last 18. On those wagers with even-money payoffs, the house wins 52.63 percent of the time, as we have already seen.
Obviously, the house wins far more than 52.63 percent of single-number wagers. It wins 37 of 38, or 97.37 percent of wheel spins.
The reason you're bucking a house edge of 5.26 percent even though you lose 97.37 percent of the time comes in the payoff, of course. Winning single-number bets are paid at 35-1 odds. If it was a truly even bet, you'd be paid 37-1.
The difference between the payoff and the true odds is the key to the house edge. Here's the way it works.
Let's say you bet $10 on 17 on each spin of a perfect sequence in which each number turns up once. You risk a total of $380. On your one win, you get back $360 --- $350 in winnings for the 35-1 payoff, plus the return of your $10 wager on that spin.
That means the house has kept $20 of your $380 in wagers. Divide 20 by 380, and you get .0526. Multiply by that by 100 to get percent, and you see the house has kept 5.26 percent of the money you've wagered.
That's the house edge on single number bets.
It's simple enough to do the same for place bets or proposition wagers in craps, or the player bet in baccarat, or spaces on the Big Six wheel. The house edge is not based on the frequency of winning hands alone, nor is it based solely on the payoffs on winning wagers. Nor is a game with frequent winners necessarily one with a low house edge, nor a game with low payoffs per win a high house-edge proposition.
From a player's perspective, it's not how often you win, nor how much that counts, it's how much how often, working together.
"Does a 5.26 percent house edge mean the house wins 52.6 percent of all spins?"
That wouldn't be a bad guess if every wager paid even money, and the house edge was made up entirely of the difference between the frequency of house wins and the frequency of player wins. In the red-black wager at roulette, where winners are paid even money, the house wins 52.63 percent of rolls, the player wins 47.37 percent. Subtract 47.37 from 52.63 and you get the 5.26 percent house edge.
It is the difference between win percentage and loss percentage that's important, and you can't just multiply the house edge by 10 and get the percentage of losing wagers. Roulette is a bit of a coincidence that way.
Take craps and the pass line wager, another even-money payoff. The house has a 1.41 percent edge.
Obviously, it wins more than 14.1 percent of the time. Instead, if you want to know the frequency of house wins, divide that 1.41 percent house edge in half, then add the result to 50 percent. The house wins 50.705 percent of wagers, the player wins 49.295 percent. Do the basic subtraction, and you get a difference of 1.41 percent --- the house edge.
Things get more complicated when payoffs get bigger. Let's go back to roulette and single-number bets. A double-zero roulette wheel has 38 numbers, with 1 through 36 as well as 0 and 00. Any time you bet on a single number, you have one way to win, and 37 ways to loses.
Yet the house edge is the same 5.26 percent as it is on red-black, odd-even or first 18-last 18. On those wagers with even-money payoffs, the house wins 52.63 percent of the time, as we have already seen.
Obviously, the house wins far more than 52.63 percent of single-number wagers. It wins 37 of 38, or 97.37 percent of wheel spins.
The reason you're bucking a house edge of 5.26 percent even though you lose 97.37 percent of the time comes in the payoff, of course. Winning single-number bets are paid at 35-1 odds. If it was a truly even bet, you'd be paid 37-1.
The difference between the payoff and the true odds is the key to the house edge. Here's the way it works.
Let's say you bet $10 on 17 on each spin of a perfect sequence in which each number turns up once. You risk a total of $380. On your one win, you get back $360 --- $350 in winnings for the 35-1 payoff, plus the return of your $10 wager on that spin.
That means the house has kept $20 of your $380 in wagers. Divide 20 by 380, and you get .0526. Multiply by that by 100 to get percent, and you see the house has kept 5.26 percent of the money you've wagered.
That's the house edge on single number bets.
It's simple enough to do the same for place bets or proposition wagers in craps, or the player bet in baccarat, or spaces on the Big Six wheel. The house edge is not based on the frequency of winning hands alone, nor is it based solely on the payoffs on winning wagers. Nor is a game with frequent winners necessarily one with a low house edge, nor a game with low payoffs per win a high house-edge proposition.
From a player's perspective, it's not how often you win, nor how much that counts, it's how much how often, working together.
