• Buying in bulk: Purchasing more scratch cards increases your chances of winning compared to buying a single card.
• Understanding the odds: Detailed information about the odds is usually printed behind the card, helping you choose ones with better winning odds.
• Varying your choices: Instead of sticking to one type of scratch card, try experimenting with ones of different values and themes.
• Checking unclaimed prizes: Some lotteries disclose information about unclaimed prizes. Stick to cards that still have large prizes available.
• Second-chance games: Don’t throw away non-winning scratchcards. Some lotteries offer second-chance drawings where you can enter non-winning tickets for another shot at a prize.

Scratchcards are a fun way alternative to casino games like poker or blackjack, and to try and earn some quick cash without having to spend too much when purchasing them. Just like the lottery, they are based on pure luck. But there are actually ways you can improve your chances of finding winning scratchcards.

We may not be able to show you how to win scratch offs every time you play, but we can show you the scratch off tickets worth buying and these tips will certainly help improve your odds!

1. Don’t Buy The Cheapest Ones

The number of scratchcards available these days is mind-boggling, and it can be a bit of a minefield for those who aren’t familiar with them.

There are so many different designs, prices, prizes, and brands that it can get very confusing or hard to make a decision, so keep your focus when buying scratchcards to enhance your chances of winning.

If you’re looking for how to find winning scratch off tickets, we know it might be tempting to opt for the cheaper tickets and some people will often buy a number of these. However, they’re cheap for a reason. The prize pool is lower.

You would be better off buying higher-priced scratch offs but buying fewer. Quality over quantity is very true when it comes to finding scratch off tickets worth buying.

Image Credit: Icatnews/Shutterstock

2. Check The Small Print

This might sound more like advice you would heed when you’re taking out a loan, but it also applies for finding winning scratchcards.

The small print can often tell you what your odds are of winning on that specific card. So it makes absolute sense to read it. Who would want to opt for longer odds over shorter odds?

Also, it’s crucial you check your state’s lottery home page. They will have information about the remaining prizes. It’s estimated that in more than 10% of scratch off tickets sold, there are no longer any major prizes left in the game.  By comparing prizes left on the lottery site, you can get a much better sense of whether these are scratch off tickets worth buying.

3. How to Win Scratch Off Tickets: Buy In Bulk

One tactic some scratch card players swear by is buying their scratchcards in bulk to find scratch off tickets worth buying.

They’ll purchase about five scratch offs from the same game in a single trip to the shop, as opposed to buying just one single scratch card and then making several trips over a period of time to buy another from the same game.

Some believe that if you buy in bulk, then the odds of hitting a win increase, since the manufacturers often place a win frequently throughout their scratch offs.

So if you bulk buy scratchcards in one purchase, the chance of hitting one of those planted winning scratchcards is going to be higher than if you bought the same number of scratchcards over a period of several purchases.

You should only do this if your budget allows this, though.

4. Play Them Like Slots

You’ll find there are some slots players who loiter around machines to wait until players go on a dry spell or a number of players fail to hit a jackpot prize. The long drought can mean that the slot machine is about to hit.

If you try this method, you’ll need to hang around a store or outlet that sells the scratchcards for a bit of time and that could be something you’re not entirely comfortable with – or have the time for!

Maybe start a conversation with the store keeper or ask the vendor if they have had any winning scratchcards being bought lately. Be subtle, but it could be the key to a big win.

Image Credit: Icatnews/Shutterstock

5. Keep Your Old Tickets

No, this isn’t for a feeling of nostalgia. There is a damn good reason for this.

You might breeze through a scratch card and think it’s a loser. But don’t throw it away! You never know, you might pick up on a mistake you might have made at a later date.

In some cases, jackpots are never won, so the manufacturer requests losing tickets to pick a best loser. It can happen.

Don’t be the dummy who threw away a winning ticket!

6. Submit All Losing Tickets

Similar to the above: The only way you can be absolutely sure you haven’t won is if you have your ticket officially checked.

Whether it’s a missed winning combination or there is simply an error on the card, you could be eligible for some sort of payment. There is always the chance you might have missed something.

Image credit: Viktoriia Ablohina/Shutterstock

7. Study The Scratchcards

Yes, there is actually a process called the “Singleton Method” that’s used by experienced scratch card players as part of their strategy for how to win scratch offs.

They analyze the layout and design of a scratch card to pick up on patterns that can give clues as to whether a scratch card has certain numbers, symbols, or combinations that can lead to a win.

Most scratch card manufacturers have caught onto this strategy and a large number now design their scratchcards to work against it.

But there are still a few who’ve not yet taken steps to address it. You can use it on the type of scratch offs where numbers are visible on the side, so it’s a method still worth pursuing.

Image Credit: Yau Ming Low/Shutterstock

8. Be Strict With Your Budget

You might not win more or less by this tactic, but it’s a safety buffer to keep you from losing too much money.

Set yourself a weekly or monthly budget and make sure you stick to it, so your finances don’t spiral out of control.

9. Pick A Game And Stick To It

This just seems to make logical sense. If you stick with a game and keep playing it then you will either win, or every losing ticket you play will be one more losing ticket out of the equation.

However, if you spread your spending over a number of games, then you could just endlessly hit losing scratchcards.

So pick a game you like and stick to it. In the long run, it’s a much better strategy.

It’s All About Lady Luck

We may not have been able to show you how to win scratch offs every time (if there was one simple trick, everyone would be doing it and companies would stop creating them!), but we have shown you some methods and strategies you can use to enhance your chances of winning.

Ultimately, it does come down to chance, but there is no harm in improving your odds of success.

From huge opulent poker rooms to thousands of slots, these supersized casinos are mini gambling towns in their own right.

Join us as we take a look at the top 10 largest real money casinos in America.

1. Winstar: Thackerville, Oklahoma (600,000 Square feet)

Words like stupendously large just don’t convey the immenseness that is the Winstar Casino. Located just minutes from the Texas border, Winstar isn’t just the largest casino in America, it’s the largest casino in the world.

With 600,000 square feet of gaming space, almost 9,000 slot machines, and over 150 table games, the Chickasaw Nation has built a phenomenal mousetrap for the 7.5 million people in the Dallas Fort Worth metro area.

Like all of the mega-casinos on our list, they’ve made gambling the star attraction, but you shouldn’t overlook the world-class golf, spa, top-of-the-line concerts, and luxury dining and hotel experiences. If you can’t make it, however, check out our review of the Winstar Online Casino.

2. Mohegan Sun: Uncasville, Connecticut (364,000 square feet)

Huge casinos need a constant stream of players to continue to thrive. When the tribes began negotiating gaming compacts in Connecticut 30 years ago, it was obvious from the outset that, with more than twenty million people within a two-hour drive, these casinos would need to be big.

With 364,000 square feet of gaming, Mohegan Sun did not disappoint.

Mohegan Sun boasts 6,400 slots, over 350 table games, a state-of-the-art sportsbook, and stadium betting on baccarat and roulette.

The tribe didn’t scrimp on amenities, with hiking trails, golf, tennis, pickleball, and lots of other fun outdoor activities on offer. There are also countless restaurants and more than 1,500 hotel rooms to meet your needs.

3. Foxwoods Casino Resort: Ledyard, Connecticut (340,000 square feet)

Foxwoods is sort of the bookend to the Mohegan Sun property in that they are similar in their massive gaming square footage but only 13 miles apart.

The Mashantucket Pequot tribe has about 340,000 square feet of gaming space spread across six casinos within a casino. These are comprised of about 5,500 slots and 260 table games.

Foxwoods is also known for its state-of-the-art shopping experience, with almost 100 high-end luxury shops on the property.

In addition to the 2,500 hotel rooms and the usual amenities like golf, the resort offers premier zip-lining and go-carting experiences that draw risk-takers of all ages.

4. Yaamava Resort and Casino: Highland, California (290,000 square feet)

Run by the San Manual band of Indians, the Yaamava casino story is one of almost constant growth and rebirth in the 40 years since it opened.

The casino currently boasts 290,000 square feet of gaming space, with more than 4,400 slot machines and 150 table games. While it only has 400 hotel rooms on the property, the nearby towns of San Bernadino or even Riverside have many overnight stay options.

Other recent additions include a world-class 3,000-seat concert venue, which draws many LA-based bands when they are not on tour, along with a half dozen restaurants and some high-end retailers.

While this resort doesn’t yet offer the amenities that many other properties with similar-sized gaming spaces on our list of the largest casinos in America do, it is in the heart of the Los Angeles metro area and a whole lot closer than the 4-hour trip to Vegas.

5. Thunder Valley Casino: Lincoln, California (250,000 square feet)

This large American casino is operated in Northern California in a joint effort between the Miwuk and Maidu Indian tribes. It is located near Sacramento, California. The 250,000 square feet of gaming space is jampacked with 3,500 slots and 150 table games. 

The hotel only has 400 rooms, and though there is a spa and entertainment venue that holds over 4,000 guests, the spotlight here is more on local play than driving tourist visits.

That being said, it is a beautiful property with plenty of dining options, and just about any game or slot you might wish to play.

6. Hard Rock Tampa: Tampa, Florida (240,000 square feet)

The Hard Rock Tampa, on the other hand, is a true destination resort in the sun. Three pool areas total over 200,000 gallons of water, and one pool area alone has 60,000 square feet of swimming space. 700 lounge chairs, almost two dozen cabanas, and two DJ booth setups round out the poolside attractions.

You can choose from almost 900 hotel rooms and more than a dozen dining options, as well as hit their award-winning spa or top-tier concert tours. That’s before you try your luck at one of their 6,000 slots and 200 table games spread across a well-thought-out casino space of 240,000 square feet.

The Seminole Tribe bought out Hard Rock International at a bargain basement price in 2007, and now have cafes in more than 70 countries, an exclusive brand name to build on, and casino resorts in almost another dozen locations.

