10/4/2002
During the Gaming Expo, I had an interesting conversation with Ernie Moody, the creator of and patent-holder for most multi-line video poker games. After taking me around and explaining all the new variations, he asked if I could write about a current problem he’s having with casinos. I know (because they’ve told me) that quite a few casino executives read this column, so I promised him I would.
Ernie says that many casinos are putting the worst video poker paytables in their multi-line games. And even if they’re very low-denomination machines (like 1- or 2-centers), because of the many lines played, people lose their money too fast and, even though they love multi-lines, won’t play them again. So the casinos take them out and replace them with gimmicky new slot machines.
Ernie is not talking about putting in the best paytables that would attract the skilled players who’d have an advantage over the casino. He’s talking about pay schedules that would allow average players to play long enough to feel they’d received good entertainment value, even if they eventually lose the bankroll they brought to that session. People love the Fifty and Hundred Play machines. But they just can’t last for very long on 6/5 Jacks or Better; they might as well feed their bills to a Shop Vac.
This is a problem with the multi-line slot machines as well. Traditionally, nickel machines have had the lowest overall payback of any of the machines in a casino. But these new multi-lines aren’t “just nickel machines” when you can load them up to the max and be playing more money per hand than in some dollar machines.
Smart casino executives know that what they call “time on device” is of prime importance to customers. I expect that increasing the multi-game payback schedules will be on the agenda of many casino executive meetings in the days to come — and it will be a welcome development for all machine players.
BRIEFS
“It’s hip to be square.” Did you know that there are 11 square-dance clubs in Las Vegas, Boulder City, Pahrump, and Northwest Arizona?
If you watch sports at the ESPN Zone in the New York-New York casino, watch for food and beverage hourly minimums that will be imposed during popular games.
Last week I discussed a series of gambling seminars called “Beat the House” that I thought would be interesting for many to attend. Right after I wrote about it, the event had a change of date and venue. It’s now scheduled for January 17-19 at Sunset Station. (I just went out and bought a 2003 calendar. It seems like I just bought the one for 2002. Time flies so fast as you get older!) I will keep you posted on the details of this convention on the calendar page at www.frugalgambler.biz.
A joke from CasinoWire: Two friends were discussing their favorite Vegas casino and one said, “”I prefer Circus Circus because any place that has a name worth repeating has got to be good.””
The other friend said, “”I prefer Aladdin. I’d rather trust a genie than two clowns any day!”
10/11/2002
I had to laugh when I read this in Lenny’s column on lasvegas.com: “Getting a lot of calls about the newest strip joint in town, called Jaguars. First of all, let me tell you where it is. It’s on a street called Procyon, which will mean absolutely nothing to you.”
Actually, I bet a lot of readers DO know this street and have been at one of its more famous numbers, the famous headquarters of Huntington Press and the Las Vegas Advisor. Now, whether Anthony thinks the addition of ANOTHER strip joint (there’s already one between Jaguar’s and the HP office) lends class to this street name, well, I’ll leave for him to discuss — if he’d like to be a guest writer in this spot.
I think I’ll continue on an I-think-this-is-funny theme this week. I’m tired of being serious about video poker percentages, the decrease of comps, the long term, and casinos that drive me crazy by constantly changing their policies.
From CasinoWire: An outraged Italian mother has gone to court after her husband furtively named their newborn son after a prizewinning horse while she was still in the hospital!
“”He said his wife agreed,”” retorted an official at the records office in Boscotrecase, Italy.
The boy’s first and middle name, as registered, is Varenne Giampaolo. The “”real”” Varenne is a seven-year-old horse: a national hero and Italy’s 2001 athlete of the year. The “”real”” Giampaolo is the jockey’s name! When the mom discovered that she couldn’t change the baby’s name to Christian, she went to court. A ruling is pending. Do you think dad has been “”scratched”” from mom’s “”favorites”” list?
From The Guardian: If you’re going to Greece, leave your child’s Gameboy or other portable console behind, or you may be jailed, because all electronic games — even the most innocuous — have been banned in an attempt to stem the Greek passion for gambling. The penalties for being caught at it, in public or in private, are steep fines and 12 months in jail. “”It’s laughable,”” said Yiannis Markopoulos, the owner of an Internet cafe in Athens. “”Every game in the world has been prohibited. I’m not taking any chances. Even children are now criminally liable.”” The Socialist government adopted the measure after numerous bar and arcade owners were found to have converted slot machines into illegal gambling machines. www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,786133,00.html
Fantini Gambling Report: RENO may be getting a little desperate. According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, city officials are considering an Arizona promoter’s proposal to conduct a “Running of the Bulls” on North Virginia Street downtown. He currently runs them in Mesquite and Scottsdale, AZ. He believes he has outgrown Mesquite. Is Reno the city that looks down at Las Vegas as tacky and classless?
“”I used to be a gambler. I quit gambling. I quit yesterday. I quit this morning, and I’ll lay six-to-one, I’ll probably quit again tonight.”” –The late Walter Mathau
There. I feel light-hearted again — and ready to tackle more serious subjects next week.
10/18/2002
I promised I would be more serious this week, although a lot of people said they enjoyed the casino and gambling humor.
