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Hey all, What I still cannot wrap my head around or maybe I have is... what the heck am I to make of gambling? The reason I am asking is because I'm one of those overly educated people that's traveled to the point where I've lived in Miami, Bangkok, Dallas, Bangkok, etc. but spent over a month living in Vegas this year. I saw some things that weren't so great but at same time I'm also thinking... these are people might be gambling but in honestly I feel like it's just adults socializing? Sure it's lame to say this is how you got to meet people, expensive but at same time it's kind of funny how these places attract everyone of every shape, size, color, income, etc. and a odd multi-cultural gathering. I only play low stakes poker occasionally but I was surprised how much time I've ended up hanging out in casinos to do nothing but just hang out, drink and watch the crowds. When I say gambling I don't mean poker I mean stuff like craps, blackjack, roulette or even digital slot machines where the win rate is set and there is nothing you can do to ever beat it even by cheating. Do you think every player or even a majority or even a slim majority are just terrible addicted droolers?
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Aug 28, 2023 11:27
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Do you think every player or even a majority or even a slim majority are just terrible addicted droolers? The majority of people in a casino have their "budget", throw it in without even thinking much about it, are nearly guaranteed to lose over the course of their trip, but it's ok. Except that they play the worst games, which encourages the casino to only spread that crap. gently caress 6:5 blackjack! Don't just play the lowest stakes because it "lasts longer", christ. There do seem to be a *lot* of people just plugged into those slot machines though. That feels like the end stage, just sitting there hitting that "take 10% of my money" button over and over. and it is kinda terrible. Not that you don't see addict behavior at table games as well. But it doesn't feel nearly as commonplace. And you're right, the poker or blackjack or pai gow tables can be fun, social places.
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Aug 28, 2023 14:34
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Also if you're in Vegas, you're seeing a lot of people on vacation and partying. They might just be adults socializing like you describe. Go to the local casinos here in Louisiana and you'll spot some very sad scenes with the regulars. Even worse are the truck stop and gas station "casinos" aka video poker/slots lounges where working class dudes lose their whole paychecks before getting home for the weekend.
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Aug 28, 2023 15:17
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I am in Bangkok right now. I saw someone begging for cash on the street earlier until someone selling lotto tickets walked past only to immediately buy a handful. Good luck. One my more recent memories though was at the Plaza Hotel. I was casually just walking around late at night, I heard a scream near one of the larger electronic slot machines with larger chair where two people can sit. It was occupied by an older couple, not in the best of shape and they had won something like $12k. Not a whole lot. I know there are much, much better ways to spend money but when I saw them hold and kiss each other. It felt way different. 
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Aug 28, 2023 15:41
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I listened to a podcast/documentary ep about slot machines recently - it might have been a 99% Invisible episode - but the claim there was that many chronic/degenerative slot gamblers are often more often in pursuit of a flow state rather than pursuing money, and that winning for many of them actually disrupts that flow.
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Aug 28, 2023 15:51
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Baddog posted:The majority of people in a casino have their "budget", throw it in without even thinking much about it, are nearly guaranteed to lose over the course of their trip, but it's ok. There have been folks I've recently meet that have given me the stark realization that while I can't put a figure on it but genuinely enjoy being casino tourists. Personally, I'd rather visit Miami over even the fanciest Casino but now I at least sort of get it. Baddog posted:Except that they play the worst games, which encourages the casino to only spread that crap. gently caress 6:5 blackjack! Don't just play the lowest stakes because it "lasts longer", christ. I had a long, long ride share drive with a former Blackjack dealer who started in the early 1980s. It's was even more popular back then with entire floors dedicated to Blackjack. The thing that blows my mind the loving most is how it was exclusively single deck and the Casino somehow still managed to make money because according to him the knowledge wasn't so widespread of how to count but that even the good counters would get too greedy, drunk, distracted and eventually screw up. The funny part of about all of it was how if you actually did really well on Blackjack or any other tables games they'd just ban you playing but that's it. They wouldn't even kick you out the casino or hotel. You just simply weren't allowed to play. Gucci Loafers fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Aug 28, 2023 |
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Aug 28, 2023 15:59
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My understanding is that while the casinos would get suspicious of you if you had a really long winning streak, if you won fifty grand they would high five you, get you dinner, comp you a hotel room... some of which was to get you to stay in the hotel and probably gamble more of it, but you'd also be a great piece of word-of-mouth advertising.
