This week-end in Las Vegas, I tried my hand at roulette the first time. While I put some chips on red, my girlfriend simultaneously placed some on black.
Shaking his head at our naivete, the croupier informed us that such a bet was against casino rules.
Why would they care if we make a stupid move? It can’t be to the disadvantage of the bank, since we would eventually lose it all anyway when the resulting number is a zero or double zero.
Usually you have to bet a higher amount if you bet red or black; say, the minimum is $10 and you can scatter $1 here and there on the numbers as long as the total is $10, but if you bet red or black you have to put the whole $10 on one. I doubt the croupier cared that you and your girlfriend were betting red and black.
“Eppur, si muove!” - Galileo Galilei
Playing red and black does make a difference. Since the payout is 2-1, betting red or black gives one of you almost a 50-50 chance of winning. Since you two were together, that would mean the earnings from one of you would go directly to the another - the casino wouldn’t have a chance to make a buck. You are correct in saying you can land on 0 or 00 (which is why it’s almost a 50-50 chance), but the casino likes its odds to be much higher than the player’s.
If you two pretended that you didn’t know each other, the dealer might have let you. But you still technically wouldn’t have gotten any money from the casino (which is the goal!).
A couple of points, Melanie:
a) Suppose I bet x chips on red and my girlfriend bets an equal amount of chips on black. Then since one of us will lose and the other will win, the best we can hope for is break even, so it would be the same as if we weren’t betting at all, except that we would lose for a 0 or 00.
b) The croupier said “you can’t have chips of the same colour on red and black.” If we each had our own set of chips, then we could have bet on both colours at once.
Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.
That’s exactly right, Jacques. And that’s why you can’t make the bet. Believe it or not, the casino is trying to increase your odds of winning. (Winning on black or red does not pay 2 to one, but rather 2 for one as you say)
You are already stupid for going into a casino, but you know that. I’ll be stupid later this month when I head out to Vegas myself.
But the Vegas Casino Control people want to limit exactly how stupid you are, to keep the casinos in line and prevent them from taking more advantage of you than they already are. For this reason, a casino will often not allow you to make a bet which you have no possibility of winning. You can’t hit on 21, you can’t bet red and black simultaneously, etc.
They also give you grief if you make really stupid bets, even if you can win somehow. Try splitting tens sometime. The dealer is required to call out “Splitting Tens” and the pit boss has to come over to take a look. If you’re pretty obviously out of it, they may not take the bet. If you’re just being a wiseguy, they will. Same thing happens if you try to bet equally on “Pass” and “Don’t Pass.”
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
I realize that what I said was repeating exactly what Melanie said. Sorry! I realize that betting on both red and black means your money will be just sitting there most of the time, but I don’t understand why the casino forbids it.
Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Thank you manhattan. I guess that makes sense. I have experienced what you say myself, i.e. the casino employees don’t like you doing something stupid. I suppose it’s because they feel sorry for you or else their professional expertise is outraged. Once, feeling in a puckish mood, I decided to hit on a hard 17, and the dealer gave me a little speech on how to play blackjack.
Well, since I’m cheap and didn’t want to lose a whole lot of money, I found a casino (Imperial Palace, across the street from Cesar’s Palace) with a $2.00 roulette wheel. Maybe that explains the difference? But I think all the roulette wheels I saw had a 00, though I’m not sure.
Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Thanks, Manhattan - good job clarifying. I can’t remember if the wheels there have just one 0 or both, but I threw it in there just for fun.
Jacques, as a paranoid gambler, I believe the casino does everything to make a buck (free drinks so you have more confidence, comps so you stay at the tables longer, etc). I have a GREAT book called Guerilla Gambling - I would recommend it to anyone. I will check to see what the book says on this and get back to you tomorrow.
Funny you should mention that. That’s exactly why I’m going to Vegas. The landscape there has changed so much in the past few years that I’ve got to go there to get the lay of the land if I’m going to return to investing in it. I’ve been out of the sector since the explosion of riverboats. That worked out fairly well, since in recent years, about the only worse thing than betting in a casino has been betting on one.
