9/4/2003
More bad news from the Coast Properties: All full-pay video poker games have been downgraded at the Barbary Coast. Sherman has now reached the sea, crying that there’s nothing left to burn down! Fortunately, other casino executives have taken advantage of this situation and I see more 100%+ VP signs than ever in non-Coast casinos all over town.
Interesting article from Wired magazine about the developer of MultiStrike: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/vegas.html.
Amid concerns about problem gambling, the National Australia Bank will withdraw automatic teller machines (ATMs) from Australian gambling venues. On a similar note, the Nevada Gaming Commission quashed a plan to equip slot machines with debit card devices, concerned that giving people direct access to their checking accounts via gambling machines could create more problem gamblers. http://casinowire.com/news.asp?id=4886. I have problems with the “”morals-police”” concept, but I must say I do think both of these are good ideas.
One of my best long-time frugal hints is no longer valid: You can no longer combine a two-for-one coupon and your slot card points for two free meals at the Station casinos. If you now use a 2-1, you must pay cash for the other meal. I hate when good things change to bad!
But I don’t hate Station Casinos, even though I’ve written a couple of negative things about them recently. We do play there sometimes and they just recently made a change I actually like. Instead of sending out several pages of coupons that I’d spend a lot of time cutting out and arranging in order, they now have a single-page calendar on which you can easily keep track of your offers.
The Stations have another program that’s very customer-friendly for Vegas locals. If you’re going to be out of town for a while, you can have your account “”frozen”” and when you return, you can start your point-requirement play where you left off earlier.
Someone wrote on the vpFree forum: “”In determining whether you have a sufficient bankroll for a play (or, if you will, whether it’s “”logical”” to play under a set of circumstances), it’s not simply a matter of deciding how large a loss you’re prepared to absorb. It’s also a question of whether you have the stomach to take a large sudden hit and continue playing with the same confidence you formerly had. If there’s doubt about the latter question, then a player may not have nearly the bankroll at his disposal that he perceives he does.””
My comment: Same old saw. There are two separate bankroll needs — a financial one and a psychological one. A lot of people I know have an adequate former, but an inadequate latter.
An it-depends-on-perspective joke, from jtpage552, an Internet friend: A couple with twin daughters was used to strangers always coming up and saying, “”Look, twins!”” During a Las Vegas trip, they were wheeling them in their stroller through a hotel lobby when a woman came around a corner and exclaimed, “”Look, a low pair!”
9/11/2003
TITO is now king, with his conquests over the erstwhile King Coin proceeding rapidly in casinos all over the world. I’m talking about the new technological darling of casinos: Ticket-In Ticket-Out.
Personally, I consider TITO the best advance in casino technology since bill acceptors. No more long delays for hopper fills. No more filthy hands and broken nails. No more painful waits for a bathroom break because you don’t want to cash out and fill armfuls of coin cups to take to the cashier. Fewer reasons for casino employees to expect a tip for small jackpots that really aren’t a win — this frugal aspect saves us hundreds of dollars a year. What could be the downside of such a wonderful new system? I was so overwhelmed by the convenience that I didn’t think there could be any.
But I’m starting to realize that all is not perfect with this King TITO. Machines still run out of paper and there’s sometimes a long wait for an employee to answer your light when they do. Why? The casino figured it could now cut staff to the bone. There can also be long lines when you go to cash in the tickets.
Too much in a hurry to stand in line? Okay, you can cash in your ticket the next time you come back to the casino. But you put it in your billfold, then forgot it when you flew home 2,000 miles — and now you realize you won’t be back until after the ticket expiration date, which is sometimes as short as 30 days. Or you carried it around in your billfold that you sit on for hours at a time and the ink started to fade or you stuck it in a pocket of a shirt that went through the wash-and-dry cycle. Talk about unsuccessful money laundering!
