| Players usually are allowed to double down on any two-card total, doubling their bets while receiving only one more card. If doubling down is restricted to totals of 10 and 11, or 9, 10 or 11, the first thing you should do is eliminate the idea of doubling on soft totals. Better to play Ace-8 as 19 or Ace-9 as 20 than to double. In a multideck game, just double on hard 11 vs. a dealer's 2 through 10 or hard 10 vs. a dealer's 2 through 9. In a single-deck game, also double hard 11 against a dealer's Ace. The saving grace is that this is a slow game. Forty spins an hour is breakneck speed for Big Six. At 40 spins an hour, the $10 bettor risks $400. If he or she sticks to the best bet on the wheel--the $1 spaces--average hourly losses come to about $44. CRAPS: Okay, craps made the list of "best run" games, but that's for those who will stick to the best bets at the table. For those who bet the one-roll propositions, it's another matter. We're talking about house edges such as 11.11 percent on any craps, or 16.67 percent on any seven. And we're talking about a decision on every roll--as many as 100 decisions an hour. The best of the bunch is the field bet, with a house edge of 2.78 percent if the casino pays 3-1 on 12 and 2-1 on 2, or 5.56 percent if it pays 2-1 on both 2 and 12. With $10 wagers for 100 rolls, the risk is $1,000 an hour, with average losses of about $28 on the good version of the bet and $56 on the bad version. Craps can be a good game, but avoid the one-rolls. VIDEO POKER: Also on the list of good games, video poker turns sour in a hurry if you ignore the pay tables. In 9-6 Jacks or Better, where full houses pay 9-for-1 and flushes pay 6-for-1, expert play brings an expected return of 99.5 percent. That, as we saw two weeks ago, means average hourly losses of $25 if you're wagering $10 a hand by betting five coins on a $2 machine, or $12.50 an hour on dollar games and just $3.12 an hour on quarter games. But if you play the 7-5 version, with full houses paying just 7-for-1 and flushes 5-for-1, your expected average return drops to 96.2 percent, and average hourly losses soar to $190 on a $2 machine, $95 on a dollar machine and $24 on quarter game. Watch those pay tables, and watch your bankroll. Strategy requires a few adjustments to account for that big payoff on Aces. Let's try a few sample hands in full-pay Super Aces. Ace of hearts, Ace of clubs, 2 of clubs, 3 of clubs, 4 of clubs: In most video poker games, we'll break up a pair of Aces to hold four parts of a straight flush. That's even true in Double Double Bonus Poker, with its 2,000-coin jackpot on four Aces with a low card. Not so in Super Aces, where any four-Ace hand nets that big payoff. Here, holding the pair of Aces brings an average return of 12.03 coins per five coins wagered, while holding the four-card straight flush brings an expected return of 11.06 coins. |
Tiger 1 home gamble1 gamble2 gamble3 gamble4 gamble5 gamble6 gamble7 Tiger 2 Tiger 3 Casino and other Advertisers |
||