Vegas - 7/25 thru 7/28

My wife and I will be in Vegas this Thurs through Sunday morning, in case anyone wants to meet another forum member.

Staying at Paris. Hoping to make it out to Boulder Station and Green Valley Ranch and down to Main Street Station at some point over the weekend.

You should meet up with Ahigh. He's always down for some craps.

Have a great time!

Just returned from 3 days in Vegas, plus another day of travel. OF course Vegas requires you to get very little sleep as part of the process. I will be doing a trip report soon in my blog, but 2 items of interest came up that I thought would be fun to mention here. Please do not turn this into a biased dice thread though.

On Friday, I met with superrick to play at Green Valley Ranch. Rick had mentioned he was working on a new set/throw that seemed to be producing a lot of 4s, so I decided on a plan if I started seeing evidence of an increased number of 4s.

I decided I was willing to risk $100 on his throw, so the plan was;

Buy the 4 for $100.
On first hit, parlay to $300, total invested is now $105.
On second hit, parlay to $900, total invested is now $120 ($100 bet + $5 vig + $15 vig)
On third hit, take bet to $1000, bank $1700. Total gain at this point is now $1535 (1800 pay - 100 add to bet - 5vig - 15vig - 45 vig - 100 original bet).
On 4th hit, pay $50 vig, take $2000 pay, and take bet down. NET = $4,485.

But the key to this bet was it becomes a $1500 winner after only 3 hits on the number 4. I generally buy the 4 for $25 most times, and press to $50, then press to $100, and then escalate from there. I get to the $100 press fairly often, so if the number 4 seems to be showing more often than normal, I decided ahead of time this would be my play.
Rick did seem to be throwing quite a few 4s, and since I had a very good roll to start of the GVR session, I had extra chips to invest. I picked to play the strategy when Rick had set the 4 as the point, so he had already rolled the first 4 before I made the $100 bet. When Rick then hit the 4 point, I pressed to $300. A few minutes later, Rick hit the 4 again and I pressed to $900. One more 4, and I am +$1535 for this roll!, on $120 invested!
"Come on lady luck, give me one more 4."
Lady Luck responded quickly, the problem was she peed on me. 7 out, woulda, coulda, shoulda.

After that, the number of 4s seemed to decrease, and my excess chips also disappeared, so I never got a chance to try the bet again. But I am quite certain I will be trying this bet a few more times in the future, any time I see more 4s than seems normal.

And this leads to the second topic. During this same session 12s were showing up like crazy. I noticed it, and of course, Rick knows for certain since he tracks every throw. We were commenting on how many there had been already, and I think I said there had been 8, when the right answer was 9. We both agreed the ratio was way higher than 1 in 36, and in fact, was way better than 1 in 30, which would be needed to break even.
In any event, Rick decided to get 30 white chips, and to play the TWELVE bet for 30 straight throws, just to prove what we knew we were already seeing. In the next 30 throws, Rick got paid 3 times! $60 profit on $30 invested, on one of the worst bets on the table. LOL

again, not interested in biased dice comments, but comments on the worthwhile, or worthlessness, of playing trends is open for discussion.
I did not think to ask Rick what the ratio of 12s was at the end of the session. They greatly decreased shortly after Rick finished playing his 30 chips, so the overall session ratio may have been close to expected values.

Craps is such a stupid game.

Quote: RaleighCraps

Craps is such a stupid game.

I agree. Last weekend I watched a guy at the other end of the table turn $600 into $7,000 with place bets. I won only $300 playing PL and come bets with odds in the same time.

Had my first bad experience with a dealer tip on Sunday, right before we left Vegas.

I was wearing my Wizard of Odds shirt, and had about 30 min to play craps before we had to leave. The table at Paris was full, so we went over to Bally's to play. I buy in for $300, and the box and the floor were talking about the shirt. They didn't mention it to me directly, but it was obvious they were reacting to it. I drop a quick hundred and then slowly recover. I have about 15 min left to play, and decide I better not play the fire bet, since I would have to leave before a fire bet hit and was paid off.
Shooter is making points, and I have full odds on the $10 table. I am now about even in my bank, and money on the table has me ahead. So I decide now is a good time to throw down a dealer bet. Scott is the dealer (so Scott if you read this site, you can learn something here).
I have $10 on the 4, shooter rolls a 4, and I press it to a $25 buy. I get $3 change, and throw it on the table, IN FRONT OF THE FOUR, and tell Scott, "Dealer bet on the 4 for $3." Scott takes the money, and says, "We'll play with the shooter on the 8 point, instead." Internally, I instantly boiled over, but I also instantly decided not to make an issue. My wife was standing there though, and she leans in and says, "Didn't you say to put it on the four?" I said, "yeah, but I'm not going to make an issue of it. I'm just going to let it go."