But the biggest problem has only slowly been revealed to me. It started about a year ago when I forgot to cash out some credits on a machine and when I remembered and went back, the $200 or so in credits was long gone. It was “”logical”” why I forgot. I was in a hurry to meet some friends for dinner. I hit a W-2G handpay right when I was ready to quit playing, and it took extra long to get the paperwork done. Already late, I grabbed the $1,600 they handed over to me, picked up my purse, and hurried to meet Brad and our friends. The handpay seemed like the end of the session. I didn’t even think about the credits on my machine or punching out the ticket. I was disgusted with myself for being so forgetful and repeated what I do so often these days, “”It’s a bitch to get old.”” So I figured this was an isolated incident and not one about which I needed to warn players, especially younger ones.
However, Brad and I started noticing that very frequently, especially in TITO casinos, when one of us took a break from playing and left credits on an adjacent machine for the other to watch until our return, someone would come up and ask if anyone was playing that machine. This would happen even if there was a sweater on the back of the chair and coin cups on the seats. We started discussing this phenomenon and decided there must be a lot of people going around the casinos looking for abandoned machines with credits on them and it must a pretty successful form of silver mining or so many people wouldn’t waste their time doing this. (Silver mining is the term that has been used for many years to describe people who walk around casinos looking for coins people have dropped on the floor or left in the machine, either in the coin tray or as credits.)
Then, when this subject was brought up on Internet chat forums and many many posters started confessing to losing money because of forgetting to punch out their tickets — not just senior citizens or casual recreational gamblers either, but people of all ages and very knowledgeable, experienced, and frequent players — I realized that this is a huge problem.
You say you’re always very careful with your money and would never be so absent-minded as to forget to pick up any that was yours? Probably every one of us who confessed to this money
9/18/2003
This week I’m pleased to introduce a new guest writer, my friend Winnie Grand. I thought it would be interesting for gamblers to know that they’re not alone in the casino-comfort department. With luck, at least a few game manufacturers and casino managers will read this and do something about some of these problems.
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Ouch! That right elbow gave a twinge as I lifted the cup. I’d heard of tennis elbow, but since I hadn’t picked up a tennis racket since my college days, I never dreamed I would have this affliction.
In talking to my friends who tend to spend long hours at the video poker machines, I discovered that this is not an uncommon problem among casino patrons. Upon investigating this strange fact, I found that the cause of tennis elbow is the repetitive motion whereby the wrist extends upward. This occurs because the muscles attach at the elbow and can become inflamed if overused.
I tend to play a video poker machine like one would a piano — with both hands poised on the buttons. The left hand plays the left four cards and the right hand plays the right card and the deal/draw button. On many machines, this isn’t a problem, because all the buttons can be reached with a minimum of movement. However, on some machines the deal/draw button is placed up and to the right from the other buttons, leading to the repetitive up-and-down wrist movement. This problem becomes even more apparent when you play a slant top that has the buttons at an angle. On these machines, the wrist is extended upward all the time and the slightest movement will cause the use of the muscle in the wrist. Machines would be much more user-friendly if our hand could curl downward as we play, giving relief to the overuse of our extensor muscles.
I was told that the reason for the placement of the deal/draw button away from the other ones was to keep the patron from making mistakes. Yeah, right!
But button placement isn’t the only complaint about the machines we play. Others problems are just as distracting to a satisfying experience. The following are a few that I’ve heard from various casino customers:
Spotlights: We all love the slant tops for the comfort of having somewhere to place our arms and be able to play with our arms at rest. But most slant tops have a severe glare from a spotlight just overhead. Sometimes this is so bad that we’ve been known to put sticky notes on the screen to try to block the bright light. Sometimes two of these spotlights strike the same machine –making it almost impossible to play!
Cold Drafts: Chilly drafts from outside doors and air-conditioning ducts are commonoplace. In most cases, though the staff is very aware of this problem, they’re unwilling or unable to do anything about it. So what can a suffering patron do? If you know to expect this, you can bring a jacket to the casino, even in the summer. If you’re an occasional and unprepared visitor, you can flee to a warmer climate (which usually means right outside). It would be helpful if the casino staff were trained to treat this as a priority item as a comfortable temperature makes for a much happier patron — and one who remains a patron.
