Back to the Beginning

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Back to the Beginning

            A couple of weeks ago when I discussed the notion that skill based gaming has existed in casinos for many years, I received numerous comments from readers.  One that I found to be particularly interesting was because it seemingly relegated video poker into the same category as slot machines.  Maybe, even worse.  He basically said that video poker "gave the casinos a license to steal and plain irons people out."  I wrote back to the writer explaining why I disagreed strongly, but I never got a reply.

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Not Your Father's Oldsmobile

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Not Your Father's Oldsmobile

            Earlier today, a colleague sent me a link to an article on The Motley Fool written by Jeff Hwang a few months ago, entitled The Millennial Problem: Why We (Don’t) Gamble.  One of the questions that was being asked a great deal at last week's Global Gaming Expo (G2E) was regarding the millenials and how to get them into the casinos to play.  As a father of one of these millenials, I get a lot of first-hand input on this topic.  I think this article covered alot of the same points that my son makes regarding what it would take to get his generation into the casino AND PLAYING.

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Risk Reward

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Risk Reward

            A few months ago, I had the opportunity to observe a focus group that was reviewing several new table games.   My area of expertise is the math and some of the technical constructs of a game.  I have to admit that if I have any weakness in game design it is in getting inside other Player's heads to see the game the way they do.  I like games that require you to think.  As soon as I sit down to play a new game, the math concepts of the game start going through my head and I try to figure out what the strategy is and/or how I would go about analyzing the game to get to that strategy.  In other words, my thought patterns about a new game are probably very different from the average Player.

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Blackjack Sidebet Primer

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           What is the allure of sidebets?  I'm not sure if there any blackjack tables that exist without at least one sidebet.  It is almost hard to remember the days when you say down to play blackjack and there is was only one circle on the table.  There's the ago old question about which came first the chicken or the egg.  I wonder the same thing about sidebets.  Was it casinos that wanted them to increase their profits or was it Players who wanted them to increase their chances to win big even on relatively low volatility games like blackjack. 

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Seek Out Full-Pay Machines

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One of the key principles of Expert Strategy is to know which games to play.  For the most part, this means play the games with the highest paybacks possible.  If this is all that mattered, there would be a very long line waiting to play whatever game has the highest payback.  So, I say 'for the most part', because I recognize that if I'm going to argue that casino gaming is a form of entertainment, then the game you choose to play has to be fun for you.  This is a subjective decision.  You may hate playing video poker, or you may hate sitting around a table playing blackjack having people analyze all of your plays.

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