Casino games I can't take seriously

Both my parents enjoyed card games and had groups of friends they often played with. My dad played poker nearly every week, my mom played otehr things like canasta and gin more sporadically. Ever since I can recall, we had lots of decks of cards in the house. I learned to shuffle cards very young. also my mom taught us to play war and other simple card games, without involving any wagers.

That's why I can't take Casino War seriously: it's a child's game. I can't see myself betting on it any more than I would bet on jacks or hopscotch.

Another childhood game is bingo, for me. We'd play it on school functions, at synagogue functions, and even at summer camp. At school and synagogue the play was for money with prizes to match, designed to raise money for the school or temple of course. But at the time I didn't concern myself with that. At camp the game was just another camp activity, like trivia nights and such. I've also some vague memories of playing bingo with my cousins at their home, just for fun.

It was exciting and to some degree I liked it. I recall winning a Rubik's Cube at the height of that fad while at summer camp in Canada, too. And while it isn't quite a simplistic child's game, like war, that's the way it feels to me.

So I just can't take those two games seriously at all. Quite frankly the local Bingo parlors, and the Bingo rooms at the casinos, tend to bring out my inner Sheldon Cooper in derisive mode :P

I agree to some extent...however winning alone had a higher value of excitement when you are a kid. If you can't win something (money) what is the point of playing now days?

That big carney wheel at the entrance to the casino gets the little old ladies that have never been in a casino before. The next step is Casino War. Yes, its a child's game, but the money is real. It has a house edge and the casino is always willing to take money from a sucker who doesn't know how to play any more complex games. Bingo? Whole roomfuls of it. Somebody must be doing something right. Do you know any other way to get a hundred little old ladies yell out an expletive other than having one of their number first yell Bingo? Heck, I used to like that Quarter Pusher machine. Tastes vary.

The carney wheel, casino war, bingo and keno all bring money into the casino's coffers. There was a while there when people didn't take one arm bandits seriously either.

When I was a kid, I was in a summer program. It was at the community pool, and involved a lot of arts and crafts and stuff during the day. In the late afternoon was free pool time until your parents got home. Anyway, while we enjoyed swimming, it got old fast. Somehow we got a hold of a deck of cards, and so decided to play "poker". I think we played for m&m's or something. We didn't really know how to play, of course. We knew that Aces were high, followed by Kings, etc, etc. So, we decided that having 4 Aces was the best hand you could possibly have. We went down from there. 4 aces beat 4 kings. 4 kings beat 4 queens. 4 deuces beat 3 aces. three of a kind beat a pair. That's all we knew, and that's how we played. Sometimes, I still think of poker as being a kids game. Maybe I just want some more m&m's.

Bingo is feared by casino employees in Colorado. With the notable exception of the Riviera, any casino in Blackhawk or Central City soon closed or was sold after offering Bingo. Closed : Otto's Sold : Fortune Valley Speaking of Fortune Valley, it was Harveys' which offered Bingo in it's last days also. Fortune Valley was recently bought by Luna, but looks like it is going to become a Hard Rock casino shortly

I don't mind Bingo and War being offered in casinos. You can wager on everything with an uncertain outcome. A casino can offer wagers on anything with an uncertain, random outcome so long as it can also calculate a house edge, or hedge the risk somehow.

As for poker, I learned to play it when I was 15. We bought an Intelevision videogame which came with a poker cartridge. Again my aprents taught us how, and we practiced with the game. At 15 you feel like an adult, even if you're just a dumb kid who doesn't know any better... So I can take it seriously.

But every time I pass a casino War table, I smile and shake my head in disbelief. I don't think I've ever come accross a bingo room, though.

I wish I could find some quarter pusher games in Vegas. I love those.



Another one I'd like to find is the bingo style pinball machines. I used to make money on those back when I was so young I had to stand on a box just to be able to see the play field.

Quote: kp

I wish I could find some quarter pusher games in Vegas. I love those.

I saw one near the stairs at the kiddie casino at Circus Circus back in 09. Knowing that, you might also want to look over the kiddie casino at Excalibur as well. I remember those machines vividly at an arcade we used to visit for a few hours on Sundays back in the 70s. I never won anything.

Quote:

Another one I'd like to find is the bingo style pinball machines. I used to make money on those back when I was so young I had to stand on a box just to be able to see the play field.

Check the Pinball Hall of Fame in vegas. It's worth the visit even if you don't find a particualr machine, and they did have some really old models c. early XX and for all I know late XIX century.

Quote: kp

Another one I'd like to find is the bingo style pinball machines. I used to make money on those back when I was so young I had to stand on a box just to be able to see the play field.

Now that I see it again, I realize very similar machines are rampant in Mexico City. There are three right here in the block my office is located, with some kind of soccer theme. I'd say they're a little shorter and I'm not sure you can see the railing where you shoot the ball. But the rest is just like that, down to the holes with numbers on them.

I've never played one.

I took a cruise to Mexico a few years ago, and there was a quarter pusher machine in the casino. (Side note: It was the Norwegian Star, the same ship that banned the Wizard from the casino for card counting.) We left Cabo San Lucas on a Friday and sailed non-stop to Los Angeles, arriving on Sunday. There was a storm the whole way, and the quarter pusher was the game to play. The rocking of the ship caused the quarters to fall like leaves in autumn.

Quote: kp

I wish I could find some quarter pusher games in Vegas. I love those.

I think Slots-A-Fun had them when I was there a few years ago. Also maybe Flamingo. Wiz has an article on this somewhere, they are called "Flip It" IIRC.

Quote: Nareed

I don't mind Bingo and War being offered in casinos. You can wager on everything with an uncertain outcome. A casino can offer wagers on anything with an uncertain, random outcome so long as it can also calculate a house edge, or hedge the risk somehow.

As for poker, I learned to play it when I was 15. We bought an Intelevision videogame which came with a poker cartridge. Again my aprents taught us how, and we practiced with the game. At 15 you feel like an adult, even if you're just a dumb kid who doesn't know any better... So I can take it seriously.

But every time I pass a casino War table, I smile and shake my head in disbelief. I don't think I've ever come accross a bingo room, though.

I accidentally learned blackjack from Atari in the early 80s. We got a whole box of games from a yard sale and that was one of them. Didn't even know what I was doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackjack_%28Atari_2600%29

And so began my gaming career...

Quote: cclub79

I accidentally learned blackjack from Atari in the early 80s. We got a whole box of games from a yard sale and that was one of them. Didn't even know what I was doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackjack_%28Atari_2600%29

And so began my gaming career...

I think our old Intelevision had BJ, too. I honestly don't remember. I liked poker, I remember that clearly.

IMO both are a better way to start a gaming career than slots or even roulette ;)

I've fond memories of the Atari 2600. I never owned one, but one of my cousins did. I spent most Sunday afternoons at his house playing asteroids and breakout (with a different controller each!) He also had centipede.