The weirdest game in town
June 22, 2015 8:59 AM Subscribe
Tell me about Las Vegas. What are the weirdest or most interesting ways to gamble? What can you do beyond the ordinary slots, poker, roulette, sports betting?
This is book research -- I'm trying to find a way to hypothetically win big in Vegas that is slower, more dramatic and showy than slots, and requires less background knowledge or exposition of what's going on to a reader to get it than poker et al. As such, it doesn't need to be real or current or even strictly legal! Bonus points for games that require a lot of luck and can't be influenced by skill, and where the odds of winning are absurdly small.
Thanks!
This is book research -- I'm trying to find a way to hypothetically win big in Vegas that is slower, more dramatic and showy than slots, and requires less background knowledge or exposition of what's going on to a reader to get it than poker et al. As such, it doesn't need to be real or current or even strictly legal! Bonus points for games that require a lot of luck and can't be influenced by skill, and where the odds of winning are absurdly small.
Thanks!
Best answer: I don't know if this would meet your needs, but you can bet on really weird things at the sports book. Would it maybe work for your character to bet on some extremely unlikely thing? Only problem is it's not dramatic and showy, but it does meet your requirement of slow. They could bet on something like who's going to be in the SuperBowl halftime show two years from now.
posted by MsMolly at 9:16 AM on June 22, 2015
posted by MsMolly at 9:16 AM on June 22, 2015
Recently in Atlantic City, not Vegas...
The Borgata is hosting a $10,000 basketball free-throw tournament - a contest that is the first of its kind for a big casino. Involving only a player's hand, ball and the basket, the skill-based contest is one signaling a game-changing trend for an ailing industry, some industry experts are saying.
Although it does require skill it also requires a crazy amount of luck as you basically can never miss if you want to win.
posted by GuyZero at 9:17 AM on June 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
The Borgata is hosting a $10,000 basketball free-throw tournament - a contest that is the first of its kind for a big casino. Involving only a player's hand, ball and the basket, the skill-based contest is one signaling a game-changing trend for an ailing industry, some industry experts are saying.
Although it does require skill it also requires a crazy amount of luck as you basically can never miss if you want to win.
posted by GuyZero at 9:17 AM on June 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
Craps has intricate betting, and doubling progression of bets if you let bets ride; shouting "let it ride" is showy. However, you'll quickly hit the table's max bet limit, unless you're at a no-limit table.
Plus you get all the rituals -- shaking the dice, blowing on the dice, etc.
What's also interesting about craps is you can bet that the shooter will fail. This includes yourself -- you can bet that you won't get your number, or you won't get 7/11, or you will get craps.
This can get confrontational, too. Shooter gets the die, rolls a number, and you throw odds on Don't Come -- you're saying to the shooter, "I don't believe in you." It's somewhat rare to see.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:21 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Plus you get all the rituals -- shaking the dice, blowing on the dice, etc.
What's also interesting about craps is you can bet that the shooter will fail. This includes yourself -- you can bet that you won't get your number, or you won't get 7/11, or you will get craps.
This can get confrontational, too. Shooter gets the die, rolls a number, and you throw odds on Don't Come -- you're saying to the shooter, "I don't believe in you." It's somewhat rare to see.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:21 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: There's a whole world of prop ("proposition") bets. Gamblers will bet each other anything, really. One man once bet another he couldn't get breast implants and wear them for a year.
posted by Troupe of trained rats at 10:19 AM on June 22, 2015
posted by Troupe of trained rats at 10:19 AM on June 22, 2015
Best answer: Lots of casinos have those spin-the-wheel games that you might see at a carnival - vertically-mounted wheel with nails around the circumference and a pointer that makes a loud clack-clack-clack sound as the wheel spins. The noise is probably the most distinctive thing about it.
Pachinko, maybe? Has a sort of similar spectacle, especially if it's in a place where it's not traditionally played.