Friday, July 5, 2013
Odd streaks, past results and future outcomes
For about a lifetime now, I've been telling gamblers that in most
games, past results have no effect on future outcomes. (Blackjack is an
exception, since each card dealt out changes the composition of the
remaining deck, altering the odds of the game.)
The roulette ball has landed on eight black numbers in a row? The chances of the next one being black are still 18 in 38. The craps shooter has gone a dozen rolls without a 7? Unless you're dealing with a controlled roller, the chances of the next roll being a 7 are 1 in 6, same as always. You've just hit a big slot jackpot? The odds against the big jackpot combination turning up on the next spin are the same as the spin before.
From time to time, I'm asked how that possibly can be. If in the long run, 18 of every 38 spins of the roulette wheel will be red, and there have been eight black numbers in a row, shouldn't you be betting on red? If there have been a dozen craps rolls without a 7, isn't 7 "due"? After all, in the long run, one of every six rolls will be a 7.
The answer is that there doesn't have to be any makeup time. In any game, there will be unusual streaks that seem to defy the odds. Casinos and their customers count on that. Without such streaks, there would be no winners --- we'd all just be handing over our money at a prescribed percentage.
Eventually, such streaks just fade into statistical insignificance, overwhelmed by the sheer number of trials that go on in casinos.
For a simple example of how all this works, I like to use another chance event: flipping a coin. Just as in rolling the dice, spinning the roulette wheel or pulling the slot handle, past coin flips have no affect on future outcomes. There's a 50-50 chance of heads or tails on every flip, regardless of what has gone on before.
This came up recently on an Internet message board in which I participate in the odd discussion --- the odder, the better. The manager of a softball team said a coin flip determined who was the home team, and that he'd lost 13 consecutive flips. What were the odds?
On a 50-50 event like flipping a coin, calculating the odds is easy. Your chances of losing a single flip are 1 in 2. Your chances of losing 13 in a row are 1 in 2 to the 13th power --- start with 2, then multiply by 2 12 times. The answer is 1 in 8,192. In 8,192 sets of 13 coin flips, on the average you'll lose all 13 of them once.
Another poster on this message board suggested you could improve your odds with some judicious selections. "If it hits seven heads in a row, isn't it more likely to come up tails the next time, because of the law of averages?"
No, the odds never change. If heads come up seven times in a row, the odds on the next flip are still even. There never has to be a makeup period --- in the long run, any unusual streaks just fade into statistical insignificance.
"But in the long run, things even out," the poster said. "That leads me to believe that, since you know things will even out, you're more likely to hit the other side if there's been a run on one side."
Recognize that train of thought? That's the same thing as a roulette player who thinks that after eight black numbers, red is due, or a craps player who thinks that after a dozen rolls without a 7, the shooter must be due to roll a 7.
But any evening out to be done is purely statistical, whether we're talking roulette, craps, slots or coin flips.
Let's say the coin flipper starts with 7 heads in a row. At that point, 100 percent of flips have been heads. The expectation is that 50 percent should be heads, so it appears there's evening up to do.
Now let's say future flips come up exactly 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails. (Things rarely come out quite so neatly, of course.) After another 100 flips, 57 have been heads, and 50 tails. Now only 53.3 percent of the flips have been heads, only 3.3 percent above expected average. On thousand flips after the first seven, we have 507 heads and 500 tails. 50.3 percent have been heads. One million flips after the first 7, 500,007, or 50.000035 percent, have been heads.
There has been no "making up," period, but we're right on 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails. The original streak of seven heads has just faded against the statistical background.
Streaks happen, and if you're on the winning side, streaks are meant to savor. But there doesn't have to be any equal but opposite streak to make the odds come out right. Given enough trials, normal results from the streak onward are enough to keep the games on track.
The roulette ball has landed on eight black numbers in a row? The chances of the next one being black are still 18 in 38. The craps shooter has gone a dozen rolls without a 7? Unless you're dealing with a controlled roller, the chances of the next roll being a 7 are 1 in 6, same as always. You've just hit a big slot jackpot? The odds against the big jackpot combination turning up on the next spin are the same as the spin before.