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Aug 28, 2023 16:08
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:
This was in the 90's but they didn't even get that dramatic with me, the floor just came over and told the dealer to start shuffling after every single hand. No drama, and effective, fair enough.
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Aug 28, 2023 16:18
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What would happen if you just got and left? Would they even complain? And can someone explain to me how in the hell good players didn't bankrupt the casinos back then? Goddamn.
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Aug 29, 2023 06:47
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:What would happen if you just got and left? Would they even complain? No, they didn't complain  A good players edge is much smaller than the edge they have over a bad player... And there are so many bad players. It's like a tiny drop of their profits. (But they still don't like it).
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Aug 29, 2023 07:13
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:What would happen if you just got and left? Would they even complain? Casinos make their money by getting a giant river of cash going through the building, then skimming off 10%-20% of it. Unless you're somehow cheating, they don't give a drat who winds up with the other 80%, just how big the river is. Casinos might start throwing incentives at you in the hopes that you'll give back the money that you won, but any stories you hear about them trying to keep you by force or trying to sabotage your transportation so you can't leave are bullshit. They don't care that you've got a bigger share of the river, because they've got their cut no matter what. Even in the case of throwing incentives, that's not so much about trying to get you to lose the money back as it is to show you off. Nothing makes people line up to gamble more than a big winner, and that makes the river bigger. quote:And can someone explain to me how in the hell good players didn't bankrupt the casinos back then? Goddamn. There's a couple things here. First, the edge in blackjack is quite small (can be as high as %2, or as low as .5%) if everybody's playing by the book. The House always plays by the book, as The Book is printed directly onto the surface of the table. A card counter can basically flip the edge over to them, but they can't make it any bigger. By the standards of an individual, the amounts you get are pretty significant, but on the scale of casino revenues it is pretty modest. The casino, on the other hand, has the advantage that only some customers play by the book. If you're not doing perfect play, the house edge skyrockets. Meaning that the house gets more from Billy Dumbfuck than it loses to Joe Cardsharp. The house still doesn't like it because if you get a whole table of Joe Cardsharps the numbers start adding up, but one or two counters aren't going to cripple even a casino that somehow can't detect them. The bigger danger to casinos as far as cheating goes is slight-of-hand with the chips, something even the cameras can have trouble catching. It is pretty common for the dealers to pay out by matching your stack (which is a great way for everybody to see that the payout was fair), which gives the opportunity for a sneaky player to slip a couple extra chips on the top if they're about to win, or pull a couple off if the hand's a loser.
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Aug 29, 2023 10:56
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Gnoman posted:Casinos make their money by getting a giant river of cash going through the building, then skimming off 10%-20% of it. Unless you're somehow cheating, they don't give a drat who winds up with the other 80%, just how big the river is. It's funny how people take the movie Casino seriously but it's such a good movie. https://twitter.com/MichaelWarbur17/status/1696157117135102241?s=20 Back to Casinos, I thought it was super interesting how if you get a jackpot on the big video slot machines it absolutely lights the hell up letting everyone around you know that you just won. The amount of psychology at play is very, very interesting. Gnoman posted:There's a couple things here. First, the edge in blackjack is quite small (can be as high as %2, or as low as .5%) if everybody's playing by the book. The House always plays by the book, as The Book is printed directly onto the surface of the table. A card counter can basically flip the edge over to them, but they can't make it any bigger. By the standards of an individual, the amounts you get are pretty significant, but on the scale of casino revenues it is pretty modest. Makes sense but for the more seasoned employees... do you guys think the popular casino games like Blackjack will still exist in the next decade? I'm amazed that most of the Vegas Strip is now 6:5 blackjack with weird rules such as you can only split once, etc. at some point you are going to hit the limits of human emotion overriding our logic or some such thing. Gucci Loafers fucked around with this message at 13:00 on Aug 29, 2023 |
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Aug 29, 2023 11:56
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:And can someone explain to me how in the hell good players didn't bankrupt the casinos back then? Goddamn. Being a good player is hard, stressful work that requires pretty heavy concentration. To really make money at it, you need to treat it like a job. Plus, while you can tilt the odds in your favor, you can't get rid of the odds all together. You can't treat your winnings like 100% profit, they also have to float you past the days you lose. Maybe none of that will stop you if you're determined and have the math skills, but its enough to winnow out a lot of people who'll decide "I could get a job at the DMV and have a less stressful career."
