Rapid craps
Quote: 7crapsQuote: DJTeddyBearPerhaps what it needs is a single ticket out (or at least receipt out), in the stick's area, that would allow him to take his time paying out the players cashing out, while the game continues at it's regular pace.
Then again, having never played Rapid Craps yet, maybe it already does this and I don't know it. However, I'd assume someone would have mentioned it already if it did...
Hey, Bear that is a great idea. You must try Rapid Craps, it has some nice features unless you want the dealers to do everything for you.
Im sure Shuffle Master reads this forum and I know it does take customer survey cards at Bills.
So it doesn't already do that. Interesting.
It seems like such a no-brainer. After all, play doesn't stop at a regular craps table when a player wants to color-up and leave....
Quote: DJTeddyBearQuote: 7crapsQuote: DJTeddyBearPerhaps what it needs is a single ticket out (or at least receipt out), in the stick's area, that would allow him to take his time paying out the players cashing out, while the game continues at it's regular pace.
Then again, having never played Rapid Craps yet, maybe it already does this and I don't know it. However, I'd assume someone would have mentioned it already if it did...
Hey, Bear that is a great idea. You must try Rapid Craps, it has some nice features unless you want the dealers to do everything for you.
Im sure Shuffle Master reads this forum and I know it does take customer survey cards at Bills.
So it doesn't already do that. Interesting.
It seems like such a no-brainer. After all, play doesn't stop at a regular craps table when a player wants to color-up and leave....
You would think that would be an easy thing to do. It really does stop the game and for me was the worst part of playing and the slow times for cocktails. Being 72 years young, I do not have that much time to wait around!
Quote: Beth Jinks
Las Vegas Sands Says Singapore Site to Top Estimates
June 02, 2010, 6:27 AM EDT
June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Las Vegas Sands Corp., the casino company controlled by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, says its Singapore resort is set to exceed analysts’ cash-flow projections this year as gamblers flock to the new complex.
About 550,000 people visited the Marina Bay Sands casino in the first 25 days of May, Chief Operating Officer Michael Leven said in an interview in Las Vegas last week, describing the overall resort as “about 25 percent open.” The casino is winning “slightly more” on mass-market gambling than on VIP play since opening April 27, he said.
“If we continue at this rate, with no improvement for the rest of the year in the casino win, and just add the improvement in the hotel, we’ll exceed the analysts’ expectations” for cash flow, Leven said. He didn’t give a figure.
The Singapore site will probably generate $329 million in 2010 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, based on the average of 13 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Ebitda is a measure of cash flow.
About one-third of Marina Bay’s casino visitors have been Singaporeans, who pay S$100 ($70.90) to enter, and the rest are either foreigners living in the city-state or visitors from countries including neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia, Leven said. The $5.5 billion casino resort is beside Singapore’s financial district and includes meeting and convention facilities, a shopping mall and restaurants.
‘Positive Effect’
“It started quite well,” said Philip Tulk, an analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. “The hundred-dollar entry fee for Singaporeans is having a positive effect because people are staying longer.”
In February, Genting Singapore Plc opened the country’s only other casino, Resorts World, on Sentosa Island, which includes a Universal Studios theme park. Parent Genting Bhd. owns and runs Malaysia’s only casino, and buses in thousands of gamblers from the neighboring nation.
Genting Singapore rose 4 percent to close at S$1.03. Sands China Ltd., the unit which in 2007 opened the 3,000-room Venetian Macao, rose 0.9 percent to HK$11.14 in Hong Kong.
“Genting has proven to be a very formidable casino competitor,” Leven said in the May 26 interview. “They know the market better than we knew the market on the mass-play side, because they operate in Malaysia and our operations in Macau are very different.”
Rapid Roulette
Las Vegas Sands is “somewhat disappointed” with the win rate for its Singapore slot machines, even though the daily average is higher than at its Las Vegas and Macau, China, sites, Leven said. The company has ordered popular electronic rapid roulette and mini-baccarat games to compete with Genting, he said.
The win rate is how much the casino wins as a percentage of total money gambled.
Leven acknowledged “glitches” in the staggered opening as construction work continues, including lawsuits related to a power failure during the first conference that Marina Bay Sands hosted.
“It’s really a work in progress,” Leven said. “The amount of complaints we’re getting are pretty typical of any opening.”
