The Wide Area Progressive (WAP) Slot Machines Are Some of the Worst Bets in the Casino.
Ashley Adams
You're a recreational poker player, playing in basements and kitchens. You show up for the occasional tournament at the Elks or Kiwanis. Maybe you're still in school and play there. But casinos and other public poker rooms — they intimidate you. You'd like to go, if only because you have friends who go and you'd like to join them. But you're afraid of embarrassing yourself.
- A progressive jackpot is a First Time Going To A Casino Tips casino-style jackpot which increases each time the game is played, if the jackpot is not won. First Time Going To A Casino Tips When the progressive jackpot is won, the jackpot for the next play is reset to a predetermined value, then resumes increasing with each play.
- If you’re planning on gambling for the first time, here are a few first-time casino tips you should know before you go. For more tips, contact us today!
This column is a crash course in fitting in and feeling comfortable in that public poker room environment. It won't teach you the necessary strategy for winning. For that I recommend any of a number of articles, training videos, or poker strategy books including my own Winning Poker in 30 Minutes A Day. But following these 12 tips will allow you to feel comfortable sitting down for the first time.
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1. Don't worry about looking inexperienced
Everyone has to start some time. There's no shame in being new. The good players know this and will be accepting and forgiving of any mistakes you make. It's only the jerks who will be rude or condescending. Pay them no mind. If they were really any good, they would welcome with warm and open arms any inexperienced player.
2. Look at your cards deftly
Home game players often pick up their cards, pull them back from the table, or even put them on their lap. Public poker rooms are much more concerned about cheaters and so require players to follow certain rules when handling cards. You may not hold your cards below the table. You are discouraged from picking them up above the table. You are encouraged to shield them from other players (though you alone are responsible for protecting your cards from the prying eyes of your opponent).
Accordingly, you should adopt a standard, simple, and effective way of bending up the cards so you can see them, without exposing them to others. You can practice this at home. I find that you can simply use your right hand to bend up the left corner of the cards for you to view while using the left hand to keep the exposed corner out of the line of sight of your opponents. It should only take you a few minutes of sitting at a table with a deck of cards to master this technique.
3. Make sure to act in turn
Acting in turn is easy if you make sure to follow the action. You don't want to act before it is your turn to do so. Similarly, it is really annoying to others if you don't act when it is your turn to do so. Avoid having to say, 'Is it to me?' or 'My turn?' The action moves clockwise, one person at a time. It's an easy concept to understand. Act in turn!
4. Don't needlessly delay the action
When it is your turn, act quickly. If you have a tough decision to make, by all means take the time you need to decide. But don't turn every hand into a major, time-consuming ponder. Avoid daydreaming, engaging in conversation, and playing a game or talking on your phone unless you are out of a hand. While you are in a hand your attention and focus must be on the game.
5. Don't anticipate the action and broadcast what you will do before it is your turn
Two actions fall into this category. Don't grab or count out the chips you expect to be betting until it is your turn to act. And don't hold your cards in such a way as to indicate you are going to fold. Doing these things gives other attentive players an advantage to know what you are going to do before they act.
6. Make your bet (or raise) in one motion
It's against public poker room rules to make what is known as a 'string bet' or bet in two or more motions. You must make your bet or raise in a single motion. When you see poker players in the movies say 'I bet $200' and put out $200, and then dramatically add 'and I raise you another $300' and put out $300, that's a string bet — and that's not allowed when you play in poker rooms.
Accordingly, before making any betting motion, think about exactly how much you want to wager — the total amount. Then say what you are doing before you act. If you make that verbal announcement first, you then are allowed to go back and forth to your stack to put out the bet you have announced. For example, if there is a $10 bet to you and you want to raise to $30, do not put out $10 and then go back to your stack for another $20. Say, 'I raise to $30' and then make your bet.
7. Don't take chips off the table
This is called 'ratholing' and is generally forbidden in casino play. When you win money it must stay on the table. The only time you may take chips off the table is at the end of your session.
8. Ask questions of the dealer, but ideally not during the play of a hand
No one is expecting you to be an expert. You will have questions about the policies and procedures of the poker room that will pop into your head while you play. Resist the urge to ask the dealer these questions while you are in the middle of the hand. Wait until the hand is over, then ask.
Alternately, you could go up to the floorperson, the brush, or the poker room manager and ask any of them. Keep in mind that it is distracting even for the best dealers to try to carry on a conversation during the play of the hand, so avoid it if you can.
9. Post your small or big blind punctually and without having to be prompted
This falls under the category of not delaying the action, but it merits a separate mention. Hold'em and Omaha are played with blinds. These are forced bets that are supposed to be placed before the cards are dealt. Avoid holding up the game by not posting your blinds when it is your turn to do so.
