I just like to go to Vegas for the spectacle; drink in the sights and sounds.
I just like to go to Vegas for the spectacle; drink in the sights and sounds.
MadScientistMatt wrote: I find the casino floor atmosphere a bit creepy, with the way they set the lighting to perpetual twilight and light it up more with the slot machines than the lighting. The whole atmosphere seems designed, intentionally, to disorient people and cause you to lose track of time. It does not, however, make me lose track of the way slot machines are like global thermonuclear warfare - the only winning move is not to play. I'm too mathematical - until I can calculate a strategy that is likely to win, I see no reason to go any further.
ding!ding!Ding! That is exactly what the casino floor is designed to do. They want you a little confused, a little dazzled, a little drunk, and more than a little willing to part with your hard earned cash.
I also know for a fact that the Borgata pumps oxygen onto the casino floor late at night to keep people more awake.
In reply to white2019 :
My Mother used to love to tell me about her winning streaks or the big hands she won at Vegas.
Then one morning I stopped over at her house and there she was sitting on the floor with books and tablets all around her as she tried to figure out how to live on social security.
She'd lost all the millions her late husband had left her.
She sold her house and moved away, to die a lonely death. Most of her children never were told of her passing. Because she refused to take our calls or attempts to contact her.
Look at those big expensive buildings. Gamblers paid for them.
In reply to white2019 :
Can you play poker on a canoe?
The funniest part is that he's spamming to promote a gambling site - in a thread discussing not being interested in gambling.
The games with an element of skill, like poker and blackjack, I can get the appeal somewhat. Then again, sports betting is pretty much the same thing, and I think that's a fairly absurd way to spend one's money.
Slot machines should have a timer element in which you can influence (or at least feel like you're influencing) the outcome by how long you pull on the handle for, or when you release it, or something.
At times I do enjoy a bit of pretend gambling, such as video games about poker or whatever. No real money involved, is the key.
Here’s Professor RX Reven's strategy for never losing…
Observe cocktail waitress’s traffic pattern
Position self in convenient location relative to traffic pattern
Loiter until waitress comes by and then throw money away (i.e. play machine)
Grumble about losing
Accept offer from waitress for complementary drink
Tip well
Subtract tip from fair market value (going rate plus tip) of drink
Only throw away (i.e. play machine) an amount equal to or less than the drink savings
We go to Vegas two or three times a year, have fun, don't over do it. Here is the view from the balcony of our room last visit.
I was in Reno a long while ago, and there was a guy at a bar that had slotmachines built into it in front of each stool. He had a drink in one hand, was sorta holding his head up with the other, and he had a stack of 20 buck chips in front of him. With a hangdog look like he was getting ready to slit his own throat, he put the drink down and started feeding those chips into that machine one after the other. I watched in mild horror for about 5 minutes. He sent, I tried to guess, about a grand into that bar.
This does Not meet my definition of a good time.
Been to Vegas twice with family. They love to gamble within limits, doesn't do anything for me, mainly cause I've never won anything.
Weirdly, the last time we went to Vegas, I was hanging with my gf and her mom at Harrah's. Two seats were open at the blackjack table, but they were at opposite ends. Guy sits down and asks if he can play both seats, dealer doesn't allow it. He asks me to play for him so I shrug and sit down. First half dozen hands I'm looking at him for instruction and finally he tells me to play as I want and he will yell to do something special. So I play, and I win. Got up $500 and change before he decides to move on, he leaves me $50 as thanks and I keep playing the same way I was. Gone in another half a dozen hands.
Before Lil Stampie came along I played in an amateur pool league. One year my team won a trip to Vegas for the national tournament. We decided to have fun and just enjoy the free trip. Our team mom was Dot. She was probably 80 at the time and could tell you stories that would turn the devil red. She rented a motorized wheelchair for the week. I was in my early 30s as was my best friend. There's nothing like riding through a casino in Vegas hanging on the back of a motorized wheelchair with your cold 12 pack in the basket. Then as you look around you realized there's a group of security following you in a ring about 15 yards out.
Went to Vegas a year and a bit ago.
Yup, I've been there.
I don't get it. The shows were good, the food was meh and the prices were high.
At least the flight was cheap.