From time to time, I'm asked how that possibly can be. If in the long run, 18 of every 38 spins of the roulette wheel will be red, and there have been eight black numbers in a row, shouldn't you be betting on red? If there have been a dozen craps rolls without a 7, isn't 7 "due"? After all, in the long run, one of every six rolls will be a 7.
The answer is that there doesn't have to be any makeup time. In any game, there will be unusual streaks that seem to defy the odds. Casinos and their customers count on that. Without such streaks, there would be no winners --- we'd all just be handing over our money at a prescribed percentage.
Eventually, such streaks just fade into statistical insignificance, overwhelmed by the sheer number of trials that go on in casinos.
For a simple example of how all this works, I like to use another chance event: flipping a coin. Just as in rolling the dice, spinning the roulette wheel or pulling the slot handle, past coin flips have no affect on future outcomes. There's a 50-50 chance of heads or tails on every flip, regardless of what has gone on before.
This came up recently on an Internet message board in which I participate in the odd discussion --- the odder, the better. The manager of a softball team said a coin flip determined who was the home team, and that he'd lost 13 consecutive flips. What were the odds?
On a 50-50 event like flipping a coin, calculating the odds is easy. Your chances of losing a single flip are 1 in 2. Your chances of losing 13 in a row are 1 in 2 to the 13th power --- start with 2, then multiply by 2 12 times. The answer is 1 in 8,192. In 8,192 sets of 13 coin flips, on the average you'll lose all 13 of them once.
Another poster on this message board suggested you could improve your odds with some judicious selections. "If it hits seven heads in a row, isn't it more likely to come up tails the next time, because of the law of averages?"
No, the odds never change. If heads come up seven times in a row, the odds on the next flip are still even. There never has to be a makeup period --- in the long run, any unusual streaks just fade into statistical insignificance.
"But in the long run, things even out," the poster said. "That leads me to believe that, since you know things will even out, you're more likely to hit the other side if there's been a run on one side."
Recognize that train of thought? That's the same thing as a roulette player who thinks that after eight black numbers, red is due, or a craps player who thinks that after a dozen rolls without a 7, the shooter must be due to roll a 7.
But any evening out to be done is purely statistical, whether we're talking roulette, craps, slots or coin flips.
Let's say the coin flipper starts with 7 heads in a row. At that point, 100 percent of flips have been heads. The expectation is that 50 percent should be heads, so it appears there's evening up to do.
Now let's say future flips come up exactly 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails. (Things rarely come out quite so neatly, of course.) After another 100 flips, 57 have been heads, and 50 tails. Now only 53.3 percent of the flips have been heads, only 3.3 percent above expected average. On thousand flips after the first seven, we have 507 heads and 500 tails. 50.3 percent have been heads. One million flips after the first 7, 500,007, or 50.000035 percent, have been heads.
There has been no "making up," period, but we're right on 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails. The original streak of seven heads has just faded against the statistical background.
Streaks happen, and if you're on the winning side, streaks are meant to savor. But there doesn't have to be any equal but opposite streak to make the odds come out right. Given enough trials, normal results from the streak onward are enough to keep the games on track.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Craps on a short bankroll
As introductions go, "Craps. Short bankroll. Whaddya do?" wasn't the
smoothest I'd ever heard, but at least it was straight to the point. The
gentleman in the buffet line wanted to talk about craps.
I asked how he liked to play.
"If I could afford to play the way I like to play, I wouldn't have a problem," he said brusquely. "I like to start on the pass line, then follow it with two come bets until I have three numbers working, with maximum odds on all of them."
That's one of the best ways to attack the game. Free odds, offered in addition to pass and come bets, are paid at true odds and carry no house edge. Backing the pass and come bets with free odds drops the house edge below 1 percent, down to 0.8 percent with single odds, 0.6 percent with double odds, all the way down to 0.02 percent at casinos that offer 100x odds --- if you can afford it.
"Afford it is the problem," he said, adding that he'd just walked away from a table that offered 10x odds, which drop the house edge to 0.2 percent. "With the 10 times odds here, if I have a $10 pass bet and two $10 come bets working, I could back each with $100 in free odds. Or I could if I had more than 200 bucks in my pocket."
