Why aren't skill-based games (3 pointer shots, etc.) in casinos more common

The Game Room
1

I had read an article a few years back about how some casinos were considering implementing skill-based money games (such as “Make 10 three-point basketball shots within 60 seconds and you win X amount of money” or “throw ten pitches into the strike zone within sixty seconds”) and it seemed such a clear obvious idea that I wondered why it hadn’t caught on earlier or more often.

I’m not sure if there are any casinos that actually do in fact do such games. But it would be more appealing to the general public (have less of a stigma associated with gambling since it’s actually about skill and not really luck.)

Is the casino’s concern that a Steph Curry-like person could come by and simply drain them of money by making such shots consistently? Anyone who is that good at that particular skill probably has better things to do with their time than to spend it shooting three-pointers at Vegas.

2

I think you fail to understand what a casino is.

3

You are describing carnival games, except with games that are not nearly impossible to win. Neither casinos nor carnivals would be interested in those odds.

4

Yeah, those are not the sort of skill-based games casinos are interested in.

5

Right. But I had been thinking that the casino, with its resources, could afford to stake it on a much bigger scale. Something like “make 50 consecutive shots and you win $20,000.”

But yes, I can see why they wouldn’t want to enact such games.

6

I don’t think that casinos are really worried about attracting the people who don’t approve of gambling, as well as the fact that they also aren’t particularly interested in running games which are strongly driven by skill, rather than luck/randomness.

It’s true that the big casinos have a lot of financial resources. I would also suspect that they have run cost/benefit analyses on pretty much every possible attraction/game/contest/competition that they could offer, and that those sorts of skill-based games simply don’t meet the same profit levels as the things that they do offer, as well as not attracting enough people who wouldn’t be at the casinos anyway.

7

Carnivals offer “skill”-based games because the games are rigged to be nearly impossible, and the prizes even if you do win are worth less than the cost of the attempt. Great work, if you can get it.

Casinos, however, are highly regulated, and probably wouldn’t be allowed to rip off the customers quite that blatantly.

8

How much would you pay for that opportunity? I assume your odds of winning the lottery are better.

9

The casino does not gamble, it takes a cut of other people gambling. Betting on a game of skill is something players would do against each other with the casino taking a cut, like poker. You wouldn’t play it directly against the casino.

Although, I guess, arguably, there is skill involved in playing blackjack, and you get to play that directly against the house.

10

Even at the best tables the House still has an advantage. Barring card-counting, which can get you walked, there isn’t any game in a casino played against the House that gives you any kind of reasonable advantage. Not as a casual player. You might take a bunch of conventioneers at the Texas Hold’em tables, but the House still takes its rake.

11

There’s skill involved in craps too in that there’s a way to play where the casino fucks you less but you’re still going to get fucked.

12

Right. A friend who was a carny says that all carnival games are beatable, but it’s very difficult to do so. That’s by design. After all, most people don’t play Ring Toss, Spot-the-Spot, or Shoot-the-Star when the carnival isn’t in town, and they do not practice those games when the carnival isn’t.

He mentioned that his carnival had a prize supplier, who sold prizes on an economy of scale. One teddy bear from the supplier might cost $10, but 500 teddy bears would cost $500. A thousand teddy bears (which is what his carnival typically ordered) might end up costing $0.50 each. So when you win that teddy bear for your girlfriend, you’ve spent $10 doing so, and the carnival has profited by $9.50.

Yeah, but depending on your wagers, the crap table can have as low as a 0.8% house advantage. The key is only playing the “street game”—that is, the Pass or Don’t Pass lines, or the Come or Don’t Come lines, and playing odds in all cases.

Ignore the rest of the table’s layout: the Any Sevens, the Hardways, the Big 6 and 8, the Field, the Horns, and the rest. No matter how tempting their odds look, you can be sure that the casino is not paying off true mathematical odds on those wagers.

More to the OP, games of skill take time. At the carnival, you have as much time as you want to play. Three basketballs, and you have to sink one? Cover the spot with these discs? Take five minutes if you want; that’s fine.

But traditional casino games go much faster. A blackjack table might play a game a minute, even with six or seven players at the table. A roulette wheel might play a game a minute. A crap table can have up to six rolls a minute. The casino wants a decision fast, and that’s not what skill-based carnival games offer.

13

This is the key. What profit per hour are they getting for the floor space?

14

I think it’s also relevant that in the long run, the casino’s profits from games of chance are predictable. Whereas with games of skill, I suspect the variance is more. Sure, they’ll make some money from people who just want to have a go, for fun, and will fail. But they might also lose a lot if someone who is an expert turns up and wins.

15

In Pennsylvania people have taken advantage of the wording of the law to place gambling machines in gas stations and such, because they are set up as “games of skill”.

I’ve never played one, but apparently you have to do a puzzle, which then allows you to spin a wheel?

[https://paskill.com/](https://Pennsylvania games of skill)

In 2014, Pace-O-Matic introduced its Pennsylvania Skill game into Pennsylvania by providing a game terminal to the Pennsylvania State Police for evaluation and confirmation that it was a legal game of skill. It was subsequently agreed to submit the game to a Pennsylvania Court to determine the legality of the game. After reviewing the Pennsylvania Skill game, the Court of Common Pleas of Beaver County ruled that it is a legal game of predominant skill under Pennsylvania law.

16

That was my thought too. A casino could have hundreds of slot machines in the space needed for a half basketball court that could only be used by one person at a time.

17

That still means that, given enough time, you are giving all your money to the casino.

18

If the internet has taught me anything, for any skill out there, however niche, lots of people will figure out how to get insanely good at it. Weird, obscure little games have speedrunning communities that have reduced the play time to 1% of the original record. I bet every carny has seen people who can literally won every game of a specific type, because foe what ever reason, they grinded it until they perfected it. People just like to master things.

People dont clear out carnival games because who wants 10000 cheap plush poop emojis. Real money on the line? No way.

19

Though, this does sound like a subplot for a new Ocean’s 11 sequel.

“Danny, why do we need 10,000 cheap plush poop emojis?” “Ohhh, no reason…”

20

And there’s also not really much skill needed to play (non-counting) basic strategy, given that the casinos will give you a quick reference card on what to do, and the dealer will usually even advise you if you ask nicely.

Nobody asked me, but it seems to me the key question is, if you can always successfully solve the puzzle, is the game then positive expectation? If so, then it’s a game of skill, but I highly doubt that that’s the case.