A few rolls later, I am getting farther ahead, so I decide to place the 9 for $15. Scott says, "Give me another red." So I'm thinking yeah, a $20 NINE is a good bet, because shooter has rolled a couple of 9s already. Scott then takes the $20 and puts $10 on the NINE, AND $10 on the FIVE, which were the only two numbers I did not have covered. Now I am really getting irritated, but once again I say nothing.

The FOUR is rolled, and a few rolls later the shooter makes the 8 point. Now is my chance, so when Scott is looking I politely say, "Too bad you didn't leave the dealer bet on the FOUR like I said. You would have banked a $9 tip, instead of the $6 you got for the EIGHT." I then looked away so he had no chance to respond. I wasn't looking to get engaged in an argument, but I wanted Scott to realize changing my dealer bet had not been appreciated.

Shooter has a new point, and I am up to $25 on the FIVE now. A five is rolled, and Scott hands me $25. I look at the payout, and then I realize Scott is making the FIVE a $35 bet. Now I am pissed. So I say, "Scott, I have played this game for years, I know what I am doing, and if I wanted to press the FIVE, I would have told you to press it. Thanks for your help, but I want it at $25, and PLEASE, do not make another bet for me."

I think his intentions were probably good at heart, but I did not appreciate the assistance. And, I had already announced $54 Across as a bet a few times, $32 Inside action, and had done other things that should have indicated I knew what I was doing. So why he felt I needed assistance with my bets is confusing.
And UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE was Scott changing the dealer bet acceptable whatsoever. Was the EIGHT a better bet for the dealer? Of course it was. BUT, I was tipping the dealers, while at the same time trying to buy some good will for my $25 BUY FOUR bet. Moving the bet to the EIGHT did not do that, other than my restraint at making a scene maybe bought me some good mojo.
Shooter made this point, and I decided it was time to leave, so I pulled all my bets down, colored up for $524, and walked away with $524. I cannot recall ever having walked away with any $1 chips from a table game before. They always go for tips, even when I have lost my complete Buyin.

Sorry Wiz. They probably think the Wizard of Odds site promotes cheap players who don't know how to tip. Because I did not make a scene, I am sure Scott had no idea how pissed off I was about him changing the tip bet, unless he clued into my comment about the tip payout.

I also stopped in Bally's for some quick play on Saturday. I can't recall if it was Scott on Saturday, but I think it may have been. Shooter had made 2 points, and was rolling a lot of numbers. The stick change takes place, and shooter makes his point 2 rolls later. We all clean up our line bets, and look up for the next throw. NO SHOOTER! HE has gone. Disappeared in 2 seconds flat. All of the players are looking at each other with that "What just happened look". Finally I said "What happened to the shooter? The stick looks at me and says, "Oh that guy does not like me at all. He refuses to play on any table I am at."
Of course, the dice pass and the next shooter goes point, 7 out, so my table full of presses goes down the draino. Oy vey.

Quote: Headlock

I agree. Last weekend I watched a guy at the other end of the table turn $600 into $7,000 with place bets. I won only $300 playing PL and come bets with odds in the same time.

Friday night at Paris, I am in for $1000, down about $800, and in life support mode. Shooter has made TWO points, which constituted a hot roll at this point. Looking like I might get my money back yet. Action stops as a guy buys in next to me for $2500. This takes a while to count out, and then chip the player. Player then bets $300 SIX, and $300 on the EIGHT, which is also the point. (Well, at least the player is putting his money at play after the stoppage.) And all of the craps congregation calls out in unison the next stick calls......... DICE ARE OUT, 7 OUT LINE AWAY !

