New far worse side bet on Criss Cross
June 15th, 2022 at 9:22:43 AM
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For the last couple years Borgata has had a $5 button bet that gave a wheel spin for any pair in hand. Wheel min was $50, max was a progressive that started at $150k I’m pretty sure. Over about ten days of playing and watching, 95% of the spins I saw were $50, with a few $60s, $70s, and some scattered $250, $100, etc. I myself hit a $500/100, where I got $500 and everyone else at the table got $100. The wheel is electronic, and does NOT represent equal possibilities. It’s an RNG.
I’m not a math guy, but roughly figuring the edge I’m going to say, a pair comes up every 16-17 hands. So, $5 times 16.5 = $82.50. Most payoffs are $50, so figure everything that isn’t the progressive changes that to, what, $55? 55/82.50 = 66.7%, inverse is 33.3%. Figure in the progressive being a big payoff with an infinitesimal chance of hitting, and I’m going to guess a house edge of what, 25%? I’m sure that’s probably what got pitched.
I’m a casual player. Sometimes I played that bet, sometimes I didn’t. Once I sat down and didn’t play it, and got pairs 4 out of my first 5 hands, another time I sat down and played it and didn’t get a pair in over 2 hours of play. Whatever, the bet hit often enough that, as a casual player, I felt like there was a chance for a nice hit. It was probably going to be $50, but it might be that $2500! Or god willing, that progressive! (And actually, the progressive did hit, in December while we were there; it payed something like $235k, and it happened at about 1AM, when we were long in bed.)
We returned this last weekend, and this bad (but reasonably fun) side bed has been replaced by a much worse one. It is a $5 button bet that spins a wheel when the community cards are 3OAK or better. The amounts are middling, from $75 to something like $500. Again, it’s not representational of equal possibilities. But there is also a second spin! IF your button turns green at the end of the first spin, you get to spin a DIFFERENT wheel, with amounts ranging from $1000 to a Mini, Major, and another progressive. When we were there, that amount was somewhere between $100k and $200k, I’m guessing $185k? The Mini was “must hit by $500”; at the time it was around $250. Major is 10% of the progressive.
And, in three days on playing and watching, I didn’t see a wheel spin. And nobody else did. And the dealers were vague on how many spins they’ve seen. And the dealers weren’t talking it up, except one guy who said, “Hey, $185,000, that’s life changing money!” Well, 1) No, it isn’t, and 2) You might as well put $650 gazillion up there if your chance of getting the first spin is (let me check the WoO Criss Cross page) a bit less than 3%, and the second spin is dependent on your button turning green.
If you are a Carny game player, Criss Cross is fun. The community card bet is decent (3.5% HA), and while the house edge on the base game is 4.33%, if you fold the bad hands and raise the good ones the element of risk is 1.48%. And the variance is huge, which makes the game exciting; one hand often reverses an hour of steady bleeding, and then some.
And the casinos love Criss Cross; I was told, back before the side bets, that it had the highest hold % of any carnival game at Borgata. And that has to be, because everyone always plays every hand, and players often raise hands they shouldn’t. Just like all the other carnival games.
I’m not a casino hater. I accept the game when I reserve the room. But I’m really pissed that they took my favorite carnival game and blatantly turned it into a bold-faced ripoff, a genuine example of the bottle game, or the rope walk game, a TRUE midway rip.
I expect this side bet to die, thankfully. One dealer told me, honestly and as an aside, that he gave it another couple months. Half the table passed on it. New players will play it for 20 minutes or half an hour, then stop (that’s what I did). At least with the Pairs side bet I felt like I was getting some fun for my money.
Thanks for reading something that probably doesn’t apply to 90% of the players here.
I’m not a math guy, but roughly figuring the edge I’m going to say, a pair comes up every 16-17 hands. So, $5 times 16.5 = $82.50. Most payoffs are $50, so figure everything that isn’t the progressive changes that to, what, $55? 55/82.50 = 66.7%, inverse is 33.3%. Figure in the progressive being a big payoff with an infinitesimal chance of hitting, and I’m going to guess a house edge of what, 25%? I’m sure that’s probably what got pitched.
I’m a casual player. Sometimes I played that bet, sometimes I didn’t. Once I sat down and didn’t play it, and got pairs 4 out of my first 5 hands, another time I sat down and played it and didn’t get a pair in over 2 hours of play. Whatever, the bet hit often enough that, as a casual player, I felt like there was a chance for a nice hit. It was probably going to be $50, but it might be that $2500! Or god willing, that progressive! (And actually, the progressive did hit, in December while we were there; it payed something like $235k, and it happened at about 1AM, when we were long in bed.)
We returned this last weekend, and this bad (but reasonably fun) side bed has been replaced by a much worse one. It is a $5 button bet that spins a wheel when the community cards are 3OAK or better. The amounts are middling, from $75 to something like $500. Again, it’s not representational of equal possibilities. But there is also a second spin! IF your button turns green at the end of the first spin, you get to spin a DIFFERENT wheel, with amounts ranging from $1000 to a Mini, Major, and another progressive. When we were there, that amount was somewhere between $100k and $200k, I’m guessing $185k? The Mini was “must hit by $500”; at the time it was around $250. Major is 10% of the progressive.
And, in three days on playing and watching, I didn’t see a wheel spin. And nobody else did. And the dealers were vague on how many spins they’ve seen. And the dealers weren’t talking it up, except one guy who said, “Hey, $185,000, that’s life changing money!” Well, 1) No, it isn’t, and 2) You might as well put $650 gazillion up there if your chance of getting the first spin is (let me check the WoO Criss Cross page) a bit less than 3%, and the second spin is dependent on your button turning green.
If you are a Carny game player, Criss Cross is fun. The community card bet is decent (3.5% HA), and while the house edge on the base game is 4.33%, if you fold the bad hands and raise the good ones the element of risk is 1.48%. And the variance is huge, which makes the game exciting; one hand often reverses an hour of steady bleeding, and then some.
And the casinos love Criss Cross; I was told, back before the side bets, that it had the highest hold % of any carnival game at Borgata. And that has to be, because everyone always plays every hand, and players often raise hands they shouldn’t. Just like all the other carnival games.
I’m not a casino hater. I accept the game when I reserve the room. But I’m really pissed that they took my favorite carnival game and blatantly turned it into a bold-faced ripoff, a genuine example of the bottle game, or the rope walk game, a TRUE midway rip.
I expect this side bet to die, thankfully. One dealer told me, honestly and as an aside, that he gave it another couple months. Half the table passed on it. New players will play it for 20 minutes or half an hour, then stop (that’s what I did). At least with the Pairs side bet I felt like I was getting some fun for my money.
Thanks for reading something that probably doesn’t apply to 90% of the players here.
A falling knife has no handle.