Oh, and when we checked into our hotel, it turns out that we were there for the last weekend of pride week and our balcony faced the pool. Banana hammocks everywhere.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Don't care for gambling. They didn't build those giant buildings on winners.
I love Vegas for the cheap flights. It’s an easy drive from there to so many great hiking spots. And the breakfast buffet at the various Station Casinos is a good value to fill up on when leaving or returning to town.
slowbird said:Slot machines should have a timer element in which you can influence (or at least feel like you're influencing) the outcome by how long you pull on the handle for, or when you release it, or something.
A few years ago, there was a story about a group of Russian hackers that cracked the pseudorandom patterns on some older slot machines. I can't say I have any sympathy for casino owners here. They'd done absolutely nothing to discourage people from deluding themselves into thinking they could find patterns in "when a machine is ready to pay out" - then somebody comes along who actually did exactly that. My view is that the casinos got precisely what they deserved here. If they don't like it, they can get their slot machines new firmware.
Back in the old days when you fed quarters into slot machines, I had a winning formula I used once. Sacrifice a coin to the machines closest to the casino entrance. Some reconoitering seemed to show that these machines were set up to make a lot of low- payout noise to attract foot traffic. It might have cost 3-4 bucks to occupy the machines, and if nothing happened on one through I'd move next door, but I did this across 4 casino entrances in a few minutes and paid for my flight. Hain't tried to repeat nor do I intend to. I hear now that you don't feed em quarters anymore and you buy a plastic card tethered to your wrist that you stick in the machine??? Well that right there is berkeleying creepy.
The only times I gamble is at cheap buy-in games of poker at someone's house or betting a couple bucks on a horse at horse track. Every casino I have been in has just made me want to leave as soon as possible. Between the smell of smoke, the sight of sad berkeleyers sitting at a machine throwing money into a machine with the shiny lights and fake attempt at glamour is just repulsive. It all feels so plastic and cheap.
I go to casinos every once and awhile. The trick is to realize that they pay .95 or so on the dollar and only spend the money you would for some other form of entertainment.
Sure paying $40 to sit in a hot loud place that smells of cigarettes isn't great but I've also never won $1100 at a movie theater, which is what I walked away with the last time I went to a casino.
Plus they usually have decent food, the one closest to us has $9.99 prime rib and if you are there somewhat regularly you get free rooms too.
Look at it as a date night with the possibility of getting more money
From "Games People Play" by Eric Berne - published in the 1960's.
"At the social or sociological level a "professional" gambler is one whose chief interest in life is gambling. But at the psychological level there are two different kinds of people who are professional gamblers. There are those who spend their time gaming, i.e., playing with Fate, in whom the strength of the Adult's desire to win is exceeded only by the strength of the Child's need to lose. Then there are those who run gambling houses and actually do earn a living, usually a very good one, by providing opportunities for gamesters to play; they themselves are not playing, and try to avoid playing, although occasionally under certain conditions they will indulge themselves and enjoy it "
Only time I imagine ever going near Vegas is to see the Mint, and I won't stop in a casino. Gambling does not interest me at all, I have more enjoyable ways to throw my money away.
I'm not a fan of casinos. Something about them just screams Consumerism and Greed, which I don't care for. I love poker, but haven't played regularly in a long time. At one point I was playing every day - $5 to $10 buy in. I kept track for 2 summers. One summer I was up $25, the other I was down $10. Playing the same group of peers with very little variation in the players, it was mostly just a way to pass the time. Never really tried it with any different groups.
I also studied Game Theory in college. One of my professors was a real-life card counter. He, along with 1-3 other professors (all Math prof's) would fly out to Vegas 2-4 times a year. Seeing as between these 4 professors there are 6 theorems with their names on them, I would imagine that they're well into the black. Don't know for sure, obviously, but I found it fascinating. I also figured out there's no way I'd ever be smart enough to do it, and with the aforementioned studying of game theory, realized that without devoting a full-time jobs worth of time to it, I'd more than likely LOSE money, and the best I could really hope for was to break even.
Long story short, no thanks to gambling for me. The single exception to this is playing the lottery, but I view that as buying a $2 daydream every once in awhile rather than gambling.
jharry3 said:From "Games People Play" by Eric Berne - published in the 1960's.
