Gambling in Vegas

[JEDI]

1) poker has best odds if u are a good poker player. if not, dont play. Read "Low Limit Hold'em" by Lee Jones. Then after you fully understand that, read "Small Stakes Hold'em" by Ed Miller. (Do NOT read Ed's book till you understand Lee's. Ed's book is not for beginners.)

2) video poker has next best odds. FPDW (Full pay deuces wild) variety pays 100.7%. The player actually has a .7% edge with perfect strategy. You can find FPDW at Sam's Town which is a couple of miles east of the Strip. (I don't think there are any left on the strip.)

3) Craps is next. Best strategy-> 3 bets:
passline/odds
come line/odds
come line/odds

Pick casinos with at least 3x/4x/5x odds. If not, then you're better off playing blackjack.

Bring 10x the amount of $ you plan to risk.

ie: $2 passline, 5x odds = $12
$2 come/5x odds = $12
$2 come/5x odds = $12

$36 x 10 = get $360 in chips before you start playing

4) Blackjack- Avoid places that only pay 6:5 instead of 3:2 on blackjack

5) if you want a mindless game, play bacarat. ALWAYS bet on the banker (dealer). There's no decision to be made by you. The dealer will make all the decisions based on a set of rules. The rules should be the same in every casino.

It has a low house edge if you bet on the dealer. MUCH better than playing other mindless games like slots.

 

[AUMM]

Originally posted by: JEDI
1) poker has best odds if u are a good poker player. if not, dont play. Read "Low Limit Hold'em" by Lee Jones. Then after you fully understand that, read "Small Stakes Hold'em" by Ed Miller. (Do NOT read Ed's book till you understand Lee's. Ed's book is not for beginners.)

2) video poker has next best odds. FPDW (Full pay deuces wild) variety pays 100.7%. The player actually has a .7% edge with perfect strategy. You can find FPDW at Sam's Town which is a couple of miles east of the Strip. (I don't think there are any left on the strip.)

3) Craps is next. Best strategy-> 3 bets:
passline/odds
come line/odds
come line/odds

Pick casinos with at least 3x/4x/5x odds. If not, then you're better off playing blackjack.

Bring 100x the amount of $ you plan to risk.

ie: $2 passline, 5x odds = $12
$2 come/5x odds = $12
$2 come/5x odds = $12

$36 x 100 = get $360 in chips before you start playing

4) Blackjack- Avoid places that only pay 6:5 instead of 3:2 on blackjack

5) if you want a mindless game, play bacarat. ALWAYS bet on the banker (dealer). There's no decision to be made by you. The dealer will make all the decisions based on a set of rules. The rules should be the same in every casino.

It has a low house edge if you bet on the dealer. MUCH better than playing other mindless games like slots.

uhhhh 36x100 is 3,600... i dont think you need that much to play low limit tables

 

[JEDI]

whoops.. meant 10x.

was thinking about Casino Royale and it's 100x odds.

edited my message

 

[bigredguy]

Blackjack is the game for me. I play at the local indian casinos a bit and they have worse odds than vegas and i still make money. I can go in with $100 and walk out with $200-$250 in less than an hour.

My two succes stories were turning $100 in to about $880 playing BJ and turning $7 into $150 at roulette.

 

[TwoBills]

Originally posted by: JEDI
1) poker has best odds if u are a good poker player. if not, dont play. Read "Low Limit Hold'em" by Lee Jones. Then after you fully understand that, read "Small Stakes Hold'em" by Ed Miller. (Do NOT read Ed's book till you understand Lee's. Ed's book is not for beginners.)





I'd stay away from the hold em tables alltogether, unless your a long time ring player or you've played at least 100,000 hands online.

Easy game to learn. Tough to beat.

 

[amoeba]

Originally posted by: bigredguy
Blackjack is the game for me. I play at the local indian casinos a bit and they have worse odds than vegas and i still make money. I can go in with $100 and walk out with $200-$250 in less than an hour.

My two succes stories were turning $100 in to about $880 playing BJ and turning $7 into $150 at roulette.

short term luck streaks. especially the roulette one.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: amoeba

Originally posted by: bigredguy
Blackjack is the game for me. I play at the local indian casinos a bit and they have worse odds than vegas and i still make money. I can go in with $100 and walk out with $200-$250 in less than an hour.

My two succes stories were turning $100 in to about $880 playing BJ and turning $7 into $150 at roulette.

short term luck streaks. especially the roulette one.

meh, on a good shoe you can turn 100 into 3000 easy. On a bad one you can be out 500.

 

[Atomicus]

its all about Bakara

 

[bigredguy]

Originally posted by: amoeba

Originally posted by: bigredguy
Blackjack is the game for me. I play at the local indian casinos a bit and they have worse odds than vegas and i still make money. I can go in with $100 and walk out with $200-$250 in less than an hour.

My two succes stories were turning $100 in to about $880 playing BJ and turning $7 into $150 at roulette.

short term luck streaks. especially the roulette one.

The blackjack was about 3 hours the roulette was about 45 minutes.

I left the blackjack table after the pit boss started leering over me and then some lady came to the table and started staying on 14's and hitting on 17's. I figured she worked there because i started losing fast.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: Mwilding

Originally posted by: laurenlex
I read craps has the best odds of winning. It looks fun, but I have never played it.

The best odds at the casino are at the craps table. Black Jack is next on the list.

Nothing gets the adrenaline pumping like a hot craps table when you have a bazillion chips all over the board and everything other than 7 makes you money...

Bolded as thats as far as I read.

 

[aircooled]

I played blackjack when I was there last weekend. Was a very fun time and came out a little ahead when it was all said and done ($200).

Most of the dealer's were VERY helpful. For my first Vegas trip this was great!

