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Written by Administrator
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Monday, 21 July 2008 |
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Gambling remains the bedrock of the Las Vegas experience. At most recent count, 28 other US states had joined Nevada in offering commercial casinos, and all except two had legalized some form of gambling, but thanks to its colossal volume of business, Las Vegas still does it better than the rest. Ninety percent of visitors to the city gamble, with an average budget of $500, and in the end everything else is just frippery; it's the gambling that makes every flourish possible. The shows and restaurants, tigers and volcanoes - no matter how profitable any might be - are all just designed to make you stick around longer and spend more money on the slots and tables.
While the casinos these days prefer to talk about "gaming" rather than gambling, no one plays for fun alone. It's the gut-wrenching excitement of staking your own hard cash in pursuit of a fortune that keeps the tension at fever pitch. Most visitors have their own preferred form of gambling, with the three main choices being table games such as blackjack or craps, played in the public gaze and surrounded by glamorous trimmings; slot machines , a more private pleasure in which the potential winnings are enormous, and you're spared the fear of not seeming au fait with the rules; and sports betting , with its hyped-up atmosphere and scope for proving that you know more than the bookies.
The fact that the gambling industry is still booming is a credit to the casinos' ability to change with the times. During the first few decades of Las Vegas's supremacy, the typical gambler was male and likely to be familiar with a wide range of card games thanks to years spent in military service. Slots and other machines, however, overtook the tables from 1983 onwards, and they now generate around 65 percent of Nevada's gaming revenue. In the face of the large proportion of modern visitors who see casino games as complicated and intimidating, the casinos are desperate to make gambling as easy, user-friendly and innocuous as possible. All offer free lessons, instructional videos on their in-room TVs, and the like. On the surface, those well-dressed and welcoming dealers make things seem democratic and casual, but all that deference serves in fact to make anyone who sits down at the tables feel like part of an exclusive and sophisticated elite.
Despite Las Vegas's reputation as a stronghold of crime , there's no suggestion that gamblers themselves are being cheated. The casinos don't need to cheat; they know they're certain to make money. Yes, the occasional high-roller can seriously damage the corporate balance sheet - thus Australian TV magnate Kerry Packer once won twenty consecutive hands of baccarat in twenty minutes at the Mirage , at $250,000 per hand. Overall, however, the odds are stacked in the casinos' favor. In the case of table games, each has some combination of a quantifiable "house edge" incorporated into its rules, or a set way of skimming the top off players' winnings. With slots, it's even more straightforward - they're simply programmed to pay out less than they take in, though only the casinos themselves know just how much less.
The average slot machine on the Strip generates $125 profit per day; each table game makes an average of almost $2000.
Gambling is of course supremely addictive , and Las Vegas not surprisingly has a higher percentage of problem gamblers than any other city in the world. The generally accepted advice for visitors who want to experience the thrill while minimizing the risk is never to gamble more than you're prepared to lose. In addition, if you want to play for any length of time, don't bet more than around one-fiftieth of your total budget at any one moment. Thus if you've set aside $250 with which to gamble, it makes sense to play $5 slot machines, or bet with $5 roulette chips; if you've got $50, play with $1 stakes. Remember that even if the house edge on your chosen game is as low as two percent, that doesn't mean you'll lose two percent of your money and walk away with the remaining 98 percent. It means that if you play long enough, you'll almost certainly lose it all.
As for where to gamble , that really depends on how you see gambling. If you think it's all about fun and glamour, then the Strip is the place to be, though the high minimum stakes at the largest casinos can mean you'll lose your money uncomfortably fast. If you feel that an authentic gambling hall should be gritty, grimy, and peopled by hard-bitten "characters," you may be happier downtown . If you see betting as a business, and want as much bang for your buck as possible, head instead for a locals casino , and especially the members of the Stations chain, which tend to offer more generous odds at video poker and the like.