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Aug 29, 2023 14:31
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I went into my local small UK city casino at like 11am once to ask about the poker timetable for the coming week and jfc there's nothing more depressing than a handful of miserable old blokes throwing their pensions away in silence. I still think the most depressing thing I witnessed in a casino was as a student in my early twenties, watching a middle aged man putting about five grand a spin on roulette, missing every single one, then getting up and leaving after losing more than my entire student loan over the course of about twenty minutes. He was bizarrely completely emotionless throughout. To this day I don't know if that was because he was just rich as hell and didn't care, or if he was straight down to jump in the river afterwards. Crosby B. Alfred posted:
It's completely impossible to be a +ev player in a casino outside of extremely specific cases like very competent card counters, and to do that you need to 1) put in so much work and hours you basically have to treat it like a real job, 2) deal with a pretty harsh working environment because they can and will back you off/ban you if they suspect you're doing it, generally get very hostile and treat you like a criminal with threats etc while doing so, and sometimes make it very hard to actually collect your winnings*, 3) be willing and able to travel constantly to new casinos on account of being banned from local ones, and 4) have a pretty sizeable bankroll to start with to deal with bad runs, and be comfortable with knowing you might just lose it if things go wrong. Those factors weed out all but the most talented and committed, because 99% of people would rather just get a normal job with a guaranteed income. You did used to have a few other cases like that mathemician who made millions after recording thousands of spins on specific roulette tables and worked out which numbers the wheel favoured on account of minute structural deviations, wear and tear etc, but again that required heaps of work and specialist knowledge, and casinos are much more careful these days to put measures in place to prevent similar, for example by using better designed wheels and swapping them out regularly. *in the old days when casinos were often mob owned there was also a good chance you'd get your legs broken. That's not going to happen today thankfully!
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Aug 29, 2023 15:10
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:It's funny how people take the movie Casino seriously but it's such a good movie. Blackjack is never going away. The typical player doesn't know the difference between 6:5 and 3:2, and for a lot of tourist gamblers (either the ones who are on a "gambling trip" or the ones who are just there to party and stop by a table for a bit before/after hitting the club/pool/shows), the ONLY game they know is blackjack.
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Aug 29, 2023 15:59
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CommonShore posted:I listened to a podcast/documentary ep about slot machines recently - it might have been a 99% Invisible episode - but the claim there was that many chronic/degenerative slot gamblers are often more often in pursuit of a flow state rather than pursuing money, and that winning for many of them actually disrupts that flow. Slot machines hit my ADHD monkey brain just right and yeah it's definitely about flow for me. I have to stay away from the fuckers to be honest, there's nothing else for it.
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Aug 29, 2023 16:56
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Slot machines I think hit a similar dopamine drip as scrolling through tiktok for hours. But with the added bonus of having that dream that you could hit the maximum jackpot and solve all your money problems, because it really is genuinely possible. Humans are incredibly bad at differentiating between long odds and odds that are a hundred or a thousand times longer. Like on paper/intellectually you probably understand the difference between a 1/1000 chance and a 1/1000000 chance, but your gut doesn't.