This means that your Unity tier card not only works in Tampa, but Atlantic City, and all the other Hard Rock locations, as well as the Mirage. That’s a big deal to people who like to use their tier points and comp credits at more than just one location, and gives the Seminoles the ability to cross-sell to various locations.

7. River Wind Casino: Norman, Oklahoma (219,000 square feet)

The metro area of Norman, Oklahoma, is home to a surprising 1.4 million people, and the Chickasaw-owned River Winds Casino is there to meet all their gaming needs.

It has 2,700 slots, over 20 table games, and a 17-table poker room. Unlike some of the Tribal Casinos located a bit closer to the Dallas—Fort Worth area, the RiverWinds, despite its still very impressive 219,00 square feet of gaming space, is not a mega-resort. In fact, it only has 100 hotel rooms.

They do have partnerships with Panda Express, Burger King, and perennial favorite IHOP for a quick bite, or a buffet and a British Fish and Chips place for something a bit more upscale. Other amenities include a 1500-seat theater, and a gift shop located conveniently near the exit.

8. Choctaw Casino: Durant, Oklahoma (219,000 square feet)

In its 219,000 square feet of gaming space, Choctaw Casino currently has over 7,000 slots, 120 tables, and a large poker room.

Being several hours from the Dallas-Fort Worth area and less than 30 minutes from the largest casino in the US (Winstar), this resort has taken a different look at amenities, creating not one but two huge nightclub/live concert venues, including a Gilley’s Road House.

You can also find over 20 restaurants, ranging from fine dining at Salt and Stone to Texas barbeque, which you’ll need to eat with your fingers.

You will find more than 1,700 hotel rooms, including Vegas-style suites, as well as amenities seldom seen at big US casinos like horse riding, fishing, bowling, hiking, and, of course, a world-class spa to relax in.

9. River Spirit Casino: Tulsa, Oklahoma (212,000 square feet)

Situated in the northeast corner of Oklahoma, the River Spirit Casino is near Tulsa, which boasts about 1 million people in its metro area. It can also draw people in from Kansas and Missouri who are looking for some casino excitement. 

The Muskogee Tribe has 3,100 slots and about 70 table games in their 212,000 square feet of gaming space. 

The tribe has added 483 luxury hotel rooms so far and is making plans for more. Their concert venue can host 2,500 guests and their restaurant choices number over a dozen. The amenity list includes a pool, and convention center.

10. Encore Casino: Boston, Massachusetts (210,000 square feet)

Strictly speaking, this casino, owned by the Wynn group, is located in Everett, MA, and is the only non-tribal casino to make our list of the 10 biggest casinos in America

At approximately 210,00 square feet of gaming space, it is still a massive space filled with 3,400 slots and over 160 table games. This integrated mega resort cost 2.6 billion to build in 2019.

Developed on just 34 acres, this casino doesn’t feature many outdoor amenities due to space constraints, but it makes up for that in 5-star luxury that one would expect from any Wynn property.

The 671 hotel rooms are all lavishly appointed and designed to meet the needs of very discerning clients. There are thirteen restaurants and the entire property is almost a museum space as it is filled with millions in paintings and sculptures.

A Round Up Of The Largest Casinos In America:

1. Winstar: Thackerville, Oklahoma (600,000 Square feet)
2. Mohegan Sun: Uncasville, Connecticut (364,000 square feet)
3. Foxwoods Casino Resort: Ledyard, Connecticut (340,000 square feet)
4. Yaamava Resort and Casino: Highland, California (290,000 square feet)
5. Thunder Valley Casino: Lincoln, California (250,000 square feet)
6. Hard Rock Tampa: Tampa, Florida (240,000 square feet)
7. River Wind Casino: Norman, Oklahoma (219,000 square feet)
8. Choctaw Casino: Durant, Oklahoma (219,000 square feet)
9. River Spirit Casino: Tulsa, Oklahoma (212,000 square feet)
10. Encore Casino: Boston, Massachusetts (210,000 square feet)

There are more than 1,000 casinos in the US, so it takes a true behemoth to make the biggest casinos in America shortlist.

With all of the casinos constantly expanding, this list may look very different in a few years, especially as new gaming legislation is passed in states like New York, where the population within a few hours’ drive is easily in the tens of millions.

Perhaps, despite the intense competition in Las Vegas, someone will finally build a mega-resort that puts Sin City back on the top ten biggest list again. Combining the Wynn and Encore properties in Las Vegas only gets us to 195,000 square feet of gaming, so still a little room for improvement.

While bigger isn’t always better, these casinos show the true diversity of gambling in America. From slot halls to five-star luxury, they cover the gamut of the American gambling experience and showcase the reach of gaming growth over the past several decades.

From Norman Oklahoma to Boston, from Riverdale California to Tampa, casinos continue to thrive.

Cheapest Blackjack in Vegas: What You Need to Know

• While they aren’t as easy to find as they used to be, there are still $10 blackjack tables in Vegas and even $1 blackjack in Las Vegas, if you know which casino to look in.
• However, the cheapest blackjack in Vegas isn’t always the best value. You need to take into account the blackjack house edge to understand exactly the value of each hand you play.
• The best value blackjack in now found at casinos offer online blackjack and you can use our casino reviews to find the best value casino games online.
• Take advantage of the local, nose to the ground, insight in this guide to help you find the best value and cheapest blackjack tables in Las Vegas.

The days of cheap blackjack even in downtown or local casinos is quickly coming to an end unless you want to play an electronic version of Las Vegas Casino games table games or perhaps a stadium game.

Cheapest Blackjack Tables in Vegas

Now, that is not to say that you can’t still find some $5 blackjack in Vegas or even $1 blackjack in Vegas, downtown, up in North Las Vegas, or just off the Strip, but it does mean that cheap doesn’t always mean you are getting value.

A $1 blackjack in Vegas game where you have to pay 25 cents every hand as a blind isn’t good value. A $1 game where you get even money on blackjacks and can’t double after splits isn’t good value.

Even a $5 game that pays 6/5 on blackjack in Vegas will be much more expensive to your bankroll than a $10 table that offers 3 to 2 blackjack in Vegas in even the very short term. So, while we will tell you where you can find the cheapest blackjack tables in Las Vegas, we will also make sure we discuss whether those tables represent any real value.

Cheapest Blackjack in Las Vegas: How to Scout The Best Tables

Let’s talk a bit about how a casino shift manager decides what blackjack limits to offer. It really comes down to supply and demand. If it is 4:00 a.m. on a Tuesday, I will need a lower limit than if it is a Saturday night with a prize fight in town.

If my casino doesn’t have a hotel, is a little run-down, or is set further away from the action, all of that will also affect how much I can set my blackjack limits and still hope I will get play.

Seasonality Matters When it Comes to the Cheapest Blackjack in Vegas

As does the season. In Las Vegas, even though it will light your hair on fire, the summer is still busier than the winter. We just had seven days in July over 115 degrees Fahrenheit, but hey, come out whenever.

But also, some casinos would rather have no play at times than set the wrong precedent and attract the wrong kind of customer, which is unfortunate but the reason why you might see a $5 game early morning in the off-season at a place like the MGM Excalibur or Circus Circus on Las Vegas Boulevard but never at the Wynn, Caesars Palace, or the Bellagio.

People’s perception matters. Chanel will never sell a $50 purse, and many strip properties would rather be caught dead than offer a “cheap” table limit.

Cheap Blackjack Tables on the Strip

We can narrow down where we might look for $5 and $10 games on the Strip proper by looking at where they have been offered in the past, and then looking at times when we can expect play to be slow, i.e. midweek and early morning.

Some likely spots are Excalibur, Luxor, Circus Circus, and Slots of Fun. By looking at Trip Advisor, other travel forums, and even Reddit, we know that $5 real money blackjack games have been spotted at these places in the past six months or so.

We try to steer away from sites that offer surveys or reviews when we look for cheap blackjack tables in Las Vegas. We don’t know if they go to these casinos more than once a year, whether they go at 4 a.m. on a Wednesday or 7 p.m. on a Friday, and so we don’t know if they are seeing the lowest minimums that that casino offers or just what is offered while they are on the property writing down their findings.

Just Call And Ask

If you don’t feel like making the trek to either end of the Strip, you can call these casinos and ask about current minimums. I actually get calls asking about table limits all the time, but be aware that it wouldn’t be unusual if you called in the early evening for them not to know what the table minimums are going to be early the next morning.

We suspect that you could find these $5 blackjack games in Vegas in the early winter at some of these properties when hotel rates plummet, and no conventions are in town. Still, you are probably looking at at least $10 games during the morning and afternoon, going to $15 by early evening during the rest of the year. At least, that has been our experience.

Take in Account the House Edge and Odds

Knowing the house edge and the blackjack odds of each game in critical to getting the best value for your bet. There are some 6/5 games mixed in with 3/2 blackjack at these levels, so pay attention. Games that pay only 6/5 on blackjack are several orders of magnitude worse because of house advantage.

A good double deck with stand-on soft seventeen and double after splits could be as low as 0.22%, while the same version of the 6/5 game might be 1.5% or 500% worse.

Most games at prestigious casinos in the middle of the Strip will have $15 blackjack on the main floor, yielding to $25 or higher towards evening if demand calls for it. So, if you genuinely have your heart set on playing $5 blackjack in Las Vegas, either be prepared to work the properties at the edge of the Strip or be ready to venture downtown or off the Strip.

Image credit: lucky-photographer/Shutterstock

Cheap Blackjack Tables in Downtown Las Vegas

We’ve personally seen $5 games downtown as well, but even here, they can prove elusive and shifting. The Golden Nugget casino generally has a $5 game, but they require a $2 side bet, or they offer it in games that may have blackjack in the name but aren’t truly blackjack.

There have been sightings of 6/5 $5 blackjack at the Plaza early morning as well. But probably the most reliable place to look for $5 blackjack is at the Downtown Grand Casino, and yes, they still have the $1 blackjack game as well.