Since opening, Marina Bay has adjusted some incentives and lowered some food and parking prices to “be more appealing to the mass market,” he said.
Singapore aims to lure 17 million visitors and reach annual tourism revenue of S$30 billion by 2015, helped by the two casino resorts.
Marina Bay Sands is “going to be everything Singapore wants it to be,” Leven said. “I can’t wait for New Year’s because at that point almost everything will be done.”
Las Vegas Sands fell 46 cents, or 2 percent, to $23.02 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on June 1. The shares have gained 54 percent this year, compared with a 4 percent drop on the S&P 500 Index.
--With assistance by Wendy Leung in Hong Kong. Editors: James Langford, Dave McCombs
To contact the reporter on this story: Beth Jinks in New York at bjinks1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net
Quote: DeMangoThanks 7craps for the report. So now that the trial phase is over, that means, I assume the game will go on at Bills? I wonder if it will spread to other casinos, maybe Harrah's. Your thoughts?
Yes, Bill's plans on keeping the rapid craps game. No one there knew if any other casinos would pick it up also, but Bill's is in the Harrah's family so I would give a good guess that another Harrah's casino or casinos will have one soon.
It's only a 'quasi' member of the family.Quote: 7craps...but Bill's is in the Harrah's family...
While there ARE links from the Harrah's website to Bill's site, there's no link back, you can't get hotel rates on Harrah's site and Bill's has their own rewards program that is not part of Harrah's Total Rewards.
But at least it outlasted Binion's as far as being a "member of the family..."
Quote: 7crapsYes, Bill's plans on keeping the rapid craps game. No one there knew if any other casinos would pick it up also, but Bill's is in the Harrah's family so I would give a good guess that another Harrah's casino or casinos will have one soon.
That's great. Rapid Craps as set at Bill's is perfect for low rollers. me, I'm mroe used to playing craps on the computer than at a table, so the RC is a good compromise. And seating at the table is not to be despised, either, especially after walking a long, long time.
I can see it spreading to low roller joints, especially those looking to save money (less dealers, more action). Just where, though, is hard to say. IP almost certainly. But not, I think, anywhere Downtown or at Casino Royale.
Why not? Downtown because it promotes a "classic Vegas" feel, and Rapid Craps would clash with that. besides El Cortez already offers low roller craps at a regular table. Not the Royale because it already has its own craps image with the 20x/100x tables. I've no idea whether RC can be reprgrammed for higher odds multipliers.
As to the harrah's family deal, Bill's does have its own player card. However, when I was there you could enter a daily drawing for 100 comp dollars at the player card kiosk, you just slid your card in the reader and you were in. The signage said the comp dolalrs were redeemable also at any of the other Harrah's properties. I also noticed very similar VP paytables and table games' rules at Bill's and other Harrah's properties (like the 6 card bonus bet at three card poker, for example).
I would be shocked to learn that changing it would be even the slightest bit difficult. Oh, sure, it would probably require a manager card swipe or key or something to prevent accidental changes, but enabling changes would be part of the basic programming.Quote: Nareed... I've no idea whether RC can be reprgrammed for higher odds multipliers.
Quote: DJTeddyBearI would be shocked to learn that changing it would be even the slightest bit difficult. Oh, sure, it would probably require a manager card swipe or key or something to prevent accidental changes, but enabling changes would be part of the basic programming.
That's what I get for brevity....
Let's try again: I've no idea if the game mannufacturer rents, leases or sells the game to the casino. If the game's rented, then does the mannufacturer set the rules or does the casino?
I'm guessing the table is leased, at least while the maker tries to popularize the game, and the casino's free to set whatever rules it wants. That's what would make sense business-wise in the early stages of any game, but especially for a large, complex, expensive game like RC.
Where I'm going is that places like Casino Royale, Startosphere and others who offer more than the usual strip odds, would need the ability to set up their odds multipliers as they want, otherwise they won't touch the Rapid Craps machines.
Speaking completely out of ignorance, my expectation is that they would want it to require something like changing a prom chip, the way (I think) they do on slots. Anything trivial to change would seem to create a risky situation. Can you imagine the plot line in a Vegas-based TV series, where some hacker has figured out how to change the payout using his blue-tooth PDA phone?Quote: DJTeddyBear...it would probably require a manager card swipe or key or something to prevent accidental changes....
This looks like the same or similar product. I played this for about 4 hours and I think there might have been 50 rolls. This game moves extremely slowly for something called "Rapid Craps." The dealers told me that they refer to it as "snail craps."