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Aug 29, 2023 18:14
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Leperflesh posted:Slot machines I think hit a similar dopamine drip as scrolling through tiktok for hours. But with the added bonus of having that dream that you could hit the maximum jackpot and solve all your money problems, because it really is genuinely possible. Yep, and then on the other side, most people seem to think that anything greater than 90% or so is pretty much *guaranteed*. That 1/x shot comes up a lot more often than you would think.
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Aug 29, 2023 18:18
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CellBlock posted:Blackjack is never going away. The typical player doesn't know the difference between 6:5 and 3:2, Hi, it's me, the typical player. I don't know what either of those are. I know what blackjack is and most often encounter it in video games, because I never go to casinos. What's 6:5, 3:2? What's the difference between them?
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Aug 29, 2023 18:42
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6:5 pays 6:5 on a blackjack, 3:2 pays 3:2. So if you bet a tenner on the latter you get 15 back, but only 12 on the former. It increases house edge astronomically. You'd be very foolish to play on a 6:5 table where a 3:2 is available, but I think 6:5s are mostly an American thing, kind of like double zero roulette. I've certainly never seen one here in the UK. Say what you want about the states but they're extremely good at figuring out new and inventive ways to rinse people.
ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Aug 29, 2023 |
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Aug 29, 2023 18:48
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ThomasPaine posted:6:5 pays 6:5 on a blackjack, 3:2 pays 3:2. So if you bet a tenner on the latter you get 15 back, but only 12 on the former. It increases house edge astronomically. You'd be very foolish to play on a 6:5 table where a 3:2 is available, but I think 6:5s are mostly an American thing, kind of like double zero roulette. I've certainly never seen one here in the UK. Say what you want about the states but they're extremely good at figuring out new and inventive ways to rinse people. Ah! That makes sense, and makes me realize that I'd never really considered the difference in payout between a blackjack and just, like, having a better hand than the dealer. (Which cursory searches online tells me normally pays out 1:1.)
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Aug 29, 2023 20:32
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ThomasPaine posted:6:5 pays 6:5 on a blackjack, 3:2 pays 3:2. So if you bet a tenner on the latter you get 15 back, but only 12 on the former. It increases house edge astronomically. You'd be very foolish to play on a 6:5 table where a 3:2 is available, but I think 6:5s are mostly an American thing, kind of like double zero roulette. I've certainly never seen one here in the UK. Say what you want about the states but they're extremely good at figuring out new and inventive ways to rinse people. It's hilarious to hear double zero described as "mostly an American" thing. Those're old news, we're rocking triple zeroes now! 
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Aug 29, 2023 21:31
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I was kinda hoping that with the proliferation of casinos across the US that people would become a little more educated about gaming. gravitate to games with better odds, stay away from the pure poo poo. But no, its a mad dash to the bottom. I guess when the average US consumer has become habituated to lottery scratchers over decades now, anything is better.
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Aug 29, 2023 21:37
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I personally love poker and craps and stay away from slots except for the odd ‘gently caress it let’s see how fast I can lose $20-50 bucks.’ I’ve never seen the appeal for ‘stupid slots’ but many times when I’ve talked to folks that love the slots - they say they are intimidated by the other games. To each their own I guess. For the AMA: I’m more intrigued by how casinos run in general. I was in a restaurant at the Cosmopolitan in Vegas and a woman passed out in a table near us. Whole other groups of folks were having a good time and the restaurant snuck in an EMT that was wearing a really nice suit. The woman turned out to just be beyond wasted but I really admired how slick and professional the whole situation was. People were about 10 feet away and completely oblivious to what was happening. Any other examples of how smooth casino operations are with regards to handling potential panic situations?
