Skill based tournament

So since craps is not considered a game of skill, there has never been a skill based tournament.

I am trying to put together such an animal. For those who don't believe in shooting skill, everyone will have a chance to win.

For those who do believe, here's a place to test your skills.

Here are some of the objectives of the tournament that I'm designing:

1) Rapid fire shooting with a full 16 person table, shooting occurs once every 5 to 15 seconds (each shooter gets one throw at a time and is imposed a time limit)
2) Networked computers that make bets according to common betting patterns - bets are displayed on a large 65" LCD display behind boxman
3) Each player gets the same and equal chance to win money each rolling into the same betting patterns made by the computer
4) No skill is required to place bets (no bets are placed by humans, they are all placed by the computer)
5) Skill is required to evaluate the bets being displayed in order to know what results are more favorable in the possible outcomes
6) Real-time results are networked between multiple tables in the same (and even in different) casinos allowing real-time competitive shooting
7) All rolls are called valid or no-roll just as would be expected at a real casino
8) If two no-rolls are called, a computer generates a random outcome for the shooter and play continues to the next shooter
9) a bonus on each time around the table for the shooter who had the quickest shot while still making money
10) At the beginning of each round, each shooter picks who they think will win the most money on that round and will get a bonus for being correct. The goal being to basically reward the players for not just shooting well, but for figuring out who is the best shooter as well

The shooter's rolls do not necessarily affect the point being established (one shooter from the entire group of competitors is randomly selected to affect the state for the next round) so that each shooter has the same setup to shoot into. This is and the fact that each shooter does one valid roll at a time before the next shooter shoots. Each shooter has two pairs of dice so that there is no waiting for no-roll events. You must shoot your alternate pair of dice if you get a no roll.

I am searching for a casino that is willing to work with me to put on a tournament with these as the basic guidelines for rules. I'm open to refinements, but the premise is in fact to create a much more rapid and challenging experience than a typical craps game. For all the guys out there who claim to be able to throw really well, I think that this would be a great way to challenge themselves against other great shooters. Entry fees, legal mumbo jumbo, prize schedules, and so on, I think there's a lot of possibilities.

I don't understand why anyone who could shoot "skillfully" would enter a tournament like this. Why not just go a casino and take all their money instead? The ability to bet with even a small edge, along with the ability to choose how much to bet each time, is a license to print money.

Quote: AxiomOfChoice

I don't understand why anyone who could shoot "skillfully" would enter a tournament like this. Why not just go a casino and take all their money instead? The ability to bet with even a small edge, along with the ability to choose how much to bet each time, is a license to print money.

Gambling is entertainment last time I checked.

One word: fun. You have had it before haven't you?

Casino craps creates less conflicts that street craps. But the competition aspect is really not there with regular casino craps.

I just want something that's more fun and challenging, I guess.

I mean, as a player, I want to beat other players, not just the casino. Especially certain other players. LOL.

Carrying piles and piles of chips to the cage sounds like fun to me.

Quote: AxiomOfChoice

I don't understand why anyone who could shoot "skillfully" would enter a tournament like this. Why not just go a casino and take all their money instead?

Yeah. That would be like having a competition for football or basketball picks on this site.

Why would any skillful sports handicapper participate in a tournament here, when they can just win money at the casino?

Quote: AxiomOfChoice

Carrying piles and piles of chips to the cage sounds like fun to me.

If it makes any difference to you or anyone else, I have carried so many purple chips from the craps table at the Silverton to the cage that they had to give me a chip rack.

I've got money. I think it's those who don't have money that think fun and money are the same thing. Just my opinion, but I could be wrong.

FWIW, I took that money and I refinanced my house and saved $500/month on my 15 year mortgage.

A networked skill-based dice-throwing tournament could have a grand prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars with entry fees of $100 or less. It would have to start off smaller, but it could grow to be quite large and quite an event. Most craps tournaments are really boring, and I would absolutely rather be playing craps for cash. I agree there.

But I'm not sure, from your comments, that you have any clue what I'm talking about. The game would be very action packed and fast with all the emphasis on shooting.

There are many people with great intelligence but totally lack wisdom. So many words to describe this condition but they all end in suspensions from this board.

Quote: Ahigh

FWIW, I took that money and I refinanced my house and saved $500/month on my 15 year mortgage.

You should have gone to Geico, AND really saved money.

This is an interesting idea Ahigh, but what would be the hook for the casino? What is in it for them?

I like the concept of the computer placing the bets.
I presume, as the shooter, I will be aware of exactly where all the bets are being made.
I then decide that perhaps a 2-2 is the most profitable throw this time.
The next time, the most profitable throw may be a 4-3.
In any event, I decide the number I want, and then pick up my dice and make a legal throw.

I assume every shooter will get to throw at the exact same bets, so everyone has an equal shot at making money.