 

[Doboji]

Originally posted by: glugglug
Blackjack depending on the table rules is only 0.5-2.5% in favor of the house if you play the correct strategy, which you can create a cheatsheet for here. This amount that can more than be overcome by counting cards, although when I have counted and come out ahead, they change dealers every hour and when you are doing too well the dealer switches to one of the pit bosses and you start losing impossibly fast (as in I suspect it's not legit).

The casinos I have played in actually allowed people to use cheatsheets at the table if they don't have them memorized. This was all low wagers though, YMMV.

There is a relatively new game called "Blackjack Switch", where you play 2 hands at a time, and they let you switch the top 2 cards from the initial 4 you are dealt (top card from each hand). Normally this would put the odds WAY in your favor, so a few rules are different:
a) if the dealer gets 22 it's a push
b) BJ pays 1:1

Correct basic strategy in this (which can also be looked up on-line) puts the odds in favor of the house by only 0.05%, pretty close to dead even. Even though the odds with correct strategy are so good, the house is making a killing on this because most people are playing with strategies designed for normal blackjack which are NOT correct taking the 22 push into account. The strategy has a huge extra level of complexity, however, in determining when to switch, so it's a lot more difficult. There is also a side bet in switch blackjack, where the initial 4 cards are looked at like a poker hand, and a pair pays 1:1, 3 of a kind pays 5:1, 2 pair pays 8:1, and 4 of a kind pays 40:1. When played with 6 decks the side bet is also in favor of the house. From what I have read (haven't gone there yet), there is one casino downtown called the 4 Queens which plays with 8 decks. I did some calculations and with 8 decks the side bet on blackjack switch is 3% IN FAVOR OF THE PLAYER. So in theory you should make money there if you maintain correct basic strategy, even without counting cards.

Also, most casinos the cheapest tables left have a $10 minimum bet. There are 2 remaining $1 tables that I know of, 1 at Slots-a-fun, 1 at the Golden Nugget. There may be a 2 hour line to get a seat at said tables. The slots-a-fun $1 table also has the best rules (dealer stands on soft 17, double on any 2 cards even after a split, split as much as you want), and with correct strategy you can last all night on $20.

Check out the Orleans too, they're off strip, and they have $2 black jack, and $2 craps. Very pleasant casino....

Also if you're just looking to play without taking risks, try Pai Gow poker.... this game tends to even up throughout the night.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: TwoBills
I'd stay away from the hold em tables alltogether, unless your a long time ring player or you've played at least 100,000 hands online.

Easy game to learn. Tough to beat.

Sorry, but there is no reason to need to play 100K hands online. That's an insane amount. I've been to Vegas and the average player at low-limit is worse than your average online player. You only need a basic understanding of starting hands and position to gain an upper hand. If you add skills such as calculating pot odds, you should easily outperform most people at your table.

Regardless, low-limit ($2-$4) is practically unbeatable in a casino, due only in part to the rake combined with tips. To actually make money with some consistency, you need to move up in limit, which of course exposes you to a much greater skill level.

Either way, there is no better entertainment for your $ than poker in a casino. You could easily last all day with a $100 buy-in at a $2-$4 game. Try that with any other game in the house.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Ask the cat...

 

[PimpJuice]

I'll be there Wednesday.

I plan on playing some Blackjack and probably some Craps.

 

[aircooled]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
Ask the cat...

 

[amoeba]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: TwoBills
I'd stay away from the hold em tables alltogether, unless your a long time ring player or you've played at least 100,000 hands online.

Easy game to learn. Tough to beat.

Sorry, but there is no reason to need to play 100K hands online. That's an insane amount. I've been to Vegas and the average player at low-limit is worse than your average online player. You only need a basic understanding of starting hands and position to gain an upper hand. If you add skills such as calculating pot odds, you should easily outperform most people at your table.

Regardless, low-limit ($2-$4) is practically unbeatable in a casino, due only in part to the rake combined with tips. To actually make money with some consistency, you need to move up in limit, which of course exposes you to a much greater skill level.

Either way, there is no better entertainment for your $ than poker in a casino. You could easily last all day with a $100 buy-in at a $2-$4 game. Try that with any other game in the house.

I play about 100K a month. I do agree that poker is most entertaining as you are actually doing stuff.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: amoeba
I play about 100K a month. I do agree that poker is most entertaining as you are actually doing stuff.

That's quite a bit. 1000hrs playing two tables or 500hrs playing four? I'm lucky to play 3K hands per month and a 2-4 tournaments. Either way, that kind of experience is not necessary to play at a low-limit table in Vegas.

 

[TwoBills]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: amoeba
I play about 100K a month. I do agree that poker is most entertaining as you are actually doing stuff.

That's quite a bit. 1000hrs playing two tables or 500hrs playing four? I'm lucky to play 3K hands per month and a 2-4 tournaments. Either way, that kind of experience is not necessary to play at a low-limit table in Vegas.

No experience is necessary to play low limit in Vegas. All you need is a buy in. The 100K hands I was talking about translates roughly to one year online, for me. Anything less and I doubt you'll be able to do anything more than watch your buyin(s) bleed away.

 

[KLin]

Originally posted by: Atomicus
its all about Bakara

Baccarat?

 

[BustaBust]

someone here know how to count cards really well?

 

[aircooled]

Originally posted by: BustaBust
someone here know how to count cards really well?

Not me. but if you play single deck you can at least keep an eye on the aces on the first round.

 

[BustaBust]

Yup but casinos dont play like that

 

[aircooled]

Originally posted by: BustaBust
Yup but casinos dont play like that

Yes they do. You just have to look for the single deck tables. Thats all I played on last week in Vegas.

 

[BustaBust]

I thought they used new decks everytime to prevent cheating and so forth?