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Aug 29, 2023 22:02
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Ritz On Toppa Ritz posted:Any other examples of how smooth casino operations are with regards to handling potential panic situations? The one time I went to the track, went up to make a bet and everyone was kinda staring over my shoulder, even the cashiers. Turned around and like 10 feet away there were 2 EMTs putting a goddamn sheet over this old dude. I was like "oh poo poo uhh I'll come back later". And the cashier was like "nah nah come 'ere hun, whatdya want?" The most surreal-rear end poo poo. I placed the bet though, lol. But have not been back, that experience was just way too degenerate. And yes, 99% of the people in the place were oblivious that a guy had just died right there in front of the counter.
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Aug 29, 2023 22:14
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Ritz On Toppa Ritz posted:I personally love poker and craps and stay away from slots except for the odd ‘gently caress it let’s see how fast I can lose $20-50 bucks.’
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Aug 29, 2023 23:02
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Baddog posted:I was kinda hoping that with the proliferation of casinos across the US that people would become a little more educated about gaming. Back when I worked in a casino, the big new thing the suits were excited/worried about was Puzzle & Dragon. To hear them describe it, it was a gambling game where even when the player wins they don't get any money. I don't know how many people outside the business would describe a free-to-play games in those exact terms, but it's stuck with me, especially seeing how gatcha has proliferated since then.
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Aug 29, 2023 23:16
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Baddog posted:Yep, and then on the other side, most people seem to think that anything greater than 90% or so is pretty much *guaranteed*.
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Aug 30, 2023 00:31
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Schwarzwald posted:Back when I worked in a casino, the big new thing the suits were excited/worried about was Puzzle & Dragon. To hear them describe it, it was a gambling game where even when the player wins they don't get any money. When you hear it described that way (or otherwise realize what's going on) it's hard to think of them as anything else, and it's why I stay away from them. Exact same psychological tricks and bullshit, the only difference is that you can't cash out your credits for anything of value.
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Aug 30, 2023 01:22
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Zamujasa posted:When you hear it described that way (or otherwise realize what's going on) it's hard to think of them as anything else, and it's why I stay away from them. Exact same psychological tricks and bullshit, the only difference is that you can't cash out your credits for anything of value. Because you can't cash out, mobile games can do a bunch of poo poo that casino games can't.
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Aug 30, 2023 02:50
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ThomasPaine posted:6:5 pays 6:5 on a blackjack, 3:2 pays 3:2. So if you bet a tenner on the latter you get 15 back, but only 12 on the former. It increases house edge astronomically. You'd be very foolish to play on a 6:5 table where a 3:2 is available, but I think 6:5s are mostly an American thing, kind of like double zero roulette. I've certainly never seen one here in the UK. Say what you want about the states but they're extremely good at figuring out new and inventive ways to rinse people. 3:2 tables will frequently have other bullshit to recapture the edge like giant shoes or lovely rules. If you see a 3:2 one or two deck game sit around and watch the fun, it's bait for foolish advantage players.
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Aug 30, 2023 04:32
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CellBlock posted:Blackjack is never going away. Baddog posted:I was kinda hoping that with the proliferation of casinos across the US that people would become a little more educated about gaming. There has to be... a point though where the win rate even for terrible droolers stop playing? Society is going to learn at some point, right? Even aside from blackjack just regular games. What's also interesting is that around 2010(?) was the first time the Las Vegas Strip started making more on concerts, events, food, etc. than gambling and there's a huge push to get away from gambling as the primary attraction. Midjack posted:3:2 tables will frequently have other bullshit to recapture the edge like giant shoes or lovely rules. If you see a 3:2 one or two deck game sit around and watch the fun, it's bait for foolish advantage players. It's totally a thing. I keep coming across rules like you can only split face cards. Gucci Loafers fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Aug 30, 2023 |
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Aug 30, 2023 08:45
