Home Gambling

Where any turn-based game is a gambling game.

For instance.
Scrabble with 4 players

-Each player antes 25 dollars worth of quarters into a bucket. So, 100 dollars at stake.

One or several decks of cards are needed. Remove all Aces except one (we'll say A of Hearts) Leave jokers in decks.

Every turn of Scrabble play a player also draws a card.

If it's a 5, he gets $5 from the bucket.
If it's a Joker, he loses any money he has won so far.
If it's the Ace of Hearts he wins the bucket.
Any players may quit at any time.

If the game ends early, you can agree to start over if you played less than 20 turns (or whatever you wish) You can also start a new game if the Ace of Hearts is not revealed in the first game.

That's an example. But you could certainly come up with different variations and improvements. You can play with any denomination, nickels, 100s, poker chips representing $100,000 if you want.

Note: although you can introduce skill from the game itself for wins, of course, you'll soon see a couple players always winning more -- maybe that's what you want to do, but maybe not. This is more random potluck.

Interesting concept. You don't have to even tie it to a turn based game, it can be a game unto itself until the money in the bucket is depleted. Variations would be plenty.

One could figure out EV on each turn based on winnings in hand, number of cards remaining, and amount of money left in the bucket to determine a stop point. It would be interesting to allow a player to 'skip' a turn but get back in at some later round since the EV of each turn will change based on the variables I mentioned.

We were doing this since we were kids... We always called it "dealers choice" where we played all kinds of games, not just poker based. My favorite was a game we called "In Between". Everyone anted. The dealer would then deal 2 cards to the first person on their left. They could either pass, or bet up to half the pot (on the first round - the full pot after it's been around once) that the next card was "in between" the first 2 cards. If they were right, they took that much out of the pot. If they were wrong, they had to put that much in the pot. We played for nickles and quarters and had pots get up to $20-$40... Never forget when I got A-2 (aces high), bet the pot of ~$22 and pulled another 2 (ties lose). Had to go get some actual paper money from my room lol. Even when I was 12 playing this game though I still tried to keep track of all of the cards so I knew what was left. Did fairly well at it ;).

Anyways there's literally thousands of games. One of my buddies even had a book that had random gambling games. You can bet on anything pretty much. Your scrabble idea isn't all that bad except as MidwestAP pointed out there's really no reason to play scrabble. You'd need to make a bonus for being the leader in the game after 10 turns or something.

The best way to bet a turn based game would be to just ante up before hand and have the winner take all. Then, it's about the game and not drawing cards on the side =).

Quote: Romes

You can bet on anything pretty much. Your scrabble idea isn't all that bad except as MidwestAP pointed out there's really no reason to play scrabble.

You know it's funny. Casinos have put games that look like popular games, but mostly don't function like them.

But there's really no reason why one couldn't play a regular familiar game on a casino platform -- because the pays don't actually need to be tied directly to the action. They can be tied to the turns.

If I said, pick your favorite game. Let's say it's chess. You and your friend pay to play, and sometime this random meter with a jackpot above you will pay one of you during your turn. So you get to play a game, and one of you may win a jackpot at some point. Or the next people playing may win it.

These days, AI is getting good enough to substitute for real people if you need players. I'd just as soon play a real Monopoly game than play one of the ones the casino uses.

Quote: rxwine

You know it's funny. Casinos have put games that look like popular games, but mostly don't function like them.

But there's really no reason why one couldn't play a regular familiar game on a casino platform -- because the pays don't actually need to be tied directly to the action. They can be tied to the turns.

If I said, pick your favorite game. Let's say it's chess. You and your friend pay to play, and sometime this random meter with a jackpot above you will pay one of you during your turn. So you get to play a game, and one of you may win a jackpot at some point. Or the next people playing may win it.

These days, AI is getting good enough to substitute for real people if you need players. I'd just as soon play a real Monopoly game than play one of the ones the casino uses.

LED Gaming went this route a while ago (at least a decade) and came out with very fun games based on Checkers and Othello, among others. I don't know why their stuff didn't mainstream, but I also don't think they've given up.

I've played great games based on Clue, Scrabble, and Trivial Pursuit. I especially liked the last 2, but they seem to be completely gone, as are the WoF games that were based on actually getting letters and solving puzzles. I really miss those.

Quote: beachbumbabs

LED Gaming went this route a while ago (at least a decade) and came out with very fun games based on Checkers and Othello, among others. I don't know why their stuff didn't mainstream, but I also don't think they've given up.