10. One person to a hand
No one but you should be looking at your cards or making decisions about your betting action. You may have a friend sitting with you or even a cluster of friends standing by to cheer you on in your poker playing session. Do not share your hand with them or discuss your betting action with them during the play of the hand.
11. Resist the urge to celebrate your win
Don't draw attention to your good fortune by celebrating or even talking about a hand you just won. It's annoying to the player who just lost the hand. Take the pot, stack your chips, and then move on to the next hand.
12. Don't 'slow roll' your winning hand
Again, the movies are partly to blame for this one. In your home game it might be acceptable for the winner to dramatically turn over his or her cards slowly, drawing out the suspense before the big reveal. But in a public poker room, such 'slow rolling' is boorish behavior that you should absolute avoid.
When you're called, turn over your cards right away — win or lose. If you call your opponent's final bet, turn over your cards right after your opponent does. Show your winning hand without unduly drawing attention to the moment.
These 12 suggestions will not turn you into a winning player. But they will help you avoid embarrassment or annoying other players while you are learning the basics of how to take their money.
Ashley Adams has been playing poker for 50 years and writing about it since 2000. He is the author of hundreds of poker articles as well as Winning 7-Card Stud and the brand new Winning Poker in 30 Minutes A Day. He is also the host of poker radio show House of Cards. See www.houseofcardsradio.com for broadcast times, stations, and podcasts.
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I visited my first casino, The Sands in Las Vegas, in 1996. The VP of marketing at the company where I worked told me that the first thing I should do when I got there was place a bet on “7 black” at the roulette table. He thought this was big fun, because, of course, the 7 on the roulette wheel is red.
I wish someone had given me some real, practical advice before I visited a casino for the first time. Since no one did that for me, I’ll do that for you. The things you should know listed below are obvious to regulars at the casino.
But they can save you a lot of money and heartache if it’s your first.
Here are the top 10 things you need to know if you’re visiting a casino for the first time:
1. The Wide Area Progressive (WAP) Slot Machines Are Some of the Worst Bets in the Casino
A progressive slot machine is one with an electronic ticker at the top which displays an ever-increasing jackpot amount. You’ll find 3 kinds of progressives:
- Single machines
- Local area progressives
- Wide area progressives
What all these games have in common is that they “fuel” the progressive jackpot by taking a percentage of each bet and applying it to the jackpot. In the case of single machines, the jackpot only grows when you’re playing that specific machine.
Local area progressives are machines within a specific casino which tie into the same jackpot. Any bets placed at any of these machines grow the jackpot amount.
Wide area progressives are machines within a certain geographic radius. Playing jacks videos. In Las Vegas, the most famous wide area progressive slots are the Megabucks machines. Literally, thousands of slot machines power these jackpots, and they’re correspondingly huge – at least $10 million.
The problem with slot machines with jackpots this large is that their payback percentage is inferior to the payback percentage on a flat top machine. (A flat top machine has a fixed jackpot amount.)
A typical Vegas slot machine has a payback percentage of at least 90%. A wide area progressive has a payback percentage of 80% or less when you discount the effect of the progressive jackpot. Since you only have a 1 in 15 million chance of winning the top jackpot, it’s sensible to deduce that amount from the overall payback percentage for the machine.
2. Payback Percentage Is How You Measure the Odds for Gambling Machines
You might have heard of the house edge. That’s a term used to describe how good or bad the odds are for table games. It’s a mathematical prediction of how much you’ll lose per bet on average over a tremendous number of trials.
The house edge is expressed as a percentage. If a game has a house edge of 1%, the casino expects to win $1 every time you bet $100, over the long run. In the short-term, anything can happen. What most gamblers don’t realize is that they long run is longer than they think.
The payback percentage is the flip side of the house edge. It’s the amount of money the casino expects the player to win back for every bet. It’s also expressed as a percentage. For example, if I tell you a game has a 99% payback percentage, the casino expects you to win 99 cents every time you wager a dollar – again, on average, over time.
You can use house edge and payback percentage to compare the odds for different games.
3. Video Poker Machines Have Transparent Payback Percentages that Are Superior to Slot Machines
The higher the payback percentage, the better. The problem with slot machines is that they’re the only game in the casino where you can’t know what the payback percentage is. In fact, the payback percentage for slots is usually the lowest in the casino.
That’s one of the major differences between slots and video poker, in fact. On a video poker game, the probability of getting a result is something you can calculate. The random number generator on a video poker game emulates the same odds as a standard deck of 52 cards.
You need 2 pieces of data to calculate the payback percentage for a gambling machine:
- The prize amounts
- The probability of winning those prizes
Unless you’re Rain Man, you can’t just look at a video poker pay table and know the payback percentage.