That could be a problem. Even with a much larger bankroll, putting $330 on the table all at once, all of which could be wiped out by a single 7, can be a wallet buster. If you're going to take advantage of 10x odds, you'd better be working with a bankroll in the thousands, not the hundreds.
"Yep. I'm no fool. I don't bet the center-table propositions, or the field, or the hardways, the stuff with the really high advantages for the house. I don't place the 4 or 10, or the 5 or 9. I want the best deal I can get.
But I can't get it without betting more."
If you're really smart, I told him, you know that betting more isn't the answer if you can't afford it. The money to gamble has to come from an entertainment budget, not from money you really need for the rent, groceries, kids' schooling or other necessities of life.
"I know that. I've resigned myself to the fact I can't afford the best deal at craps. The problem is, when I break it down, even taking single odds is too rich for my blood. There are no $5 minimum tables in this casino, and when I go to other casinos that do have 'em, they're always packed to the gills. So I play at the $10 tables.
"If I have a $10 pass bet and two $10 come bets, and back them each with single odds, I still have $60 out there at once. Let's face it. That's too much that can go down the drain at one time, when I'm only starting with $200."
I asked him what he'd considered doing to stay within his budget.
"The first thing I thought of was just to make a pass line bet, skip the come bets, and back the pass bet with as much odds as I thought I could afford. Even if I backed a pass bet with double odds, I'd have only half as much money at risk as if I bet pass with two comes, and single odds."
That's probably as good as you can do when it comes to narrowing the house edge, I told him. You're down to 0.6 percent with pass backed by double odds.
"Yeah, well, I tried it --- and it's boring. I can't stand having only one number at a time. So I figure my real choice here is to either bet pass followed by two come bets and no odds, or a pass bet followed by place bets on 6 and 8 instead of the comes."
On a percentage basis, the pass with two comes is the better bet. The house edge on pass, without free odds, is 1.41 percent. Come bets also face a house edge of 1.41 percent. The house edge is a little higher on the place bets on 6 and 8, at 1.52 percent.
"I know that, but given that I can't get the free odds, the difference between come and the place bets is negligible. Especially when it means that I always have the 6 and 8 going."
There is some comfort in having 6 and 8, the most frequently rolled numbers other than 7, working for you. But besides having a slightly lower house edge, there is another advantage for come bets over the place numbers. On the average, it takes more rolls to settle a come bet than to settle a place bet. That gives the house edge fewer opportunities per hour to work against you.
My new-found friend sighed heavily.
"So that's what it comes down to. Fewer bets per hour to lower risk."
That may not be the best deal at craps. But it's as good a deal as the short-bankrolled player can afford.
I asked how he liked to play.
"If I could afford to play the way I like to play, I wouldn't have a problem," he said brusquely. "I like to start on the pass line, then follow it with two come bets until I have three numbers working, with maximum odds on all of them."
That's one of the best ways to attack the game. Free odds, offered in addition to pass and come bets, are paid at true odds and carry no house edge. Backing the pass and come bets with free odds drops the house edge below 1 percent, down to 0.8 percent with single odds, 0.6 percent with double odds, all the way down to 0.02 percent at casinos that offer 100x odds --- if you can afford it.
"Afford it is the problem," he said, adding that he'd just walked away from a table that offered 10x odds, which drop the house edge to 0.2 percent. "With the 10 times odds here, if I have a $10 pass bet and two $10 come bets working, I could back each with $100 in free odds. Or I could if I had more than 200 bucks in my pocket."
That could be a problem. Even with a much larger bankroll, putting $330 on the table all at once, all of which could be wiped out by a single 7, can be a wallet buster. If you're going to take advantage of 10x odds, you'd better be working with a bankroll in the thousands, not the hundreds.
"Yep. I'm no fool. I don't bet the center-table propositions, or the field, or the hardways, the stuff with the really high advantages for the house. I don't place the 4 or 10, or the 5 or 9. I want the best deal I can get.
But I can't get it without betting more."
If you're really smart, I told him, you know that betting more isn't the answer if you can't afford it. The money to gamble has to come from an entertainment budget, not from money you really need for the rent, groceries, kids' schooling or other necessities of life.