To his credit, he continued to bet strong, but after just 2 players his rail was almost empty. Dice passed to a lady, and she proceeds to roll a number of 6s and 8s. Old Raleigh is stuck, and is in slow play mode, which means I am taking 2 hits before I will press one unit. Meanwhile, rich dude is parlaying bets everywhere. He also bets $25 hard 6 and hard 8. Shooter hits each. Bets are pressed to $50 and each are hit again. bets are pressed to $100 and each are hit again! Hard 8 was pressed to $300 and the SOB hit AGAIN! Only once did he have to reload at the $100 level! Meanwhile, his place 6 and 8 are at $600 as well. All told, I think he got paid on 7 or 8 hardway bets from that lady shooter. Rich guy left (probably to go piss himself on his good luck) and they threw a towel over his chips, so I did not get an accurate count. They upped the table to $15 and I switched to another table before he got back.

Roll ends, and I recovered $300 to still be down about $500. I'm quite certain rich dude won north of $12,000 because the pit was asking a dealer how many $1K chips went out and the dealer replied 8. And he got handed plenty of purple before they even went to the $1k chips.

The tip thing no big deal to me. If I throw the money on the table they can bank it for all I care. Pretty much in my view once I put it on the table for the boys, it's their money at that point.

As far as the dealer betting your money in a different way, it is clearly wrong. I think you should have spoke up immediately. Once you let it go the first time, he would have kept doing it if you didnt speak up.I agree he probably had good intentions but no dealer should be betting anyone else's money.

And about the WoO shirt... Do you feel like it puts a target on you in a negative way at all?

Did you play with AHigh?

Quote: Beardgoat

The tip thing no big deal to me. If I throw the money on the table they can bank it for all I care. Pretty much in my view once I put it on the table for the boys, it's their money at that point.

As far as the dealer betting your money in a different way, it is clearly wrong. I think you should have spoke up immediately. Once you let it go the first time, he would have kept doing it if you didnt speak up.I agree he probably had good intentions but no dealer should be betting anyone else's money.

And about the WoO shirt... Do you feel like it puts a target on you in a negative way at all?

I agree. The tip bet wouldn't bother me either, but I definitely would have (politely) said something if a dealer tried changing my own bets. That's just flat out wrong and annoying. Whenever a dealer ticks me off or annoys me (which is rare), I always make sure to avoid that dealer in the future.

RaleighCraps,.. is way more generous then most players you will see on the tables, even the highrollers. Most of the time he has a line bet with odds for the dealers and some place bet also. The thing that got me was he was even doing that when he was down money. I got to say sorry dealers, that will never happen when I'm down money and in recovery mode.

The difference between winning and losing could be one or two hardways wins that you may have made for the dealers. Vegas has some great dealers and we also have some crews that are straight from hell, the locals know that some casinos are notorious for some bad dealers on certain shifts.

The way I tip is to place bets under my control, and press them up on ever hit, if I get a dealer that thinks they know more then me and doesn’t want that bet, then all the tokes come down. You should only toke for good service, not bad manners from the the dealers. Some dealers think that the players have to tip and get mad when they don't. Craps is a game of many ups and downs, you could be playing in your third casino for the day and you down big time, the dealers are jerks but the table is hot.
Your the shooter and they are giving you a hard time because the table has been dumping chips, at this point why would you tip a jerk dealer anything?

Vegas has a subculture of craps player and BJ players that hit so many casinos a day, we get to see all the good dealers and the bad one to we pick and choose when and were to play, some times we will play at a casino because we know they will have nobody on the tables when we are going to play, and they will have a wise ass dealer there in the crew, you are known to the crew as a good tipper, but every time this one dealer is dealing to you he or she gives you a hard time. I stop tipping and tell the crew that I will not tip as long as this dealer is dealing to me.

I play on nothing but what I call bonus bet tables, where a single $1 tip can turn into $1000 for the dealers, when I do hit those type of bets, I will remind the dealers that the jerk dealer cost them that money. Sometimes it's the only way to get your point across to the dealers, I let them take care of the jerk dealer. After a few times of hitting that casino, I start back tipping again, to see if they have done their job and change Mr jerks attitude. Most of the time it works and you now have a dealer that respects you!

