Against the Odds
Gambling has become America's hot pastime. But today's casinos have more of an upper hand
They certainly had Zoe's number. The 53-year-old Pennsylvania small-business woman, who requested anonymity, said the MGM Grand in Las Vegas sent her free tickets to the Billboard Music Awards a few years ago. "They knew I had teenage daughters. I thought, 'Wow, the kids would love to see all those stars,' " says Zoe. Of course, she played blackjack aplenty while her kids were enjoying the concert. Zoe upped her bets to $200 a hand to keep the goodies coming at MGM and other casinos. "I was playing at that level so I could get the penthouse suite," says Zoe. She figures her comp chasing has cost her $60,000 over the years.
If comps don't grab you, new technologies and strategies on the casino floor just might. Take slot machines. These workhorses produce about 70 percent of a typical casino's gambling revenue. Modern machines are far easier, faster, and more appealing than the old "one-armed bandits" that would gulp nickels and spin reels of cherries and bananas. Many modern slots have no arms; players push a button instead. And reels are giving way to video screens with everything from Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White cheering you on to a striptease by a hunky construction worker on the Risque Business machine. To speed up betting, manufacturers are replacing coin slots with bill feeders and nickel hoppers with coupon printers.
Some ploys are less obvious. In many reel machines, the blanks just above and below the biggest jackpot symbols are keyed to appear at least twice as often as any other blank, says Michael Shackleford, an adjunct professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and consultant to casinos and gaming software developers. Psychological research shows that gamblers who see such "near misses" spend more time betting because they mistakenly think they are one spin away from a jackpot. In reality, their odds are no different.
A spokesman for slot maker IGT says that such patterns "may be true in some games." But the company will not discuss its designs other than to say its games have been approved by government regulators in the United States and around the world.
The video screen games employ other psychological techniques. The most popular--and among the most profitable--machines are the penny and nickel ones. But those slots offer much better odds to those who bet as much as $3 a spin. "They think the game is inexpensive, but it is more expensive than the 25-cent game" because they end up betting and losing more, says Bob Jones, executive director of gaming operations at Fantasy Springs. Casinos also don't advertise the fact that they calibrate low-denomination slots to return only about 90 percent of wagers back to gamblers. Slots with minimum bets of $1, however, typically pay back at least 95 percent. Of course, most slot jockeys lose far more than 5 or 10 percent because they bet their winnings. As a result, casinos typically keep as much as 50 percent of a slot player's money.
The house is upping its advantage at the card tables as well. Caesars and several other casinos are trying out new camera-and-sensor-embedded card tables called "MindPlay" that record the location of every card and value of every bet. Casino managers, who MindPlay says can "watch as each bet is made and each hand is played" on a computer, say the table simply helps them identify big bettors to dole out comps. The manufacturer also touts the table's ability to spot card counters--who are not violating any law but can beat dealers--and cheaters.
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