East Coast Casinos - table game expansion

Just saw the AP story regarding the East Coast Casino Gaming Congress (never knew that existed).

#1 - 12 slots-only casinos will have added table games in the next 6 months.

#2 - Penn National and Charles Town appear to be going after the Asian market :

Quote:

Penn National will add table games to its Charles Town casino in West Virginia within 60 days — and expects to draw high-rolling Asian gamblers who now go to Atlantic City.
"There are about 400,000 to 500,000 Asian people in that market," Finamore said. "These are customers we don't see at Charles Town. They don't like to play slots, and that's all we offer. They want to play table games. They go currently to Atlantic City, and we're looking to maximize (that market)."

Since Asians tend to gamble more, I'm still thinking that the limits at Charles Town (nee Hollywood Casino at Charles Town when it opens) will be quite high - I have Asian coworkers who have no problems going from $20 to $100 a bet at any time. One of my coworkers has a brother who went to the Borgata this year - took 2k for Blackjack, and on the 3rd hand, bet 1000 of it. Lucky for him it paid off, and he actually got to gamble more than 10 minutes. :)

-B

That might be true of baccarat and pai gow, but I'd bet blackjack and craps will have plenty of $5 tables at least during the week and weekend daytime (I've rarely seen bacc/pai gow less than $20 mins anyway because lower minimums mean the commissions won't be in even dollars, slowing the game down).

Charles Town has a ton of penny and nickel slots, and unlike Delaware Park and the Philly casinos, it's not like Charles Town is right on a major highway or near a large shopping area to draw people in who aren't explicitly going there to gamble.

This is not to say I'm not excited about Charles Town. It's larger than MGM Grand in terms of casino space, and I think it has a lot of potential (and cheap poker tourneys). I really hope Chas. Town goes with true 3-2 blackjack and not 6-5 junk. I've noticed that although AC blackjack has gotten a bit worse (H17 pretty universal, split/double restrictions on cheap shoe/double deck games), the 6-5 is much less common than in LV. Hopefully that trend continues in Chas. Town.

As an aside, I heard one of the DE casinos opened this wk, and they have 3-4-5X odds on craps. Surprising, I thought they'd at least go 5X, since the trend in AC has been to up the max odds lately. Only thing I can think of (besides the fact lower odds favor the house) is that with 3-4-5X odds, maxed out odds always pay 6X the pass line bet when they win, making it easier for the dealers to compute and speed up play.

Quote: silversonic2006

That might be true of baccarat and pai gow, but I'd bet blackjack and craps will have plenty of $5 tables at least during the week and weekend daytime (I've rarely seen bacc/pai gow less than $20 mins anyway because lower minimums mean the commissions won't be in even dollars, slowing the game down).

This is not to say I'm not excited about Charles Town. It's larger than MGM Grand in terms of casino space, and I think it has a lot of potential (and cheap poker tourneys). I really hope Chas. Town goes with true 3-2 blackjack and not 6-5 junk. I've noticed that although AC blackjack has gotten a bit worse (H17 pretty universal, split/double restrictions on cheap shoe/double deck games), the 6-5 is much less common than in LV. Hopefully that trend continues in Chas. Town.

I'm hoping you're right as well - and I'm definitely excited about the opening soon. While AC is doable for me, the 4 hr drive does get a bit tiring after a few trips. Having the DE Casino(s) and Charles Town will give the midatlantic enough variety (and hopefully enough good rules) to make everyone happy. It remains to be seen if the double deck experiment @ the Hilton will expand beyond AC (I'm hoping it does, DD blackjack is so rare on the east coast).

I wonder if any of the new casinos will license Spanish 21? If not, that may be a marketing point for AC, since they have S17 Spanish 21 games there.
-B

Quote: toastcmu

Since Asians tend to gamble more, I'm still thinking that the limits at Charles Town (nee Hollywood Casino at Charles Town when it opens) will be quite high - I have Asian coworkers who have no problems going from $20 to $100 a bet at any time. One of my coworkers has a brother who went to the Borgata this year - took 2k for Blackjack, and on the 3rd hand, bet 1000 of it. Lucky for him it paid off, and he actually got to gamble more than 10 minutes. :)
-B

I am surprised that the casinos in Macau have such low limits compared to vegas. Most blacjack tables are only minimum HK$100 and maximum bet on any game is HK$1,000 or HK$3,000. HK#1000 = US$128.