"I know that. I've resigned myself to the fact I can't afford the best deal at craps. The problem is, when I break it down, even taking single odds is too rich for my blood. There are no $5 minimum tables in this casino, and when I go to other casinos that do have 'em, they're always packed to the gills. So I play at the $10 tables.
"If I have a $10 pass bet and two $10 come bets, and back them each with single odds, I still have $60 out there at once. Let's face it. That's too much that can go down the drain at one time, when I'm only starting with $200."
I asked him what he'd considered doing to stay within his budget.
"The first thing I thought of was just to make a pass line bet, skip the come bets, and back the pass bet with as much odds as I thought I could afford. Even if I backed a pass bet with double odds, I'd have only half as much money at risk as if I bet pass with two comes, and single odds."
That's probably as good as you can do when it comes to narrowing the house edge, I told him. You're down to 0.6 percent with pass backed by double odds.
"Yeah, well, I tried it --- and it's boring. I can't stand having only one number at a time. So I figure my real choice here is to either bet pass followed by two come bets and no odds, or a pass bet followed by place bets on 6 and 8 instead of the comes."
On a percentage basis, the pass with two comes is the better bet. The house edge on pass, without free odds, is 1.41 percent. Come bets also face a house edge of 1.41 percent. The house edge is a little higher on the place bets on 6 and 8, at 1.52 percent.
"I know that, but given that I can't get the free odds, the difference between come and the place bets is negligible. Especially when it means that I always have the 6 and 8 going."
There is some comfort in having 6 and 8, the most frequently rolled numbers other than 7, working for you. But besides having a slightly lower house edge, there is another advantage for come bets over the place numbers. On the average, it takes more rolls to settle a come bet than to settle a place bet. That gives the house edge fewer opportunities per hour to work against you.
My new-found friend sighed heavily.
"So that's what it comes down to. Fewer bets per hour to lower risk."
That may not be the best deal at craps. But it's as good a deal as the short-bankrolled player can afford.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Sheep bones, gum logos and other gambling trivia
In the race to see which is more cluttered, my home office or the
corner of my mind that collects little pieces of gambling history,
well, I guess my home office wins hands down. Nonetheless, bits of
trivia are trying to escape, so let's empty a little of the clutter:
**The slang expression rolling the bones has an origin that is quite literal. Dice were carved from bones for thousands of years. It was not at all unusual in Roman times for dice to be fashioned from sheep's knuckles.
Dice have been made from wood, clay, stone, peach pits, animal horns, teeth, ivory, bronze, porcelain, even jewels. The oldest known dice with regular sides were found in northern Iraq. They're made of baked clay and date to about 3,000 B.C.
**Coin-operated gaming devices in the late 1800s included games with large revolving wheels divided into color segments. Players wagered on which color the wheel would stop. They're considered the forerunners of modern slot machines, even though they didn't have reels. The first recognizably modern three-reel slot was the Liberty Bell, invented by Charles Fey in San Francisco in 1899. The machine was so popular that for many years all slot machines were referred to as bell machines.
The bar symbol used on modern slot machines is derived from a Bell Fruit Gum logo. The gum was dispensed in slots designed by Herbert Mills in Chicago in 1910, and other fruit symbols on slots were derived from the gum flavors.
Among the most popular early slots were poker games, although the machines did not usually pay out coins. Payoffs had to come from the operator. After the introduction of the Liberty Bell, poker-based slots waned in popularity, until the invention of video poker in the 1970s.
**The game of 21 got its common nickname, blackjack, from a practice in illegal casinos in the early 1900s. Some casinos paid a bonus if a two-card 21 was made up of an ace and jack of spades. Others paid bonuses if an ace of spades was accompanied by a jack of either clubs or spades. The black jack was the key to the bonus, and became the name of the game.
Less commonly used nicknames for the game of 21 include Pontoon and Van John. Both arose in the South, probably around illegal casinos in New Orleans. Both nicknames probably are corruptions of the pronunciation of the French game vingt-un, which means "21" and is believed by some to be a blackjack forerunner.
**Horizontal gaming wheels, such as those used in roulette, were invented in England in 1720 for a game called roly-poly. Roly-poly was similar to roulette, except there were no numbers on the wheel. There were alternating white spaces and black spaces, along with a "bar black" space and a "bar white" space. The "bar" spaces were the equivalents of zero and double-zero -- if the ball landed in either space, bets on black or white lost.
Roly-poly was banned in England in 1745, but the horizontal wheel traveled well. By 1796, modern roulette was being played in France.
**The kings in decks of playing cards represent real leaders and conquerors from history, although not all had the title of king. The deck we use today is based on cards designed in 15th-century France. The king of spades represents the Biblical King David, the king of clubs represents Alexander the Great, the king of hearts represents Charlemagne and the king of diamonds represents Julius Caesar.
The four suits represent civilizations that have influenced our culture. Spades represent the Middle East of Biblical times, clubs represent Greece, diamonds represent the Roman Empire, and hearts represent the Holy Roman Empire.
Perfect for Caesars Palace, don't you think?
**The slang expression rolling the bones has an origin that is quite literal. Dice were carved from bones for thousands of years. It was not at all unusual in Roman times for dice to be fashioned from sheep's knuckles.
Dice have been made from wood, clay, stone, peach pits, animal horns, teeth, ivory, bronze, porcelain, even jewels. The oldest known dice with regular sides were found in northern Iraq. They're made of baked clay and date to about 3,000 B.C.
**Coin-operated gaming devices in the late 1800s included games with large revolving wheels divided into color segments. Players wagered on which color the wheel would stop. They're considered the forerunners of modern slot machines, even though they didn't have reels. The first recognizably modern three-reel slot was the Liberty Bell, invented by Charles Fey in San Francisco in 1899. The machine was so popular that for many years all slot machines were referred to as bell machines.
The bar symbol used on modern slot machines is derived from a Bell Fruit Gum logo. The gum was dispensed in slots designed by Herbert Mills in Chicago in 1910, and other fruit symbols on slots were derived from the gum flavors.
Among the most popular early slots were poker games, although the machines did not usually pay out coins. Payoffs had to come from the operator. After the introduction of the Liberty Bell, poker-based slots waned in popularity, until the invention of video poker in the 1970s.
**The game of 21 got its common nickname, blackjack, from a practice in illegal casinos in the early 1900s. Some casinos paid a bonus if a two-card 21 was made up of an ace and jack of spades. Others paid bonuses if an ace of spades was accompanied by a jack of either clubs or spades. The black jack was the key to the bonus, and became the name of the game.
Less commonly used nicknames for the game of 21 include Pontoon and Van John. Both arose in the South, probably around illegal casinos in New Orleans. Both nicknames probably are corruptions of the pronunciation of the French game vingt-un, which means "21" and is believed by some to be a blackjack forerunner.
**Horizontal gaming wheels, such as those used in roulette, were invented in England in 1720 for a game called roly-poly. Roly-poly was similar to roulette, except there were no numbers on the wheel. There were alternating white spaces and black spaces, along with a "bar black" space and a "bar white" space. The "bar" spaces were the equivalents of zero and double-zero -- if the ball landed in either space, bets on black or white lost.
Roly-poly was banned in England in 1745, but the horizontal wheel traveled well. By 1796, modern roulette was being played in France.
**The kings in decks of playing cards represent real leaders and conquerors from history, although not all had the title of king. The deck we use today is based on cards designed in 15th-century France. The king of spades represents the Biblical King David, the king of clubs represents Alexander the Great, the king of hearts represents Charlemagne and the king of diamonds represents Julius Caesar.
The four suits represent civilizations that have influenced our culture. Spades represent the Middle East of Biblical times, clubs represent Greece, diamonds represent the Roman Empire, and hearts represent the Holy Roman Empire.
Perfect for Caesars Palace, don't you think?
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Separate gambling fact from fiction
Casino lore is full of myths, legends and superstitions.
That's natural enough. Few players understand the math, the odds and percentages that explain what's really going on in the casino. It's easier to blame that losing streak on someone else's poor play, and more fun to claim our own smart play led to a big win, than to make sense of the eternal tide of random results.
