Maryland slot machine proposal

[Burnaby49]

I hate casinos. They reek of smoke (I gotta shower and wash every stitch I wore when I get home, seriously, or spouse's asthma goes nuts.) and they reek of losers. I set myself a strict limit on the money, so I've never lost more than $40. On occasion I come out maybe the same amount ahead. Since I figure the money as cost to see the parents and hang for an afternoon, it doesn't affect me a lot. But I find it painful to watch the parents lose $500, which is the usual outcome. Then they get back on their bus and go home poorer.Yeah, they can afford it, but I don't like it.

I especially loathe the tv commercials, showing young happy people gambling, dancing and laughing, in a bright smokeless environment. I don't think I've ever seen that. The casinos are full of ancient wrecks in wheelchairs with oxygen connected, and I, in my almost 60 years old glory, get hit on as the youngest lady there. I've promised myself that when the parents stop, I'll gladly never set foot in one again. Although I have been offered jobs in the accounting department.

One HUGE advantage of Canadian casinos, at least the ones in my province, is that they are non-smoking. At least so I am told, I don't gamble, don't see the point. There are two a quarter-hour walk from my house and I've never been in either. We do however have to pay particular care driving near them because of the preponderance of septuagenarian (and octogenarian) drivers heading for their daily fleecing. As you said, basically a depressing and very expensive geriatric day-care.

Having said that I've been to Vegas four times. Gambling wins and losses? $0. And the Vegas demographics at least match up to your commercials somewhat more closely. The very old seem to stick to casinos within driving range, like your Washington Indian casinos.

[Kestrel]

If you like to gamble, it's easy enough to find (or start) a game among friends.

I was so good at card counting that I regularly won in our private blackjack games.

After a while my friends quit telling me where to find the next game.

[The Observer]

The gambling fever seems to weigh the heaviest on the senior citizen generation. I recall a time when I went to pick up my mother at the local senior citizen's center. She introduced me to an acquaintance she had met This gentleman took an instant liking to me, greeted me like an old lost friend and invited me to lunch - and on him. No mention of bringing my mother to lunch, however. When he left to go up to the counter to pick up some papers, my mom started telling me that before I got there, he had been quizzing her about her children and asked if any of them liked to go to Las Vegas. I thought to myself, "Ok, looks like Gramps is going to try to convince me to take him to Vegas." I whispered to my mom, for her to play along with what I was going to say to him. It had irritated me that he had chatted my mom up, pretending to be interested in a friendship and was only using her to get a trip to Vegas.

So when he came back, he asked about confirming for lunch the next day, and I said, "That won't be possible, since I am heading out to Vegas in the morning."

You could have seen the one-arm bandit's reels spinning in his eyes, the way they lit up. "Say, " he exclaimed, "I was going to ask you about whether you ever go to Vegas. I've been meaning to go, but can never find anyone to go with. How about if I go with you tomorrow?"

I said that I really wasn't looking for extra passengers, and I had no real idea how long I would be staying. He became very aggressive and started trying to convince me that I really wanted/needed to take him to Vegas. He was great company, he knew the best route to get there, where the best hotel rates were, where you get the best meals, etc. I just kept nodding and waited to see how far he was going to go. But he had yet to even offer to to put up money for gas, so I guessed he was trying to save all of his money for gambling.

Finally, he asked me which casino was my favorite. I said I didn't understand why he was asking that question.

"Well, I just thought maybe if I knew what casino you like to stay at in Vegas, I might know some of the important people there that can save you some money on the rooms or get some comps."

I replied, "But Las Vegas doesn't have any casinos."

He looked at me as though I just lost my mind. "What are you talking about, Vegas has casinos all over the place!"

I said, "That's impossible. I don't think that gambling is legal in Las Vegas."

He said, "You don't know what you are talking about. Gambling is legal in all of Nevada. Of course you can gamble in Vegas."

I innocently responded back, "Oh, I think there has been a misunderstanding. When I said I was driving to Las Vegas, I meant Las Vegas, New Mexico. I had no idea that you were talking about the Vegas in Nevada."

"You mean, you aren't going to Las Vegas, Nevada? Why in hell would you want to go to New Mexico? They got nothing there. Listen, let's go to Nevada instead. I can guarantee you will have a much better time there than New Mexico."