How are you going to determine where you get to stand at the table?
I am a good shooter from Stick L1 and okay from Stick R1.
I no longer care to shoot from the ends of the table.
What if there are 16 people that all want to throw from Stick L1 ?

Not sure how much I would pay to play in something like this, since ultimately I believe luck will play way more into the winner, than skill ever will.
If it was going to cost me $100 to enter, and then play against 16 other players on my table, I would want the chance to win at least $800.

Quote: RaleighCraps

This is an interesting idea Ahigh, but what would be the hook for the casino? What is in it for them?

I like the concept of the computer placing the bets.
I presume, as the shooter, I will be aware of exactly where all the bets are being made.
I then decide that perhaps a 2-2 is the most profitable throw this time.
The next time, the most profitable throw may be a 4-3.
In any event, I decide the number I want, and then pick up my dice and make a legal throw.

I assume every shooter will get to throw at the exact same bets, so everyone has an equal shot at making money.

How are you going to determine where you get to stand at the table?
I am a good shooter from Stick L1 and okay from Stick R1.
I no longer care to shoot from the ends of the table.
What if there are 16 people that all want to throw from Stick L1 ?

Not sure how much I would pay to play in something like this, since ultimately I believe luck will play way more into the winner, than skill ever will.
If it was going to cost me $100 to enter, and then play against 16 other players on my table, I would want the chance to win at least $800.

I like the idea of letting shooters shoot from wherever they like. Since shooters will be rotating in, I think it makes sense to form two lines and alternate shooting from the left side and right side. You could then allow observers to take all the other positions just to watch.

As far as how much could be won, the more participants the better, and I really want real-time computer networked competitions between as many casinos as possible. Something that could be televised like Golf. Players are competing against each other in real time shooting into the same setup at the same time on multiple tables simultaneously. When a big bet goes up on the table, every shooter is trying to hit that shot and one out of 36 or one out of 18 shooters will randomly hit that perfect shot if nothing else.

The computer bets aren't real money, but the differences in results for how much fake money each shooter has won is going to be very anecdotally interesting.

I think the casino would likely keep 12% of all the entry fees to have something in it for them. Of course bringing people to the casinos is also going to result in more gambling too.

How about this variation?

For your entry fee, you get:

A screen that shows you the bets that have been made by the computer.
You determine what number you want to throw.
You throw the dice.
The result is entered into the computer, and your amount won is calculated.
The next bet is shown.
You throw the dice.
The result is entered into the computer, and your amount won is calculated.

You get 10 minutes to make throws at 50 bets.
Your total is the amount of money your throws won after the 50 legal tosses.
If 10 minutes is up first, you don't get the rest of your bets to shoot at.
Each minute you come in under 10 minutes is worth bonus cash to add to your total.

Still has the competition aspect, but is not as involved with networked computers, multiple casinos, etc.

I personally have no interest in competing in a skills based competition when my fellow competitors are in other physical locations.
It would be too easy for 'creative' rules bending to occur.

How about you and I in a side bet ? I will toss the dice backwards over my shoulder while you did your famous dice setting. I will take
2 to 1 odds on me !

Quote: RaleighCraps

How about this variation?

For your entry fee, you get:

A screen that shows you the bets that have been made by the computer.
You determine what number you want to throw.
You throw the dice.
The result is entered into the computer, and your amount won is calculated.
The next bet is shown.
You throw the dice.
The result is entered into the computer, and your amount won is calculated.

You get 10 minutes to make throws at 50 bets.
Your total is the amount of money your throws won after the 50 legal tosses.
If 10 minutes is up first, you don't get the rest of your bets to shoot at.
Each minute you come in under 10 minutes is worth bonus cash to add to your total.

Still has the competition aspect, but is not as involved with networked computers, multiple casinos, etc.

I personally have no interest in competing in a skills based competition when my fellow competitors are in other physical locations.
It would be too easy for 'creative' rules bending to occur.

Not a bad idea. But the networked aspect is really just me thinking about long term growth and the potential to televise the event after it gets too big for one casino. The idea being that if and when the event gets big enough maybe there are 500 people competing, of which 30 people are interesting to watch, and the entire event takes place on 31 craps tables in 5 casinos over a period of time of a single hour, all with the ability to televise and highlight the best shooters.

If you want to stay physically close to all of the participants instead of being able to rapidly start and stop a huge event with hundred of thousands in prize money, you're just going to be looking at something very similar to what's already being done in terms of prize money (under $100,000) or you're going to be looking at a much longer time-duration event (potentially too boring). Both of which are issues I think are holding current tournaments back from being more interesting to watch and participate in.

I'm thinking one way to pull this off using real craps tables at the casino is to just do it all on paper with 2 to 16 players.

