I’ve recently written about Dan Ariely’s free course that I’ve also been taking. One of his books is called The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty.. I’ve been wondering how some of what I’ve learned by reading that book can be applied to my normal life — which for me means life in casinos.
Today I want to apply this to an on-going promotion that is offered at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. Variations of this promotion occur elsewhere as well. Continue reading Musings About Dishonesty in Casinos
A few weeks ago, I strongly recommended that my readers take the free course on Irrational Behavior offered by Dan Ariely. I have no idea how many readers actually followed my suggestion, but I’m now in the middle of the course, enjoying it, and learning from it.
One of the topics discussed in the course is risk aversion. Consider the following experiment: You are offered a chance to flip a fair coin. If it turns up heads, you win $1,100. If it turns up tails, you lose $1,000. Would you willingly do this? Continue reading Risk Aversion for Gamblers
Most of us occasionally switch from game to game. The strategy for each game, and even each pay schedule, is a bit different. Today I’m going to give you eight different hands with three games each. In each case, two of the games will have the same play and one of them will have a different play. Also in every case, the reason for the differences in how you play the hands is determined by the pay schedules.
Continue reading How Do You Play These Hands?
John D. “Jackie” Gaughan (1920 – 2014), one of the founding fathers of Downtown Las Vegas, passed away last week. Gaughan had a number of casino licenses through the years, but is probably best known for the Union Plaza (later Jackie Gaughan’s Union Plaza), El Cortez, and Western. Howard Stutz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote a nice tribute which may be read here.
My recollections of Jackie are more personal. For six months or so back in 2007-2008, I sat in on marketing meetings at the El Cortez. I didn’t last long at this because my suggestions to the El Cortez management were not very well received. Continue reading Good Bye, Jackie Gaughan
I started college 51 years ago. I earned some degrees and over the years went back and took a number of non-credit courses. I enjoy the learning process and I’m positive that this is one major key to my success as a gambler and instructor.
There’s a new way to learn, called MOOC, which stands for Massively Open Online Courses. A year ago I heard about a free MOOC course offered by Dan Ariely of Duke University called “A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior.” I was too busy to take the course, I concluded, and so I skipped it. 140,000 students found time to take it. To me that’s a startling number. Continue reading Sign Up for this Course Today!
Many times I’ve written about video poker games that I consider fair. And what I mean by “fair” is that every unseen card has an equal chance of appearing next.
Most people seem to accept my definition — or at least understand what I am talking about.
However, I recently received an email at [email protected] from someone who calls himself “Reno Master.” The email read as follows: Continue reading Seeking Out Unfair Games
On the January 23, 2014 Gambling with an Edge radio show, Anthony Curtis and Richard Munchkin both said good things about American Roulette, a book by Richard Marcus. So I went to the library and checked it out. (Understandably it’s a title that’s easy to find in a Las Vegas library but perhaps not so easy if you live in Peoria.)
Continue reading A Look at American Roulette
I recently attended the 18th Annual Blackjack Ball — which I’ll write about at length in next week’s column. Briefly, this is a gathering of about 80 of the best blackjack players in the world (some currently out there playing — some retired), and perhaps 20 other gambling professionals of various sorts. Being a video poker expert is not sufficient to get invited, but co-hosting a radio show along with a Blackjack Hall of Famer apparently is. Among this crowd, Gambling with an Edge is “must listen” radio and so I was more of a celebrity with this group than I expected I’d be.
Continue reading A New Realization
I was helping Bonnie learn an advanced square dancing move called “Cast a Shadow.” (I know this is my hobby and not yours, but bear with me. We’ll get to video poker very shortly.) This is a move that starts out with two parallel lines composed of four dancers in each line.
Without describing the move in detail, I was asking her in which direction the dancers on the ends of the lines turned first. First she guessed “right,” (which I told her was wrong), and so then she guessed “left” (which I told her was also wrong.) This frustrated her. She (correctly) knew the only ways to turn were left and right and now I was telling her neither was correct. Continue reading It Depends
In last week’s column, I addressed hands which contained both a Q of one suit and JT7, J97, or J87 of another suit — where the correct play depended on the fifth card in the hand. In today’s column, I will discuss some additional hands in that same game.
Consider a K of one suit and a JT7, J97, or a J87 of another. We know that KJ is considerably less valuable than QJ (because of the number of potential straights), so after last week’s exercise it shouldn’t surprise us that we usually prefer the J-high 3-card straight flush to the KJ. Continue reading Some More Fine Points of 8/5 Bonus Poker
