The Winner's Guide to Casino Gambling - Softcover

Silberstang, Edwin

3.71

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9780805077650: The Winner's Guide to Casino Gambling

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805077650 ISBN 13: 9780805077650

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks, 2005

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The definitive guide to the best strategies at the gambling table-now in a fully revised and updated fourth edition

Long recognized as the gambler's bible, The Winner's Guide to Casino Gambling has been completely revised and expanded to include new rules and strategies for every major game in the casino, including several popular new ones. This entirely updated fourth edition remains the most authoritative and comprehensive book in its field, bringing gambling expert Edwin Silberstang's professional secrets and expertise into the twenty-first-century casino.

The Winner's Guide to Casino Gambling can literally replace a shelf full of guides to individual games-each chapter is a book of its own. Silberstang shows readers
- the best strategies to beat multiple-deck blackjack, including
simple but powerful card-counting methods
- how to exploit the free-odds wager in craps to minimize
the house edge
- ways to win at the most popular video poker games
- the secrets to the new casino games, such as Three Card Poker
and Let It Ride�
- what games to play where for the best odds
o a winning approach to thinking as a gambler, worth the cost
of the entire book

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Edwin Silberstang is considered by many in the gambling industry to be its leading authority. His books have sold millions of copies, and The Winner's Guide to Casino Gambling is the culmination of a lifetime of experience in the field.