But computer programmers and gambling writers have analyzed almost every video poker pay table you can imagine and published the results online.
A quick search of Google can help you compare video poker machines to find the ones with the best odds.
Also, even the video poker games with the worst odds are usually better than slot machines.
4. Drinks Are Free in the Casino
This isn’t true in every jurisdiction, but in most major casino destinations, drinks are free – but only if you’re gambling. (Last time I was at the Winstar, they were charging for alcohol, even if you were playing.)
You still need to tip your cocktail waitress, though. A buck or two is sufficient.
But just because the drinks are free doesn’t mean you should over-indulge.
Casinos offer free drinks because alcohol impairs your judgment. You’ll gamble over your bankroll and lose more money than you intend to if you drink too much.
Don’t be that guy who thinks he’s more macho than the other drinkers in the casino, either. He’s the guy who loses the most money, regardless of what he claims.
No one likes that guy.
Also, a word to the wise:
If you can’t control your drinking, you probably can’t control your gambling, either. You might be better off avoiding casinos altogether.
5. Table Games Offer Better Games than Gambling Machines – With One Exception
The rule of thumb for gambling at a casino is that the easier the game is to understand, the worse the odds are.
It’s easy to understand a slot machine. You put your money in, spin the reels, and hope that winning symbols line up.
Blackjack, on the other hand, is harder to understand. You have to learn the values of the cards. You have to know what your options are when playing each – hit, stand, double down, split, etc. And it helps to know what the right move is in each situation.
But look at the difference in house edge.
The house edge for most slot machine games is at least 7%. Even if you’re terrible at blackjack, the house edge isn’t more than 4% or so. If you spend a little time learning basic strategy, you can but the house edge to blackjack down to 1% or less.
Even the table games with no skill required, like baccarat, craps, and roulette, offer a lower payback percentage than most slot machine games.
There’s one exception, though – video poker machines.
Good video poker machines combine the thrill of playing a gambling machine with the low house edge of a table game.
Much of this is because video poker games are based on card games. The random number generator duplicates the odds you’d see if you were dealing hands from a 52-card deck.
Slot machine payback percentages usually range between 75% and 93%. The outliers might top out at 97% or 98%.
Video poker payback percentages range from 92% up to 100.1%. Those numbers assume that you play with a reasonably correct strategy most of the time.
6. Betting Systems Don’t Work
It won’t take long at the casino before you meet someone who’s a proponent of the Martingale or some other betting system. It’s tempting to think that a betting strategy like this might work, but it doesn’t – at least not in the long run.
Here’s how the Martingale System works:
You start by defining a single betting unit and choosing an even-money bet. The most common game people try the Martingale on is roulette, which has several even-money bets that seem to have a close-to-50% chance of winning.
You then start by betting a single unit. If you lose, you double your bet, hoping to recoup the previously lost bet along with a single unit profit. You repeat this doubling of your bets every time you lose.
Here’s an example:
You bet $10 (one unit) on red. The ball lands on black, so you lose your $10. The system says you double your bet, so now you bet $20 on red. The ball lands on black again, so you lose $20. The system says you double your bet again, so now you bet $40. This time, the ball lands on red, so you win back the $30 you lost on the previous bets. And you’re ahead by $10.
This can work well in the short run, but people have a few misunderstandings about the viability of such a system.
The first is the assumption that long losing streaks are terribly unlikely. The truth is, losing several times in a row is a lot more likely that you probably think.
The second is the lack of understanding of how fast doubling your bets makes you put money into action. $10 is no big deal, and neither is $20. Heck, even $40 isn’t that much for most people.
But if you lose 4 or 5 times in a row, you’re betting hundreds of dollars per spin.
It doesn’t take long for you to get to a point where the next bet in the progression is beyond your bankroll or beyond the betting limits at the table.
All the Martingale System does, in the long run, is get you some small wins here and there, all of which will eventually be wiped out by a huge losing streak.
The house edge for a casino game remains unaffected by your betting system.
7. Casinos Offer Classes in How to Play Their Games
Some people who are new to the casino adventure are intimidated by table games – especially craps. That’s too bad because these games offer better odds than the slot machines. They’re easy to learn, too. And I think they’re more fun.
But you don’t have to try to puzzle out how to play blackjack, craps, or roulette from tutorials on websites like this one. You don’t even have to buy a book or an instructional video about how to play.
Almost all casinos offer classes on how their games work. To find out when these games are scheduled, just ask anyone in customer service at the casino. If the specific individual can’t tell you what the schedule is like for these free classes, they can point you in the direction of someone who can.
These classes are usually held in the mid-morning. They’re usually followed by actual game-play, but that’s optional.
I learned to play blackjack from my mom at the kitchen table. Roulette was so easy I just sat down at the table and got the hand of it.