If you just do all of the setups ahead of time and just take photos of a craps felt with chips on the bets for each roll, you can do a 100 roll competition in the casino and just bet the do and the don't on the comeout just to pay the price of admission to rent the table.

The significant difference between playing this way and playing against the house is that the cost to play against another player is free (there's no vig .. it's just you against them with no middle man), and you can still shoot for what are normally high edge bets that you normally wouldn't take and leverage what you know about the game. You still have to pay a minimum bet for every 12 on the comeout to rent the table, but that's pretty affordable to get free drinks, really and a casino set up for you.

It would require that you write down your rolls at the casino and agree to the rolls among a couple of friends, but there's nothing stopping us from starting this format of play even without the assistance of a casino.

I've talked with a couple of casino employees about this concept, and in general they are not real receptive to the idea.

But yeah, who needs them anyway. Once you have all the roll data, you could go back to your comp'd room and enter the roll data and watch the results on screen after the fact.

Sounds a little bit goofy, but it might help get things off the ground to just go ahead and do it anyway without any help from a casino.

I think that it might be appropriate to have a $300 to $1000 entry fee and a prize schedule to keep the prize money more interesting than the bets on the table at the time you're "renting it out" so to speak.

I only need one person who would be interested to try this, and I can set it up. Any takers for a $100 entry fee one-on-one? If it's just two people, we could even collaborate on the sequence of bets to shoot for.

So you expect people to play for $100 when you profess to win tens of thousands? Why not stick to your "system" that wins you thousands instead of stuff like this? Most players on here keep how they win to themselves and really don't need to prove anything for $100. Unless you are talking the election where we are all just guessing.

Quote: Boz

So you expect people to play for $100 when you profess to win tens of thousands? Why not stick to your "system" that wins you thousands instead of stuff like this? Most players on here keep how they win to themselves and really don't need to prove anything for $100. Unless you are talking the election where we are all just guessing.

I thought I already addressed this. I'm not sure you were paying attention, so I'll answer it again.

It is called fun. It's spelled F-U-N.

You should check into it.

I only bet big when nobody else is around. Most of the time I bet tiny and I have a damn good time playing the game.

The game is way more important to me than anything. Having fun and playing games and creating games that help others have fun is everything that I am about.

I would play for $1 if that's all anybody wanted to play for. It wouldn't make any difference to me.

And just in case anyone else is confused about why I want to prove that influencing the dice is possible, let me explain why I want to do it.

The game of craps is what I do for fun. This is not my job. This is not my way of making mad money. It's my hobby. I do this for entertainment. It's fun for me. I meet interesting people and it enriches the social aspects of my life and the parts of my life that put a smile on my face.

To the degenerate gamblers out there who gamble for reasons other than entertainment, they have little pamphlets at the casino that say "WHEN THE FUN STOPS."

The fun has not stopped for me. LET ME TELL YOU.

But if you have a problem, please look into responsible gambling.

Quote: tupp

Yeah. That would be like having a competition for football or basketball picks on this site.

Why would any skillful sports handicapper participate in a tournament here, when they can just win money at the casino?

Also a good question. I enter contests like these with my friends because they are fun, but I also know that I can' t pick games to save my life. The people who I know who can do this successfully don't enter contests like this; they bet sports at casinos and online books and make a very good living doing it.

Quote: Ahigh

If it makes any difference to you or anyone else, I have carried so many purple chips from the craps table at the Silverton to the cage that they had to give me a chip rack.

I've got money. I think it's those who don't have money that think fun and money are the same thing. Just my opinion, but I could be wrong.

FWIW, I took that money and I refinanced my house and saved $500/month on my 15 year mortgage.

A networked skill-based dice-throwing tournament could have a grand prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars with entry fees of $100 or less. It would have to start off smaller, but it could grow to be quite large and quite an event. Most craps tournaments are really boring, and I would absolutely rather be playing craps for cash. I agree there.

But I'm not sure, from your comments, that you have any clue what I'm talking about. The game would be very action packed and fast with all the emphasis on shooting.

Ok, it's true, money and fun aren't quite the same thing. But I'll bet you felt pretty good carrying those purples to the cage. And it's not really about having or not having money; it's about whether you want more of it or not. I "have money" but I still have to work for a living; until I have enough that I don't I'll always want more. At that scale, a rack of purples is nothing -- it's not a life-changing amount of money. Of course, if this was a regular occurrence, that would be different.

BTW, if you have an edge over the casino, using ~$50k to refinance your home is probably not a good use of the money. Used properly as a bankroll, it is worth a hell of a lot more than $500/month. It's worth a hell of a lot more than $500/day. Given a 1% edge over a casino in a game like craps (where they are always going to take my action, the limits are sky-high, the resolutions are fairly quick and essentially unlimited, and I can get private tables if I'm betting big enough), $50k could be easily parlayed into a few million in a couple of years. If you play a lot, you could do it sooner. It's not like sports betting where there are only a few hundred games a year (and you don't have an edge in all of them). In craps you can get those few hundred resolutions every single day (or even several times a day) if you want them. If you don't have such an edge, though, then you did exactly the right thing with it.