$10 blackjack in Las Vegas: Fremont Street

Now, if you are looking for $10 blackjack in Las Vegas, then Fremont Street is a neon gold mine, though again off-peak hours are the best time to be panning for nuggets. We have seen 3/2 blackjack games with ten minimums at El Cortez, which recently had a $20 million remodel, which is probably still our favorite downtown casino, even on a weekend night.

You can also try the California Casino, Main Street Station, the Plaza, and Fremont.

You may notice that many double-deck games don’t allow double-after-split. This increases the house edge on these games to 0.6%, which is almost exactly the same as the house edge on the six-deck games that allow double-after-split.

So, feel free to play either one. As always, stay away from 6/5 blackjack games and give any table that requires a side bet a wide berth.

Cheap Blackjack Tables for Las Vegas Locals

Away from the bright lights and easily walkable gambling halls found along the Las Vegas Strip and Fremont Street, many other casinos exist. These primarily cater to locals, though certainly a certain breed of tourist also seeks them out. You can still find not only some of that old Las Vegas charm but also some of that old Las Vegas value.

The Oyo Casino

Many of these places are not dozens of miles from the tourist epicenters but, in many cases, just a few blocks away. Take Oyo, which also has one of those infamous $1 blackjack in Las Vegas tables you can tell all your friends back home about, as well as $5 3/2 blackjack. Is it in a sketchy area? Yeah. Is there what we will euphemistically call a seedier element? Sure. But did we mention the $3 shots and $10 beer buckets?

Ellis Island Casino

Another casino that offers great value and is strip “adjacent” is Ellis Island. Just a couple-minute walk from the Paris/Horseshoe monorail station, Ellis Island is the epitome of a great value local casino. Here, not only will you find some of the best $5 blackjack in Las Vegas, but fun, friendly dealers and decent free entertainment.

We highly recommend either the prime rib or the $9.99 steak and eggs if you stop in for a bit of gambling. We should probably mention they have $5 craps games as well?

Southpoint Casino

Another great place for gambling value is just a few miles south on I-15. Southpoint Casino offers both $5 and $10 double-deck blackjack with standard rules and 3/2 on blackjack; you should be able to find these table limits regardless of when you visit. Some rooms have a nice view of the strip properties in all their nighttime glory, and they have 64 bowling lanes open until 2 a.m.

Other places to find $5 blackjack in Las Vegas at off-strip properties include any of the Station Casinos, especially Palace Station or potentially the Silverton. However, the last time we were there, it was all $10, except for 6/5 games.

Finding the Best Value Blackjack Tables in Vegas

There is still cheap blackjack on the Strip and downtown, although the cheapest blackjack tables in Las Vegas remain in local-friendly off-strip properties, often only a few minutes’ drive from the tourist action.

The next time you are in Las Vegas, just ask the cab drivers, dealers, or cocktail waitress where they like to play, and you may be rewarded with a little hole-in-the-wall gem even we don’t know about.

Title Image credit: Andrew Angelov/Shutterstock

It was rather an inglorious start, with lawsuits, exploding manhole covers and some people using the term Stripageddon to describe the nine-month makeover needed to build the track down the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard for more than a mile.

These disruptions and controversies have lead to general apathy, if not downright hostility from locals toward the upcoming 2024 F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix

Las Vegas F1: Brief History

More than 40 years ago, Caesars Palace, attempting to play on its luxury brand image, sought to bring F1 racing to a track behind its casino. Races were held in 1981 and 1982 but were poorly attended.

And worse, it did not draw the interest of the high-end gambling public Caesars had hoped to pique. The Caesar Palace Grand Prix went to CART racing for two years and then was disbanded altogether.

Hopes were higher for the Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix scheduled for 18 November 2023 and expected to see racecars hurtling down the world-famous Las Vegas Strip at more than 200mph.

This would also be the twenty-first and next to final race of the F1 2023 World Championship Series and was intended to draw fans from all over the world to Las Vegas.

Image credit: Cristiano Barni/Shutterstock

Dual In The Desert

The F1 Las Vegas would be a night race in the desert winding through walls of neon casinos and was expected to present quite the spectacle. F1 spared no expense in making preparations, including buying a parking lot for pit and paddock functions outright with partner Liberty Media for $240 million and eventually spending more than $500 million on the completed Las Vegas Grand Prix Plaza near the Strip.

The layout’s design was handed over to Carsten Tilke and Tilke GMBH. It snakes through some of Las Vegas’s iconic features, including circling the new Sphere entertainment complex and a flat straight shot down Las Vegas Blvd., which saw Charles Leclerc hit a race speed record of 350.5 kph, or about 218mph during the event.

With 17 turns and a lap distance of about 6.2 kilometers or about 3.8 miles, the track was called “massively challenging” by F1 racer Lewis Hamilton. George Russell was quoted as saying, “It’s good for racing, but maybe not the most exciting to drive”. Still, Oscar Piastri turned in a Las Vegas one-lap record of 1.35.4. With a total of 50 laps, however, drivers had a long Saturday night ahead of them.

Bright Lights And Big Money

As one might expect, many brands were eager to combine the excitement of Las Vegas and F1 racing with what they hoped would be well-heeled attendees from all over the world—even more so than the other F1 races in the US held in Miami and Austin.

The race sponsor, Heineken, was joined by American Express, Nieman Marcus, T-Mobile, Puma, and even Sports Illustrated, among many others. All held extravagant parties and hosted displays in the almost 300,000 square feet of hospitality space added just for the event.

The musical lineup for the Las Vegas F1 Grand Prix Opening ceremony on Wednesday, 15 November, included John Legend, Tiesto, Keith Urban, Journey, acts by Cirque Soliel, and many others, followed up with the official lighting show, which featured drones, fireworks, and lasers.

Among the many decadent event choices were a $5,000 per person dinner and whiskey tasting at Jean Georges in the Aria, a $1,000 and up ticket to see Kylie Minogue at the Amber lounge in the Venetian, or an extravagant invite-only after party on the 66th floor of Resorts World with DJ Pee.Wee.

Speaking of invite-only, Sotheby’s held a private auction at Wynn’s Awakening theater on the Friday before the race. They auctioned off several dozen cars, including a 2021 McLaren Elva and a 2008 Bugatti Veyron. But the star of the show was the very first 2013 Mercedes AMG Petronas driven by Lewis Hamilton in 14 F1 racing events in 2013. The winning bid was $18,815,000.

The F1 Vegas Car-tastrophe

Because it was a night race, the F1 Las Vegas schedule was a bit different as well. The three practice sessions were all scheduled for after dark since the race would start at 10 p.m.

The first was scheduled for Thursday from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., and then a second one from 12:00 to 1:00 a.m. Then, on Friday, a final practice session was to be held from 8:30 to 9:30, with qualifying rounds from 12:00 to 1:00 a.m.

Only about eight minutes into the first practice session, those plans literally came to a screeching halt. Carlos Sainz, in his Ferrari, somehow hit a dislodged manhole cover, which tore apart huge parts of his car’s underbelly, leaving him stranded on the track.

Esteban Ocon also suffered damage to his car, forcing him to install a whole new chassis before the second practice began. In an abundance of caution, F1 stopped the practice and began discussions on how to fix the issue.

Unhappy Fans and Disappointed Drivers

But this was not a huge hit with fans, many of whom had spent tens of thousands of dollars on F1 Las Vegas tickets. The second practice, scheduled for midnight, was pushed back first to 12:30 a.m., then to 2:30 a.m. when the second practice finally got underway after more than 30 manhole covers were filled with sand or cemented more firmly into place.

With a tight deadline of 4 a.m. to hand the track back over to the city each morning and claiming to fear for fan safety, the Las Vegas Grand Prix CEO, Renee Wilm, and F1 President Stefano Domenicali made the tough decision to clear the track of spectators around 1:30 a.m.

Almost all had been cleared out by the beginning of the delayed second practice run, which has resulted in several lawsuits from those who purchased F1 Las Vegas Tickets to witness the Thursday Practice sessions.

Carlos Sainz, who, after replacing engine components as well as much of the body and chassis of his Ferrari, had his second-place qualifying spot dropped ten spots for a “penalty “for replacing said parts and ended up in sixth place overall, added insult to injury for many fans who felt race organizers were to blame for the necessary repairs in the first place.

Ultimately, Max Verstappen won the race at 1:29:08, followed closely by Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez. But as it turned out, it wasn’t just the fans, Carlos Sainz and the Ferrari team that left the Las Vegas F1 race disappointed.

Image credit: Cristiano Barni/Shutterstock

F1 Las Vegas: The Debacle in The Desert?

Media coverage of the event included words like embarrassing, nuisance, huge headache, and debacle in the desert. Even after the fans’ lawsuit was filed, lawsuits from casinos and local businesses are still incoming, claiming millions in lost revenues due to construction and traffic rerouting.

Many locals say they lost tip money and scheduled work hours due to construction and the arcane system of both pedestrian and vehicle bridges, which funneled traffic over and around the raceway as it was being built over the course of nine months and completely dried up business for some casinos and local businesses. These traffic headaches also tripled some worker’s commute times.

Clark County commissioners and Liberty Media, the event’s co-sponsors, have acknowledged the many issues around the Las Vegas 2023 inaugural race. However, they point to a $1.5 billion impact from the weekend event, including about $884 million in direct consumer spending by attendees, at a rate about 3.5 times more than the average Las Vegas visitor. Las Vegas F1 also created and maintained about 2,200 jobs over that nine-month build-out period.

Despite these seemingly huge benefit, the F1 Las Vegas lawsuits continue to roll in, with a new group of businesses set to sue Clarke County and the race promoter, Liberty Media. The basis of the new lawsuit is the same as the previous one brough by Ellis Island Casino, lost earnings due to the ongoing construction and the privatization of a colossal 3.8 miles of public roads in the Strip corridor for the track.

