Slashdot Mirror
Net Vegas
Makarand writes "Vegas has to have the best of tech to keep the plotters away.
Popular Science has an online
article
on how networks are playing an important role in Las Vegas. Welcome to Net Vegas
where slot machines are networked and surveillance grids monitor everything that goes on. Net Vegas
proves to be the best and the harshest test pad for new tech. Net Vegas will eventually
move out of the city and into your homes using the web."
Perhaps you meant something other than 100 cents, because that would be break even (100% payback). The "loosest" casinos have probably at most a 98% payback.
A solution to the problem with music today
What? Las Vegas has to be about one of the most technologically backwards cities in the US. A very poor tech market indeed, and as a special bonus, low pay. One of my network engineer friends out here recently had to move to Arkansa because THEY had more of a tech field than Las Vegas.
Take it from a resident.. Las Vegas != Technology.
"One of these days... milkshake... BOOM!!!!" - emb
Here's an interesting article from a month or two back in wired. True story about some kids from MIT breaking Vegas.
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals."
I seem to recall reading somewhere that for craps and blackjack, the house takes are the lowest (around 2%). In other words, they only expect to keep 2% of what is gambled there.
This does not mean that if you have $100, you will walk away with $98, especially if you insist on betting all $100 on one throw. What it means is that over a statistically significant period of time, your wins and losses combined will relieve you (and everyone else participating in that game) of about 2% of your cash.
However, the house _always_ wins in the end. In most Las Vegas casinos, you can get free drinks while gambling, which affects your judgement, makes you more likely to increase the size of your wager, etc.
Also, on those low "house take" games, the payouts tend to be smaller. Sure, on roulette, you can win 35 times what you bet if the ball lands on your number. But it has a 1:36 chance of doing so. You can bet on black and get a 2:1 payout, but there is slightly less then a 1:2 chance that it will land on black.
Gambling casinos are designed to take money out of your pocket and put it into the casino's pocket. Never forget that. Don't go there with the idea of breaking the bank.
However, if you have a $100 or $200, or the room gives you free chips to play with, and that's all you plan on using, have fun. If you come out ahead, great. If you lose those room chips, don't worry, you haven't dipped into your money yet. Just keep a level head on you, and you can have fun in Las Vegas.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
This does not mean that if you have $100, you will walk away with $98, especially if you insist on betting all $100 on one throw. What it means is that over a statistically significant period of time, your wins and losses combined will relieve you (and everyone else participating in that game) of about 2% of your cash.
I think you've explained that badly, it sounds like your saying that if you have $100 and play blackjack you can expect, on average, to walk away with $98. The 2% take refers to the total amount betted not the your initial bankroll. So, if you always bet $2 you can expect to be $2 down after 50 games, and to have lost all your $100 after 2500 games.
That's an oversimplification on my part but basically the lower the house take the longer it takes for you to lose all your money. You still lose it all in the end. As you say though, with the right perspective you can lose your money and have fun. You're paying for taking part in the game and using the facilities provided by the house.
The latest gizmo at the casinos is recording the video directly to arrays of ATA hard drives. Not only does this save a lot of labor, but also the security team can review recorded video without pausing the recording in process, kinda like TiVo. With 250GB ATA drives costing less than $300, you are going to see a lot more tape applications being replaced by hard drives. In the case of the casinos, they keep one or two tape units handy for saving evidence, but basically there is a definite trend to elimitate the old fashioned VCR.
Sorry, but 5 games are beatable.
Live poker, but you have to ge really good. Those senior citizens are quite good.
Video poker. Some casinos have VP machines which return over 100% in the long run with correct play and maximum coins bet. However, it's a full time job to be in the long run.
Race books are beatable if you are very good and knowlegable.
Sports books can be beaten as well. The casinos took big hits on basketball over/under bets by a group of players using computerized analysis and prediction software.
Blackjack is beatable at least until they suspect you are counting cards at which point you'll be banned.
I currently live in Las Vegas and believe they have been all networked for quite some time.
When a customer wins the jackpot and I mean "thee jackpot" in terms of thousands of dollars the slot machine needs to alert an attendant about the winnings and send the log to a server. Slot machines only have a limited sum of money. Also the server wants to check the logs on the slot machine to make sure that the results are really mathmatically accurate on the so called tightness of the machine.
Slot machines can be adjusted to give users less or more odds. The Las Vegas Hilton or Stratesphere typically have the tightest machines in the city where as the local oriented station casino's in suburbia have the loosest. If the bar on the slot machine is between a jackpot and a cherry for example, at the Hilton the machine will pick the cherry so the consumer will lose. At a station casino it will select the jackpot.
Its all controlled by the computer.
Another area is security and video taping. When a customer wins alot of money from a slot machine or from a blackjack table, the manager will select a camera that faces the particular machine and will watch a video log in fast motion to make sure the user did not cheat.
Also a casino like Ceasars have 30 or 40 satilite dishes so gamblers can watch sports events from around the world as well as serve high rollers who want to watch television from home. Alot of expensive telecommunications are installed.
Last casino's hire mathmaticians and statisticians and use powerfull computers for running various mathmatical bussiness models. Everything including hotel room size to even the amount of booze being used to make a particular drink in the bar is mathmatically researched and formulated for maximum profit. For example you could not stay at the penthouse or villa in the casino's no matter how much money you wanted to pay. They are reserved for popular or consumers who have big checking accounts. Basically they are free even if you have the cash! Why? Because the casino's want high rollers who they know will spend a quarter million a bet!
You did not misread this a quarter to 1 million dollars for a single bet!
If you could only pay 25k per bet, they put you in the next to highest room.
This is all based on mathmatics and how much ROI they get back for each guest staying at the penthouse or villa.
http://saveie6.com/