It would be difficult to make an electronic craps game go faster than a real game because the staff is encouraged to keep the dice moving.
If it was the same, they'd use the trademarked name. I.E. "E-Craps" IS the trademark name of a completely different system.Quote: AhighRapid Craps at Hoosier Park Racing
This looks like the same or similar product.
----
When I was in Vegas last week, one of my goals was to head over to Bill's to play Rapid Craps.
I can now honestly say, "Been there. Done that. No desire to do it again...."
The problems are in the design, user interface, and the dealers. Hasn't it been installed for almost a year already? You'd think the dealer problems would have been worked out by now.
Dealer problems:
The dealer can sometimes get distracted, and forget to enter the roll, or forget to unlock the system after entering the dice roll. So we're all waiting to make the next bet while she's off in dream land.
After the roll, the dealer calls the roll, then brings the dice back to the middle before enterting the number into the system. I have to assume this is dictated procedure, since all four dealers I saw did this. This procedure causes a needless delay in something called "Rapid".
At least one dealer made no effort to slide the dice without rolling them when returning them to the middle. In fact, I got the feeling that she was deliberately rolling them rather than sliding. This meant that if you were on the other side of the table, you often never saw the dice's actual result. By contrast, the stickperson at a real table usually makes an effort to slide them - around all the chip stacks - without rolling, until they are in the middle.
Design:
When you are paid off, the system doesn't show you what bets paid or how much. Only the total payoff. While I have no reason to doubt that I got a correct payoff, it lacked the feel-good effect of receiving chips. As a result, although I won a little, I never felt I won, because I knew that the inevitable 7-out would put me behind. At real tables, I DO feel like I've won something when I get chips for those little payoffs. So this single point may prove to be RapidCraps' downfall.
When a one-roll bet loses, you aren't told that it lost. The bet simply dissapears.
The table minimums are labeled incorrectly. It was $3 minimum, and $1 for one-roll bets. However, the $1 minimum only applied to prop bets - which were labeled on the table and screen as one-roll bets. The field bet therefore could confuse prople because it was a $3 minimum.
There was no hop-bet.
The pass and dont-pass wrap around the field/come/numbers as it does on a regular table - but only the left side setup is used. This can be distracting or confusing to a relative novice using a terminal on the right side, or even on the left end or next to the dealer. There are only 3 terminals where the layout matches the position, and I was at one of them. I don't know if the individual terminals show anything different at other positions.
User interface:
Nothing about the system is intuitive or obvious. It only starts to 'seem' obvious after making several mistakes.
Additional user interface problems are bets described in my experience:
I typically do not bet the line unless I'm shooting. I instead just place the 6/8 until I start to feel good about the table. So I put my money in and pressed the 6 place position. A window pops up, and the most prominent button is "+1 unit". I hit that and it puts $6 on the Place 6. Already I'm pissed off, because it's a $3 table, and I'm forced to bet $6 on the 6. Whatever. I place $6 on the 8 as well.
Although there is a help button, the action is too fast to read it and keep the bets going, so I give up on that. Afterwards I realize that might have been a big mistake.
After a few rolls like this, I notice there are "Inside", "Outside" and "Across" buttons on the bottom. So I press the Across button. It places $1 on the 4, 9 and 10, and $1.20 on the 6 and 8. Since the point was 5, it didn't place the 5 - even though I don't have a line bet on it. Then the roll and the $1 on the 4, 9 and 10 get an 'X' on them and go away. Apparently, they didn't meet the $3 minimum - but the 6 and 8 stayed at $7.20.
I then see a "Down" button. I hit that and the 6 and 8 bets go away.
So now I hit the "Across" button three times. Sure enough, it adds $1 or $1.20 on each number except the point. After the third time, the $3 Place on 4 and 10 get moved to become Buy bets. I then manually put 1 unit on the point. After hitting a couple numbers, I hit the "Across" button to press them a little. Yeah, it adds $1 or $1.20 to the numbers. Interestingly, it leaves the new $1 bets on the 4 and 10 in the place position rather than add them to the Buy. When the shooter rolls, an 'X' appears on the 4 and 10 Place bets because they didn't meet the minimum! AUGH!