Las Vegas Convention Authority Under F1 Fire

In mid-summer 2024, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the Las Vegas Convention Authority had given out more than $4 million in taxpayer money in the form of tickets to the 2023 F1 race. Some of these tickets had a face value of $15,000, and some recipients received as many as five.

While the bulk of these tickets went to customers of the Convention Authority, many others went to staff, influencers, sports stars, celebrities, and politicians. Four of those politicians were Clark County commissioners, who are now facing a complaint from the Nevada Ethics Commission.

This reporting and subsequent investigations have only deepened many Las Vegans’ concerns and complaints about the race.

Putting the Sparkle Back Into The F1

Despite controversies, lawsuits, ethics investigations and general malaise from those who live in the Las Vegas Valley, the F1 Race Las Vegas saga will probably continue through 2026 and likely through at least 2033 as F1 has a $500 million real estate investment it would like to see some return on.

However, they are already seeing some ticket package pricing like the Heineken GA+ slashed by more than 80%. And many Strip casinos have reportedly shaved room rates by more than 50%, and that is still many months out from the actual race.

In typical Las Vegas Grand Prix fashion, there is some confusion about whether or not the county commissioners even signed a contract to begin with. But attempting to turn back now would be a costly and litigious mess.

When Is  F1 Las Vegas 2024?

People wondering when is the F1 Las Vegas race is being held this year will be relieved to hear that tickets are on sale now for the race events from November 21^st to November 23rd, with F1 promising cheaper tickets to try and draw in the crowds.

The F1 Las Vegas schedule of future races is for the weekend before the Thanksgiving Holiday for all upcoming years, should you wish to make plans.

It will once again attempt to showcase the luxury and opulence of Las Vegas with the excitement and energy of F1 against one of the most visually stunning backdrops in the entire world. Hopefully this time with all the lessons learned from the first year, it will be more spectacle and less sputter.

Title Image credit: Cristiano Barni/Shutterstock

So, we’ve put together a list of the best stuff to do in Vegas besides gamble. You can thank us later.

1. People Watch

Las Vegas is the best place in the world for people watching, because the world comes to Las Vegas. From Saudi princes to Hong Kong junkets, from backpacking European students to folks from so deep in the rural south that you’d think they’d need a passport too, you can see it all on the Strip.

From Haute Couture to cutoffs and flip-flops, tuxedos and pinstripes to saggy pants and Crocs, you’ll never look at fashion the same way after an hour or two of watching humanity pass by while camped out at the LINQ promenade, our vote for the best people-watching spot on the planet.  

2. Fremont Street

If you’ve ever considered a zipline journey through millions of neon lights soaring over the heads of thousands of strangers, well, we’ve got something for you.

But more than neon, the Fremont Street experience is, well, an experience. Street performers, live concerts, heck, U2 shot a video here without shutting down the streets or even announcing it. You never know what you might find. And that’s half the fun. It’s one of the best free places to visit in Vegas.

3. Amusement Rides

Ok, roller coasters may not be the first thing on your mind when you think about things to do in Las Vegas that aren’t gambling. But that doesn’t change the fact that Las Vegas is home to some great thrill rides.

While we still miss the High Roller at the Strat, they have a roller-coasteresque ride called the X-scream, though it’s 860 feet above the ground instead of the 1030 that the High Roller used to race around at.

Also, don’t miss the Big Apple Coaster in New York. It’s not every day you get to zip around the Statue of Liberty upside down. It’s a great thing to do in Vegas with kids.

4. Catch A Show

Right behind dropping $300 in the Dragon Link Bonus, most people’s favorite Las Vegas memories revolve around some jaw-dropping, eye-popping over-the-top Las Vegas extravaganza. And there is a lot to choose from.

If it’s the burlesque shows that burnished Las Vegas’s Sin City reputation in the 60s that you like, try Fantasy at the Luxor or Rouge at the Strat. If you’re still wowed by magicians, Las Vegas is the Magic capital of the world. You can catch performances by Mat Franco, David Copperfield, and Chris Angel.

And don’t forget the mind-bending madness of Cirque De Soleil, current shows include Ka, O, and Mystere, along with the Beatle’s Love.

5. Food Trucks

Las Vegas has quietly become a food truck mecca over the last few years, with gourmet food being served up in parking lots and on street corners.

Do yourself a favor, stop paying $50 for a bland buffet, and track down the Hawaiian food at Antidote LV. We highly recommend the Poke nachos. Or get your carb overload at Endless Pastabilities. How often do you get five-star spaghetti and meatballs served in a cone?

6. Mob Museum

Take a trip down memory lane to a time, not so long ago, when the mob ran Las Vegas. When you visit the Mob Museum, you won’t just find a bunch of mugshots of Tony Spilotro and Bugsy Speigel (though some blood-splattered clothes are lying around in exhibits). This museum has state-of-the-art exhibits on processing a crime scene, and you can even wrap your hands around a pistol for their simulated firearms training.

7. Pinball Museum

If you’ve brought your kids to Las Vegas, now is the perfect time to show them what daddy did before the internet. And while the Pinball museum might be called a museum, you can play every machine they have, which at last count was more than 360. This is what makes it one of the best arcades in Vegas.

8. Michelin Stars

Maybe you are celebrating a birthday or anniversary and sitting on the curb having tacos from the El Taco Truck and watching the traffic go by on Sahara Ave. isn’t going to cut it.

Did you know nine restaurants in Las Vegas have been granted Michelin stars? Two of them are at Bellagio. Picasso serves extraordinary food, and the actual Picassos on the wall set a hard-to-top ambiance.

The famed Le Cirque may not have million-dollar artwork on the walls, but it is set on a lake with a view of the Bellagio fountains, and is certain to be one of the best meals of your life.

But no self-respecting foodie would consider a visit to Las Vegas complete without a dinner at Joel Robuchon. Only about a dozen restaurants in the US have ever received three Michelin stars, and Joel Robuchon is on that rarified list, and with reason.

9. Fine Art

You can find traditional artists at the Bellagio Gallery, where works by Picasso and Warhol are on permanent display. The gallery also has many traveling exhibitions that make periodic stops.

For a different take on art and how to view it, swing by the Immersive Van Gogh experience. Five million visitors can’t be wrong. And if you are into this exhibit, we can’t recommend Area 15 highly enough. It’s groundbreaking use of a movie-like experience to explore art and the world around us, which has to be seen and understood.

10. Bellagio Fountains

The unlikely lake situated in front of the Bellagio hides another surprise: more than 1200 fountains that seem to dance along to the music and send jets of water over 400 feet into the desert sky. More than 4000 lights are also synced to the music to create an unforgettable display.

The fountains run every half hour starting at 3 p.m., and then around dark, they put on their display every 15 minutes until midnight. On the weekend, they start at noon, and best of all, they are free.

11. Neon Museum

With over 250 neon signs from old Vegas Casinos and even some other businesses, we think spending an hour at this museum is a great way to start an evening. While they do offer day trips, the beauty of the Neon Museum is when they turn on many of the signs at night.

Plus, honestly, there is something magical about the desert air at night, and it’s a heck of a lot cooler.

12. The Great Outdoors

Speaking of getting outdoors, did you know you can ski in the winter just 40 minutes from Las Vegas? Yep, Mount Charleston can be reached in less than an hour and has great skiing and other winter activities. It’s also a great place to visit in the summer, as temperatures are often thirty degrees or more cooler than down in the valley.

Another great outdoor area to visit is the Lake Mead National Recreation area, also just a short 40-minute drive from the Strip. You’ll find abundant fishing, boating, hiking, camping, and even biking opportunities. The lake covers over 240 square miles, and there are hundreds of out-of-the-way coves and even some islands you can explore by boat.

13. Gondola Rides

If you prefer your boating with a bit of singing, we highly recommend the Gondola rides at the Venetian Hotel. This ten-minute ride around the recreated canals and even a small St Mark’s Square is a one-of-a-kind Las Vegas experience.

14. Welcome Sign

For 65 years, the iconic Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas sign has greeted millions of tourists from Southern California. Millions of pictures have been taken of it, but should you want to add one more, the County has made notable improvements at the site over the years. So, while the sign hasn’t changed much, the parking and accessibility around it certainly has.

15. Walk the Strip At Night

The Las Vegas Strip is a one-of-a-kind man-made wonder. Walk past a 30-story tall pyramid and a 28-story fairy book castle, a recreation of the Eiffel Tower, the reimagined streets of Venice, the Statue of Liberty and the New York Skyline, the dancing fountains in a lake in the middle of the desert, and the glory of old Rome.

Take this walk at night amongst the miles of neon and throngs of tourists, and you will see what draws tens of millions of tourists to this glittering oasis every year.

Read on for a play by play of when to hit in blackjack, and crucially, when not to.

When To Hit In Blackjack?

Below you’ll find a breakdown of the times you want to hit. You can also refer to our blackjack strategy charts, which tell you when to hit, stand, double down, split, or surrender for every possible hand.

1. Totals less than 12

If your hand doesn’t total at least 12, you need to hit until you have at least a hard total of 12. You can’t bust, so taking a hit doesn’t hurt you yet.

2. 12 or 13 against a dealer’s 2

The dealer 2 allows them to draw to some very good hands. If you have a 12 or a 13, you should hit to try and get a better hand, even though you may sometimes bust.

3. Low hands against a dealer’s pat hand

In blackjack, a low hand (total less than 17) is hit against a dealer’s pat hand (17 to 21).

One of the premises of blackjack is that the dealer will have a 10 under whatever card is turned up. A pat dealer hand then, is one where the dealer has a 7, 8, 9, 10 or ace turned up.

You should therefore assume that they have a total of 17 or more and won’t be drawing more cards (dealer’s generally have to stand on 17 or more).

