| Just for starters, let's be clear on one point: Slot players are the casinos' bread and butter. They play much faster -- 500 spins an hour is a steady but not frenzied pace on the slots, while a blackjack player at a full table plays about 50 hands an hour. Slot players also face a much higher house edge -- with room for variation between casinos and jurisdictions, casinos keep about 10 percent or so of wagers on nickel games, roughly 8 percent on quarter games and 5 percent on dollar machines, while keeping about 2 percent against an average player and half a percent or less against a basic strategy player in blackjack. A nickel slot player who bets one coin per line on a nine-line game -- 45 cents a spin -- wagers about $225 an hour and averages about $22.50 in losses. A $25 blackjack basic strategy player at a full table wagers $1,250 per hour, but averages only about $6.25 in losses. The strategy mistakes by an average blackjack player up those losses to $25 an hour -- little more than our nickel slot player. And if the nickel slot player bets more than one coin per line, his/her action blows away that of a green chip blackjack player. I'm as appalled as anyone else at the idea of paying admission for a chance to play games where I'm expected to lose money, but do I expect the casino facing the Illinois tax situation to comp admission or buffets to a player expected to lose $25? No, the economics don't support it. If the casino has reached the top tax rate, the state takes $17.50 of that $25 in a gaming tax, and another $5 in an admissions tax. That leaves the casino $2.50 to pay for salaries, facilities, equipment, the lights -- all the costs of doing business. Not much left there for comps. Is it possible that a casino which is so concerned about the possibility someone might win at its blackjack tables might also be concerned about other players who could win at other games? There have been incidents where casinos have told video poker players who don't lose enough in the long run that their business wasn't welcomed. It is not too far-fetched to suspect that a casino which has tightened down on its blackjack games has also tightened down on its slot machines. No player can feel comfortable in a casino which kicks its invited guests out onto the street in the middle of the night. No player should feel totally safe in a casino that handcuffs one of its high rollers and subjects him to illegal detention and retroactively revokes his comps while threatening to charge him with defrauding an innkeeper. If you are planning a trip to Las Vegas or Mississippi, it might be wise to give Park Place Enterprises and its casinos a wide berth. Editor's Note: At posting time, neither Caesars Palace nor Park Place Entertainment had responded to telephone and written inquiries concerning these incidents. We welcome any comments by Caesars Palace or Park Place executives and will post their responses on this site. |
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