Large Screens: I’m primarily a video poker player, so I don’t know if the following is an issue with slot players. Probably, the game manufacturers thought they were doing us a favor by giving us larger screens so we don’t have to strain our eyes. But these large screens aren’t appropriate for the games we play. Imagine sitting right in front of your TV, only a foot away, and watching your favorite program. It wouldn’t be too enjoyable, as eight to ten feet is a much more appropriate and comfortable viewing distance. When you play video poker, you’re limited by how far you can move back by the length of your arms! Also, your peripheral vision cannot take in all of the big screens. This leads to a lot of head movement back and forth and missed plays, as the entire hand is not clear at one time
9/26/2003
I attended the Global Gaming Expo last week. It’s always fun to see all the new games, but I most enjoy reconnecting with many of my long-term friends in the gaming industry, as well as making some new acquaintances I’ve only known through e-mail contact.
The evenings (and late nights) during this convention were loaded with parties all over town, and Brad and I attended as many as our bodies held up for — we usually cried uncle after the second one each night! Our favorite, not surprisingly, was the one for gaming writers, and you can imagine what a lively party it was! Writers are never at a loss for words. I launched this get-together tradition last year, planning a party that was held at the Palms Ghostbar. This year it was sponsored by Compton Dancer Consulting and was again held “up in the air,” at the huge, 12,500-square foot (we could fit our 1,025-square-foot condo in there approximately 10 times), luxurious Conrad Villa at the top of the Las Vegas Hilton, providing a stunning view of the city. We enjoyed sitting on the lawn outside the villa, by the swimming pool.
Roaming the convention floor meant total immersion in the casino industry, from small booths for niche products to mammoth and elaborate displays by the major slot machine manufacturers to show off their newest games. Of course, I was most interested in new video poker machines I might see in the casinos during the next year, although I usually can’t judge whether they would be a good playing option for me until my math-head friends figure and write about the EV and proper strategy. Ernie Moody, my hero for developing multi-line video poker, as usual wanted to show me all his new offerings, but I never got past his first demonstration: a marriage of two of my favorite video poker loves, multi-line and Multi-Strike.
The rest of that day I spent talking to Ernie, and to Larry DeMar and all of his cohorts from Leading Edge, the company that designed Multi-Strike. They all knew that I am one of Multi-Strike’s biggest fans, so they were anxious to tell me all about what they have in mind for its future. They’re hoping to offer MS with a progressive feature and are thinking about a version of Multi-Strike that enhances the Free Ride feature. Based on suggestions sent to [email protected], they’re looking at letting you keep a Free Ride for a higher hand if it is not needed on a lower hand. Another suggestion being considered is a Free Ride that guarantees play of all four stages on one hand.
But I think the biggest hit will be this cooperative effort between Leading Edge and Action Gaming, Ernie Moody’s company, to offer MS in a multi-line format. I played the prototype game they had there in Triple and Five Play and it was super fun. Get discouraged because you don’t advance to the next line often enough in the single-line format? Okay, we’ll solve that and give you more chances to advance on one hand. Of course, more hands means a bigger initial bet — 60 coins on Triple Play and 100 coins on Five Play — and I agreed with Larry that this would probably be the most successful in penny to nickel to quarter denominations. Not many people would want to play Five Play Multi-Strike in dollars, with $100 a button push!
I just hope that casinos will put in more MS machines, in whatever format or denomination, with better than average paytables; Multi Strike is a more volatile game and it will eat up a gambling bankroll pretty quickly. If people lose their money too fast, they won’t play a game very long, no matter how much fun it is. Most players will not take the effort to learn “perfect” MS strategy, because it’s quite difficult. So the pay schedules need to be a little more forgiving, so casual players can use their limited natural intuitive video poker skill and still have a chance to make their money last as long as on other video poker variations.
Actually, Ernie talked to me about this same problem concerning his multi-line poker.