This means you need to hit your hand, even if it means going over 21, to try and get to at least 17.?

4. Higher soft hands against a dealer’s pat hand

A soft hand is one with an ace that can be counted as a 1 or 11. It means drawing a card can’t break it.

You should always hit a soft 17 against a dealer’s pat hand, because even if you draw a high card, you aren’t at risk of busting.

The ace gives the hands flexibility: if your next card would cause the total to exceed 21, you count the ace as 1 instead of 11. So, you can aggressively pursue a stronger hand to beat the dealer’s pat hand.

You should even hit soft 18 against a 9, 10, or ace up card.

When Not To Hit In Blackjack

Sometimes, you need to just let the dealer see if they can bust. Other times, you may need to split or double down instead of taking a hit. And sometimes, you just have to know when you can’t draw anymore. Here are the times when you don’t want to take a hit.

1. When you should surrender instead

If surrender is allowed, you want to give up your 16 against a dealer’s 9, 10, or ace, in return for half your bet, unless you have a pair of 8s. In which case you split them.

You will surrender your 15 against a dealer’s 10 or ace.

2. A total of 17 or more

Once you reach a total of at least hard 17, you have done all that you can do. It’s time to step back and hope that Lady Luck is on your side, no matter what the dealer has for an up card.

3. Against a dealer’s bust card

If the dealer has a 2 through 6 up, and the odds are they have a high card underneath, then there is a good chance that they will have to draw and probably bust.

So, when a dealer has a 2 through 6 up, you will generally stay on any card that will bust you, meaning you stop at hard 12.

The one exception being hitting the 12 and 13 against a dealer 2, which we discussed earlier.

4. When you should split a pair

If you have a pair, then you may split them. You can get a breakdown of when to split pairs in our in-depth article, but the important things to remember are you always split aces and 8s, you split 4s if you are allowed to double split hands, and you never split 10s.

5. When you should double down

Read our article to understand when to double down in blackjack. But for now, remember that you can double down when your card totals 11, when you have a soft 16, 17 or 18, and when you have a hard 9 or 10.

When Does The Dealer Have To Hit In Blackjack?

In blackjack, the dealer will draw until they have at least 17. They will stand on 17 and above, and hit anything below that.

Some blackjack casinos will hit if the dealer has soft 17, others won’t. The rules vary based on the specific house rules of the casino. We prefer games where the dealer doesn’t hit on soft 17.

How To Signal Hitting In Blackjack

Signaling that you want to hit in blackjack is usually accomplished by lightly scratching next to your cards. In games where you hold the cards, you simply scratch the cards near your bet, making sure you don’t bend them.

FAQs About Hitting In Blackjack

Should I hit or stand on 16?

If the dealer has a 7 through ace up, you should hit your 16. If not, then you need to stand.

Do you hit a 13 against a 2?

2s are tricky. You need to hit both your 12 or 13 against a dealer 2.

Should I hit on 14?

Hit against a dealer’s pat hand of 7 through ace, and stand on a dealer’s breaking hand of 2 through 6.

Should you ever hit a 17?

You need to hit a soft 17, but you should never hit a hard 17.

Should you hit a 16 against a 10?

The simple answer is yes, you should hit a 16 against a 10, but this is one of those hands that is so close to going either way. The best thing you can do is surrender if allowed.

If you absolutely feel like you need to stand, I hereby absolve you. If you look around the layout and see a lot of small cards, then maybe you will be ok standing. But as a new player, it’s probably best to stay consistent and hit it.

What Is A Hand Pay In Slots?

The IRS in the United States requires documentation on all slot, video poker, or bingo game wins of at least $1200. This amount goes up to $1500 on keno. This is a win from one spin or game, not your aggregate win from the machine or for the day.

These “jackpots” are issued a W2-G after the winner’s ID and tax info have been checked. Some state tax agencies have decided to complicate matters, so this amount can be lower if that state says so.

The slot hand pay is a simple matter of the casino entering or checking to see if they already have your SSN or ITIN on file, verifying a valid identification, and issuing a cash payout to the slot attendants so they can pay you by hand.

How Does A Hand Pay Work?

The cash payment will be minus the state and federal taxes they are mandated to take out and will include the W2-G form as a sort of receipt and record of your winnings.

Some casinos may not withhold the federal tax of 24% on wins under $5,000, but you will still need to report this on your federal taxes. While often called “jackpots,” these payouts are on any wins exceeding the threshold.

There is also etiquette to tip on a hand pay jackpot.

How Frequent Are Hand Pays On Slots?

Hand pays can occur every few spins on some larger denomination slots, as a $1200 payout isn’t uncommon on $100 denom machines. While Congress has discussed upping this amount passed into law almost 50 years ago, no concrete legislation has yet materialized.

How Long Does A Hand Pay Take?

Much more significant slot wins may take a little longer as the casino will have policies and procedures that must be followed before paying out more considerable sums.

Many casinos I have worked at require a seal check on the inner door for jackpots over a specified amount. This is to ensure that no one has unlocked the machine and set the jackpot reels by hand, or otherwise altered the outcome.

Even more significant wins will require the State Gaming Commission to review the surveillance tape and seals as well, which in many venues may require them to drive to the casino. I recently saw a 2.3 million dollar jackpot hit, and it took almost four hours to pay. But I’m sure the guest didn’t mind waiting as the casino kept them well-plied with Champagne.

Are Hand Pays Always In Cash?

Hand Pays for particularly large wins will mostly be in the form of a check or money put on deposit for the guest to draw from. Though the aforementioned guest requested the almost $1.7 million after taxes in cash.

While many people search for how not to pay taxes on gambling winnings, the obvious answer is to enjoy your big payout and consult a tax attorney for possible ways to mitigate some of your liability should you hit a large jackpot.

Other Reasons For A Hand Pay At A Casino

Mechanical Issue

Slot machines are part mechanical, part electrical, and part computer. And sometimes, they are the worst of all three. When problems arrive with printer jams, out-of-paper errors, a machine rebooting itself over and over, or numerous other mechanical issues, it can cause the device to need a hand pay.

While machine-issue hand pays aren’t the most entertaining of diversions from your slot pay, they are the most numerous. And while no one likes to see the Call Attendant screen, most of these problems can be sorted quickly, and the slot kept in play.

Attendants and slot techs are flagged on their handheld devices when various things go wrong with your machine or when you hit the service button, so they will quickly be en route to get you paid and the issue fixed.

Server or Network Issue

When there is a short power outage, most slot machines can reset themselves automatically without going into hand-pay mode. They know where they were in either the spin, jackpot, free bet round, or completing the payout and will automatically bring themselves back to that point once power has been restored.

Sadly, the same cannot be said when the server or network goes down. This can cause a sort of hand-pay Armageddon, where every machine on the floor must be hand paid to cash out. Although this rarely happens, when servers and networks fail across slot floors with several thousand machines with just a handful of attendants, wait times to get your money issued by hand pay can stretch into hours.

False Jackpot

Even more rare, but worth mentioning, are the occasions when the slot seems to indicate a hand pay jackpot or payout when you haven’t triggered any of the jackpot payouts on the reels. Should a slot indicate a jackpot, but you haven’t hit one, it’s not advisable to get too excited.

Courts have repeatedly held up the “malfunction voids all jackpots” issue in favor of casinos. And while not at all common, there are instances of machines insisting on multi-million dollar jackpots on devices that have top payouts of several thousand dollars.

This malfunction is often caused by programming errors or even mechanical reels put back in the wrong order. If your machine insists on your good fortune by showing a large win without any other indications that you hit a jackpot, be prepared to be disappointed.

Hand Pay Slots Conclusion

Slot hand pays can run the gamut from considerable winners to punch-in-the-gut machine malfunctions. If you have a hand-pay winner, “Congratulations, and make sure and tell your friends,” as we say in the business. And if something has gone wrong, rest assured that experienced slot attendants will know how to handle your hand pay and get you back chasing that jackpot very quickly.

Lead image credit: Lee Thomas, Unsplash

There’s gaming and then there’s next level gaming and, as some of the gambling universe’s most glamorous names jostle for bragging rights, it can be hard to keep up with who is offering the best selection of slot machines, restaurants and shopping malls.

So, find out which juggernauts of the gambling and gaming sphere make our list of the top 10 biggest casinos in the world:

1. WinStar World Casino, Oklahoma, USA (600,000 square feet)

WinStar World Casino is not only the largest casino in the US, but also the biggest casino in the world – in the unlikely destination Oklahoma!

With at least 600,000 square feet of gaming space, this super-size casino delivers a knockout blow to rivals with its 7,000+ gaming machines, around 100 table games, 800-capacity bingo hall and non-smoking poker room.

And that’s just for starters.

Aside from the gaming appeal, you’ll be kept on your toes with the resort’s golf course, nightclub, sports lounge, pool bar and spa. Its eight gaming plazas take their names from some of the world’s most famous cities, and this international feel is reflected in its 17 restaurants.

Adding to its pull, this Chickasaw Nation-owned establishment is punching above its location by attracting top entertainers and events, thanks to a 3,500-seater Global Event Center and 7,700-seat Colosseum — venues a small city would be proud of.

Located just a little more than 90 miles north of Dallas, the world’s biggest casino continues to grow.

2. Venetian Macau, Macau, China (546,000 square feet)

This mammoth offering from Macau, and one of the biggest casinos ever, is located directly opposite the City of Dreams — making it easy to immerse yourself in this exciting, vibrant and contemporary gambling destination.

The bright lights of the Venetian’s exterior reflecting in the water below are a sight to behold, as this premium, luxe casino and hotel complex is comprised of an impressive 39 stories and 10,500,000 square feet of space overall.

Of that, a good chunk is dedicated purely to gaming. It proudly showcases 6,000+ slot machines and 800 gaming tables, as well as four themed gambling areas.

