world's worst bet: Harrah's keno

According to the Wizard's review of Harrah's Las Vegas, their pick 10 stimulus keno ticket has a house edge of 96.63% earning it the unflattering honor of worst bet in any casino anywhere. A winning ticket is worth $15,000. My math skills are mediocre, so here's my hypothetical question: if this bet was fair, (with no house edge), would a winning ticket pay about $445,000?

Yes. $445,585.56 to be exact. I only claim it is the worst bet I've ever seen. Maybe there are worse ones elsewhere.

Coincidentally, I came close a week before the review, when I went to visit my old high school (Los Alamitos) for a fund raiser. The highlight was a cow roaming around the football field. For $5 you could buy a grid on the field, and whichever grid the cow pooped in determined the winner. I didn't realize until after I bought $20 in tickets that they only returned 5% of the pool to the winners. Still, that was a better bet than the pick-10 Stimulus keno ticket. Here is an article' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>http://www.ocregister.com/news/-229550--.html]article about it.

Quote: reno

Harrah's Las Vegas pick 10 stimulus keno ticket has a house edge of 96.63% earning it the unflattering honor of worst bet in any casino anywhere.

I imagine this is why Harrah's Corporation is often referred to as The Evil Empire. Normally one can count on state lotteries to be the most notoriously worst bets and that various Las Vegas Keno games despite having whopping house edges will still give a player a better chance than a state lottery. When it comes to something run by Harrahs it seems even this Las Vegas tradition gets tossed to the wayside in Harrah's attempt to shear the sheep.

The problem is that it seems to be a viable business model. Its certainly seems to have worked well for Harrah's Corp to be greedy. Preying on the ignorant tourist works. All casinos offer the player the short end of the stick but Harrah's makes certain its a very short end they offer the player. Yet Harrah's survives.

Quote: FleaStiff

I imagine this is why Harrah's Corporation is often referred to as The Evil Empire...The problem is that it seems to be a viable business model. Its certainly seems to have worked well for Harrah's Corp to be greedy.

Well put.

I stumbled upon this "deal" earlier today and it cracked me up. Basically, you pre-pay $425 for a voucher, and the voucher entitles you to 2 nights at the Quad or Rio or Flamingo or Harrahs, etc. and they throw in a dining credit, a spa credit, and transportation to/from airport.

The fine print is absolutely hilarious:
1) there are blackout dates,
2) the blackout dates are unspecified,
3) all sales are final!

Needless to say, the deal is already completely sold out, because really, who wouldn't want to spend $425 for a chance to stay at Rio?