Always think two percent
or less
7 April 2000
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
You mentioned in a previous column that players
should never make a hard way bet on a crap game.
Why not? Norman G.
Hey, Norman, what is Mark Pilarski's rule number
one of casino gambling? (Actually, it's rule
number two as rule number one is: "Only bet what
you can afford to lose.") Rule number two of my
gambling commandments is "Only make wagers that
have less than a two percent house advantage."
Hard way bets are much, much higher and will
gourmandize most of your hard-earned, hopefully
disposable, income.
The true odds of a hard 6 or 8 materializing are
10 to 1, but your friendly casino is only going
to pay you a paltry 9 to 1. This gives the
casino a 9.09 percent edge. As for the hard 4 or
10, the true odds are 8 to 1, but the payoff is
a measly 7 to 1, giving the casino a whopping
11.1 percent advantage.
My advice is to stick with a pass/come bet with
odds or placing the six or eight.
Dear Mark,
My brother-in-law loves to play the "odd" bet on
a roulette table. Recently in Las Vegas it came
up 15 times in a row for him. What are the
chances of that happening? Tony G.
You didn't specify, Tony, if it was a double or
a single zero roulette wheel. Because I advise
my readers to play on only the latter, a single
zero game, the odds would have been 50,000 to 1
of "odd" rolling 15 consecutive times. My
personal all-time record when I dealt the game
was 20 straight spins with black appearing.
Odds: 1 in 1.8 million.
Dear Mark,
Every Thursday I take my great grandmother to a
local bingo parlor. Seems this is the most
enjoyable time we have together. She told me
that she used to mark her bingo card with
kernels of corn. I didn't realize the game was
that old. How old is bingo and where did it
originate? Sally C.
Bingo's beginnings, Sally, have never been truly
authenticated, but the game was made popular by
Edwin S. Lowe, a traveling salesman who
accidentally chanced upon the game at a carnival
in Atlanta in 1929.
You revealed, Sally, that your great grandmother
used corn to mark her card; well, don't forget
to tell your bingo-bonding matriarch that the
game was originally called Beano because it was
played by covering the numbers with beans.
Dear Mark,
Is it legal to chart the rolls on a roulette
table and then bet accordingly? Justin G.
According to what, Justin? Any attempts to
impose numerical precision on a game that
insists upon remaining imprecise is futile. It
is permissible to "chart" the results of spins
in an attempt to identify and exploit streaks,
but because each spin is an independent event,
no previous results have any bearing on what
happens in the future.
Dear Mark,
You once wrote that no one has ever hit a solid
14 or 15 spot in Nevada. How about my unlucky
13-spot ticket. Anybody ever hit a solid 13
spot? Martha R.
Conclusively, I have no documentation one way or
the other, and believe me, Martha, I've been
searching. My guesstimate would be that no one
ever has. But here's a sobering thought that you
can check out for yourself next time you're in
downtown Reno. At Fitzgeralds, take the
escalator from the first to the second floor and
you will find hanging on their wall of fame
pictures of winning keno tickets through the
90s. The highest ticket hit so far this decade
was a nine spot, and surprisingly, just one.
What does that tell you, Martha?
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