In addition, this ginormous resort is styled after Venice’s romantic winding canals and replica landmarks to give its patrons a unique experience. It offers huge swathes of retail, convention and dining spaces, and a 15,000-capacity events area.

3. MGM Cotai, Macau, China (500,000 square feet)

This $3.4 billion dollar temple to excess opened in 2018. It hosts the world’s largest art garden with more than 2000 different species, as well as hundreds of modern art paintings and Ancient Imperial Chinese artifacts. Then, within its 500,000 square feet of casino space, you’ll find more than 170 table games and 1,500 slots.

The Sky Bar on the 35^th floor is the place to see and be seen, though only open to guests of the hotel’s unique Sky Lofts. These are part of almost 1,400 rooms in total.

You’ll find three dozen exclusive high-end retail stores and almost two dozen restaurants, bars and dining areas spread across the cavernous space.

4. Wynn Macau, Macau, China (424,000 square feet)

With a gaming area of approximately 424,000 square feet, the resort also features an art gallery, pool, spa, four fine dining restaurants and around 29 designer shops.

There are several eye-catching installations and visual art shows that make this casino resort stand out from the crowd.

These include a color-changing ‘Tree of Prosperity’, a rotating ‘Dragon of Fortune’, a mesmerizing ‘Performance Lake’ featuring a light, music and fire show, and a fluorescent ‘Moon Jelly Aquarium’.

5. City of Dreams, Macau, China (420,000 square feet)

Casino patrons flock from far and wide to experience all that this otherworldly 420,000 square foot, themed gaming space has to offer.

If the generous menu of 450 gaming tables and more than 1,514 gaming machines don’t take up all your time and attention, you’ll still have VIP areas, four hotels, four spas, 175,000 square feet of retail space and endless boutique shopping to keep you occupied.

With more than 30 restaurants and bars, art exhibits, a nightclub and a live water theatre, the City of Dreams lives up to its self-billing as a ‘leading leisure destination’.

6. Galaxy Macau, Macau, China (400,000 square feet)

In Macau, it’s very hard to impress, but Galaxy Macau does just that by combining some of the world’s most luxurious hotel brands. Within this casino resort, you’ll find the likes of the Ritz Carlton, Andaz, JW Marriott, Raffles, and three other hotels, with nearly 5,000 high-end rooms in total.

Then think of the shared casino space. Hundreds of table games (up to 500) and slots, with more than 115 dining options to choose from, situated between brilliant luxury.

Tired of all that gambling? They have more than 200 stores to meet your retail therapy requirements, and if you’re looking to relax by the pool, how about 150 yards of white sand beach around the world’s largest sky wave pool. Heck, they even have a quarter-mile-long rapid ride on top of the hotel.

7. Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, Connecticut, USA (364,00 square feet)

Built almost thirty years ago, the Mohegan Sun casinos of the Sky and of the Earth have undergone at least three major renovations. They currently sport about 6,000 slots and 350 table games across their 364,000 square feet of gaming space.

The rest of the casino continues to modernize as well, with over 60 shops, dining spots, and bars, as well as recently renovated hotel towers which have over 1,500 rooms between them.

The resort’s proximity to New York has always played a role in its success, and it offers daily helicopter transport to and from the city.

The Mohegan Tribe, which owns the entire venture, continues to innovate and grow to meet the demands of the Northeast US gambling market, as well as invest in great new amenities that appeal to the next generation. It’s currently the second biggest casino in America.

8. Foxwoods, Ledyard, Connecticut, USA (340,000 square feet)

Owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, this sprawling resort actually contains six different casinos.

With an estimated total gaming area of between 340,000 — 344,000 square feet, guests will be spoilt for choice with over 250 tables, including the usual suspects like blackjack and craps, and more than 3,400 slot machines.

As well as this, there’s a shopping center and several high-end boutiques. You can also find a huge offering of around 55 food and drink outlets, a spa, golf, and activities such as bowling and zip-lining.

9. Ponte 16, Macau, China (270,000 square feet)

Players can explore 270,000 square feet of gaming attractions at the 9th largest casino in the world.

These include 109 tables, around 307 slot machines, and two VIP halls. With plenty of variety, the resort showcases games such as fan tan, pat kao, American roulette, three card baccarat and face-up blackjack.

For the full experience, upscale travelers can make the most of a luxurious French hotel with a swimming pool, spa, and fitness center.

There’s also an Angry Birds-themed kids’ play center, foot massage center, a gallery of unique items from around the world, and a street performance area. The seven restaurants and bars will keep hunger at bay.

10. Rio Casino Resort, Klerksdorp, South Africa (266,330 square feet)

Get in on around 266,330 square feet of gaming action at Rio Casino.

Taking inspiration from the carnival atmosphere of the Brazilian city it takes its name from, there’s 24-hour slots to enjoy, with 274 gaming machines and 12 table games, plus regular poker tournaments.

There’s also a Salon Privé for high-rollers, a hotel, a kids’ arcade gaming center, a crèche, two restaurants, and a bar to complete the attractions.

Go Big Or Go Home

That’s what the movies will tell you. And it’s certainly a quote that the world’s casino bigwigs have taken to heart.

It’s all about size and thinking BIG: bigger buffets, larger hotels, more games and those star names.

It’s an exciting time for casino connoisseurs, as resorts continue to compete to provide the best all-round experience and race to become the biggest in their region, or even the world.

Watch this space…

If you enjoyed this, check out our post on the smallest casinos in the world too!

This leaves cruise lines with every incentive to make their casino bigger and better. So, without further ado, here are the seven best cruise ship casinos out there right now.

1. Allure of the Seas: 18,000 square feet

Royal Caribbean is one of the world’s best cruise lines, with casinos operating on all seven seas. Their Oasis class ships were some of the biggest cruise ships on the ocean until the last few years. The Allure had her maiden voyage in 2010 and can comfortably handle 5,400 guests.

She has two dozen restaurants, 15 bars and lounges, and many other amenities, like rock climbing, an outdoor movie theater, minigolf, and a beautiful theater. Also, check out the zipline, the Aqua Theater, and their version of Central Park on a ship.

The casino on the Allure is currently the biggest on any cruise ship, coming in at 18,000 square feet. For comparison, a good-sized Las Vegas property might only be 100,000 square feet. However, the biggest casino in the world, the Winstar in Thackerville, Oklahoma, comes in at 600,000 square feet.

They have 27 table games, including fan favorites like blackjack, craps, roulette, and baccarat, as well as some of the carnival games like Three Card Poker, Mississippi Stud, and similar games. The slot total is 456, with all the usual hits like Buffalo, Buffalo Stampede, and 88 Fortunes.

They have a small non-smoking casino on Deck 4 with a few tables and several dozen slots if you need to be away from the smoke of the main casino. Overall, it’s the best cruise casino today.

2. Oasis of the Seas: 15,000 square feet

A fun fact: while the Oasis was built to the exact same specifications as her Sister ship, Allure of the Seas, the Oasis is 2 inches shorter in length. That being said, this Royal Caribbean flagship of the Oasis Class is a beauty. Her maiden voyage was in 2009.

Unlike her sister ship, Oasis had extensive renovations in 2019, so she has some newer amenities like an eleven-story slide and a waterpark. She also has several newer restaurant concepts that were not found on the Allure.

The Oasis lost some casino space during the remodel, but still has 15k gaming square footage, including 24 tables and 464 slot machines. The no-smoking casino has three tables and 46 slot machines to choose from. This is a good option if looking for the best slots on cruise ships.

3. Norwegian Epic: 13,000 square feet

The Epic was launched in 2010 and was planned to have two sister ships in the same Epic class, but the deal fell through, so Epic became the only Epic class ship in the Norwegian fleet. She can hold about 5,300 guests and is 19 decks tall.

There are 15 restaurants onboard, as well as a dozen bars and lounges and the usual amenities, like water slides and rock climbing walls, as well as two pool areas and the Broadway-type Theaters that Norwegian is known for.

The Norwegian Epic once had one of the largest casinos on a cruise ship anywhere. However, after her remodel in 2020, she returned with a still respectable 348 slot machines and 28 tables over about 13,000 square feet.

You can find about any table game you wish to play, as well as every hot new slot you’ve been dying to try. While some other Norwegian casinos have poor reviews for ventilation, the sheer size of the Epic casino helps with the irritating cigarette smoke.

4. Symphony of the Seas: 12,000 square feet

As one of the best cruise lines with casinos, it’s no surprise to see Royal Caribbean make the list again.

Royal Caribbean has five ships in the Oasis Class, and they span almost a decade of shipbuilding. The Symphony of the Seas was launched in 2018. While generally adhering to the Oasis model, she has upgraded staterooms and amenities that more closely match those of Oasis of the Seas after her remodel, than those of the Allure of the Seas, eight years her senior.

The casino on Symphony has also been somewhat reduced in size, down to about 12,000 square feet. But it seems similar in size to the one on Oasis and has almost the same number of tables (24) and slots (452). So we’re still happy to consider it as one of the best cruises with casinos.

5. Sun Princess: 9,000 square feet

One of the best casino cruise ships is also the newest. Princess Cruise Lines Sphere class of cruise ships kicked off their maiden voyage in late February 2024 with the Sun Princess.

She has a capacity of 4,300 guests in a double stateroom, and if the name sounds a little familiar, it’s because she is named after the iconic Princess Line boat from the television show “Love Boat.”

The Princess has state-of-the-art cabins, and the usual zip lines and rock climbing. The dining room encompasses three full stories and looks over the ship’s stern, promising grandiose views. The Piazza is a glass sphere, which inspired this class’s name. It functions as the ship’s atrium and features several cafes and bars with views along the ship’s interior from its multi-floor perch.

The casino comes in at 9,000 square feet with 17 table games and 227 slots. They’re not getting the memo about scaled-back casino space; it’s the largest they’ve ever built.