BRIEFS
Something interesting I learned from an article on the history of craps by Basil Nestor in the January Casino Player: “Crabs” was a slang expression used during the Crusades to describe a roll of 2, a loser even then, in a game that was the forerunner of craps. Nestor figures maybe people thought it looked like a crab’s pincers and gamblers felt their wallets were pinched when they lost. When the Europeans brought to the New World their dice game called hazard, the sailors and slaves on the French docks of New Orleans modified the rules and called it “crabs.” The Americans on the Mississippi riverboats thought it sounded like “craps,” so that has been the name of the game ever since. Nestor also goes on to dispense with the famous but wrong notion that craps was named after Thomas Crapper, inventor of the modern toilet.
Go to www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/business-casino/092002SMOKESEP20.html for a good article by Joe Weinert. He says that “the biggest threat to growth in the U.S. casino industry comes not from antigambling interests, but from health-conscious public officials. A group that sets the country’s indoor air-quality standards is under ‘enormous’ pressure to make casinos and other hospitality venues smoke-free, an expert warned attendees at the Global Gaming Expo.” He gives this interesting statistic: “Forty percent to 50 percent of casino gamblers are smokers, about double the percentage of the U.S. population as a whole.”
I read the following on an Internet VP bulletin board in a discussion about the frustration in changing denominations and games: “You’ve become trapped in the insidious hell of winning on small, losing on big. This particular hell is across the hall from ‘aces while playing deuces.’”
NEAT FACT OF THE DAY, from the Fantini Gaming Report: “In Missouri, a gambler maxes out after losing $500. In Nevada, entry into a private gaming salon requires a minimum $500 bet.”
A warning from an article in USA Today: “Hotels are cracking down on no-shows by requiring guests to give more notice — as much as 72 hours in some cases — when canceling reservations… One reason is that hotels are seeing more customers canceling their reservations after finding cheaper rates on the Internet.” Be sure to check this out at casino hotels, even if you make a reservation for a comped room. You may still have to leave a credit card number. Read the fine print on your mailed free offer and question the reservation clerk about the cancellation policy.
In the what-were-the-executives-thinking department, Belterra Casino and Resort in Vevay, a tiny Indiana town on the Ohio River, were found to have arranged for prostitutes to entertain wealthy gamblers. http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/08/19/fin_new_hotel_big_gamble.html”” gives the whole sordid story. Geesh! And our conservative friends in Indiana think we’ve moved to a wild and wicked town!
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Here we go again, one of my biggest pet peeves: “”It didn’t dawn on me that I had won $5 million. I thought a couple of thousand maybe, and somebody said ‘You won $5 million’ and I said, ‘You’re kidding.'”” Casino Magic (MS), $5 million slot winner
Wait, now here’s a new one, a reaction I’ve been looking for for a long time: “”I’ve been after this Megabucks for three years.”” Palace Station (NV) slot player winner.
Finally, someone who tells it like it really is! None of this I-only-had-12-dollars-in-the-machine!
10/25/2002
Halloween activities in Las Vegas show the pull back and forth between its conflicting images of Sin City and Family Destination.
An “adult attraction” called “Little Demons Dungeon” in 3-D opened beside the Little Darlings strip club for the haunted-holiday season. An X-rated haunted house? Brad offered to go check it out, but I said, “Naw, that won’t be necessary — my readers wouldn’t be interested anyway!”
On the other hand, listed in the local newspaper are more than a dozen strictly G-rated haunted houses around town: scary, but good clean fun.
The Las Vegas Fetish and Fantasy Halloween Ball and the Club Rubber Halloween Costume Ball are held on different nights, so you can be weird twice, dressed — or mostly undressed — in costumes that are only limited by your imagination.
Meanwhile, the Coffee Bean in the Palms casino Food Court is offering free drinks to costumed kiddies under 12 with parents — on the same date as the above-mentioned rubber affair, which is also being held at the Palms. I hope none of the rubber-clad (or unclad) decide to come early and pick up a snack in the food court before the 9 p.m. rubber revelry. Maybe the best plan for parents is to bring the kiddies for their free drink early!
From a poster on Skip Hughes’ Internet VP list (http://vphomepage.com): “This story is about an online casino, but I thought it would be worthwhile as a general cautionary tale as well:
“I was paying video poker online recently and had to download a software upgrade. The upgrade included multi-hand video poker and a better interface, and the Jacks or Better paytable was still 9/6, so it seemed like a good change.
“After playing awhile I got 4-of-a-kind and got only 100 instead of 125 credits for it!
“On closer examination I saw the paytable had decreased the usual payoff for a straight flush from 250 to 200. I was playing a 98.2% game instead of the 99.5% game I was used to.
“Now, whether at land-based casinos or Internet casinos, I’m going to look at the whole pay table, not just the bottom six places!”
Good lesson to learn for all video poker players.
I usually keep this column to Vegas and casino-related subjects, but I wanted to share this next item, because most of us can relate to this computer-related smile-of-the-day that was sent to me by a friend.
In Japan, they’ve replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku poetry has strict construction rules – each poem has only 17 syllables; 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second, 5 in the third. They’re used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning, and powerful insight through extreme brevity. Here are 16 actual error messages from Japan.
The Web site you seek Cannot be located, but Countless more exist.
Chaos reigns within.Reflect, repent, and reboot.Order shall return.
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.You ask far too much.
Windows NT crashed.I am the Blue Screen of Death.No one hears your screams.
Yesterday it worked.Today it is not working.Windows is like that.
Stay the patient course.Of little worth is your ire.The network is down.
A crash reduces Your expensive computer To a simple stone.
Three things are certain: Death, taxes, and lost data. Guess which has occurred.
Having been erased, The document you’re seeking Must now be retyped.
Serious error. All shortcuts have disappeared. Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
Aren’t those better than “”Your computer has performed an illegal operation”?