For the moment, all gambling has to take place in public. Even though the top casinos try to give the impression of setting exclusive areas aside for high rollers, anyone is entitled to stroll in and watch. Insiders predict an imminent change in the law, however, to allow private gambling rooms or separate "clubs" within public casinos; the London Club in the Aladdin appears poised to lead the way.
TABLE GAMES
Casino "games" are not really games in the same sense as the games you might enjoy at home, where each player has the same chance of winning. They're carefully structured business propositions, in which the casinos know that over time they are certain to end up ahead.
Most casino games have a built-in " house edge ." Imagine taking turns tossing a coin with a friend. If you call it correctly, he gives you $1, while if he calls it correctly you give him $1. Now imagine that he suggests a change in the rules; you still have to give him $1 when he's right, but from now on he'll only pay you 95¢. It's still possible that if you play for a few minutes, you may have a run of luck and win lots of 95¢ pay-outs. If you play all day, however, you're going to lose; if he can persuade millions of others to join in and play all day, every day, he's going to get very rich, very quickly. Thus, for example, the roulette table in most Las Vegas casinos holds 38 squares, numbered 1 to 36 plus "0" and "00." If you bet $1 on the correct number, the casino should in theory recognize that you had a 1-in-38 chance of being right, and pay you $38 (including your original $1 stake). Instead, they pay $36, or 94.74 percent; the $2 they hold back works out at 5.26 percent of the total, and that's the "house edge."
All Las Vegas casinos continue to ply gamblers, at both the slot machines and the gaming tables, with free drinks - just be sure to tip the waitress.
In addition to the edge, the casino also knows that most people don't bet at the best odds. It's too boring only to bet on one number for each spin of the roulette wheel, so you may well place a $1 chip on each of three numbers. Only one can possibly be correct, however, so even if you do win the casino grabs back another $2 in the process. According to casino insiders, the rate at which gamblers actually lose their money playing roulette amounts to thirty percent per spin of the wheel.
In any case, different people gamble for different reasons. Devotees of blackjack argue that the house edge is much lower than on other games, and that with enough cool calculation it's even possible to come out ahead. Others are far more drawn to the possibility of a quick big win playing craps and roulette, and say that it's about luck, not arithmetic
SLOT MACHINES
Well over a century since the first "one-armed bandits" appeared in the saloons of San Francisco, slot machines are more popular than ever. Thanks to glitzy new technology and highly competitive odds - not to mention some truly huge jackpots - the casinos have largely dispelled the old image of slot arcades as joyless places where tight-lipped seniors pump bucketfuls of small change into unresponsive machines. These days, even casinos like the Mirage make twice as much money on slots as they do on the tables, and slot-players are no longer second-class citizens.
Traditionally, the house advantage on slot machines used to be around twenty percent, which is to say that for every dollar you gambled, you might win back eighty cents, while the operator kept the other twenty. Those would now be regarded as "tight" odds, as casinos vie to offer "looser" machines - promoted with slogans such as "99% SLOTS GUARANTEED!" - where the house advantage is as little as five or even one percent. The main reason they can do that is that gamblers these days are prepared to invest much higher stakes, staking $1 or $5 a time rather than the old standard of 25¢. So long as each time you spin the reels, the casino can expect to win 5¢, they're equally happy to achieve that with quarter slots that pay 80 percent, dollar slots that pay 95 percent, or $5 slots set at 99 percent.
Modern, computerized slot machines are far more sophisticated than their mechanical forebears. Most still contain giant wheels decorated with different symbols - customers have proved suspicious of machines that just show pictures of those symbols on video screens - but, contrary to appearances, the reels don't simply spin until they stop. Instead, a micro-chip inside each machine generates an unending stream of random numbers. Whenever you set the reels spinning, the current number determines where they will stop. Just because you hit a combination that looks close to a jackpot doesn't mean that you nearly hit the jackpot, and no sequence of combinations, or lack of winners, can ever indicate that a machine is "ready" to hit.
