Category: Gambling and Casinos

Every gambler worth a hill of beans needs to understand the lingo of the game. While the gambling world is full of lingo, today I’ll present some of the more common and interesting words and phrases you should know.

Action – The action is the total amount of money that’s wagered. It’s also a term that can be used to signify that an amount of money is in play.

Ante – This is a poker term that means the amount of money one needs to pony up to get into the action. You’ll see it in regular poker, Caribbean Stud and other games.

Bankroll – Your bankroll is the amount of money you have to gamble with. It could be an amount of money for the night, a week, a sports season or whatever.

Betting Right or Wrong – At the Craps table, you are betting right when you’re betting with the dice-a pass line wager. And you’re betting wrong when you’re going against the dice.

Biased Wheel – A Roulette wheel that seems to be favoring one part of itself-ball seems to land in one section a bit more often than other sections.

Burn Card – This is the first card of a new deck that’s discarded before play begins.

Cage – It’s the cashier’s cage. This is where you cash in your chips, cash checks and so forth.

Face card – The Jacks, Queens and Kings of a deck of cards.

Field Bet – In Craps, a field bet is a one-roll wager that wins if the combination of the dice is a 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, or 12.

Greens – Green casino chips valued at $25 each. Dealers, etc will typically talk about chips by their color-greens, blacks, reds, etc.

Hole card – In Blackjack, this is the dealer’s card that’s face down on the felt.

House Advantage – This is the difference between the actual (or real) odds and the payout. The house maintains an advantage in all games, but some are way more than others. For instance, the Pass Line wager in Craps has a much smaller house edge than playing Roulette and thus that wager in Craps is better for players over the long run.

Random Number Generator – Also called the RNG, it’s a little computer program that constantly picks random numbers. These numbers then generate an outcome-like in a slot machine. When you go to play the slot machine, a number is spit out randomly. This determines if you win or lose. And there you have it. Some interesting gambling terms that you should know.

One of the oldest sources of entertainment, a combo of games that involve not just players but most importantly money, has a history of making millionaires as well as turning many of them bankrupt, gambling is an activity with a difference. Since time memorial gambling is the favorite pastime of people across the globe. For some gambling is the best means to merry-making whereas for countless others it is the ideal way to make huge amount of effortless money in a short while.

With the passage of time, gambling has taken many forms. In early years gambling was all about throwing dice and shuffling cards. But now there are several different versions of gambling such as slot machines, gambling online, betting on horse and car races etc. This has not just introduced gambling in almost every corner of the world but has also popped up the number of gaming aficionados throughout.

Since the lure of gambling is escalating day-by-day, print as well as media has started taking keen interest in informing people about various aspects of gambling. One such really hot info on gambling is about gambling stories.

Like any other game there are numerous tales (true and fictional) associated with gambling too. In fact gambling can be said to have maximum number of stories hanging behind. While on the one hand these stories largely amuse the public on the other hand the stories generate good business for print and media. These channels of information and entertainment make huge amount of money by presenting the actual stories in some different forms or by developing one of their own stories. So what more can one expect from gambling but that it can fetch money even though you do not actually gamble.

Since gambling is an exciting and precarious subject, several interesting stories are associated and can be formulated on it. It is seen that by and large gambling tales intrigue human beings. For what can be more exciting than knowing how various scandals that have rocked the world of sports or politics occurred or the stories that involving people who were once quite famous.

The enticement of gambling stories is depicted from the fact that movies made on them such as Oceans 11 did remarkably well and turned out to be big blockbusters. Moreover in this era when reality shows dominate the entire tube world, banking on the obsession and vogue for gambling stories, ESPN could come up with a fiction based program, Tilt. Tilt was the creation of the writers of the popular gambling movie Rounders. This show featured a plot based around the group that is described as a group of lowlifes. These lowlifes were in turn nicely manipulated or governed by a powerful person.

It is due to the intense liking of people that producers keep repeating this theme in different shows. Similarly in the literary world the 19th century English novel, Gambling by Michael Flavin turned out to be a great success. The book presented different sides of gambling, something that could be cited in the novels written on gambling in 1800s.

STOP! Read the following first before tossing that dice. It may save you tons of money and a lot of heartaches.

Many gambling sites offer several promotional incentives like bonuses, guarantees, equal winning opportunities, multiple/solo player modes, higher bet limits and a whole lot more that can be quite dizzying and makes you leap into them before looking into what they really offer.

Let’s try and have a look first before you throw down that dice and before you throw away your hard-earned money and miss out on all the fun that thousands of gambling sites offer.

There are several considerations that one must take with prudence before dealing with any gambling site.

