Today's column topic comes from my Freshman college
roomate. He posted a question to one of
my old columns on my blog (gambatria.blogspot.com). He wanted to know if I thought if the casinos
would ever have to disclose all the key statistics about each game - a sort of
'nutritional label' for each game. My
response was that I didn't think so for 3 reasons. The latter 2 were more political than
mathematical. This column is about that
first reason. With the exception of slot
machines, all that information about each game is already fully known.
While admittedly, if the average person were to walk up
to a game that he has never seen before, he isn't going to know what the
payback or win frequency is. I'm an
expert and I couldn't necessarily tell you these key stats about a game I've
never seen before. I might be able to
take a good guess about it, depending on whether we are talking about a
complete game or a sidebet. There isn't
a lot of variation in table game paybacks.
There are probably very few that are below 97% and, of course, none
above 100%. Sidebets can have a much
larger range, as some are as low as 75% and others go up to the mid 90's or
even a smidge higher. If I were to walk
up to a video poker machine that has a foreign paytable, but is based on one of
the better known games, I can probably peg the payback to within .25% by doing
some quick math in my head.
There is little doubt that putting the key statistics on
each machine would make this information far more readily available than the
way it is currently done. But, I
wouldn't equate this to a can of soup without a nutritional label. The list of possible ingredients and the
exact quantities in the soup is nearly endless.
Throw in the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of food products
(or more?) and it is completely impossible to make a choice based on
nutritional content without these labels.
When you walk into a particular casino, you have perhaps a dozen or so
choices of which table game to play.
Yes, each casino may have its variation of rules. One may offer a 6-deck shoe for blackjack and
the other may have a single-deck game.
One may hit on soft 17 and the other may stop on all 17s. But, if you spend time reading a book or two
on gambling, you'll quickly learn and likely remember the paybacks of most of
these rule variations.
For many games, there is almost no variations available -
especially for the base game. Want to
play Three Card Poker? It has a 97.98%
payback for Ante/Play. While there are
some variations of Pair Plus, the overwhelming number of them have the same
paytable, paying 92.72%. These numbers
are not known because Shuffle Entertainment published them, they are known
because any mathematician/programmer can calculate these numbers using a
variety of techniques. In the case of
Ante/Play, there are a total of 6 cards dealt to the Player and the Dealer (3
each). There are 22,100 possible Player
hands and 18,424 possible Dealer hands for each of the Player hands. Thanks to the speed of today's computers, a
program can run through ALL of these hands (numbering well into the Trillions),
determine the right strategy for each Player hand and tell us absolutely
everything we would ever want to know about the game - the payback, the win
fequency, the probability of winning given any Player hand, how often the
Player folds, how often the Dealer doesn't qualify, etc...
Unlike food, casino games are, well, gambling. Part of gambling is rewarding those people
who are more prepared and more knowledgeable about gambling. The strategy for Three Card Poker doesn't
take a PhD to learn. It takes about 20
seconds (or less). Play a Q-6-4 or
better. You could read this just about
anywhere on the internet. If you want to
know the details about the strategy (how and why), you can read a booklet on
the game (I suggest my very own Expert
Strategy for Three Card Poker, but that's just me!) Armed with this strategy you are very likely
to do better than someone who has no idea what to do over the short run and
almost assuredly so over the long run.
For years, people have asked me if I'm banned from
casinos because of my in-depth knowledge of table games or if I'm 'hated' by
the casinos for arming people with the strategies for how to play the
games. I'd like to think that I've had
at least some influence on how people play.
But, I don't think the casinos care one bit. Even with the best strategies, all casino
games (except a few video poker variants) have house advantages. The casinos are totally fine with a few
people playing near the theoretical payback as results are all relative. A few people who are winning in the short run
or who are doing better than the rest can keep the rest of the Players in the
game. After all, if the other guy can
win, why can't I? Of course, this is far
more true IF you know the right strategy.
I've often surmised that if I were to stand near a Three
Card Poker table, handing out my booklet for free that only 20-25% of the
Players would actually use the strategy.
Half of these people would probably give it up within the hour when the
results don't match the theory - ignoring the time factor that is required for
this to happen. What this really
translates to is that I don't think it would matter one bit if the casinos were
to put a little sign on each table that had the payback and win frequency of
the game. Most Players would probably
ignore them. After all, how many people
really read those nutritional labels on food anyhow? And that's about what actually goes INTO your
body!
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