If it’s any consolation, things may get a little better for the consumer, at least in the short run. There has been a lot of room-building lately, and some analysts believe that there will be a “catch-up” period where occupancies will go down. Some even think there are more rooms than the total available transportation capacity in and out of the city. If this turns out to be the case, some really good deals may pop up.
Is it the case? I have no idea. I may have a SWAG when I get back.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
As for why would the dealer give you a hard time for making a dumb bet?
I was in Reno a few years ago at a blackjack table. I was sitting between two high rollers on my left and an idiot on my right. Our cards totaled up to (from right to left) 17,14,11,10 and the dealer had a 5 showing. Guess who took my 5 and busted. I got a king and busted. Next guy gets 3 and a jack busted. Last guy gets 4 and a 8 busted.
The two guys on my left got up and left. The dealer was pissed and let the idiot know it. Then my brother-in-law, oops I mean the idiot, said why do you care who wins or loses its not your money. The dealer replied “LOSERS DON’T TIP”.
Just in case he checks this message board “just kidding” 
Ive always found it easer to get forgiveness rather than permission.
Why were you hitting a 14 against a 5? Nothing personal, but I’d have been grumpy with you as well.
-andros-
“Listen Children Eternal Father Eternally One!” Exceptions? None!
-Doc Bronner
Hold on. I just re-read the numbers. With a five showing, neither of the people to your left should have taken second cards.
Either a) the dealer didn’t have a 5 showing (no big deal), or b) the “high rollers” were not all that hot.
Sorry to pick nits. I’m a really big fan of 21.
-andros-
Here’s the straight dope on these questions:
The reason the casino doesn’t want you betting red and black at the same time simply has to do with their comp policies. A casino will sometimes give out coupons or $100 in chips, or whatever to new players as a promotion. By betting red and black at the same time, it allows you to lower your variance, which means you’ve got a better chance of keeping the money from those coupons. Look at it this way: If you take $100 and bet red only, the chance that you’ll get your $100 back is very slim. You may win a bunch or lose a bunch. If you put $50 on red and $50 on black, then you get exactly $100 back unless the wheel lands on 0 or 00, in which case you lose it all. Still, that’s only a 1/18 chance, so it’s an easy way to convert those pay-to-play coupons to cash. Of course, the whole point of the coupons from the casino’s standpoint is to hook you into playing more, so they won’t allow it.
The house still has a 5.26% advantage on your bet, since if you didn’t notice the 0 and 00 are not red or black, and if the ball lands in either one you lose both bets.
There is no combination of bets in roulette that will get you better than a 5.26% house advantage. It doesn’t matter if you bet a single number, a group of four, twelve, or red or black. In the long run, the casino gets 5.26% of all the money placed on the table. The only exception is the ‘5-way’ bet at the top of the board, which is even worse. There are no ‘hot’ numbers, or ‘cold’ numbers, or any combinations of bet amounts that change the fact that the house gets 5.26% of all the action. Roulette systems are for suckers (there are two exceptions - ‘biased’ wheels and computers. One is extremely difficult to do and the other is a felony).
In blackjack, the reason the dealer has to call out ‘Splitting tens’ is twofold - one, a sign of a card counter is someone who will split face cards when the count is high enough. If the pit is alerted when you split tens, they’ll start to watch your play. The only people who split them are card counters or idiots, and it’s pretty easy to tell which is which very quickly. If they decide you’re a card counter they’ll punt you out of the casino, refuse to let you play blackjack, or limit your bet spreads.
The other reason they call ‘splitting tens’ is because there’s a type of low-level scam that involves the player half-heartedly indicating a split, then claiming he didn’t want to if he gets a bad card. Since splitting tens is such an obviously bad move, they’ll argue that they aren’t that stupid and the dealer obviously misunderstood. In these cases the casino will usually cave in rather than make a scene, pay you off, and ask you to leave. By calling out ‘splitting tens’ they make it absolutely clear that everyone knows what is going on.
Forget about other players hurting your chances in blackjack by making stupid plays. Your expected win rate has nothing to do with how other players at the table play. Chances are, if you believe this myth your probably one of the bad players anyway, since the truly good players understand this.
There’s a possibility there might be some relation to the heat casinos get from the authorities concerning customers laundering money. You and your girlfriend might have been “smurfs” or whatever, bringing in loads of small bills from a drug business, betting red and black to run the chips through the table without losing much, and then cashing in for bigger clean bills. Your play may have fit the profile of small time money launderers.