But I learned to play craps at a class at the Planet Hollywood Casino in Las Vegas.
You can also learn to play these games using free games at Internet casinos, but I think you’ll enjoy the free classes at the casino.
One caveat, though:
Take strategy advice from casino dealers with a grain of salt. For example, they love to explain hedging your bets in craps at these classes. That’s a lousy strategy.
8. Almost Everyone Working in or Near the Casino Industry Rely on Tips to Make a Living
You don’t have to dole out all your money to everyone working at a casino. But it sometimes feels like it. If you want to be a good person with a little bit of class, remember to tip a reasonable amount for various services.
If you eat at a buffet restaurant, a dollar or 2 for each person is a reasonable tip. Your waitress is only refilling your drinks, not providing full table service, so that doesn’t warrant a 20% tip.
Real sit-down restaurants work the same way in Vegas as anywhere else. You should tip a minimum of 20% in a casino destination. If you’re happy with the service, consider 25% or 30%, instead.
Casino game dealers deserve tips, too. It’s customary to throw them an occasional tip after a win. If you want to look sophisticated, place a bet on behalf of the dealer. This is especially common at the blackjack table.
A good rule of thumb is to plan on using 5% to 10% of your starting bankroll for tips to the dealer. It’s up to you to decide when to tip. Some players tip when they’re ready to leave the table, while others tip during the game. I think it’s more fun to tip while you’re playing.
Cocktail waitresses deserve at least a dollar for bringing you a drink. I’ll often tip more than this early in the evening to make sure I’m not ignored throughout the night, though. If you’re planning to spend several hours drinking in the casino, consider giving the cocktail waitress $10 or $20 for the first drink she brings you.
You can scale back after that but occasionally provide a larger tip to keep her coming around.
It’s also customary to tip bell hops, taxi drivers, and the hosts who seat you at the various shows. Tipping the host at a show can get you a better seat. You can even tip the person at the check-in desk in hopes of getting a room upgrade. It’s customary to include a $20 or $50 with your credit card when you check in. Don’t be shy. Ask if they have any upgraded rooms available at the same price as your room.
If you get a reputation as stingy with your tips, you won’t have as much fun at the casino. No one likes that guy.
9. Casinos Have Their Own Rules of Etiquette
You’ll pick up on the most common rules of etiquette in the casino eventually. But a little knowledge in advance can help you be less of a bore.
I’ve already covered tipping, but there are other unwritten rules you should know about.
The most important rules of etiquette, at least from the perspective of the casino’s staff, relate to the handling of cash. You never hand a dealer money. You put your cash on the table, and the dealer exchanges it for tips.
This is for security purposes, but it also protects the dealer from accusations. By putting the money on the table, you make the entire transaction visible to the cameras above the casino floor. (These are called “the eye in the sky”.)
![First First](https://www.bitrebels.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Lego-Build-Nasa-Rocket-3.jpg)
Kenny Rogers is right, too – never count your money at the table. It’s crass. It’s also dangerous because casinos attract pickpockets and thieves just like any other den of iniquity.
Specific games have specific rules of etiquette, too. For example, in a single deck blackjack, it’s customary to pick up your cards. But in a game dealt from a shoe, you should never touch your cards.
10. You Should Budget More Money for Your Trip than You Think
First Time Casino Tips
The biggest mistake I made the first time I went to Vegas was underestimating how much money it would cost. After all, Vegas is famous for cheap meals and free (or close-to-free) entertainment.
The thing is, all these cheap and free experiences are come-ons to get you gambling. And gambling is always more expensive than most first-time gamblers expect it to be.
I recommend having multiple budgets for your trip, too. Your gambling funds, especially, should be entirely separate from all your other expenses.
I have a friend who went to Vegas and gambled almost all his money away the first day. He barely had anything to eat for the rest of the trip, and he spent most of the rest of his trip watching television in his hotel room. He had enough sense to set aside money to get himself back to the airport.
I can’t imagine a more disappointing end to a trip to Vegas, though.
You should have a budget for meals, a budget for entertainment, and a budget for getting to and from the things you want to do while you’re there. Your gambling budget should be separate from all that.
First Time Gambling Tips
I suggest drawing up a budget for each of those, based on what you’ve learned about prices there from Frommer’s or from travel guides on the Internet.
Then add 20% to each line item in the budget.
You’ll be better off having too much money for your trip than too little.
Conclusion
Casinos are a lot of fun, especially if you’re visiting for your first time.
But gambling and casino entertainment can also be intimidating for the beginner. They don’t have to be, though. With a little bit of education and some planning, you can have a successful first trip to the casino.
If you’re like most people, your first trip to the casino probably won’t be your last.