The No Seven Shooter
15 December 2003
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
In a your May 15, 2001 column in Casino Guide
online, you wrote the longest roll without a
seven being rolled was 3 hours, 6 minutes. I was
at the Golden Phoenix in Reno, NV this weekend,
and the roll lasted 3 hours, 10 minutes without
a seven.
Since I watched the first hour of the roll, I
only scored $2200 off a $100 buy-in, playing
only place and come bets with max odds. However,
those who were betting the table max ($500 plus
3-4-5 odds) by the end of the third hour scored
$3500 on a couple points, totaling about $15,000
for the roll. It was funny to watch the casino
reload the table with chips four times, as they
didn't have enough originally on the table to
keep paying everyone. Perhaps the best part was
this was not a "high-roller" table. Everyone
there started betting the table $5 minimums.
Nice to see the little guy get a break. Chris C.
Craps offers players gambling immortality if
ever a "long roll" should happen when they are
bellied up to a crap table. Your roll, Chris,
might even get you a mention in the figurative
Craps Hall of Fame, and it certainly is worthy
of mention in this column, especially since you
made some Ka-ching.
Breaking the bank, where jittery pit bosses keep
calling for chip refills, does not necessarily
drape everyone with gaming glory. Your good
fortune leads me to this important point: A
long, extended roll doesn't necessarily boost
you from nada to nirvana. It is the "quality" of
the roll that dictates whether you will have a
celestial moment. If your numbers are rolling,
your game is spread out on the layout (example:
additional come bets with odds), and you are
progressively betting more, you are looking at
the potential for the roll of a lifetime.
Otherwise, the experience is nothing more than a
tantalizing also-ran, that first-class stimulant
for the imagination.
The longest roll I was ever involved with was 73
no-seven throws, but it was simulated on a home
computer while I was watching an episode of
Seinfeld. Though I have participated in many
30-minute rolls, I have once witnessed a run of
the dice that lasted just under an hour and a
half.
For those wanting to know, before your
undocumented score (no disrespect; I just hadn't
heard about it until you wrote me), the hottest
hand of all time belonged to Stanley Fujitake of
Honolulu. Stanley held the dice for three hours
and six minutes at the California Hotel and
Casino before cinco dos, adios (the 7) appeared.
If anyone of you was ever involved in a killer
hand, or, if you have met unusual characters or
witnessed strange occurrences, preferably in a
casino, I would love to hear from you.
Dear Mark,
How does a casino decide where to put the
different slot machines on the casino floor?
Danny B.
Finding a home for each one-armed bandit is
called "slot mix". Slot mix is casino
nomenclature describing the physical placement
of machines on the casino floor. Slot management
places its machines strategically to maximize
customer appeal and potential casino earnings.
Slot mix is composed of five basic variables:
floor location, coin denominations, payoff
schedules, casino advantage and payoff
frequency. These variables can be blended into
the casino floor in infinite variations, with no
two casinos doing it exactly the same, but all
striving to separate you from your hard-earned
money.
Gambling quote of the week: "Gamblers come in
all shapes and sizes. You've got your master
strategist, your aggressive pot chaser, your
pensive contemplator, and every casino's
favorite, the impulsive idiot, to name a
few."-Mark Balestra, The Complete Idiot's Guide
To Gambling
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