Winner's Guide to Casino Gambling, The
THE CARNIVAL GAMESTHE FOLLOWING FOUR games, Three-Card Poker, Caribbean Stud Poker, Let It Ride, and Casino War, are called carnival games by casino executives and dealers, to differentiate them from the table games, such as blackjack, craps, baccarat, and roulette. The term carnival games conjures up images of games played on the midways of America, on the outer edge of traveling circuses and carnivals. I've interviewed a number of floormen, pit bosses, and dealers about the name. Some consider it pejorative; others told me it's just a descriptive term.The four games dealt with here are games that were invented for the purpose of leasing or selling them to established casinos and other gambling venues. Three of them, Three-Card Poker, Let It Ride, and Casino War, are owned by Shuffle Master Gaming, a leader in this field. The other, Caribbean Stud Poker, is owned by Mikohn/DP Stud. The most popular of these games, as of this writing, is Three-Card Poker. With 1,065 tables devoted to it, it is one of the fastest growing of the carnival games. Next in popularity is Caribbean Stud Poker, with 600 tables. Let It Ride has over 560 tables, and Casino War just 51 tables, but it is included to show how an ordinary children's game can be developed into a casino game.There are other carnival games vying for attention on the floors of casinos. Some have limited success; others fail or fade away. What the reader should know is this--when seeing a new exotic game with a name like Deuces Wild Hold 'Em or Wheel of Madness or any similar carnival game, the house advantage will surely be greater than the three table games we recommend playing: blackjack, craps, and baccarat, in that order.At every gambling convention, inventors try to sell their concepts of games to the casino executives who attend. I've been to a few of these conventions and seen the oddest and strangest games, combining dice, pieces that move, hidden cards, all within one game. Needless to say, no one was interested.The four games I'll cover will show the best strategies to play (with the exception of Casino War, in which there is no inherent strategical concept), the house edge, my recommendation of whether to play or not, and how much should be wagered, if any, on the chance of winning.1GAMBLING IN AMERICA--AN OVERVIEWAT ONE TIME, the only state in America where gambling was legal was Nevada. This situation remained in effect for many years, and although there was sporadic gambling in other jurisdictions, such as the draw poker clubs in California and lotteries in certain states, it wasn't until Atlantic City legalized gambling that Nevada had any competition in the way of full-fledged casinos offering games such as craps, blackjack, roulette, and baccarat, as well as slot machines.One of the rationales for legalizing gambling in Atlantic City was to use the tax money engendered from gambling to improve the city. But that didn't happen. The millions of dollars spent in the casinos, or should I say, billions, didn't improve the city one whit. While the number of pleasure palaces of gambling rose, Atlantic City remained a festering slum. As it is today. The tourists go to the casinos and occasionally walk on the boardwalk, but they don't venture into Atlantic City proper.Still, there were mighty revenues that could be taxed by the municipality, and other jurisdictions took note of the frantic pace of building and the millions of tourists who poured into the New Jersey resort. After all, the leaders of these states and cities argued, everyone likes to gamble, and they do gamble illegally. So why not legalize it and cash in on these millions of dollars? The floodgate was opened, and gambling, which in puritan America had remained a hidden and illegal vice, was now thrust into the open in state afterstate. The money it poured into state and municipal coffers was used for a variety of causes, including education. With that rationalization, the state governments could pat themselves on their backs and overlook the fact that these millions of dollars were dollars lost to the casinos or to lotteries or whatever gambling was legalized. Someone was paying for all this, and it was the general public who patronized the casinos or bought lottery tickets, or sat down to a game of cards at a legalized card club.
Let us therefore divide this chapter into five sections dealing with the burgeoning world of American gambling. First, the status of gambling in general. Second, the state lotteries. Third, the American Indian reservation gambling. Fourth, riverboat gambling. Finally, the changing character of Las Vegas itself.GAMBLING IN GENERAL IN AMERICAAt the present time, there is some form of gambling, whether it be lotteries, Indian reservation gaming, riverboats or card clubs, or straight casino gambling, in forty-eight of the fifty states. Perhaps all the states eventually will have gambling; all signs point to this happening. What at one time caused moral indignation is now commonplace. People are willing to wager money on some form of gaming, and the states and municipalities, hungry and desperate for infusions of tax money, are willing to provide their citizens with the opportunity.Nevada is still the leading state as far as gaming is concerned. You can wager on anything here, but the state doesn't have a lottery. It doesn't need one. Games such as Quartermania and Megabucks provide the players with opportunities to make millions by risking several coins or dollars.Atlantic City, New Jersey, when it first legalized gambling, was thought of as a serious competitor to Nevada, especially Las Vegas, but since gambling has been introduced in the Garden State, Nevada has experienced an explosive growth in gaming. Atlantic City is an example of a community that hasn't benefited at all from gambling. The influx of customers has merely lined the pockets of the casino owners who put up sumptuous palaces to attract them.Still, more casinos are going up, and business continues to increase in A.C. A lot of jobs have been created, but the city is still a slum, and the tourists stay in the hotels or venture along the boardwalk, and that is it.There are a dozen casinos in Atlantic City, and the most recent is the Borgata, which is a joint venture between MGM Mirage and Boyd Gaming. Since opening in July 2003, this 200,000-square-foot hotel and casino has had a dramatic effect on the revenues generated by all the A.C. properties. For example, in February 2003, gaming revenues were up 30.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.The comparison between the gambling revenues of Atlantic City and the Las Vegas Strip is quite interesting in showing how these two markets compete closely for the gamblers' dollars. The following is a rundown of those revenues.Note how closely the revenues are between these two major gambling markets. As measured in the billions of dollars, it points out the insatiable interest in gambling among Americans, a phenomenon that is reflected throughout the country as more and more gambling venues open up, while those already in existence continue to expand. Revenues have been stagnant for the 2001-2003 period due primarily to the effects of 9/11 but have picked up since then. A new hotel--Steve Wynn's Las Vegas--and the expansion of several Strip hotels will surely increase that revenue. The Borgata's success may spawn other hotel construction in the A.C. market.Mississippi, with its liberal riverboat laws, has moved into prominence in American gambling. It now ranks third in revenues, an amazing situation for a conservative, rural, and Bible Belt state. Tunica, once the poorest county in America, now boasts nine hugecasinos. Vicksburg has four, Natchez one, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast has, as of this writing, twelve.Mississippi's neighbor to the west, Louisiana, permits gambling in Baton Rouge, Charenton, Harvey, Kenner, Kinder, Lake Charles, Marksville, New Orleans, and Shreveport-Bossier City. Among other southern states, both North and South Carolina have limited gambling venues. The signs are there--the sunny South will eventually be a hotbed of gambling.In the heartland of America, other states along the Mississippi and Great Lakes have jumped into riverboat gaming with both feet, such as Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, and Illinois, with others ready to take up gaming's cause. The future will have more and more states ready for casino gambling in a big way.Washington State and Colorado haven't been shy about making various forms of gambling available. Montana has legalized certain table games. A backwater like Deadwood, South Dakota, has brought itself national attention by legalizing gambling and, in the process, pushed real estate values to the sky in that small, isolated community. Gambling does that. Towns magically rise up when gambling becomes big business. A good example of this is in Laughlin, Nevada, where Mr. Laughlin named a city after himself and built a casino on the Colorado River. In the space of a few years, this has become one of the meccas of gambling in Nevada.Indian reservation gaming, emboldened by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, has been involved in an explosion of gaming. A successful operation such as Foxwoods in Connecticut is spawning other casinos in the Nutmeg State, with Greenwich the next possibility. State legislatures are falling all over themselves to get on the gaming bandwagon.Usually, a referendum is needed to legalize gaming. It can be done statewide, as in Florida, or county by county, as in Mississippi. New York, which for years flirted with legalized gaming in Sullivan County, may now allow gaming in the empty shells of hotels in Monticello, New York, which once was a resort hub.In the last edition of this book, I wrote that the big cities of America were ripe for legalized gambling. And this certainly has come to pass. In Illinois, Isle of Capri Casinos have been given the green light by the Illinois Gaming Board to build a huge gambling facility in Rosemont, which is just west of Chicago and near O'HareInternational Airport. This property is expected to generate $2.6 billion in revenue over its first five years. This will be the tenth casino to operate in Illinois. Only Illinois's heavy gambling tax has discouraged other casinos from being built.In Michigan, there are several casinos in and about Detroit. In other states, casinos are found in New Orleans, near Phoenix, and close to San Diego. The list goes on and on. The push remains to legalize gaming in major cities, which can easily support new casinos with their tremendous population centers. The momentum keeps building, and the irresistible lure of gaming will win the hearts of legislators and citizens in more and more communities.It is not only the casinos that benefit from legalized gaming. A whole support industry has sprung up to feed their insatiable needs. Riverboat design and manufacture, once a moribund industry that had seen its best days in the nineteenth century, is now alive and perking. Manufacturers of equipment such as electronic games are also benefitting, the two leaders being International Game Technology and Bally Gaming, a division of Alliance Gaming.Surveillance equipment manufacturers, change-maker manufacturers, interior designers, lighting and carpeting specialists, card manufacturers, dice and chip manufacturers, are all grabbing a piece of the pie. And let's not forget the makers of roulette wheels and craps and blackjack tables. At the gaming conventions in Las Vegas, we see a whole corporate structure offering its goods and services. They realize that this is an explosive growth industry just waiting to take off.Whole industries have sprung up or been invented to feed the casinos. And then there are the employees of the casinos, thousands and thousands of them, getting jobs that previously didn't exist. Dealers, change persons, cocktail waitresses, waiters, busboys, floor-persons, pit bosses, hotel clerks, maids, and dozens of other job categories are there to service gamblers while they play or rest. The list goes on and on.What is obvious is the fact that people want to gamble. No one has to throw a net out to pull in players--they are there clogging the casino aisles. When the first casino, Resorts International, opened in Atlantic City, there were huge lines of gamblers waiting to get in, then waits of an hour or more to get to the tables. Players came in droves and couldn't wait to get their money on the tables. As theriverboat operators have found out, their customers will pay for the right to gamble on a cruise. If there was no gambling on these riverboats, who would go on them but for a few tourists wishing to look at scenery on the Mississippi? It is the same question one can ask about racetracks. Who would pay admission to watch horses run ten races if no betting was allowed? The crowd would probably number about a hundred, most of them owners of horses.Legislators also realize that the taxes they take in from gaming is a hidden revenue. People who lose don't think of their money going toward taxes. They win or they lose. But tax these same individuals for purchases they make at the grocery store and there'd be hell to pay. After all, the solons state, the citizens want to gamble, and we're simply providing the means. Nobody gets hurt, and everybody benefits. As gambling fever spreads in America, the crowds get bigger and bigger, and the casinos grander and grander. It's the new American growth industry, and it will continue to grow and grow.When I write about gaming revenue, the figures I use are in the hundreds of millions and even billions. Where is that money coming from? It's coming from the people who go to casinos to gamble. It is their losses. This money, the states suggest, goes to good causes because a small percentage is used by various states to pay for services such as education and roads. But the money lost goes mostly to the casinos and to the industries gambling supports. And it is money that the citizens frequenting the casinos can ill afford to lose. They get nothing for the cash they leave there. Casinos are not department stores where at least the purchaser, in turning over his hard-earned cash, gets something to take home--a garment, furniture, something. Losers at gambling leave with nothing to show for their losses except headaches and a bad taste in their mouths.What I suggest is that this new horde of unsophisticated gamblers learns to play correctly, that they not go into a casino figuring that they will lose money. We want them to go in and play with a winning attitude. Each game has certain odds built into it, and gamblers should learn the correct odds, which games to avoid and which to play, and how to make the best bets. Gambling, after all, is done with real money, and real money is lost. What I attempt to do in this book is protect players by showing them how to gamble in a sane and knowledgeable manner, so that they become winners. There isan enormous choice out there, and many temptations. I want my readers to end up as winners.The LotteriesAt one time in America, lotteries were rampant in all the big cities where the Mafia held sway. The lotteries were known as the "Italian Lottery" or given other names, such as the "numbers racket." They were particularly popular among the poorest sections of the population, African Americans and the work...

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