Blackjack betting takes a second. Slide chips over, maybe break chips if necessary. Slight break for insurance bets. Most of the time spent is players considering their move, and sure, new players likely take longer.
It’s usually okay to spectate at a table, even better if you know the person you are watching. Just don’t use a cell phone at or near a table too much, you can turn away if you need to respond to a quick text but leave if you need to stay on it.
It’s not a given that blackjack is faster than craps or vice versa. Firstly, if you’re playing craps for minimum losses, you’re just betting the pass or don’t pass line. So you don’t win or lose every roll, you win or lose when the point is hit. That can take a number of rolls which can easily exceed the length of a blackjack hand. As mentioned, blackjack also depends on how many players and how fast they are. If you’re sitting alone at a blackjack table you can rack up quite a fast betting rate. If you’re operating at a full craps table playing the pass line, you might have a minute or two between each bet. It’s situational.
There are bets that you’d bet every single roll in craps, but you don’t want to take those.
This was referred to above but not really explained, too. In craps, there are “odds” bets that pay out true odds - no house edge. But you have to bet the pass line or don’t pass line in order to be able to make those odds bets. The house edge on the pass line is about 1.41%.
You’ll see things like “3 4 5x odds” or “10x odds” - this is referring to the amount of times your original bet you can make the size of your odds bet. So if the table minimum is $5, and it’s a 10x odds tables, you can be $5 on the pass line (1.41% house edge) and up to $50 on the odds bet (0 percent house edge, a true gamble).
Now - whether that’s a better bet depends on what you’re trying to accomplished. In this (relatively player friendly) scenario you’re going to be paying 7 cents ($5 * .00141) on every pass bet, which can last several rolls. The $50 bet is basically just along for the ride. But if you wanted to gamble $55 - if that’s entertaining to you - you’re essentially paying 7 cents to bet $55 which is a miniscule house edge on the total bet.
The actual expected value doesn’t change. You’re losing 7 cents per bet either way. It’s just… do you prefer to risk more money at no house edge? If not, just bet the $5 pass line and collect your free drinks. If you do, you can’t do better at the casino than playing the odds.
Now - $5 min/10x odds is an unusually good table. Depends on where you go and the particular limits and rules of their craps tables. That is actually available in some places, most casinos are going to offer you fewer than 10x odds. 3x4x5x is common which restricts the odds bet amount based on the point number and how likely it is to hit. It’s a bit of a sneaky way to offer lower odds that sound better than they are, but the concept is the same. Sometimes you’ll even see places that offer 50x or 100x odds bets.
Of course, implicit in any discussion of going to a casino is the notion that you find risk entertaining. If you do, then going to a casino is, effectively, paying for that entertainment. If, by contrast, you don’t find risk entertaining, then the clear best bet is to not go to the casino at all.
So if you’re at the casino, and thus implicitly find risk to be entertaining, then you might as well get some free entertainment from the odds bets.
[Moderating]
Oh, and this thread is a factual question about gambling. It could go in either FQ or the Game Room, but since it started here, I’ll just leave it here.
Casinos and lotteries are for people that are bad at math.
Isn’t that kind of like saying shooting heroin is for people bad at medicine?
Eh.
Movies are for people that are bad at math. They charge admission to get in when other forms of entertainment are free.
Gambling is entertainment. Attending professionally-provided entertainment in commercial venues costs money. Now there’s a surprise. Not.
This is absolutely true.
On the other hand you could say movie theaters are for people with minimal patience.
Which is why on the rare occasion I do gamble I prefer electronic blackjack. Don’t need no neophyte hitting on 19 and taking a card I would have gotten next. Plus I can play at any speed I want and am not at the mercy of anyone.
I haven’t seen those. I have, however, played craps at a crowded table, with people that bet on odds, hard way bets, yo eleven, etc., after every throw of the dice that isn’t a seven. And of course the dealers then have to pay out / take down each of those winning or losing bets after every such throw. That slows the game down significantly.
For whatever it’s worth, and since it hasn’t been mentioned in this thread, there’s this belief going around the gambling-osphere that one can learn to manipulate throwing the dice in such a way that will guarantee you the roll you want. I think it’s all crap (pun kind of intended) - no human has that kind of muscle control, and the back wall of the board negates any [whatever] you put on the dice when you tossed them. And the math says it’s all shit, too.
And aren’t you glad that they saved you from that card that would have busted you?
Eh, it’s better than a lot of gambling fallacies, in that it’s at least theoretically possible (even if, in practice, no human is good enough at it to overcome the house edge). And on a similar note, humans can, with computer assistance, predict a roulette spin quickly enough and accurately enough to make positive-expectation bets. Doing so with computer assistance is a crime, and will get you not just kicked out of the casino but jailed, but it’s at least conceivable that some might be able to do it without computer assistance.
You are banned from any betting establishment if you constantly win
If you find losing money is entertaining then you are correct. With casinos and lotteries the math insures that the house wins. If gambling is a form of entertainment that you enjoy then find a poker game where the odds aren’t fixed against you. The movies don’t insure that you will hate it (try as they might).
Unless you’re very skilled you’ll lose money at poker much faster than best strategy at BJ, craps, baccarat, roulette or slots due to the rake still making the table -EV and the sharks who will feast on any non-experts.
No. They took the 9 that would have given me 21
Next card (that I got thanks to newbie) was a 4 for a lousy hand.
Neither a newbie nor an expert know in advance what card you are going to get, nor do you yourself. Even if they were counting cards or something, they would play to make it likely, as far as possible, that they get a good hand, not you. It is not obvious, off the top of my head, whether an expert or a newbie would be more likely to use up your “good” cards, or even if it can rise up to the level of measurable difference under any circumstances.
You didn’t read the part where they hit on a 19 did you? This is stupid shit people who don’t know how to play do, and it most certainly does affect those who do.
You got me on a rant about something I almost never do. Happy? 
Yes it’s annoying when somebody misplays and it costs you. So annoying you’re more likely to notice and remember it. However their misplay has exactly the same chance of helping you or hurting you, however bad a play it is for them.
You are demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of chance.
mmm