You are not required to tip, you should only tip for good service, not bad behavior by the dealers, in Vegas you can walk next door and get a good game with good dealers, telling the rest of the crew that you would be tipping, if it wasn't for one jerk dealers sometimes works miracles! In other parts of the world there are no dealer tip allowed, the casinos pay the dealers a fair wage, unlike here in the states.
The players are subsidizing the casinos by tipping the dealers, and the casinos are getting away with it!

Dealers work hard for their money, I wouldn't want to stand at a table for eight hours a day, having some jerk blowing smoke in my face, or some player cursing at me because they just lost their money!
When it was the players fault that they lost, maybe if they had read a book or taking a good class on the game that they were playing they would have had a fighting chance of winning!

You also have the tip hustlers and you get to see this kind of see behavior on the weekends, when you have a lot of drunk playing on the strip. These dealers have it down to a science as to how they get chips without the player even knowing that they are tipping the dealers by making bets for them.

Anytime you hear a dealer asking if the drunk wants to make a two-way hardway bet, you have a dealer that is tip hustler. Then you have to watch where this dealer is placing the drunks bets, some times you will catch them making bets for one of their partners, that will buy-in next to a drunk or group of them. The dealer now places bet for his buddy when the drunks place their bets! The eye is the sky is there to catch cheaters, and guess what guys, most of the time its the dealers they catch!

...

Quote: teddys

Did you play with AHigh?

I did not. I think meeting Ahigh, and seeing his setup at home would be pretty cool. And by all accounts of people who have met him in person, he is a great guy. I would just be too afraid he would have one of his patented confrontations at a table while I am playing. I like a low key table, not much drama. I don't mind when a table gets hot and there is lots of cheering, but I do not like playing when you have one person hooping it up or making waves.

I think Aaron would probably be quite okay to play with, but I just decided not to take the chance. I'm only there for a couple of days, and I don't need to take the chance for any drama.
My Bally's story reeks of drama, but that really wasn't the case. No one else at the table would have known I was getting irritated, so while it bugged me, it was not a deterrent to the game and the rest of the players.

On another note, my wife and I went back down to Main Street Station on Saturday afternoon. After 3 hours I got on another great roll, and cashed out up $1,100. The floor asked me if there was anything they could do for me, and since it was prime rib night at the buffet, I asked for 2 buffet comps. I thought she was going to faint. Pretty sure she was expecting me to be asking for quite a bit more. VERY GOOD FOOD on the buffet, and after dinner I was very accommodating and gave back $500 of my winnings (400 on the craps table and 100 on VP).

MSS is quickly becoming a favorite place of mine to play in Vegas. The other players were annoying at times, the way they jump back and forth between the tables, but I figured out something that worked on Saturday. The tale was cold, so I started playing the Don't. A few players on my side of the table became irritated at that and stormed off to the other table. SWEET. Now I know how to clear some space at a table. lol
Anyway, 20x odds on a $5 table on a Saturday afternoon gives you lots of options on how to bet. It gives you room to slow play when nothing is going right, and yet gives you plenty of room to risk big money on a 0% HE Odds bet. I was mostly playing 54 across, but I did throw a few Come bets out there at times. I did get paid on a number of $100 odds bets, and I was in the process of going to a $10 PL and $150 odds, thinking about $200, when my roll ended.

Quote: Beardgoat

...And about the WoO shirt... Do you feel like it puts a target on you in a negative way at all?

No I don't think so. If I was a BJ counter, I certainly would not want the attention. I play some BJ, but I don't count. I also play pretty solid basic strategy, so I am not embarrassed to be wearing the shirt, nor am I embarrassing the moniker. I do regret not asking the Wiz if we could have made it a
Wizard of Odds.com , or a
Wizard of Vegas.com logo instead

that would have been a bit more advertising for the site, and also feel a little less pretentious.

I had one floor in Vegas ask me if I was THE Wizard of Odds last December. I am quite certain he knew I was not, and wanted to see what I would say. I said No.

Almost every dealer I talk to at the craps tables have either heard of the Wizard of Odds site, or they are frequent visitors of the site. On a previous trip to Harrah's Cherokee I got into quite a lengthy discussion with a floor about the Wizard's site. The floor was well aware of the site, and a fan.


So the shirt usually sparks some conversation, and doesn't seem to generate any ill will towards me that I have noticed so far.