At that point, I told him I had no interest in going to his Las Vegas, as I wasn't interested in throwing my money away, like most of the idiots that head there thinking that they are going to get rich. But I pointed out, that if he really wanted to get to Vegas, there were a number of buses and airlines that he could take. "They're too expensive for my pocketbook," he muttered.

He got real moody at that point, so I thought I would look to see how quickly he would toss me out of his way. "Still, we can do lunch next week, when I get back, ok?"

He just looked at me and said that lunch was out of the question and walked off - presumably to find another person gullible enough to take him to Vegas.

[Burzmali]

Go back a couple of generations and more, and the aging parentals would have lived with their kids and likely would have helped around the house, or done various light activities in the yard/barn/ranch, and then once a week gone into town to the VFW hall to swap lies with their cronies. Might have been into model boats or trains (the men), or knitting or quilting (women), along with canning and other such activities.
Just a thought

Just food for thought, but the number of nursing home beds is the lowest it's been in decades.

[Cpt Banjo]

Why would anyone choose to gamble somewhere where the house takes a skim?

Entertainment. I play blackjack, and I try to find casinos that have favorable rules. A typical game would be against a 6-deck shoe with doubling after splits, surrender, and resplitting aces, and the dealer standing on soft 17's. Under such conditions, the house edge against basic strategy is only .28%. Assuming I bet $10 per hand and play one hand per minute for two hours, my expected loss is only $3.36, which is a lot cheaper than going to a movie. And I get free drinks.

[fortinbras]

One of the fun features of an Atlantic City or Las Vegas casino is the (relatively) cheap drinks brought right to you on the gaming floor. Also the glitter, and the nearby restaurants, boutiques, and other blandishments. And the elusive possibility that you might just win a Million, something that won't happen at church bingo or Friday nights in the man cave.

[Kestrel]

Why would anyone choose to gamble somewhere where the house takes a skim?

Entertainment. I play blackjack, and I try to find casinos that have favorable rules. A typical game would be against a 6-deck shoe with doubling after splits, surrender, and resplitting aces, and the dealer standing on soft 17's. Under such conditions, the house edge against basic strategy is only .28%. Assuming I bet $10 per hand and play one hand per minute for two hours, my expected loss is only $3.36, which is a lot cheaper than going to a movie. And I get free drinks.

Your odds calculation assumes the casino shuffles the cards until the deck is randomly mixed. Two shuffles leaves the deck stacked in favor of the house, with odds so skewed against basic strategy players that roulette gets attractive. Randomization only starts to happen on the third full shuffle. It takes at least four full shuffles for blackjack decks to be fairly random, and for basic strategy odds to be accurate.

Have you watched the dealer's hands? Is she riffling the cards to make lots of shuffling noises, and cutting clumps of cards across the table, but doing little genuine shuffling on each section of the decks?

If you've found a casino shuffling the cards until they are randomized, I want to know where.

[Burzmali]

Your odds calculation assumes the casino shuffles the cards until the deck is randomly mixed. Two shuffles leaves the deck stacked in favor of the house, with odds so skewed against basic strategy players that roulette gets attractive. Randomization only starts to happen on the third full shuffle. It takes at least four full shuffles for blackjack decks to be fairly random, and for basic strategy odds to be accurate.

Have you watched the dealer's hands? Is she riffling the cards to make lots of shuffling noises, and cutting clumps of cards across the table, but doing little genuine shuffling on each section of the decks?

If you've found a casino shuffling the cards until they are randomized, I want to know where.

You have any evidence to that effect? It kind of seems like suicide for the casino. Blackjack has a very low house advantage against a skilled player with a fully randomized deck. If the deck is not fully randomized, a skilled player should be able to adjust their strategy to tip the advantage their way.

[Kestrel]

You have any evidence to that effect? It kind of seems like suicide for the casino. Blackjack has a very low house advantage against a skilled player with a fully randomized deck. If the deck is not fully randomized, a skilled player should be able to adjust their strategy to tip the advantage their way.

Yes I do, actually, but it's all packed away in a box now. Strategy adjustments for the non-random blackjack deck require a lot of intense counter-intuitive card tracking, with sudden bet jumps which attract the attention of pit bosses. Computer simulation testing of shuffle-tracking strategies show that streaks in favor of the player are few and don't last long.