Quote: Ahigh

I only bet big when nobody else is around.

That sure is convenient.

Quote: Ahigh

To the degenerate gamblers out there who gamble for reasons other than entertainment, they have little pamphlets at the casino that say "WHEN THE FUN STOPS."

The fun has not stopped for me. LET ME TELL YOU.

But if you have a problem, please look into responsible gambling.

People who have long-term edges over the casino and use their skills to win millions of dollars do not have gambling problems.

JMHO: the Phrase "Skill-based Tournament" and the word "Craps" do NOT belong together.

Quote: AxiomOfChoice

The people who I know who can do this successfully don't enter contests like this; they bet sports at casinos and online books and make a very good living doing it.

Everyone entered in to the WOV football picks contest has just been insulted.

Sorry to the critics. I really enjoy rolling the dice, and especially when I have a good roll.

I had fun at the Palace Station today. Rolled 3 6-points and 3 10-points .. hard fours back-to-back hard tens back-to-back and hard sixes with no easy or red in between. No hard eight though. One seven came on the comeout, but there was only a total of $5 in traveled come bets.

*I* didn't win much. But most people won over $1000.

Now is your cue to tell me how stupid I am for not winning tens of thousands of dollars. But I had a FANTASTIC time and so did everybody else.

And of course I did win more than a hundred bucks.

I will say it again, I do it for fun. But who's the shooter that is interested to go head to head with me and tell me that they are a better shooter than I am? That's what I want to know.

EFF YOU IN. FUN.

And I do still want the ONE PERSON who's willing to bet even a buck to go into some kind of one-on-one challenge against me. I understand that this may NEVER get off the ground. But there isn't ANYBODY who doesn't want to be able to say that they beat me? Forget about the money, nobody wants to say "yeah, that Ahigh, I beat his ass!"

The edge against a bet that .. let's just say to make it simple, you can hold the dice for more throws than me should be a "free" bet with no edge.

I will go up to $100 per event with anybody who thinks they can take my money, but even a buck would be great fun.

Seems like a fair thing for anybody who thinks that DI isn't possible that you've got a 50/50 chance to take my money just due to randomness. Better than a bet on the BANKER, right? Anybody SCARED to take that bet, I'll assume you think there might be some credibility to my ability to shoot better than random.

Quote: Ahigh

And I do still want the ONE PERSON who's willing to bet even a buck to go into some kind of one-on-one challenge against me. I understand that this may NEVER get off the ground. But there isn't ANYBODY who doesn't want to be able to say that they beat me? Forget about the money, nobody wants to say "yeah, that Ahigh, I beat his ass!"

The edge against a bet that .. let's just say to make it simple, you can hold the dice for more throws than me should be a "free" bet with no edge.

I will go up to $100 per event with anybody who thinks they can take my money, but even a buck would be great fun.

Seems like a fair thing for anybody who thinks that DI isn't possible that you've got a 50/50 chance to take my money just due to randomness. Better than a bet on the BANKER, right? Anybody SCARED to take that bet, I'll assume you think there might be some credibility to my ability to shoot better than random.

Ahigh,
I'll give you that bet. This is not a statement as to whether or not you are a DI, I just like the action. I haven't been to Vegas in a couple of years now, so you may have to wait a bit for me, but if I make it out there, we will certainly play some craps together.
I am headed to Beau Rivage in Biloxi end of Nov. There are GREAT craps rules there, and the rules at Cherokee in NC are also very good.

It is hard to justify paying vigs up front, when I can get the Buy 4,5,9, and 10 on the Win only at the above places.
And 10x odds as well.

Quote: RaleighCraps

Ahigh,
I'll give you that bet. This is not a statement as to whether or not you are a DI, I just like the action. I haven't been to Vegas in a couple of years now, so you may have to wait a bit for me, but if I make it out there, we will certainly play some craps together.
I am headed to Beau Rivage in Biloxi end of Nov. There are GREAT craps rules there, and the rules at Cherokee in NC are also very good.

It is hard to justify paying vigs up front, when I can get the Buy 4,5,9, and 10 on the Win only at the above places.
And 10x odds as well.

Vig is on the win on the 4 and 10 all over town here.

For the 5 and 9, call ahead and make sure they will let you do it as a contingency of staying. I've seen it done at NYNY and the player said when asked about it "they do it for me but I don't know you may have to ask them to do it." Just make a point of it.

He had almost ten thousand on the rail.

0.55% edge per roll should be plenty for the 5 and 9, and I have no idea why casinos won't let you do commission on the win and buy the 5 and 9.

deleted

Did someone say something?