Casinos in Mexico

My article on casino gambling in Mexico is up:

https://wizardofvegas.com/articles/gambling-in-mexico/

This should asnwer some questions I got during my recent stay in Vegas.

Interesting!

I clicked on the spanish language link at the bottom. Is that the Wizard in a sombrero? Very nice. My girlfriend will be happy to know he has gambling info en espanol.

Quote: RogerKint

I clicked on the spanish language link at the bottom. Is that the Wizard in a sombrero? Very nice. My girlfriend will be happy to know he has gambling info en espanol.

Yes, that is my new gambling site in Spanish. Nareed was very helpful in most of the translations. I still need to translate some menu items and page descriptions to Spanish. It should be ready for a full blown announcement by the end of the month. For now, it is good enough to quietly link to.

I'd be interested to know your girlfriend's thoughts on the site. It is obviously pretty sparse for now.

Quote: Wizard

Yes, that is my new gambling site in Spanish.

here we go again, translate/google says Las Apuestas merely means "gambling", so I expect someone to say that is wrong

in any case you are not to be el mago de las vegas ?

PS: or for that matter el mago de probabilidades ?

Quote: odiousgambit

here we go again, translate/google says Las Apuestas merely means "gambling", so I expect someone to say that is wrong

I struggled for a long time what to call the site. Lots of the good gambling names are gone, not to mention that I don't have the flare to find puns in Spanish like I do in English. I'm sure Nareed will correct me, but there is no direct equivalent to "gambling" in Spanish. The closest thing that concept is the verb apostar, which means to make a bet. The noun for a bet itself is apuesta.

Quote:

in any case you are not to be el mago de las vegas ?

The Spanish site is more about gambling in general than Vegas, so no. However, you may call me that, if you wish. Or just El Mago will suffice.

Quote:

PS: or for that matter el mago de probabilidades ?

That just doesn't have a good ring to it, does it? Also, I think you should put a las in front of probabilidades. As I recall, all nouns that end in dad are feminine. That is the kind of thing that if I struggled to pronounce it I would need a drink of water afterwards. I'd not stand to close to me when I try.

Sorry to detrail Nareed's thread. If there is one more post about my site then I'll split the thread off.

Quote: Wizard

Sorry to detrail Nareed's thread.

I'm feeling guilty too, so back to that:

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and something which no doubt get some approval

typo in paragraph about non-smoking, change to "gets some approval"

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F this is so, it makes them no different

typo here in paragraph about a sign for slot machines

Comments:

Although you clearly say there is plenty of gambling in Mexico outside of the casino scene, I came away from the article with the feeling this is a culture that is a little uncomfortable with the morality of gambling. I just feel that if a majority of the people were, say, of Asian descent it'd be different. Is this from Catholicism, general poverty, or am I mistaken, or what?

Next:

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The table was, if I may be permitted the expression, ice cold. Until I tried playing the Don’t, then points started hitting. So after losing about 1,000 pesos, including tips, I called it quits.

This is an amazingly common experience out of proportion to what can be explained by the house advantage. Well, you have ignored my advice to never switch sides in a Craps session, Nareed, so there! [if you never saw my warnings, now you have!]

Lastly, off topic again, but an interesting article in the WSJ today about "Mexico's Spoiled Rich Kids". unfortunately, it is subscriber only [I'm providing a link in case you are a subscriber or borrowed a code - apparently common]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323734304578543663876242372.html?mod=ITP_review_0

Quote: Wizard

I'm sure Nareed will correct me, but there is no direct equivalent to "gambling" in Spanish. The closest thing that concept is the verb apostar, which means to make a bet.

Many of the words in English that are based on very Old English or Old Norse like gaming, gambling, playing, and getting had no direct equivalent in Latin, so they have no direct equivalent in Spanish. Also if a word is older it has likely gone through more semantic changes.

Quote: Wizard

I'm sure Nareed will correct me, but there is no direct equivalent to "gambling" in Spanish. The closest thing that concept is the verb apostar, which means to make a bet. The noun for a bet itself is apuesta.

A good rule of thumb (and remember such rules admit exceptions) is that any English word ending in "-ing" which is used as a noun, such as gaming, gambling, hunting, etc, has no real equivalent in Spanish.

Take hunting, that's a good one. You can translate "I'm going hunting" as "Me voy de caza," or even "me voy de cacería." But then terms like "Fox hunt" are translated as "caza de zorros."

Also puns don't translate well into Spanish, and Spanish is intolerant of twisting grammar for the sake of a pun. Consider that "Wizard of Oz," means "the wizard of a place called Oz." But "Odds" is not the name of a place. So properly speaking the term should be, in correct English, "Wizard of the odds," or "odds wizard."

If you go literal and translate it as "Mago de Probabilidades" the implication is that there is a wizard in a place called Probabilidades. Further, the dissimilarities between "Oz" and "Probabilidades" completely negates the pun. Puns and wordplay are usually untranslatable anyway, with few exceptions. One way to judge a person's fluency in a language is whether she understands puns.

Note: Recent news reports show several Yucutan casinos closed by tax authorities.

The Riviera gave me a "free" cruise to Meheeco. Has anyone here visited the casinos near the cruise stops? I'm thinking of Ensenada, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo.