Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Taking Down the House


Sorry for the lack of posting, I just got back from a meeting in Las Vegas. I didn't do as well as Rain Man or Rusty Griswold, but pretty good. I also saw a bunch of the NBA rookies who are competing in the summer league right now. I talked to Greg Oden a little bit. He was wandering around aimlessly, as he is too young to gamble, even though he looks 50. Anyway, while this information would have been more useful to me on Sunday, I looked up the odds for the various games at the casino. On slots, the casinos take between 15.20 % (nickel) to 3.9% ($100). On double zero roulette (I've never seen a single zero) their take is 5.26%. For craps, which I have no idea how to play, you really have to know what you're doing because depending on how you bet, the odds favor the house by between .02 % and 16.67%. Blackjack is the most popular game for a reason, if you play by the book, the odds are .2% for a single deck, .63% for six decks. In reality, the advantage is much higher for the house because most people will gamble until they lose whatever they took out of the ATM.

2 comments:

Rudi said...

Did you see Yi Gianlion (sp?)? It looks like the 1,500 Chinese in Milwaukee aren't enough to make him feel "at home"

Jon Vander Plas said...

I did see Yi, but I didn't talk to him. I did talk with one of his coaches on team China for a while at the tables. I tried to pump him for information on whether he'd sign with the Bucks, but he wasn't very forthcoming.