Three great additions are table games linked progressives on blackjack and various poker games. A Buffalo Zone, often found in land-based casinos, is just a dedicated space for many Buffalo slot machines with cool signage. A new high-limit slot area will feature enhanced luxury seating for those long hours at the machines.

To be in with a chance of winning an all-expenses paid trip on this cruise ship, check out this casino cruise tester competition.

6. Norwegian Escape: 8,000 square feet

The Escape is a Breakaway Plus class ship. It was launched in 2015 and can comfortably carry just over 4,000 guests. Norwegian is known for its best-in-class Broadway-quality shows and entertainment and its relaxed approach to cruising. There are no formal dinner nights here.

The Escape has over two dozen dining options and 15 bars, as well as the de rigueur Aqua Park, rope climbing, rock climbing, and mini golf. There are two pool areas and a huge spa as well as a fitness area.

The casino covers about 8,000 square feet but squeezes in 23 tables and 318 slots. They have many poker variants like Three Card Poker, Pai Gow, and Ultimate Texas Hold’em, as well as the staples of craps, blackjack, and roulette. The machines are newer and feature most of the same titles that you would find in a modern Las Vegas casino.

7. Carnival Celebration: 5,000 square feet

The Carnival Celebration is one of Carnival’s Excel Class ships. Launched in 2022, she can comfortably hold just over 5,300 guests and spends much of her time in the Caribbean on six- and eight-day cruises.

They have 24 restaurants, and if, for some inexplicable reason, you’re a huge Guy Fierro fan, they feature his Barbeque Smoke House concept, along with his Guy’s Burger Joint. There are 15 bars and lounges, none of which have any Guy-inspired cocktails that we are aware of, and the usual movie theater, climbing wall, and splash pad-type amenities.

What separates the Celebration from the competition is Bolt, its 800-foot-long, 40 mph rollercoaster on the top deck. This has upped the ante regarding onboard sports deck amenities and, at least on paper, looks a lot more entertaining than another rock-climbing wall.

While smaller than some of our other entries, it covers almost 5,000 square feet of space, has 15 tables, and has slightly more than 200 slot machines. It was voted Best Cruise Ship Casino in a reader’s choice poll in Newsweek in 2023.

FAQs About Cruise Ship Casinos

Are Cruise Ships Rigged?

As multi-billion dollar companies with millions of customers yearly, it simply doesn’t make economic sense to “rig” games.

That being said, there are no gaming commissions on the high seas that you can raise a dispute with, or that have mandated a minimum Return To Player percentage for slot machines.

Many believe that while most slots in the USA are set close to a 90% Return to Player, those in cruise ship casinos are set at closer to 80%, but there is no hard proof of that.

Do You Pay Taxes on Cruise Ship Winnings?

If you are a US Citizen and you win a slot jackpot in the waters off Mombasa or Monte Video or anywhere else in the world, the US government will want their piece of it, and you must pay federal taxes. Any jackpot over 1,200 will trigger the dreaded W2G and 24% withholding on major cruise lines. Technically, all winnings should be reported on a 1040.

If you are a UK citizen, there doesn’t seem to be the same tax burden, though please consult a tax professional should the need arise.

Do All Cruise Ships Have Casinos?

Nope. Even some of the major companies, like Norwegian, have boats that lack casinos, though usually with good reasons. For instance, their Pride Of America never leaves Hawaiian waters, so they would never be in a position to open the casino. Check the casino status before you book, though the vast majority will have them due to their significant revenue contribution.

Are Cruise Ship Casinos Regulated?

Most would be regulated by the country they are registered in, such as the Bahamas. Many have signed agreements and regulations with the CLIA (the Cruise Line International Association) – an industry trade group that provides some rules and oversight – but market forces do most regulation.

Key summary:

• Investments should have a fair anticipation of reward over time, while gambling is seen as random and shorter term.
• Being able to research and act on a risk is something more applicable to investments.
• In an investment, both sides prosper, as opposed to a ‘winner takes all’ result in gambling.

What Is Gambling vs Investing?

Investing

Investing has been defined as “putting resources into something with the anticipation of future returns.”  Whether buying real estate, stock, or bonds, the hope is that they will be worth more in the future, or that you could earn an income stream on these acquisitions.

This month’s house prices or the next tick of a stock symbol, either up or down, may seem arbitrary. But studies show that aggregate home and stock prices increase over time.

So in time, with research, asset allocation (not putting too much of your total investment in one place), and keeping investment fees to a minimum, we expect to see investments grow. This is the “anticipation of future returns” outlined above.

Gambling

Gambling is a bit harder to narrow down. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says it’s the “practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet.”  But for our purposes, the best definition is provided by Wikipedia. “Gambling is the wagering of something of value, on a RANDOM event, to win something else of value.”

While you anticipate investments to increase in value over time, the bet on red or black on roulette is genuinely random and will always trend towards the built-in house advantage the longer the time frame.

When wagering on truly random events like a roulette spin, we expect to see our nest egg decline.

Can Investments Be Seen As A Gamble?

So, is investing in dogecoin, which has no intrinsic value, gambling? While pooling your resources with a well-heeled blackjack count team, with a clear long-term advantage over the house, investing?

Certainly, we have seen the gamification of many investment types. The debate over whether buying gold is the same as purchasing bitcoin is ongoing. And day trading and options markets, once reserved for the very experienced and well-financed, are now open to college students with nothing more to invest than a paycheck.

This can be seen when taking a look at the number of users of Robinhood – the commission-free trading platform said to appeal to younger and less wealthy investors. Users have spiked across the past 10 years, from 500,000 in 2014 to 23.5 million in 2024.

Meme stocks (shares in companies that have cultivated a dedicated fanbase on social media, which can sway their value) and cryptocurrency with very little actual value, if any, have exploded across the investment community. And many early investors have gotten filthy rich. But is this a random event or the anticipation of future returns?

To gauge whether we will see future returns, we need to consider short-term and long-term risks. An investment strategy is, at its heart, about managing risk. Gambling is about ignoring the risk for outsized short-term returns.

Risk vs Reward

The differences between investment and gambling relating to risk can be summarized by looking at how we research it and manage it.

Researching The Risk

Comparing how the markets have evaluated and priced the asset or bet before agreeing to it is a crucial aspect that distinguishes investing from gambling.

In reference to the meme cryptocurrency above, it might be possible to know which crypto coins will become a fad and take off based on the folks currently speculating on them and their past success.

That said, just as the penny stocks of decades earlier primarily benefited those pushing/manipulating the stock, the pump and dump of meme cryptocurrency is no different. Research shows that most people will lose money over time. Hype and social media exposure is not in and of itself valuable.

Proper risk assessment can show that things that might appear to be investing are just wagers dressed up in Wall Street clothes. And conversely, things that appear to be gambling can, sometimes, be investing despite their Sin City origins. Its the knowledge of risks and the ability to use it to address the current investment that helps us separate the two.

Managing The Risk

Because investing means buying an actual stake in something, whether it’s stock in a business or the yield of interest on some bond, we are often presented with the ability to monitor the ongoing risk of an investment over time. This allows us to modify our risk or even end it if we choose.

While a twelve-team NFL parlay may stretch over a few days, or a $100 futures ticket on the Packers to win the Super Bowl may stretch over a few months, but once these wagers are placed, our ability to modify or end these wagers is severely limited.

Investment vs Gambling: What Has Better Return Potential?

Research on the S&P 500 will show that it has returned over 12% a year over the past ten years and that an investor could double their investment in less than seven years with that kind of return. And while investors have lost money on individual stocks or even saw their stock investments lose money in the short term, a well-diversified portfolio rarely loses value over periods of a decade or more.

A well-placed bet on black can double your money in just one spin, of course. But even a quick bit of research will show that each spin of the wheel costs you 5.27% in American casinos. That means you will lose one average bet in less than twenty spins. That means if you are wagering $25 a spin, you’ll be down $50 to $75 an hour.

Interestingly though, a well-funded and well-trained blackjack counting team, with a bankroll of $100k, favorable house blackjack rules, and the ability to spread up to eight bet units, can earn over $300 an hour for each team member they can get into action while only having a 2% risk of going broke throughout their play. And as their bankroll grows, this number goes down.

The Final Difference Between Investing And Gambling: Who Benefits?

Another distinction between investing and gambling comes when looking at who benefits. Betting is usually two sides at cross purposes with a winner-takes-all outcome. Investing is more of a desire to reach a mutually desired outcome.

If I buy T-bills, I’m loaning the Government money to pay their obligations. Both I and the Government get something we want. If I sell a futures contract on soybeans through the CME group, I’ve gotten a price I wanted for my commodity, and someone else has locked in that price for future delivery. We are both happy with the outcome.

Yet, if I bet you $100 on this next golf shot or pickleball match, one of us wins, and the other loses. It’s this relationship, along with many people’s inability to properly weigh risk, that has often seen gambling restricted or made illegal. While Western society has welcomed investing as a way of creating generational wealth while helping to build strong national economies.

Can Day Trading Be An Addiction?

As with anything that involves ‘winning’ and can make you feel good, the thrill of day trading, of seeing investments pay off, can be an addictive element for some people.

The issues surrounding gambling addiction, such as the chance of making a large profit, the fast pace of games, combinations of highs and lows, and taking risks to regain that good buzz from successes, can also be present in the trading of stocks and shares.

While being engrossed in a game or market can seem harmless, it’s been well-covered by numerous studies that any kind of addiction has the potential for ‘players’ to spiral, lose their focus on everyday life, and risk financial ruin.

Investment vs Gambling Conclusion

It can often be challenging to distinguish between a bet and an investment. And today’s Wall Street and crypto markets and stock trading apps posing as brokerages, and brokerages advertising themselves as fail-safe ways to make money, only muddy the water further.

But suppose we remember that investments should have a fair anticipation of reward, that risk is in our favor, that our money will help fund not only our desired outcome but someone else’s, and that we have done our research to ensure that all of this is so. Then we can safely call it an investment. But remember, that doesn’t mean it’s without its dangers.