I've played great games based on Clue, Scrabble, and Trivial Pursuit. I especially liked the last 2, but they seem to be completely gone, as are the WoF games that were based on actually getting letters and solving puzzles. I really miss those.

Playing Cash King Checkers at Rampart this summer was fun!

Quote: Romes

Anyways there's literally thousands of games. One of my buddies even had a book that had random gambling games. You can bet on anything pretty much. Your scrabble idea isn't all that bad except as MidwestAP pointed out there's really no reason to play scrabble. You'd need to make a bonus for being the leader in the game after 10 turns or something.

I like this bonus idea, like for Scrabble, you could get an extra draw for every 20 points you score per word. So, if you score 1 to 19 points, you draw 1 card. If your word scores 20-39 points, draw one, and if you don't like it, toss it and draw a second. Get up to 3 draws for a 60 point word, etc.

You could do it for chess, too -- capture a piece, take a card!

Speaking of Scrabble, we played Scrabble Hold'em once or twice -- everyone gets 2 tiles to start, flop 3 community tiles, turn tile, & river tile. Betting was the same as the poker game. The only difference is that you could use up to all 7 tiles if you wanted. Highest score wins, with length of your word acting as your kicker. I think we even switched it up once where longest word won with the point total breaking ties.

A while back we used to play RISK for money, I don't remember all the precise rules(it was like 20 years ago) but we had assigned a certain value to army units and some other calculation for the countries, there would be a round where you would buy the countries at the beginning or something but you would have less funds to buy armies if you bid too much.


More recently the only type of home gambling I have done is handing the keys to the car to my teenage son, huge house edge.......one of the cases where you should always buy insurance..

Quote: Romes

We were doing this since we were kids... We always called it "dealers choice" where we played all kinds of games, not just poker based. My favorite was a game we called "In Between". Everyone anted. The dealer would then deal 2 cards to the first person on their left. They could either pass, or bet up to half the pot (on the first round - the full pot after it's been around once) that the next card was "in between" the first 2 cards. If they were right, they took that much out of the pot. If they were wrong, they had to put that much in the pot. We played for nickles and quarters and had pots get up to $20-$40... Never forget when I got A-2 (aces high), bet the pot of ~$22 and pulled another 2 (ties lose). Had to go get some actual paper money from my room lol. Even when I was 12 playing this game though I still tried to keep track of all of the cards so I knew what was left. Did fairly well at it ;).

Anyways there's literally thousands of games. One of my buddies even had a book that had random gambling games. You can bet on anything pretty much. Your scrabble idea isn't all that bad except as MidwestAP pointed out there's really no reason to play scrabble. You'd need to make a bonus for being the leader in the game after 10 turns or something.

The best way to bet a turn based game would be to just ante up before hand and have the winner take all. Then, it's about the game and not drawing cards on the side =).

This was a classic game for us during holidays. I can remember dealing it once and we had like 40 in the pot. Our ties you paid double. My uncle got a-2 and same thing happened. I peaked at the card and saw the 2. I tried talking him out of it but he wouldn't go for it. It was a tough moment as it was a lot of money, especially for a family game that normally had .25 Antes.

Quote: beachbumbabs

LED Gaming went this route a while ago (at least a decade) and came out with very fun games based on Checkers and Othello, among others. I don't know why their stuff didn't mainstream, but I also don't think they've given up.

They still have them all on their web site and you can play for free:

http://ledgaming.com/

Their games are very innovative, but most seemed to have a "catch" that probably served to turn away players. In some games like the Cash King Checkers and Big Split poker the initial layout would be a bust so you'd press "start" and lose in a fraction of a second. Big Split was fun, but you also had to think a bit, something many people don't want to do :)

The "multi-strike" franchise moved on to slots after VP and they had the Elvis slot for years at the 4 Queens, it might even still be there. But the chance for a high multiplier also means that there is a good chance of getting diddly squat too as the high pays have to come out of something.

I believe you can still find these on the floor, perhaps Stations and/or SouthPoint:
http://ledgaming.com/game/multi_strike_poker_ultra_deluxe
It has 5 versions of multi-strike along with Ace Invaders and Big Split Poker.

Quote: Wonko33

More recently the only type of home gambling I have done is handing the keys to the car to my teenage son, huge house edge.......one of the cases where you should always buy insurance..

http://www.myimprov.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/distracted-driving-2-300x183.jpeg