So I next attempt to manually add $1 to the 4 and 10 Buy. When I do this, a message pops up about a $0.05 charge. Unless I'm mistaken, this is called "Charge" not 'vig' or 'commission' or anything else. It seems to indicate that this is charged right away. But if so, why was there no notice when the $3 bet transfered automatically?
After a 7-out, I notice that there are chip stacks at the botton and my stack of whites is lit up. I then press the $2 stack, then hit the 'Across' button. Yep, it adds $2 or $2.40 to the numbers. Hit it again, and it adds another $2 or $2.40, AND moves the ENTIRE $4 to the Buy for the 4 and 10.
Then I press the place for the point and realize that I can place individual chips rather than hitting the "+1 Unit" button. Interstingly, the point is 6, but I can only add whole dollars to the place bet - even though the Inside or Across button would add multiples of $1.20.
The point was made, and the next come out was a new point. A message popped up essentially asking me if I wanted to move the bet or use it for odds, etc. I don't remember exactly what it said or what the choices were, but all four times this came up, I hit the wrong button, causing me to scramble to fix it. On at least one occasion, I didn't fix it in time, and missed a bet which would have paid on the next roll.
At one point I had pressed my bets a little to aggressively, and wanted to reduce them. There is no obvious was to reduce the bet except to hit the "Down" button, which takes them all down to zero. Then I started to replace them, and, again, ran out of time and missed a bet that would have paid.
Because of a combination of frustration, and being down $88 at this point, I decided to quit. I really wanted to try Come bets to see how it would handle a a come that has a place bet on it, or if it easily does a Come 'Off and On'.
So I cashed out the remaining $12.26 I had. I could have sworn I had seen smaller coins in the rack, but she slides $12 in chips and a half dollar coin to me. I take the two reds, and give her back the $2.50 as a tip, and call it an experience that I don't want to repeat.
The commission only applies when you buy or lay a number. I read the notes beneath the Help icon when I was in Yonkers yesterday. I thought that was a little strange. They offer you commission free odds behind the line. I should have taken a picture with my cell phone camera but I don't know what the policy is for Yonkers Raceway regarding photographing inside the "casino" nor did I care to find out. This game is anything but rapid.Quote: DJTeddyBearSo I next attempt to manually add $1 to the 4 and 10 Buy. When I do this, a message pops up about a $0.05 charge. Unless I'm mistaken, this is called "Charge" not 'vig' or 'commission' or anything else. It seems to indicate that this is charged right away. But if so, why was there no notice when the $3 bet transfered automatically?
They added a couple of electronic displays to the table. These show a short history of the most recent rolls, as well as stats concerning how many rolls have passed since the last 2, 3, 11 and 12 (and maybe hardways?). Also it shows what bets each player currently has made. So now the Dark Side shows.
And they added a little sign below each of these displays with the words "ASK ME ABOUT DEALER TIPS."
I played there 3 times, and each time I won some money. The last time I made $120 on a long roll by one player. Table minimum is still 3 for the pass line with the Strip standard 3,4,5X odds.
Did you ask? Can you make them?Quote: NareedAnd they added a little sign below each of these displays with the words "ASK ME ABOUT DEALER TIPS."
Congrats. I'm on the world's longest craps losing streak.Quote:I played there 3 times, and each time I won some money. The last time I made $120 on a long roll by one player. Table minimum is still 3 for the pass line with the Strip standard 3,4,5X odds.
Quote: teddysDid you ask? Can you make them?
I didn't ask because I already knew how. There are 3 ways:
1) Bet a "dealer chip" and the payoff goes tot he dealers. Alas, all i can do with that is a pass line bet, no odds. I can't bet it on hardways or anything else.
2) Put "regular" chips on the box marked "dealer tips". When the roll is entered, the dealers get tipped (they never failed to acknowledge such tips BTW).
3) When you cash out, you can give them a tip in chips as in a regular table.
Quote:Congrats. I'm on the world's longest craps losing streak.
I'm right behind you. After playing at the Fiesta Henderson, I've had mostly losing sessions except at Rapid Craps.
It may be superstition, but next trip I'll try playing $500 at RC and see what happens...
Quote: teddysCongrats. I'm on the world's longest craps losing streak.
Doubt it.
I lost 25+ consecutive craps sessions from October 2011 through March 2012. I pray nobody beats that dubious streak!
No, I don't have all the specific rolls documented during my 5 month losing streak; but my near empty wallet on all of these sessions is proof enough...."selective memory" not needed!
