Points on Etiquette and
Prison
27 December 2005
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
In poker, who is supposed to show their cards
first at the end of a hand? Is it the one who
calls the last bet, or the player who makes the
last bet? Justin B.
Customarily, Justin, if there has been a bet on
the final round of betting, the person who makes
the last wager, or raise, has to show first; the
person who called waits to see what the others
throw down before showing the caller's cards.
Occasionally players do check on the final
round, so what happens then? Most casinos and
card rooms still have the player who made the
last bet or raise show their cards first,
although, I have seen in a few card rooms that
in this situation, the player nearest the button
shows their hand first.
Dear Mark,
If you had to make but one bet on a roulette
table, what would it be? You've mentioned in the
past playing on a single zero wheel if you can
find one, but is there any bet that is better
than another on that table? Frank S.
Hip, hip, Frank, always go for searching out a
single zero roulette game, as that little extra
effort -- if successful -- allows you to chop
the house edge from 5.26% to 2.63%. Now, that's
something; you cut it in half! But your base
question still remains: is there one bet that
stands out over all others on a single zero
game?
Yep, Frank, there's one. The absolute best bet
is an "even-money" wager on a French (or single
zero) wheel that offers the En Prison
(Surrender) option. The house edge with this one
wager is slashed to 1.35%.
And what the heck do I mean by En Prison? Guess.
The French phrase "en prison" signifies that if
you're betting an even money outside wager like
red, and the next number called is green 0, the
dealer won't snatch your losing chips. Instead,
he or she will put a small marker on top of your
bet. It's then en prison, Frank; your bet is
temporarily held hostage until the outcome of
the next spin. If black or the green 0 appears
on the next spin, you would then lose your
entire original wager. But if red reappears, the
dealer will remove the en prison marker and you
are free to either pick up your bet or replay
it.
By the way, Frank, when I mentioned above "one
bet that stands out over all others," it's
important to note that most players erroneously
believe that certain wagers on a roulette table
are superior to others. Not so. All bets, except
one (the five-number bet, 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3)
suffer the same 5.26% house edge on a double
zero wheel. Switching to a single zero game
guillotines the house edge about in half on
every wager on the layout except for the En
Prison bet.
Dear Mark,
I've noticed that some casinos offer more than
two-times odds on the crap table. How much of
the house edge am I whittling away by playing 5X
or even 10X odds? Duncan M.
Below is the casino advantage on your total bet
when taking odds combined with your pass line
wager. Without placing an odds bet, the house
edge is 1.41%; on 1X odds it's 0.85%; on 2X odds
0.61%; on 5X odds 0.33%, and on10X odds 0.18%.
Dear Mark,
For every new hand in video poker, are you
playing on a never-ending deck or is the deck
reshuffled? Billie F.
Casinos do not use a perpetual deck in video
poker. For example, on a Jacks-or-Better game,
each new hand begins with a freshly shuffled
52-card deck. When you press the "play credits"
button for the next hand, you're starting over
with 52, new, randomly shuffled, cards.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week: "A tour bus will
disgorge another batch of brightly-dressed
tourists and you see a kind of glazed, magic in
their eyes as they tramp steadily toward an
already sealed fate." -- Barney Vinson, "Las
Vegas Behind The Tables"
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