Since 89% of the gaming in Macau is baccarat, they restrict the table in a way that we don't do in America. They don't restrict the maximum bet, the restrict the maximum difference for the table. If two players at a table want to bet a million Hong Kong Dollars, and one wants to bet banker and the other player then it is perfectly acceptable. The difference of the table between player and banker must be less than HK$60,000=US$7691 .

In Vegas the major casinos will all accept up to US$10,000=HK$78,000 on a blackjack bet. I don't think there is any question of accepting this much in a baccarat bet, and they will go higher with permission. There is no attempt that I am aware of to minimize the difference on the table.

In Vegas with the whales in some of the private gaming rooms, they don't worry about minimums. It turns out some Asian whales will go from $10K bets to $50 bets based on some private knowledge. You would think it would be like gambling pennies. But they want to read the cards before they start betting again.

But they really do not like slot machines much in China. They have huge numbers of tables, and a handful of slots.
They are up to 14,503 slot machines now in Macau. In comparison they have 11,865 slot machines in downtown Vegas, and 193K in the state of Nevada. Slot revenue is less than 5% of total gaming revenue vs. 64% in Nevada.

In an unprecedented situation in February when Chinese New Year was all in one month, baccarat revenue nearly surpassed slot revenue on the Vegas strip for the month. That has never happened, an all time haul of over $200 million in baccarat in one month.

I'm not thrilled about the Hilton's double deck game, unless I just happened to be playing the wrong one ($15 min). As I recall, it was H17, double 10/11 only, only split once, which of course precludes resplitting aces. The only way you could possibly make a worse game is to make it 6:5. Furthermore, all the instructions were on the table limit placard, not the felt, and were almost impossible to read unless you were sitting right next to it.

Quote: silversonic2006

This is not to say I'm not excited about Charles Town. It's larger than MGM Grand in terms of casino space, and I think it has a lot of potential (and cheap poker tourneys).

Me too. Only caveat is that the place seems to have a woeful reputation up till now. What they have been able to offer being the main problem, yes, but service too has gotten a lot of thumbs-down from what I have been haphazardly gathering.

Quote: silversonic2006

I really hope Chas. Town goes with true 3-2 blackjack and not 6-5 junk. I've noticed that although AC blackjack has gotten a bit worse (H17 pretty universal, split/double restrictions on cheap shoe/double deck games), the 6-5 is much less common than in LV. Hopefully that trend continues in Chas. Town.

I'm guessing this is where you will be disappointed: Blackjack. We shall see.

Quote: silversonic2006

I heard one of the DE casinos opened this wk...

It was a little trial, with a cap on the upper limit of $25. BTW Delaware is doing a monumentally bad job of getting the message out! Every person with a TV in the Baltimore/Washington area ought to by now be getting sick of seeing the ads, but to my knowledge there has been nothing.

Quote: silversonic2006

... the DE casinos ... have 3-4-5X odds on craps. Surprising, I thought they'd at least go 5X, since the trend in AC has been to up the max odds lately. Only thing I can think of (besides the fact lower odds favor the house) is that with 3-4-5X odds, maxed out odds always pay 6X the pass line bet when they win, making it easier for the dealers to compute and speed up play.

It will be interesting to see what competition really does. As far as 3-4-5X odds, that could be taking over as far as casino preference.

Quote: silversonic2006

I'm not thrilled about the Hilton's double deck game, unless I just happened to be playing the wrong one ($15 min). As I recall, it was H17, double 10/11 only, only split once, which of course precludes resplitting aces. The only way you could possibly make a worse game is to make it 6:5. Furthermore, all the instructions were on the table limit placard, not the felt, and were almost impossible to read unless you were sitting right next to it.

I had heard the doubling rules were new - since counting is not illegal in AC, apparently a lot of AP's played the game when it first came out. Since the Hilton is not the most fit financially, they must have added the d10/11 ruleshortly after thereafter.

-B