All kinds of new machines are constantly appearing, targeted at different consumers. There are machines that play Elvis or Sinatra tunes, or mimic board games like Scrabble or Monopoly , or pay homage to favorite TV shows and movies. Thus the I Love Lucy machines, which release a delicious chocolate smell when players hit a bonus round, tend to be positioned to catch the eye of senior gamblers, while the raucous Austin Powers models are found in the hipper, youth-oriented joints.
To play the slots, you must be over 21 and have the ID to prove it; underage winners are not paid off. US citizens must pay tax on wins of $1200 or more.
Beneath all the surface glitter, there are basically two different types of slot machine. " Non-progressive " machines have fixed paybacks for every winning combination, and in principle pay lower prizes, more frequently. " Progressive " ones, such as Megabucks or Quartermania , are linked into networks of several similar machines, potentially covering the entire state of Nevada. The longer it takes before someone, somewhere hits the jackpot, the higher that jackpot will be - digital displays show mounting totals that can run into millions of dollars.
All the major casinos operate slot clubs , which keep track of how much you gamble and reward you with points redeemable for discounts and upgrades, show tickets, or even cash. The value is never that high - at the MGM Grand , for example, inserting $2000 into the slots entitles you to $12.50 cash back - but it costs nothing to join, so if you plan to gamble for any length of time you might as well.
As for where to play , the slots are "loosest" (which is good) downtown, and anywhere locals play regularly, and notoriously "tight" at places such as the airport or supermarkets, where most customers are just passing through. Strip options range from the Riviera , "where the nickel is king" and you can play for days on end, to the $500 machines in the marble-walled High Limits room at Bellagio .
SPORTS BETTING
Although Nevada is the only state in the country where it's legal to place bets on the outcome of sporting events, large-scale sports betting is a relatively recent addition to the Las Vegas scene. The first casino to open what's called a " Sports Book " was the Plaza in 1975, and they've only become widespread since changes in federal taxation in the mid-1980s. Now, almost every casino has one, and in most instances it's a "Race and Sports Book," where you can bet on horse-racing as well.
You might imagine that where you do your sports betting would depend on which casino offered the best odds. In fact, although odds do change minute by minute, almost all are set centrally, and there's little variation between individual casinos. On top of that, mobile phones and recording devices are banned by Nevada law from all Sports Books, so the only way to compare odds is to trudge from one casino to the next.
The choice instead centers on what sort of atmosphere you prefer. There, the range is enormous. Some Sports Books are high-tech extravaganzas, their walls taken up by vast electronic scoreboards interspersed with massive TV screens; during major sporting occasions, they're basically sports bars, filled by shrieking crowds. Prime examples include those at Caesars Palace , the Stardust (which you can enter via a doorway direct from the Strip), Mandalay Bay (which boasts the biggest screen in town), the Rio , and the Las Vegas Hilton .
Others opt instead for a hushed, reverential ambience, giving each gambler a personal TV monitor to watch their event of choice, and hand-writing the odds with marker pens on white boards. The Race Book at the Imperial Palace is an especially irresistible example, rising in tiers above the Strip entrance. There are also those that resemble elegant gentlemen's clubs, like the one at Bellagio with its massive padded leatherette armchairs.
Still others, especially at the locals casinos in outlying neighborhoods, seem like throwbacks to the Victorian era, modeled perhaps on schoolrooms or offices. Rows of gamblers sit at long workbenches, studying poorly printed tip sheets and form books as they await the news from far-off racetracks with names like Gulfstream, Laurel, and Aqueduct.
As for what you can bet on, the options are nearly limitless; not only can you wager on who will win pretty much any conceivable game, fight, or race, you can make more specialized bets, like predicting the combined points total in a game (referred to as the "over-under").
One thing all the Sports Books have in common is the provision of free alcohol to gamblers; there's usually a snack bar close to hand as well. |
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Gambling 
