Anybody else remember the great fight between Merv Griffin and Trump over the crappy building Merv was fool enough to buy from Trump?
That was fun - he finally found the build quality AFTER buying it.
This is absolute bullshit. The casinos know exactly how much the slot machines pay out at all times. They run constant reports and audit the machines daily.
Additionally, these days casinos are doing server based gaming where a sever up in some sever room does all the actual work.
How do I know this? I was a network admin for a casino for 5 years. I designed and configured the network for the first server based gaming trial in Vegas. I installed the servers and did a walk through with the gaming board and filled out all the damned paperwork.
Hell, even Podunk little casinos are doing SBG. It is easier to monitor, audit and change the games.
Additionally, unless you are playing on a reservation*, the casinos don’t change the odds on the fly. The gaming boards would have the casino shut down and the responsible party arrested. The gaming boards do not fuck around. The P.A. gaming lincense application I had to fill out required 20 years of background data. Where you lived, jobs, arrests, everything. I was trying to put together addresses from when I was 17. Hell, when we did the SBG trial, one of the inspectors wanted to check the network cables to ensure they weren’t tampered with.
If you go into a state licensed casino I guarantee that the games are straight and you will, over the long term, lose if you play the house.
Slee
- Indian gaming does not have the same oversite that state allowed gaming does. They used to do a lot of things that Vegas casinos could not do. Not sure if they still do that kind of stuff or.not.
Having recently, in some other thread, been well and truly whooshed for all to see, I am happy to welcome you to huddle next to me in my Corner of Shame. Fortunately there is a snack machine and a change-making machine nearby, so we won’t starve.
To the OP.
Well you have to admit its kind of an odd niche that most people, including me, know little about. Its not like your a plumber or a 3rd grade teacher.
You nailed it-these casinos are just wealth extraction machines-with a defined life and built cheap. I see a general collapse for them, when all states have them-why drive to another location, when you can lose your money close to home?
One would have to be pretty ass-hattedly stupid to not know the EV/bet of a machine before putting it on the damn floor.
Any other game, like video poker or whatever, they can just go to Wizard of Odds, who’ll have it figured out and online in a day.
[QUOTE=ralph124c]
I see a general collapse for them, when all states have them-why drive to another location, when you can lose your money close to home?
[/QUOTE]
Your first part is right but the second is not.
You’re absolutely right in that all states have them or soon will and three’s a ceiling on what they can get out of them because casinos have become a prisoner’s dilemma.
I’ve been going on business trips to the State of Ohio for many years but it was only about 6 years ago, IIRC, that Ohio got full blown casinos - four really nice new ones in Cincinnati and Cleveland (Horseshoe properties) and Toledo and Columbus (Hollywood.) Why did they decide then to build casinos? Well, because all their neighbors had them, so Ohio gamblers were crossing over into Michigan, Pennsylvania et al. and giving their gambling money to those states’ coffers. Ohio had little choice but to get back the gamblers who were going to Detroit. Detroit, of course, built casinos at least partially in response to the fact Ontario built a casino across the river in Windsor and was sucking up revenue from Michigan gamblers, and so on and so forth.
As to there being a crash, no, there won’t. There is a very dependable long term gambling revenue flow. A large percentage of existing revenue - some say as high as a quarter - is from gambling addicts, of which there is a neverending supply, and casual gamers and old people will always show up. There will be fits and starts and some places will have to close this casino or that or change their strategy. One casino might be blown out of the water by the state across the rover building a huger, prettier casino. However, casinos, like state lotteries, are here to stay, because the biggest gambling addict is now the government, and they’ll always have customers.
I think a view of the future (in a casino-ized America) is afforded by the case of Atlantic City. When gambling was legalized, developers threw up immense, chintzy casinos (like the Trump place-a real dump). Everything in it was cheap-the carpets were worn out 10 years ago. Every nickel was drained out of these places, and now almost half of the casinos are closed or bankrupt. there simply was no place for so many gambling places in this old resort town. Now, Massachusetts will have 4 casinos-and what do you suppose that will do to Foxwoods, Mohegan sun (CT.), and Twin Rivers (RI)? Young people do their gambling on-line; better odds, and no taxes taken out. The casinos will be filled with old people, playing the nickel slot and eating at the cheap buffets.
Hey! Those buffets aren’t so cheap! And we “old people” can be right sprightly when the crab legs are put out…
Those are the fresh rolls, you don’t get two! I will cut you, old man!
You old people are welcome to all the sea cockroaches they have but the corn and bacon is for us youngins.
Interesting - all the professional poker tournaments I’ve watched have been Texas Hold’em.
Update!
I have been kicked out of three casinos within the last month, for appearing suspicious and annoying other customers. WTF?
I like to watch people dump money into slot machines, making the progressives go high. When they leave I’m usually lucky enough to snag a progressive. The small ones that pop off several times a day, not the big five figure ones. Apparently, that really pisses people off. 
And I was accused of card counting.
This is making it harder for me to play poker now. 
I can believe this.
I don’t quite believe this.
Now this I totally believe.
All states do not have casinos by the way.
Vermont where i used to live does not and Utah where i live now does not and neither look to be getting any, any time soon.
Just in time, we’ve all been waiting with baited breath to not hear from you.
No you haven’t.
More bullshit. No one is walking away from a progressive about to burst, and even if they do, they aren’t standing around watching you pull the one armed bandit right after they leave and then reporting you to security. That story doesn’t add up.
Trust me, when is comes to being about to count anything, I will step in and testify as to your innocence.
I was wondering why all the worlds best poker players were throwing a party. They can finally win a hand or two now.
You’re the dumbest motherfucker we’ve had around these parts in years. When you enter a conversation it’s like you’re bringing a picoliter of watery piss to a shit fight at a sewage treatment plant. Reading your posts is like having the psychic equivalent of a railroad spike jammed directly into one’s cerebral cortex by a greased up half-ape half-man named Trongo who has a mains-powered hammer drill and an axe to grind because some mouthbreathing plopper scored his proggy pot.
You’re so dumb you probably sold your car for gas money.
The next time you’re in a casino (once you’re done cashing your welfare check) I sincerely hope that the pit boss watches your dumbass split tens all night – because you have a system which totally works at that $2 6/5 CSM table behind the Arby’s – and then laughs in your face when he kicks your ass to the curb because you keep complaining about the how the 60-year-old smokestack pumping you full of watered-down bottomshelf gin won’t show more boob.
That was beautiful Friedo.
Like poetry, Friedo.
Curious, how much does one have to spend and/or gamble before they get a free room?
A slot machine is not a spectator sport. It’s not unbelievable that someone thought the stranger watching them might be a mugger waiting for someone to win so he could rob them when they left.