Quote: RaleighCraps

I did not. I think meeting Ahigh, and seeing his setup at home would be pretty cool. And by all accounts of people who have met him in person, he is a great guy. I would just be too afraid he would have one of his patented confrontations at a table while I am playing. I like a low key table, not much drama. I don't mind when a table gets hot and there is lots of cheering, but I do not like playing when you have one person hooping it up or making waves.

I don't blame you. I saw Ahigh downtown a few weeks ago but didn't say anything. I wouldn't mind meeting him someday, but definitely not in a casino setting. I like to keep a low profile in casinos, and Ahigh (although he seems like a good guy) is anything but low profile.

I almost forgot to respond to this thread, there have been many great threads today!

I actually tend to agree with RaleighCraps about the dealer bet, RC expressed a specific intention for that bet and that is where I think it should go. I would personally consider the money as not belonging to the dealer until the bet is resolved, so I don't think the dealer has the right to decide where it goes if the player expresses otherwise.

I would make an exception for the dealer asking and receiving permission, as I don't consider asking at all rude. I recall one occasion in which I declared that I'd be making my final Roulette bet, win or lose, as I was betting Black-29 and the four corners thereof and was at the point in my Positive Progression (No effect on the House Edge, I know, before anyone says anything) where each individual bet was getting $3.00, but I was sleepy. I put $5.00 on Black and announced the Black bet as, "For the Croup." The conversation went as follows:

Croup: Thanks for the try, either way it goes, is that five?

Me: Yeah, it's five.

Croup: Not the first time, either, you're very generous. How about you put me with you on this one?

Me: Really? Like to gamble, do you?

Croup: If we're going to win, we might as well win big.

Me: Cool, Croup, you got it, a buck on 29 and a buck on each corner!

The best end to the story is Black-29 coming up for a total win of $67 plus the initial $5 for a total tip of $72. It didn't go that way, but 28 hit for a total win of $16 plus $2 of the initial $5 coming back for a tip of $18.

RaleighCraps,..You asked for the data on the time we were at the table, now I usually don't break down any data that I gather from the tables I play on, but do record every roll of the dice on every table I play on. That day we played way to long, we were there for 521 rolls of the dice, the break down went like this.

2's = 15 ....................................................... The 7's broke down like this: 5/2 = 20 4/3 = 13 6/1 = 40

3's = 33

4's = 55

5's = 44

6's = 60

8's = 67

9's = 33

10's = 41

11's = 24

12's =22

What made me start betting the 12's were there were to many of them in the beginning of our rolls. It was just a way of showing what was happening on the table, The 30 $1 chips was a way of seeing if we would have made money betting a bigger units, and we would have!

The second thing is the 4's they were right up there with the 6's and 8's , not a bad way of making money then you had the tens that came in at 41 of them again not a bad bet for that day.

Now you math guys can have a ball with this data if you want to crunch the numbers, the one thing that you have to remember is that we did have some other players buy-in when we were on that table.
I'm not going to break down RaleighCraps or my rolls in this data. This is just to show what was happening on the table and why I started betting 12's for 30 rolls of the dice.

The very first thing I notice was there were way to may 12's when we started shooting, they did go away for a while then they came back on strong. I'm not a guy that takes home his roll data and enters it into a computer, I feel that is just a waste of time, everything changes everyday on the tables! The way I look at the game there are no bad bets on the table if you are hitting them. I don't play by the math of the game, I play by what I'm seeing happening on the table. Sometimes the 6's and 8's are the worst bets on the table, because nobody is hitting them! When we first started to play we had the table to ourselves!

So for the biggest part of the time we had the table to ourselves, but like anytime you play, you can't keep other players off the tables. They seem to show up at the worst times, stopping a good roll, by throwing in their buy-ins as you are shooting or doing any other stupid thing that they do,.. like late bets, chips where the shooter is landing there dice, prop bets, it seems like that's the only thing they know how to bet. These guys like to bets for the wrong amount, and that is one of my pet peeves! There is nothing worst then some guy taking a stack of chips without counting them out and making a bet that doesn't even make sense. If the guy does get lucky it stops the game while the dealers are trying to figure out the pay out!