I try to bust casino myths from time to time, but they're persistent. Rarely does a week go by in which I don't hear from a reader about one long-held misconception or another. Let's take a look at some of the most common casino myths:
MYTH: Other players hurt you at the blackjack table.
FACT: Other players sometimes hurt you, but help you just as often. Their play has no effect on your long-term results.
No one knows what cards are coming next, nor do we know what card the dealer has face down. The player you think is taking the dealer's bust card may actually be taking a card that would have given the dealer a pat hand.
Let's say the player at third base - the last player to make a hit/stand decision - has a hard 16, and the dealer has a 6 face up. If the player follows basic strategy, he'll stand and the dealer will get the next card. If he makes a bad play and hits instead, the dealer gets the second card down.
Which would you rather the dealer have, the next card or the second one? Answer: It makes no difference. You don't know what the cards are, and either is just as likely to be the one that busts the dealer - or makes his hand.
MYTH: Hot craps tables are likely to stay hot; cold craps tables are likely to stay cold.
FACT: Unless you've found a rare player who can control the dice, every roll is an independent trial. Past outcomes have no affect on future results.
Several years ago, I tried an experiment in which I waited for two consecutive passes, then tracked the next decision. Of the next 1,000 sequences, 489 were passes - almost dead on the 494 average expected by random chance. No evidence there of hot streaks continuing. At the same time, I charted 1,000 sequences starting with two don't passes. The result: 470 wins for don't bettors, 493 losses and 37 pushes on 12. No evidence for cold tables, either.
Do hot and cold streaks occur at the craps table? Sure, just as they do in any game of chance. That's a natural outgrowth of probability. Can we predict when the streaks are coming? No. All a hot streak means is that the table has been hot in the past. That streak has no value in predicting future results. If it did, we could all stand and watch, waiting for a hot roll, then jump on and get rich.
MYTH: If the same roulette number comes up three or four times in a row, it's time to jump off that number - it's not "due" again for hours.
FACT: Numbers are never "due" or "not due." On an American wheel with both a 0 and a 00, the odds against any given number turning up on the next spin are 37-1. That's true whether the number just hit on the last spin, the last four spins, or if it hasn't hit at all in a couple of hours. Just as at the craps table, each trial is independent, and past outcomes have no effect on future results.
Rarely, a wheel may be biased, with some numbers turning up more often than expected by random chance. The wheel may be off balance, there may be a warp or a loose fret. In such cases, a number that has been showing up frequently may continue to hit more than once per 38 spins. Finding a wheel bias is painstaking work that most of us won't do. Still, the long shot that a wheel is biased gives us more reason to stay with a repeating number than to jump off.
MYTH: The casino can reward slot players by pushing a button to let them win a jackpot.
FACT: There is no jackpot button in the casino front office, the surveillance room or anywhere else. The casino has no control over when jackpots hit.
The closest the casino has to control is in programming it orders from the slot machine manufacturer. The manufacturer offers chips that will make a game pay out at different levels - the casino might order an 89 percent chip, or a 92 percent chip on the same penny game. Some games might pay the top jackpot an average of once per 10,000 pulls; on others the jackpot might hit only once per 20,000, 100,000, even 1 million or more pulls.
All those are long-term averages. Given millions of pulls, those averages will hold up. But there's no way to predict, or change, what will happen on any specific spin of the reels. Each spin is as random as humans can program a computer to be. A casino can't make a jackpot appear on the next spin. There will be winners and losers. The casino can't determine who will be which. It just knows the losers will more than balance out the winners.
That's natural enough. Few players understand the math, the odds and percentages that explain what's really going on in the casino. It's easier to blame that losing streak on someone else's poor play, and more fun to claim our own smart play led to a big win, than to make sense of the eternal tide of random results.
I try to bust casino myths from time to time, but they're persistent. Rarely does a week go by in which I don't hear from a reader about one long-held misconception or another. Let's take a look at some of the most common casino myths:
MYTH: Other players hurt you at the blackjack table.
FACT: Other players sometimes hurt you, but help you just as often. Their play has no effect on your long-term results.
No one knows what cards are coming next, nor do we know what card the dealer has face down. The player you think is taking the dealer's bust card may actually be taking a card that would have given the dealer a pat hand.
