Fun fact that I heard through the casino grapevine. The game was named "Sands Roulette" when submitted to the GCB. You should see that on the sign. Therefore, you probably won't see it at another property because they would need to call it "Sands Roulette".

"If playing basic strategy" is the key. Very few people do.

The "hold" - which is defined as cash and chips in minus chips out - is typically 2-3%, which is 3-4x the house edge with basic strategy. So the 6:5 making basic strategy 4x worse only doubles the hold.

It's actually a great rule from the casino's perspective, in that it punishes people who play well and devastates counters but most others won't notice.

i agree most people don't play bs
i'm not sure it's a great rule- seems like more of a great short term rule. people even playing bs lose a lot faster, have less good days and in the long run may place less.you're also just gonna lose a lot of people who play bs and know they're getting ****ed.

most people who try and count also either can't or don't have the discipline for it. people thinking that they can count is good for the casinos.

Except that the players I was referring to from my last visit weren't betting $10 a hand at the $10-minimum table. They were betting $25-$200+ a hand at the 6-5 table when the next table over was a $25-minimum table with 3-2 BJ payouts.

Can you patent adding an extra slot to a roulette wheel? Because if not I predict seeing some Wynn Roulette or Bellagio Roulette in the future.

Only in extreme circumstances, and those good rules are hard to find for $25. It's usually less than 3x. Blackjack paying 6-5 is about 1.4% difference.

I heard it was named "Bend Over Roulette".

5.2% not enough of an edge for the Venetian? what a rip off

TI pretty much only place still offering 3/2 blackjack on all their tables. I always make every effort to play there out of support.

All double deck and six-deck games are $10 3-2. You just have to avoid the couple of single deck games. The six-deck even has surrender and re-split aces. For $25 you get S17. TI is easily the best place to play blackjack on Strip for low and mid players.

Very helpful thanks

Yeah I can see quadzero roulette coming soon. Instead of showing 0000 on the table it will be a pick of Shelly stealing cash out of the purse of an unsuspecting fellow blue hair.

Stratosphere also does 3/2 but too much effort getting there

1. While people counting and failing doesn't hurt the casinos as much as people counting and succeeding, it's no better than people flat betting EV-wise and carries more variance.

2. The casinos don't care about blackjack players flaming out - think about what local pros think about poker fish flaming out and then realize the corporations that own casinos care less than that.

3. Blackjack tables were breakeven propositions to begin with, casinos primarily had them for ambiance. It's a beatable game precisely because the house edge is small to begin with - you need exceptional dexterity to control dice and a huge bias to profit off roulette, but a single card removed from a deck can tilt the game of blackjack in your favor. Roulette and Big Wheel carry a big house edge but they are slow as molasses.

People like to tell themselves these things because they profit from the loopholes - "casinos shouldn't crack down on counters" (so I can count), "they should keep house edges small for their own longevity" (and mine), "poker tables draw more table games players" (more fish for me).

The reality is that it comes down to a number - revenue per square foot. And if they can't raise the revenues of table games to roughly match an increasing number of competitors (including non-gaming), it's just not sustainable. Think about it this way: 10 people putting down $5 each per spin at 5% house edge. That's $2.50/spin or $50/hour for the casino. Pay each of the workers $20/hr and $10/hr split between pit boss and surveillance, and it's a toss up between having a roulette table or literally empty floor space. If you want to compete with other games or slots or even retail or a snack bar, you have to be close enough in revenue to not get laughed out of the room.

My god... Does the casino really need better odds than a double ought?

I play single ought all the time and is one of my favorite games, but adding that second zero adds a house edge by at least another 4-5%... now a third zero? Eff that.

1)it brings in lots of people who wouldn't play otherwise who think they have an edge when they don't.
Unless you're a whale betting absurds amount of money casinos are fine with the variance.they need it to stay open or nobody would play.

2)bj has always been a money maker for the casino
It's not their for ambiance as you imply

3)I've seen casinos to assaine things to thwart tiny stakes counters to their detriment-ie half showing red chip counters with people at the same table betting hundreds of dollars per hand that can't even play basic strategy correctly.

Ye Olde It Brings People In Argument.

We need free parking because it brings people in! We need 3:2 blackjack because it brings people in! We need free drinks because it brings people in!

At some point, when you crunch the numbers, I predict you realize that the gambling market is not as elastic as you think it is, and that the casinos have decided they make more money by gouging the addicts than they make by trying to entice the non-gambler into gambling.