You find these guys at table-end stacking as many chip as they can right where the shooter has been landing his dice! Instead of these guys learning to play craps by watching some stupid movie, I wish that they would pick-up a good book that has table etiquette in it, and learn how to stop doing so many stupid things when they think they want to have some fun playing craps!

.....

Rick,
Thanks for posting the summary. I only count a total of 467 rolls above, but your data is very much what I remembered. And you are correct, we stayed way too long.
The number of 12s doesn't really tell the story like you and I saw it though. To expound on what you wrote, the 12s came in two waves. When we first got on the table, 12s were rolling quite often, way more than 1 in 36. Then, shortly after you did your $30 experiment, the 12s disappeared for quite a long time, only to come back in a very high number at the end of our session. It was pretty strange, but just goes to show that random numbers can still show in weird sequences and patterns.

I sort of noticed there were not many 11s rolled during the session, but seeing the actual number was surprising. A YO bettor did not make any money this time.

I knew there were quite a few 4s and 10s being rolled, but the number is quite surprising. How did I end up losing money in this session? I know I lost a few very aggressive presses (had my $900 four hit, I would have been very much back to the good), but I should have done much better on those outside numbers.

My real lesson learned from GVR -- Walk away when you have doubled your buy-in. Oh wait, I've learned that lesson plenty of times. LOL

Another moment from GVR after Rick left:

Playing on a choppy table, but last shooter made 1 point and this shooter has made 2 points, so making a bit of money. Game stops as guy opens a FAT wallet, and buys in at other end of the table for $2500. He gets his chips and then sees the spot next to me is bigger, so he grabs his chips and parks next to me.
Proceeds to play $25 DP. That was total bet.
He cashed $2500, to play $25 DP?
Turned out he would martingale, with no odds. $25 / 50 / 100. Nobody had a roll that made him go over that amount.
This goes on for the next 5 shooters, until the dice come to him, and I assume he will pass.
He does not.
So, I pop $25 DP down as well. He rolls 7 winner.
He then sets 8 for the point, puts full odds on his DP, and makes the point.
Come out 11 winner. I quit betting on him, down $100.
He then makes a $300 DP bet, and sets a point of 4. Puts the rest of his money on the odds. Makes the 4.
$2500 gone, on his roll, in less than 3 minutes. He storms off, only to return before they can send the dice to me to finish his roll.
Pulls out $500 more, puts it all on the DP, and throws again. 7 winner
Make that $3000 gone in 3 minutes, 15 seconds...........

It does not pay to get steamed, and lose your head, while you are gambling.

The darksiders on the forum may be interested to know I played the darkside at least a few times on every one of my craps sessions on this trip.
The few plays at GVR in the above post resulted in a loss, but all of the others were positive results for me.

I don't like to play the DP, so I will usually only resort to it when the table is just bleeding money from the right side, which happened in every session I played. After I have been hit, I will go to $25 DP. I rarely lay odds, instead I will plan on doing a 50 / 100 martingale, if needed.
The exception to this play is when I see a shooter start throwing horn numbers, and then throw 3 craps numbers in a row. At that point I will lay odds on my DP, even on 6s and 8s. I can't tell you how many times I win the bet within the next 2 rolls.

So each one of my DP 'mini-sessions' usually consisted of no more than 4 or 5 shooters, and I made around $100 each time. This is usually effective, and I could see where a consistent and quick DP betting pattern might make money quite often. I just don't enjoy playing that way.

The Chi^2 test on those rolls is in the warning range. p = 0.000092, including the 7 splits provided.

The data suggests that sample was not collected from fair dice.

Quote: dwheatley

The Chi^2 test on those rolls is in the warning range. p = 0.000092, including the 7 splits provided.

The data suggests that sample was not collected from fair dice.

That is interesting. I will only ask that any further comment on this subject be split into a new thread, to talk about this specific roll sequence, and what Rick and I saw while we were playing. Keeping it specific to this roll sequence I would hope would allow a new thread to be started.

RaleighCraps

If you remember that last time you were here I told you to put your chips in the field, because of what I was seeing, we do see some pretty strange things happening with the roll counts here in Vegas. That is why I never play by the math of the game. Betting the inside box numbers will do you no good, if they are not hitting. If we are seeing the outside box numbers that is were our money is!