Pinball machines used to be considered gambling devices and were banned for quite a while because of it. Back before flippers were invented they operated similar to pachinko.
posted by backseatpilot at 10:27 AM on June 22, 2015
Pachinko, maybe? Has a sort of similar spectacle, especially if it's in a place where it's not traditionally played.
Pinball machines used to be considered gambling devices and were banned for quite a while because of it. Back before flippers were invented they operated similar to pachinko.
posted by backseatpilot at 10:27 AM on June 22, 2015
Fifty-to one. I got it from a Hard Case Crime book, and I have no idea whether the author invented it or what, but it's perfectly simple: take a (shuffled) deck of cards, show the bettor the first one, and the bettor guesses what the next card will be.
posted by Etrigan at 10:59 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Etrigan at 10:59 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sigma Derby is definitely the weirdest thing, but it would be hard to win big at it. I guess the most important question is "how big is big?"
For traditional table games, the problem with "winning big" is that there will usually be a table limit and while the pit boss can approve the big bet, they are likely to decline it except in very special circumstances (I think it happens more in movies than in real life). Also the pit boss isn't even called the pit boss anymore. They're usually given some title like floor manager.
So to win big at a traditional table game (poker, blackjack, roulette) you have to be at a no-limit table, which is more likely for poker than it is for anything else, since the house isn't paying you at a poker table (they might be paying out for a tournament, but you have to pay to enter those tournaments, and the house takes money off the entrance fees). For non-tournament, no-limit poker, the house provides the dealer and probably takes some of the ante in exchange for the room, the dealer, and so on.
If this needs to happen in a casino, I'd assume the sports book is the way to go. Whenever you go to the sports book there are weird bets like the final score of the Super Bowl, placed before the NFL season has even started. With the ridiculous odds of March Madness (that is, the NCAA Division 1 basketball tournament) I'd suspect that there's now some sort of thing where you can do the equivalent of an office pool, and the jackpot payout requires you to get every game in the tournament correct. This is statistically unlikely, but definitely doesn't require skill and most people have heard of it. I guess the one thing would be that if you make that your MacGuffin, you run the risk of people calling you out for getting the odds or payout wrong.
The thing to consider about a casino is house edge. For every game they know how much money they expect to pay out and how much they expect to keep. If their payouts don't align with their expectations, they will investigate. If you're doing something with prop bets or private games, you can explain the rules any way you see fit and you don't have to account for a casino's loss control department. Somebody getting exponential payouts at roulette or blackjack in a casino would quickly be escorted from the floor, more or less politely based on how certain the casino is about possible cheating.
posted by fedward at 11:16 AM on June 22, 2015
For traditional table games, the problem with "winning big" is that there will usually be a table limit and while the pit boss can approve the big bet, they are likely to decline it except in very special circumstances (I think it happens more in movies than in real life). Also the pit boss isn't even called the pit boss anymore. They're usually given some title like floor manager.
So to win big at a traditional table game (poker, blackjack, roulette) you have to be at a no-limit table, which is more likely for poker than it is for anything else, since the house isn't paying you at a poker table (they might be paying out for a tournament, but you have to pay to enter those tournaments, and the house takes money off the entrance fees). For non-tournament, no-limit poker, the house provides the dealer and probably takes some of the ante in exchange for the room, the dealer, and so on.
If this needs to happen in a casino, I'd assume the sports book is the way to go. Whenever you go to the sports book there are weird bets like the final score of the Super Bowl, placed before the NFL season has even started. With the ridiculous odds of March Madness (that is, the NCAA Division 1 basketball tournament) I'd suspect that there's now some sort of thing where you can do the equivalent of an office pool, and the jackpot payout requires you to get every game in the tournament correct. This is statistically unlikely, but definitely doesn't require skill and most people have heard of it. I guess the one thing would be that if you make that your MacGuffin, you run the risk of people calling you out for getting the odds or payout wrong.