The problem with the lightly shuffled non-random deck is that both the dealer and the player bust too frequently, because the cards stay in the groups in which they were played during the previous round. Unfortunately, when both player and dealer bust, the house always wins.

That's why I learned to play craps. I'll take a 1/2% house edge with managed betting and a lucky streak anyday over a stacked card deck.

ETA: After I found out about the effects of only shuffling the deck twice, I started using it when it was my turn to deal in our private no-house games. My win rate went up so much that I wound up being excluded from the table. I wasn't cheating, but...

[Kestrel]

You will probably find that the casinos that use the big 5 or 6 deck shoes also have machines that shuffle/randomly assort the cards that go into the shoe.

Oh I've watched the machines... until the pit bosses got ugly and told me to move along. Sorting is exactly right, and it isn't random.

Yes, there's a window through which you can see cards falling. What they don't want you to notice are that those blackjack shuffling machines are programmed to drop a clump from one side, then a clump from the other, then shuffle a few, repeat, repeat, until the entire stack has been shuffled only twice.

If you ever want to test the theory that the casino Blackjack dealers are stacking the deck, walk over to the Baccarat table and watch those dealers shuffle. You won't see any of the cut-cut-riffle-riffle-cut-cut-shuffle-cut-cut-riffle-riffle-cut-cut theatrics that you see at the Blackjack table. Baccarat dealers just shuffle and go.

[Burzmali]

You have any evidence to that effect? It kind of seems like suicide for the casino. Blackjack has a very low house advantage against a skilled player with a fully randomized deck. If the deck is not fully randomized, a skilled player should be able to adjust their strategy to tip the advantage their way.

Yes I do, actually, but it's all packed away in a box now. Strategy adjustments for the non-random blackjack deck require a lot of intense counter-intuitive card tracking, with sudden bet jumps which attract the attention of pit bosses. Computer simulation testing of shuffle-tracking strategies show that streaks in favor of the player are few and don't last long.

The problem is that blackjack is roughly symmetrical, the rules for the player and house are basically the same, with the notable difference being that the player has choices. If the deck is non-random, i.e. stacked in such a way that common blackjack hands are likely to be grouped together, you could trivially devise a strategy based on that information that would produce better results (without card counting) than the basic strategy, which is very bad for the house. Simply stated, it is safer to randomize the card and boot counters than it is to stack the deck and risk being cleaned out if someone publishes an effective counter.

[JamesVincent]

Just a brief update on the situation here in Maryland. The Arundel Mills casino, right down the street from me, is no longer just slots, as originally proposed. They introduced table games in the last few months. This had an interesting side effect in our local economy. When Arundel Mills was built it killed our previous biggest mall around, Marley Station. Now, with the need for dealers at the casino, they are renting several spots that were vacant at Marley Station to use to train dealers. There also is a large entertainment venue inside the casino which has become THE place for local musicians to get into. Several friends of mine have performed there and have said it is a great place to play and pays very well. The casino also has taken over several parking areas by the airport (BWI) that were unused or barely used and have shuttle bus service running day and night. Several additional hotels have been built in the area of the casino, each with their own shuttle bus.

Now the down side. I was driving down Rt.1 through Elkridge not too long and ago and saw a billboard on the side of the road reading "If you think you have a gambling problem please contact _______, we can help". So now apparently we have a Gamblers Anonymous, which we didn't before.

Apparently Charlestown Raceway, which was one of the reasons Maryland was pushing for its own casino, is doing less and less business these days. My cousin was a blackjack dealer there and recently retired. Before he left he had said that the crowds were definitely smaller and a lot less money coming through the tables. So the original idea of keeping money in Maryland does indeed seem to be working. Now we just have to deal with all the other crap that goes along with it. I can only speak for Arundel MIlls since that is the one I am close to. I believe 4 others were either built or going to be built in Maryland.

edit: didnt quite sound right.

[Duke2Earl]

I know the new casino in Rocky Gap (near Cumberland) is now open... at least according to the signs on Route 68. I pass that way regularly on my way back and forth to Deep Creek Lake. I have not stopped at the Casino because I'm not much of a gambler but who knows, maybe someday... they probably have a good restaurant.