Let's say the player at third base - the last player to make a hit/stand decision - has a hard 16, and the dealer has a 6 face up. If the player follows basic strategy, he'll stand and the dealer will get the next card. If he makes a bad play and hits instead, the dealer gets the second card down.
Which would you rather the dealer have, the next card or the second one? Answer: It makes no difference. You don't know what the cards are, and either is just as likely to be the one that busts the dealer - or makes his hand.
MYTH: Hot craps tables are likely to stay hot; cold craps tables are likely to stay cold.
FACT: Unless you've found a rare player who can control the dice, every roll is an independent trial. Past outcomes have no affect on future results.
Several years ago, I tried an experiment in which I waited for two consecutive passes, then tracked the next decision. Of the next 1,000 sequences, 489 were passes - almost dead on the 494 average expected by random chance. No evidence there of hot streaks continuing. At the same time, I charted 1,000 sequences starting with two don't passes. The result: 470 wins for don't bettors, 493 losses and 37 pushes on 12. No evidence for cold tables, either.
Do hot and cold streaks occur at the craps table? Sure, just as they do in any game of chance. That's a natural outgrowth of probability. Can we predict when the streaks are coming? No. All a hot streak means is that the table has been hot in the past. That streak has no value in predicting future results. If it did, we could all stand and watch, waiting for a hot roll, then jump on and get rich.
MYTH: If the same roulette number comes up three or four times in a row, it's time to jump off that number - it's not "due" again for hours.
FACT: Numbers are never "due" or "not due." On an American wheel with both a 0 and a 00, the odds against any given number turning up on the next spin are 37-1. That's true whether the number just hit on the last spin, the last four spins, or if it hasn't hit at all in a couple of hours. Just as at the craps table, each trial is independent, and past outcomes have no effect on future results.
Rarely, a wheel may be biased, with some numbers turning up more often than expected by random chance. The wheel may be off balance, there may be a warp or a loose fret. In such cases, a number that has been showing up frequently may continue to hit more than once per 38 spins. Finding a wheel bias is painstaking work that most of us won't do. Still, the long shot that a wheel is biased gives us more reason to stay with a repeating number than to jump off.
MYTH: The casino can reward slot players by pushing a button to let them win a jackpot.
FACT: There is no jackpot button in the casino front office, the surveillance room or anywhere else. The casino has no control over when jackpots hit.
The closest the casino has to control is in programming it orders from the slot machine manufacturer. The manufacturer offers chips that will make a game pay out at different levels - the casino might order an 89 percent chip, or a 92 percent chip on the same penny game. Some games might pay the top jackpot an average of once per 10,000 pulls; on others the jackpot might hit only once per 20,000, 100,000, even 1 million or more pulls.
All those are long-term averages. Given millions of pulls, those averages will hold up. But there's no way to predict, or change, what will happen on any specific spin of the reels. Each spin is as random as humans can program a computer to be. A casino can't make a jackpot appear on the next spin. There will be winners and losers. The casino can't determine who will be which. It just knows the losers will more than balance out the winners.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
New video on YouTube
At the beginning of October, when I was in Las Vegas for the Global Gaming Expo, I got together with American Casino Guide publisher Steve Bourie and his son Matt. I write a couple of articles each year for the Guide, an annual publication I highly recommend. It's chock full of articles about the games people play along with listings of every casino in the United States, their phone numbers, games offered, and amenities. In the back, there are coupons for travel, meal and gambling deals. It's a resource I turn to several times during the year.
While were together, we recorded material for two videos. The first, on the five best bets in the casino, is now up on YouTube. We're talking games only on the main casino floor that you're likely to encounter in any casino market. That excludes live poker, horse racing and sports betting, leaving a mix of blackjack, craps, video poker and baccarat.
If you want to check out the video, it's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0oGLwWugFo
While were together, we recorded material for two videos. The first, on the five best bets in the casino, is now up on YouTube. We're talking games only on the main casino floor that you're likely to encounter in any casino market. That excludes live poker, horse racing and sports betting, leaving a mix of blackjack, craps, video poker and baccarat.
If you want to check out the video, it's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0oGLwWugFo
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