What's your (gambling) game of choice?

The Game Room
21

We need a rule clarification from OP:

Suppose you bet $10 on Red and Red it is; the croupier hands you $20 total. Does (a) the entire $20 go in your left pocket, or (b) just $10 goes in the left pocket with your $10 bet staying on the table or in your right pocket?

For this post I’ll assume the easy case (a). Case (b) is more interesting and I may consider it in a follow-up.

It sounds like OP does NOT want to consider enjoyment (e.g. deliberately prolonging the action for fun), and only wants to maximize the expectation of left pocket. As Chronos implies, the expectation will be precisely $1000 minus the house vig, or $947 in the case of roulette. (That $947 is achieved most easily by simply betting all at once $26.31 on each of 38 numbers.)

In the 20th century you could expect $995 (or more depending on rules) playing Blackjack, even without counting cards provided that you used proper strategy. (I’m not sure about now. Are all the casinos now using less favorable rules?)

Perhaps more interesting than the mean amount that ends up in your pocket, is the variance of your winnings! To maximize variance at roulette, bet the entire $1000 on Number 18[sup]*[/sup] — you’ll have a 2.632% chance of walking away with $36,000.

    • “Today’s my birthday. I’m not a prime anymore.”
22

Except that most casinos won’t let you do that. They’ll assume that it’s some sort of money-laundering scheme (which, in the scenario under discussion, it actually would be).

And in real life, when people walk into a casino with $1000 and walk out with $500 or $250, it’s because the casino convinced them to (metaphorically) bet money out of their left pocket. Every time you take money out of a pocket, you lose a few percent of it, so the casino wants you to take money out of your pocket as much as possible.

23

Give me table poker, by which I mean it’s just me and some people versus the dealer.

I can probably fill my left pocket with a good 800-900 dollars. I am conservative when it comes to the iffy hands and bet hard on the ones I figure will do well. I’ll be positive in the long run.

24

Is it the Walley World Hotel and Casino? If so, I’m going to go find the “Rock, Paper, Scissors” guy…

25

Definitely craps, not only because the odds are good, but also because it is the most fun. I’m a pretty low stakes/conservative guy - I couldn’t imagine going through $1k in under several hours. Someone upthread said $700 to $2k - I think that’s a pretty good prediction.

It is weird to think about putting ALL winnings in the bank. On rare occasion, if I have a really good stretch, I’ll put away some amount of my winnings. But otherwise, the nut generally stays on the table in front of me, growing and shrinking.

26

I tend to drink heavily and do silly things when I gamble. This is why I don’t do it very often now that I’m a semi-responsible married man and all.

27

Video Poker, and I would expect to have $800 out of the original $1000, mainly because I don’t expect to get a Royal Flush (which itself pays $1000 at the $1.25/hand level I usually play).

28

Hookers. I have neither the patience, concentration, nor stomach for gambling, and sitting for hours playing cards doesn’t sound appealing to me. Whereas spending $1,000 on an escort would at least get me an experience I’d enjoy.

So where does the gambling come in? She might be a cop.

29

I forgot to answer the second part of the question about my session in the sports book. A. $500.
I’m a terrible prognosticator.

30

I would play one of three games: blackjack (basic strategy), craps (with some odds, but not necessarily maximum), or baccarat.

I prefer blackjack for the simple reason that you have to make choices. It doesn’t matter that the “choices” are all pre-programmed in “basic strategy”, because 1) you can always deviate on a whim, 2) regardless, you have to involve your brain and your hands, and 3) Hi, Opal! Also, blackjack tables can be nice, sociable places to interact with other gamblers, and the pace is fun.

Craps is where I would play if the goal was excitement and entertainment. I can’t think of anyplace in the casino more fun than a craps table at night on a Friday or Saturday. I recently had the chance to watch a table at the Harrah’s in Cherokee, NC, and this one guy was making pass after pass after pass. In the time I watched him, he made six passes, plus twice was a winner on the come out roll. Sadly for him, he was betting the wrong way, but everyone else at the table was loving him.

The trouble with craps is that, if you reduce your bets to pass/come or don’t pass/don’t come (with odds) the game moves way too slowly, and your involvement level goes down. But, if you are placing numbers, etc., you chew through money very quickly (thus, the reason I wouldn’t necessarily take the full amount of “free odds” allowed). But you have to admit, tossing dice is fun!

Baccarat is where I would go if I wanted to s-t-r-e-e-e-e-e-t-c-h out the time playing. You can play that game forever, even if all you do is chunk up the initial stake into pieces and play until those chunks are gone. I would probably prefer to play chemin-de-fer, for the reason that you get to make choices, but I’ve never see it played in an American casino.

I avoid roulette like the plague, because the vig is too high. The vig on the other three is relatively similar. I avoid playing all these new-fangled games because I have no idea what the vig is, but I expect it’s higher than the three I do like to play. I don’t play poker because I have nothing even resembling a poker face.

Sadly, I stopped doing any serious gambling several years ago, when I educated myself enough about what was involved mathematically. When I realized that it was when I WON that I lost, the fun kinda left the game.