[fortinbras]

My wife and I visited the Arudel Mills casinos just before it began its "table games" (i.e., card games, roulette, dice), so it was just slots.

Unlike Atlantic City & Las Vegas, where we have also played the slots, since there is only this one casino for about 40 miles, there is no strong competition to get the players. So none of the enticements you see in AC or LV such as "Loosest slots on the Strip" "Loosest slots in town".

I, myself, disfavor legalizing casinos. It was enough for me when gambling was a once-in-several-years trip to AC or LV, and I don't like having a source of temptation only an hour's drive away. Moreover, the campagn to get this casino was that we would be raking in money from out-of-staters. Not really, to drive to the Maryland casino from another state you'd likely have to pass by other casinos in other states (they tend to be perched on the borders). So it turned into a way to mostly separate Marylanders from their own money.

And, naturally, as when they were legalizing the state lottery, they claimed the gambling money would subsidize the schools. After more than two decades of a state lottery and a decade of legalized casinos, Maryland schools are still wretched .... but you don't dare speak out against the gambling because, Shhh, you'll harm the children!

[JamesVincent]

I know the new casino in Rocky Gap (near Cumberland) is now open... at least according to the signs on Route 68. I pass that way regularly on my way back and forth to Deep Creek Lake. I have not stopped at the Casino because I'm not much of a gambler but who knows, maybe someday... they probably have a good restaurant.

I've seen the signs for Rocky Gap too. We use 68 on the way back and forth to Ky. I've thought about stopping in a couple of times but the time isn't there in the middle of a 580 mile drive. I know Rocky Gap used to be a nice resort area, would be interesting to see what it has become. My cousin used to perform there in the lounge area.

And, naturally, as when they were legalizing the state lottery, they claimed the gambling money would subsidize the schools. After more than two decades of a state lottery and a decade of legalized casinos, Maryland schools are still wretched .... but you don't dare speak out against the gambling because, Shhh, you'll harm the children!

It amazes me sometimes how much money is supposedly poured into Maryland schools and how much difference it doesn't make. My kids go to Severna Park schools, supposedly one of the best school systems in Maryland. Maybe one of the snobbiest schools systems in the country. My kids still have a laundry list of issues in school, they still don't get the individualized assistance they are supposed to get and classroom sizes are through the roof here. My oldest girl, because of her anxieties and other problems, is supposed to be in a smaller classroom size. She is in classes of 32 kids, thats their "smaller" size. Bullying is a huge problem here with my kids. My youngest girl came home and asked me one night, " Daddy, are we rednecks?". Apparently she had been talking about me growing up hunting and the type of person I am and the kids started calling her a redneck. My son gets picked on all the time because of his learning disability and the teachers tell me their just being kids.

[Cathulhu]

I can think of nothing more boring than playing a slot machine. Oh, wait -- there's roulette, which is a lot slower and may have a larger house edge.

But it's easy to understand why some get hooked on playing for hours at a one-armed bandit (of course, it's all electronic now and the arms are gone), best exemplified in the classic Twilight Zone episode, "The Fever".



"Franklin! Franklin!"

There's a short story by Harlan Ellison, "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes" that you really would like.

Some of these old games go way back.

[fortinbras]

The electronic slot machine is a lot like the old (ha 30 years ago) arcade computer game (like PacMan) -- how long can you stretch out your quarter for playing? My wife is able to occupy herself for a day on less than $20 and often we make a little money back (not a net profit but it helps pay the hotel bill etc.), so our weekend is very inexpensive.

[JamesVincent]

Another local update from my old high school.

http://odenton.patch.com/groups/busines ... sino-funds

Tax revenue from the Maryland Live! Casino resulted in $20 million in grants to local groups, including $3 million to Meade High and funds for to support a health and community center in Severn.

[Number Six]

There was quite a bit of opposition to gambling in Connecticut back in the 70s as I remember when the likelihood of it hitting the state was emerging. Do the Europeans have more common sense views of the gambling scourge? The only time I went to Foxwoods I limited my spending to a small amount that went quickly, I think those in favor of bringing in gambling should go to casinos and witness the obsessions of those who apparently can not resist it.