The other thing that occurred to me is that maybe they’ve had to deal with people who thought they could get away with plopping some of the chips on or very near the line, and then trying to claim “those were on red” (or black, whichever works out in their favor) once the ball stops.
The issue isn’t whether they’ll really get away with it or not; of course they won’t… but it would be easier to deal with it preemptively by not allowing the same color of chips to be on both red and black at the same time.
Mac: Everyone at your table played their hand VERY badly. The proper plays against a dealer’s 5 showing are:
17 - Stand
14 - Stand
11 - Double
10 - Double
In fact, those are the plays for any dealer upcard from a 2 to a 6.
If you are making plays like hitting a 14 against a five, you are probably playing with something like a 3% disadvantage against the house. With perfect basic strategy play, you would normally only be playing a disadvantage of between 0% and 0.7%, depending on the game in question. If you are card counting, you can gain as much as a 2% advantage over the house.
Hey I never claimed to be good at cards. I was trying to remember the cards from about five years ago. But my point was that the dealers interest in who won or lost was what he said “Losers don’t tip.”
Ive always found it easer to get forgiveness rather than permission.
dhanson has everything correct. There are but few gamblers who know the true workings in a casino.
I can only add that casinos are not trying to rip you off unfairly. They’ll take your money sooner or later. If there’s a dispute on a matter of 5 or 10 bucks, they usually just let it go. Nickel and dime players never get any respect.
Also, dealers are on the players side, after all, it is true that losers don’t tip.
As for forbidden plays, such as red and black, perhaps it is comps, but it is generally preferable for the casino to stop dumb plays. They’d rather be seen as fair and “honest” and have you come back than cheat you so you never come back.
There’s always another beer.
Ok…I usually stay away from these types on conversations…since most people tend to believe that only their system is right. However, I want to state that I have had success when splitting 10’s…or any other face cards. I usually only split when the dealer has a low card showing…and there has been a streak of low cards before me. The odds of a higher card coming up for me is better this way. No, I’m not a card counter, but I do look at the pattern of cards that have been delt. If there have been 4 or 5 face cards delt, the odds of the next card being a face is lower. Likewise, if there have been a lot of low cards, the odds that the next one will be high increases. This system works for me…I win every time I play…true, I stick to smaller bets, but always come out ahead. Following that same logic explains why the other players at the table matter a great deal to the outcome of the game…
<i>I haven’t lost my mind, I have a tape backup around somewhere.</i>
Mac: I was in Reno a few years ago at a blackjack table. I was sitting between two high rollers on my left and an idiot on my right. Our cards totaled up to (from right to left) 17,14,11,10 and the dealer had a 5 showing. Guess who took my 5 and busted. I got a king and busted. Next guy gets 3 and a jack busted. Last guy gets 4 and a 8 busted.
The two guys on my left got up and left. The dealer was pissed and let the idiot know it. Then my brother-in-law, oops I mean the idiot, said why do you care who wins or loses its not your money. The dealer replied “LOSERS DON’T TIP”.
Granted, your idiot-in-law probably pissed them off with his play. You probably did too. But their play indicated they didn’t know what they were doing either. From the sounds of it, it sounds like they were doing the dealer’s strategy: Hit on 16 or lower, stand on 17 or higher. This sometimes pays off in the short run, because it’s approximates “ideal” play on certain point totals. But their not doubling a 10 and 11 when the dealer has a 5 is pretty stupid.
If they’d played strategy correctly after you and yours-in-law busted, they would’ve had 16 & 20 (r-l). The dealer could’ve had anything from a 7 to a 16, with 15 most probably (4/13). From a 15, more than half the cards in the shoe would’ve busted him.
If you all had played correcty and not knowing what the dealer’s hole card was, the last guy would’ve then had a 1/13 chance of losing (dealer 21), 1/13 of pushing, and 11/13 of winning (11:1:1); the other guy had 5:8 win:loss possible; you had 5:8 too; b-i-l had 5:1:7 win:push:loss.
Remember: the strategy is not to get as close to 21 without going over; it’s to make the dealer bust.