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Schwarzwald posted:Being a good player is hard, stressful work that requires pretty heavy concentration. To really make money at it, you need to treat it like a job. Plus, while you can tilt the odds in your favor, you can't get rid of the odds all together. You can't treat your winnings like 100% profit, they also have to float you past the days you lose. ThomasPaine posted:It's completely impossible to be a +ev player in a casino outside of extremely specific cases like very competent card counters, and to do that you need to 1) put in so much work and hours you basically have to treat it like a real job, 2) deal with a pretty harsh working environment because they can and will back you off/ban you if they suspect you're doing it, generally get very hostile and treat you like a criminal with threats etc while doing so, and sometimes make it very hard to actually collect your winnings*, 3) be willing and able to travel constantly to new casinos on account of being banned from local ones, and 4) have a pretty sizeable bankroll to start with to deal with bad runs, and be comfortable with knowing you might just lose it if things go wrong. Those factors weed out all but the most talented and committed, because 99% of people would rather just get a normal job with a guaranteed income. I totally get this too but if it was single-deck blackjack vs. now where you have four or six decks it makes counting much, much more difficult. I'm thinking I would destroy single deck but then again is the pre-internet era. People just didn't know as much. On another note, I originally got into counting blackjack with movie 21 came out. I lost a little but the biggest realization to me was doing IT work at one of the older casinos. They had a blackjack card counting team show up and take something like $10k+ on a Friday night. The kicker was that the floor manage sent security footage of the whole team to the Gambling Commissioner. She then sent it to every single Casino and even Bars with Blackjack to have them banned from playing anywhere in the whole State.
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Aug 30, 2023 09:02
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Even aside from blackjack just regular games. What's also interesting is that around 2010(?) was the first time the Las Vegas Strip started making more on concerts, events, food, etc. than gambling and there's a huge push to get away from gambling as the primary attraction.
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Aug 30, 2023 09:52
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I'm not a card counter but instinctively I feel like single deck would actually make it harder to count because the whole premise is keeping a running total of how the deck is weighted wrt high and low cards. A single deck game (which I can't imagine existing today without a pile of additional weird rules) is almost certainly going to be shuffled every hand, so the best you'll get is being last to act with the max number of players. Whereas a 4 deck shoe might be in play for a good few hands meaning you have the time to establish a decent count. The sweet spot is getting the longest time playing with the smallest shoe. There were plenty of very smart people around in the old days of casinos and there were more ways to exploit vulnerabilities, but there's a reason every mathematician didn't go make millions in Vegas - it was still very difficult to do.Midjack posted:3:2 tables will frequently have other bullshit to recapture the edge like giant shoes or lovely rules. If you see a 3:2 one or two deck game sit around and watch the fun, it's bait for foolish advantage players. Fwiw here in Europe you occasionally get tables with weird rules but 99% of games are standard 3:2 blackjack. They usually have side bets like 21+3 and perfect pairs (which are sucker bets I can't help but play lol) but it's rare to get any rules like only splitting face cards. I guess the casino knows the game is profitable so why scare off gamblers by stopping pretending it's even remotely fair? Maybe in places like Vegas they just realise they'll get customers regardless so who cares, full mask off bullshit. ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Aug 30, 2023 |
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Aug 30, 2023 09:59
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I feel like the 2000s era of Vegas was an open secret of sex and drugs. Now it's... meticulously designed posh hotel resorts with whatever celerity playing that weekend. It seems to be working.
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Aug 30, 2023 10:00
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I think you're thinking more of old school 60s Vegas really Easy to romanticise but I'm not sure I'd like playing somewhere there was a good chance I'd end up in a hole in the desert if I pissed off the casino too much.
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Aug 30, 2023 10:09
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90s Vegas was already very converted into being more family friendly. Circus Circus, Excalibur and.. some other hotels all had carnival games where you could dump your kids off while you went off to gamble.
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Aug 30, 2023 10:14
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Interesting, what era was the whole... "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." tagline?
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Aug 30, 2023 10:15
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ThomasPaine posted:I think you're thinking more of old school 60s Vegas really Random people getting abused or killed by making the mob mad is largely myth. That kind of thing is bad for business, and it brings down the heat. Mobsters killed other mobsters, not customers.
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Aug 30, 2023 10:22
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