"At the social or sociological level a "professional" gambler is one whose chief interest in life is gambling. But at the psychological level there are two different kinds of people who are professional gamblers. There are those who spend their time gaming, i.e., playing with Fate, in whom the strength of the Adult's desire to win is exceeded only by the strength of the Child's need to lose. Then there are those who run gambling houses and actually do earn a living, usually a very good one, by providing opportunities for gamesters to play; they themselves are not playing, and try to avoid playing, although occasionally under certain conditions they will indulge themselves and enjoy it "
A child's need to lose? What?
It's real fun to go to Vegas, then afterwords go to someplace like the North Rim of Grand Canyon.
Makes you appreciate the solitude all the more so.
I think that's what they are aiming for.
I like gambling, I really like casinos, even when I'm not gambling. Only way to get me to pay attention to sports is to have a wager involved.
As an avid and lifelong videogamer, the new crops of slot machines are insane. Just to watch other people play them is worth hanging out in one of few indoor spaces that don't discriminate against smokers. Don't believe me? Check out a ghost busters slot on YouTube, with full mini games. Having recently been to Dave n busters, the arcade game makers could learn a thing or two, at least from their company gambling divisions.
When I still lived a mile from Thunder Valley, I was there probably 5 days a week. Usually just because the buffet was better and cheaper than the restaurants in town, but overall in my 2 years of living nearby I was up almost $20k. Slot machines were always good for dinner, put a $20 in and win $50, buy dinner for $25 and still wind up ahead. Once or twice a week pulling $200 our more on a win wasn't unheard of.
For a while though we attacked a machine they had. Something called "organic roulette". All computerized roulette wheel. Well the first 8 weeks it was the casino, it went red red black red green black black red. Wait for it to get ready for one of the greens to pop and split a bet between them, big payout. They changed something around 8 weeks in though, it lost the pattern and we quit playing. Single deck blackjack was another popular choice for us, lot easier keeping count of one deck than 4 or more.
Nobody wanted to listen when we were in Vegas. Yea let's go spend $9 a beer at the bar!!! berkeleying idiots. Put a 20 in the machine, make minimum bets, and get as many watered down run n cokes as the girl could carry. Drinking dollars last a lot longer if they *think* you're gambling.
Like all vices, you need self control, and like everything else, everybody is free to get enjoyment from whatever they want. Spending $1000 for 40 circles around a parking lot doesn't sound like a whole Hell of a lot of fun to many people, and you're never leaving autocross with more money than you showed up with.
I'd take $100 and when it was gone it was gone. Every win over $20 got pulled out and the ticket saved until time to leave. Much easier to not lose everything if you don't spend your winnings.
Back when then-President Bush released the "Economic Stimulus Package" and gave everybody some extra money, my friends and I reinvested it in the dumbest possible way: by going to Foxwoods Casino in CT. I had never been to a real casino before (we did go to a poker room in NH a few times as a group with a max bet of $4), so it was interesting. After checking into the hotel and tossing a few cold ones back, we hit the floor. I spent 99% of my time at slot machines.
First thing I observed was that everyone but us was ANCIENT. There were a lot of seniors tugging around oxygen tanks, and that was depressing. They looked like zombies and slaves to the games. It made me feel like being there was wrong. Then I had a few more "complimentary" drinks and we kept rolling. Was I having fun? Well, yes! A few friends had minor hits, and it was fun hanging out with my friends and being degenerates. 
I was up and down all day, and eventually crapped out just past midnight. I did better than most; one friend was down $800 within an hour of stepping foot onto tribal land! The feeling I got after I lost my last dollar was unforgettable. I felt crushed and exhausted, yet I was wired due to the supposed oxygen getting pumped into the place. Friends offered to "help them spend their money" but I refused, as much as I wanted to keep going. And that's where they get you. They want you to keep on going indefinitely, and are depending on that addiction to get you to come back. I woke up later in the morning feeling used and abused, and I wasn't alone!
I haven't been back to one since. Would I go back to one? Maybe, but I would need to set up hard limits on how much to spend and when to walk away. I can see why a lot of people stay away.
You'll need to log in to post.