Now, it's always possible the casinos are wrong. But they have a bunch of New York bean counters poring over thousands of players card data, and if you think they're wrong you should hit them back New York style by shorting their stock and then rubbing the earnings on your titties when their next quarterly report comes out.

As a beginning quantitative test, let me ask you this: when Bringing Down The House was published or when the movie 21 came out, was there a spike in table game revenue as people rushed to try card counting?

I agree that's asinine, but I've seen casinos do a bunch of smart things too, like making BJ pay 6:5. The introduction of ASMs to cut down shuffle times was a good move, and nuked shuffle tracking. (But CSMs predictably met resistance because people distrust machines.)

And in case it's not obvious, convincing people to sign up for players cards is really good business. They get personalized data on gambling habits, and force counters to accept one of two scenarios: 1. Play on a card and have recorded playing patterns vulnerable to computer analysis, or 2. stick out when their play warrants significant rewards but refuse to give ID. While the casinos would love to have on the fly facial recognition on everyone, the reality is that if they can get enough people to sign up for a card, they can identify the rest with a numerical ID, e.g., they can spend the computational resources to find out the suspected counter in Seat 3 is Customer #43,235 who played at Mandalay Bay on Thursday 1:24 pm to 2:58 pm (just dodging a shift change) and then came back at 3:35pm.

I'm not saying I approve of **** like this. Nor do I necessarily disapprove - I was once an MGM shareholder. Either way, I have grudging respect for many of the countermeasures they've deployed.

At least 4-5%? How many numbers do your wheels have, must be less than 20 or is it a very non-standard payout structure?

I think roulette players as a whole are the least knowledgeable player group in terms of the house advantage. If you told them they're not getting paid true odds, they will still keep playing. If you told them single numbers now only pay 30to1, they will still play.

Now on the other hand, if they keep going and losing all their money over and over again, they won't come back any more. So there's definitely a point of no return for the casino (literally) but I don't think the extra zero will effect them enough to notice.

The way I play, a single ought wheel is over 60% to hit a payout, a double ought drops that to around 56%... I would expect a triple ought to be roughly a similar reduction in expectation of hitting to perhaps less than 50/50.

It's still negative ev even though you can expect your number to hit more often than not... that's why the zero was added in the first place. If they hadn't added that first zero, you'd have an expectation of 66% but it would cost you twice as much to make the bet... basically 2:1 same odds as hitting your number... coin flip over a longer timeline.

But whatever, I still love the game as a single ought wheel.

Little known fact, the early roulette wheels in France in the late 18th century had a zero and double zero. Single zero wheels were only introduced in the 19th century in Germany, probably for advertisement purposes of the casino.

FWIW, your chance to hit a payout decreasing from 60% to 56% doesn’t mean the casino adds another 4-5% in house edge. If you bet one chip on red and one on black, your chances of hitting a payout decrease from 36/37 to 18/19 if there’s a second zero and to 12/13 in a three zero game.

The degen in me is splitting $30 on those zeros.

Not sure if anyone has these numbers. But I can tell you that my friend who lost $100,000 plus only started playing after he "learned how to count." He could actually count, but would get plastered when he played, so his counting skills probably diminished. Or he just forgot about counting and chased losses.

Or he tried counting a 6:5 game or a CSM, which one might laugh at but happens with shocking frequency from my time on the blackjack forums.

The question isn't whether anyone has failed at counting (many people fail for many reasons). The question is whether keeping rules favorable for successful counters would bring in more business from a select subset of failed counters (those that would attempt to count a 3:2 game but not try a 6:5 game) than it loses from successful counters winning more PLUS the failed counters (who would have tried counting regardless of the rules) would additionally lose.

This is anecdotal, but my friends and I quit counting as BDTH was slated to come out (a combination of our expectation that BDTH would sensitize pit critters plus poker became cool and we wanted to be cool). After BDTH came out we were playing recreationally and subtly asked the dealers if anything had changed post-BDTH. The consensus was that the corporate types were indeed worried but nothing on the ground floor had changed, including procedures. It was neither a boom nor bust.

While I haven't played blackjack post-"21," my expectation is that it didn't change much either. In part, because both the book and movie focus on those 5- and 4-sigma events where you win every hand or lose 1,000 units, IMO anyone who casually picks up the practice will bore within an hour of the TC waffling between -1 and +1.

Cromwell has 3/2 on double deck $10 tables but no re-splitting.