The king of them all is to understanding their rules. Incentives are great but you play by their rules. Not all gambling sites have the same set of rules. Read them like you’re about to take an exam. Look out for the fine prints, somewhere there might be a catch 22 situation. Understand the procedures and all the transactions they have pertaining to real money.

Just like any exemplary gambling site there is customer service support must be on top of their list. You are paying good money for enjoyment and a chance to win. They must have very excellent and professional people who would be ready to take your call and entertain any questions or complaints anytime of the day. Ask if they have toll free numbers.

Get to know the site better. You may do this by reading reviews, compare them to other gambling sites. There are also several websites that offer a listing of the gambling sites and their ratings. If you are new into online gambling you have to know that there are millions of gambling sites out there. Some better than the others.

Try out the games. Most gambling sites have features that lets you get the feel of their gaming programs for free. Try asking yourself if the interface was user-friendly and very intuitive. Does it have the feel of real poker game or baccarat? There should not be any distraction like having to press a certain key or key combination while the you are in the midst of a very exciting game.
Pressing the wrong key or clicking the wrong button could cause you the game.

You may also want to take a look at the support you are getting at your end with your PC and Internet connection. You may want a higher end PC to be able to play the better games that gambling sites offer. This usually means a higher memory requirement and a better video and sound card. Internet connection must be reliable and fast.

If ever you find yourself intrigued by a new game, understand how the game is played. Do your research on the new game. Get to know the all rules and strategies. Most often than not these gambling sites provide trials and test features for new games.

Those are a few tips for you to get to enjoy online gambling better, but don’t roll that dice yet! Whether your sitting across your friends playing poker or sitting in front of the monitor playing black jack on a gambling site you have to come well prepared with a plan.

One more thing maybe a lucky rabbit would help.

So cross your fingers, say a little prayer and let that dice roll!

Yes, there ARE a few gambling secrets that can help you beat the casino. In the nine years I worked at the Leelanau Sands Casino near Suttons Bay, Michigan, I saw a lot of hopeful schemes and ideas. Some of them even worked. Here are a couple examples.

Card Counting Secrets

Card counting is a technique for beating the house at the blackjack tables. If the deck is “rich” enough in face cards (10,J,Q,K), the odds tilt slightly in favor of the player. This has been proven statistically. The idea then, is to monitor the cards as they come out, and when the deck has many face cards left in it, bet more. If you bet less when the house has the edge, and more when you do, you can make money in the long run.

This is a simple explanation, and you need to study a good counting book (and practice) to make this work. Your play needs to be precise to really have the edge. One gentleman I dealt to for years would sit at the table for hours, almost always betting the $2 minimum. I watched as he shifted chips from one hand to another, his way of tracking the “plus or minus count.” Then, when the shoe (five decks of cards) happened to be rich enough in face cards, he would suddenly be betting two hands at $20 each.

I am fairly certain that he made money, but not much. Depending on how well you do it, and how many decks are used, you may only get a 1.5% edge on the casino overall. If between your minimum bets and the others you average $8 per hand, and the dealer deals 75 hands per hour, you’ll make about $9 per hour. That assumes you can tolerate alternating losing and winning days and hours of concentration. Betting more brings that hourly rate up, of course, along with the risk of bigger losing days.

Roulette Secrets

For years I watched people foolishly writing down the numbers that came up on the roulette wheel. I say foolishly, because their their theories were mostly nonsense. Most casinos will always welcome these players and even hand them the pen and paper.

There was one player, however, who was actually scientific about it. He found a bias in the wheel, after “charting” it for 5,000 spins. This means he simply wrote down every number that came up during that time.

Once he identified the bias, he made thousands betting on just one or two numbers. When a number comes up (the ball lands in that pocket), it pays 35 to 1. In this case, one of the numbers, because of manufacturing imperfections or whatever, was coming up 1 in 27 spins, instead of the average 1 in 38 spins (There are 38 numbers on most American wheels).

This guy bet $10 a spin, and he profited $90 for every 27 spins of the wheel in the long run (a $350 win minus 26 losing bets of $10 each). When I ran the wheel, I often was doing over 50 spins per hour, so if you can do the math you can see he was doing well. The ups and downs are dramatic though, so this isn’t for the faint-hearted. I watched this player lose $700 some nights, but he later confided that he profited over $80,000 before the casino changed the wheel.

Promotional Gambling Secrets

Learn to figure the odds. Casinos often give the edge away for various promotional reasons. If you know when the odds are in your favor, you can take advantage of these promotions. For example, one man made thousands betting the “money wheel,” which is normally the worst bet in the house. However, in this case the casino was selling $20 in tokens for $10, with no limit on purchases. The man played the tokens once each as required, then repeatedly cashed in the real chips he was paid with, and bought another $20 for $10. When the odds are in your favor, it’s investing, not gambling, and that may be the most important of these gambling secrets.