The thing to consider about a casino is house edge. For every game they know how much money they expect to pay out and how much they expect to keep. If their payouts don't align with their expectations, they will investigate. If you're doing something with prop bets or private games, you can explain the rules any way you see fit and you don't have to account for a casino's loss control department. Somebody getting exponential payouts at roulette or blackjack in a casino would quickly be escorted from the floor, more or less politely based on how certain the casino is about possible cheating.
posted by fedward at 11:16 AM on June 22, 2015
Keno is entirely luck-based. Some variations on Keno have very high payoffs, but the odds of winning are similar to a lottery jackpot. It wouldn't take long at all to explain the game.
posted by jedicus at 11:17 AM on June 22, 2015
posted by jedicus at 11:17 AM on June 22, 2015
Response by poster: It has to be Vegas in the story, but it doesn't have to be a real thing that really happens in Vegas (or anywhere, really.) This is very helpful so far, thank you!
posted by Andrhia at 11:20 AM on June 22, 2015
posted by Andrhia at 11:20 AM on June 22, 2015
Inasmuch as it concerns blackjack, this guy's story is pretty conventional. What's unconventional is the perfect storm that aligned for payouts so big that he signficantly moved the needle on casino balance sheets. If you're looking for crazy inspiration, you could do worse.
posted by jquinby at 11:29 AM on June 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by jquinby at 11:29 AM on June 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's not real data of course, but you might find the movie Rat Race entertaining in ideas of weird subjects for a gamble. (Irrelevant disclosure: my dad's name was Donald Sinclair, same as the movie's casino owner).
posted by anadem at 11:34 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by anadem at 11:34 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: jquinby - I had started to write something about the casino doing the math wrong and approving a bet they shouldn't, but deleted it as too far fetched. Joke's on me.
posted by fedward at 12:05 PM on June 22, 2015
posted by fedward at 12:05 PM on June 22, 2015
How much money are you looking for the character to win? Are you talking $10,000 or $10,000,000?
posted by Maisie at 2:19 PM on June 22, 2015
posted by Maisie at 2:19 PM on June 22, 2015
Baccarat can be dramatic in the sense that I've seen it attract large crowds around a table with one player in charge of turning the cards. It is also purely luck and quite simple to understand. Players bet on either Player or Banker at the start of a hand, and whilst there is drama in the reveal of the cards, the outcome can't be influenced after the initial bet.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 3:33 PM on June 22, 2015
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 3:33 PM on June 22, 2015
I like the idea of a prop bet, because the subject of the bet can be very dramatic. Sure, you could make a lot if you guess the final score of the Super Bowl before the season even starts. But let's say you pick an incredibly unlikely score, and the trailing team needs to score a safety in the final moments of the game ... and lo and behold, they do, but they still lose the game, but your protagonist still wins his bet! Just one idea.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:09 PM on June 22, 2015
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:09 PM on June 22, 2015
Best answer: I've always that the video game gambling stuff was sort of out there. I mean, with a physical game like cards or dice, you can pretty much see everything that's going on, though you're trusting that the dice aren't loaded and the cards aren't manipulated somehow.
Gambling with...software...seems like something of a weird move to me, though the games are thoroughly vetted to ensure fairness. In any case, these guys who discovered a bug in a popular video poker game also came to mind.
posted by jquinby at 6:16 AM on June 23, 2015
Gambling with...software...seems like something of a weird move to me, though the games are thoroughly vetted to ensure fairness. In any case, these guys who discovered a bug in a popular video poker game also came to mind.
posted by jquinby at 6:16 AM on June 23, 2015
Response by poster: This was very helpful, thanks so much! I'm going with a combination approach, and I've realized that getting the attention of casino management in this case works out brilliantly well for plot-furthering reasons, so... thanks for that, too! You're the best.
posted by Andrhia at 6:10 AM on June 24, 2015
posted by Andrhia at 6:10 AM on June 24, 2015
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posted by jquinby at 9:03 AM on June 22, 2015