To stay ahead of the game, take a look at our article on investment scams.

Lead image credit: Javier Esteban/Unsplash

Use our blackjack strategy charts in this order:

1. First, look at surrender, if it’s even an option.
2. Then, if you have pairs, consult the split chart.
3. At that point, if you have a soft hand, meaning one of your cards is an ace, you will refer to the soft totals hit or stand chart.
4. And finally, work your way to the hard totals hit and stand chart.

When you’re ready to play, simply download our free printable blackjack charts.

Blackjack Surrender Chart

Surrender isn’t always offered, and when it is, it’s usually what we refer to as Late Surrender. It’s the option to throw away your hand after the first two cards are dealt, and after the dealer has already checked for blackjack. If you choose to do this, you only lose half your bet.

In Early Surrender, you can choose to toss away your hand before the dealer checks for Blackjack. This can be a very powerful but seldom-seen rule change. In the chart above, I am referencing Late Surrender.

• Basically, with 15 you surrender against a 10, but only if it’s not made up of the 8 and 7.
• You always surrender any 16, other than a pair of 8s against a dealer up card of 9, 10 or 11. 
• With a pair of 8s, you only surrender against a dealer ace if the rule requires them to hit soft 17.
• With a 17, you only surrender against an ace.

Blackjack Split Chart

When you split, you must be aware of whether you can then double if you get dealt two cards that our chart tells you to double. This is simply called Double After Split (DAS).

In the above chart, you should only split the hands highlighted in blue if the game rules you are playing do, in fact, allow you to double after the split; otherwise, move on to the Hit/Stand tables.

• You always split aces and 8s.
• 9s are split against everything but a 7, 10 or an ace.
• 7s are split against 2 through 7.
• 6s are split against 2 through 6, though against a two up you should really only split if you are allowed to double after.
• Never split 5s.
• Only split 4s against a 5 or 6 if you are allowed to Double After Split.
• With 2s or 3s, only split against 2 and 3 if you can DAS, and against 4 through 6 regardless.

Hit or Stand Chart – Soft Totals

Use this chart if one of your cards is an ace. But, before we get into whether to hit, stand or double with a soft hand, note that some blackjack games only allow you to double certain cards like 10 or 11. My advice is to stay away from those games. You will see our blackjack hand chart notes to double if allowed.

• With A2 and A3, you should double against a 5 or 6, otherwise hit.
• With A4 and A5, double against 4, 5 or 6, otherwise hit.
• With A6, you can double against 3 through 6.
• With A7, you can double against 2 through 6, stand against 7 or 8, and hit against 9, 10, ace.
• With the A8, you double against a 6 and stand on everything else.
• And with A9, you stand against everything.

Hit or Stand Chart – Hard Totals

A hard total is a hand that does not contain an ace.

Low hands (5 through 8) that aren’t pairs or soft hands are hit in blackjack until at least 12, regardless of the up card. Then, once we get to 12, we can begin to use our blackjack basic strategy chart. You will double down some 9,10, and 11 value hands.

• 9s are doubled against a 3 through 6 up card. Otherwise, you hit.
• 10s are doubled against the dealer’s 2 through 9. Otherwise, you hit.
• And with a total of 11, you always double.
• With hands totaling 12, stand on 4, 5 or 6. Otherwise hit. 
• With a 13, 14, 15 or 16, stand against 2 through 6 and hit the rest.
• On any other hand with totals of hard 17 or more, you stand.

Printable Blackjack Charts

Use our printable blackjack strategy charts to make it easy to remind yourself of the best move to make when next playing online or in a casino. Just hit download to save each individual blackjack chart PDF to your phone or desktop, ready to refer to whenever you need them. Or, once downloaded, use the printer icon to print the PDFs.

FAQs About Basic Blackjack Strategy Charts

What is a blackjack strategy chart?

A basic blackjack strategy chart tells us exactly how to play each hand in the mathematically correct way. This information is presented in an easy-to-understand chart that shows how to play each hand.

How do you read a blackjack chart?

It’s important to remember that we need to walk through the hand in a certain order. Surrender if allowed, splitting pairs, playing soft hands, double downs, and finally, hitting or standing. The dealer’s up card is across the top, your hand is on the left-hand side, and the table is filled with how to play that exact hand.

Are blackjack charts allowed in casinos?

Yes! You can always use your blackjack chart whether you’re at a casino or playing blackjack online. Playing these hands perfectly will make a big difference to your bottom line, so never be ashamed about using a blackjack cheat chart to help you.

What is the best blackjack strategy?

The best strategy can change based on the number of decks being used and various rule changes from one casino to the other. These slight changes can alter how our blackjack strategy chart looks and how you should play. For more on blackjack strategies, read our in-depth guide.

Should you always hit 12 in blackjack?

The math is very clear: you want to hit a 12 against a dealer 12 or 13, and honestly, it’s really a coin flip against 14. Many folks may disagree, but I wouldn’t lie to you, and neither will your strategy chart.

Why not put these charts to the test and practice playing?blackjack for free? And then play online blackjack for real money or try a home game using our guide on how to deal blackjack.

I’ve compiled a list of the 19 best activities to do in Sin City for under $35. We wanted to make it under $20, but you know, inflation.

After all, I wouldn’t want you to miss the thrill of the Mob Museum or the view of Las Vegas by night from the Eiffel Tower over a few bucks. To balance it out, I’ve also thrown in some great free things to try.

1. Gondola Rides At The Venetian ($34pp)

The singing gondoliers of The Venetian have been entertaining Las Vegas visitors for more than two decades now. It’s quite the photo experience and not to be missed. It’s one of the most popular cheap things to do in Vegas during the day.

If you don’t want to spend the $34, discount tickets or coupons are usually available in coupon books handed out on the Strip, or you can watch and listen for free along the promenade.

Inside the Venetian hotel, 10am to 10pm.

2. Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas Sign ($0)

The first thing you can see as you enter the Las Vegas Strip from the South is this Las Vegas sign, which has been featured in visitors’ photo books for more than sixty years. It’s one of the most popular cheap things to do in Las Vegas.

Over the past couple of decades, though, much work has been done to make it easier to get that snapshot. More parking and safer, easier access to the median where the sign sits have been added.

5100 Las Vegas Boulevard, 24/7.

3. Pinball Hall Of Fame (Bring Quarters)

Just a block from the Las Vegas sign sits the Pinball Museum. With hundreds of Pinball and amusement machines still in working order and ready for you to play, you could spend hours out here for just two bits if you’re some sort of Pinball wizard.

Otherwise, you’re probably going to need a more reasonable $5 or $10 per player. It’s one of the best cheap things to do in Vegas with family – keep the kids entertained for hours!

4925 Las Vegas Boulevard, 10am to 9pm.

4. Big Apple Roller Coaster at New York New York Hotel ($25+)

Race above New York and plunge right through Lady Liberty on this thrill ride featuring a 200-foot-plus drop at over 65 mph in a New York City cab.

This one is excellent day or night, and with several loops and drops as it races around the casino, it’s bound to get your heart pumping. More than 1.5 million riders a year can’t be wrong. Plus, it’s part of one of the best arcades in Vegas, featuring over 200 games.

New York New York Hotel, 11am to 11pm.

5. Eiffel Tower Experience at Paris Hotel ($24.50)

46 stories above the Las Vegas Strip is a view along the deck of the Paris Hotel’s half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower. Best seen at night, it’s a breathtaking spectacle of all of Sin City, laid out in front of you in all her neon glory. The Las Vegas skyline has never been so la la la.

Even the ride to get there is stunning, and there’s probably no more romantic spot in town. Possibly one of the best cheap things to do in Vegas for couples. There are also discounts for seniors and locals.

Paris Hotel, Las Vegas Strip, 12pm to 12am.

6. Neon Museum ($20-$45)

This isn’t some hike through a sign graveyard. Well, it isn’t JUST a hike through a sign graveyard. They’ve got tour guides and augmented reality displays, and at night, they turn the neon on and light up the desert. It’s probably one of the coolest cheaps thing to do in Vegas.

You can even get a helicopter tour over the museum at night to see it all from above. The Neon Museum is really unlike any museum you’ve been to before. And it’s beyond Instagrammable at night.

There are several different prices depending on which tour and add-ons you like. It’s gotten so popular you may want to get tickets in advance.

770 Las Vegas Blvd North, 2pm to 10pm.

7. Skypod at the Stratosphere ($20+)

Skypod at the Strat is a two-level observation deck at the top of the 1150-foot Stratosphere hotel tower. The $20 is just for the view, but if you’ve ever wanted to bungee jump from 1,000 feet up or asked yourself wouldn’t it be great if there was a roller coaster wrapped around the top of this enormously tall building, the Strat has answers, albeit pricey ones.

There’s also a restaurant and bar up there, so you can make a several-hour stay out of it if you want, and really get your $20 worth. The view of the Las Vegas skyline is simply breathtaking.

Strat Hotel, 10am to1am.

8. Food Trucks (Varies)

Food, like everything else in Las Vegas, is expensive and overhyped. But some fantastic food trucks with great food and reasonable prices are hidden right off the Las Vegas Strip, or scattered downtown.

Try out some of the best ones like Buddy’s Jersey Eats in the 3000 Block of Las Vegas Boulevard. Or track down the daily setups for local Las Vegas favorites like El Taco, AntidoteLV, or the world-famous fried mac and cheese egg rolls at Stripcheeze. Though simple, it’s still one of the best cheap things to do in Vegas.

You can see locations and daily menus on Instagram or Facebook.

9. Mob Museum ($35)

One of our favorite Sin City spots, this downtown Las Vegas museum relives the sordid past of the organized crime families that ran Las Vegas for decades.

It’s not just a display of blood-splattered mobster clothing and pictures of hits gone awry. This state-of-the-art museum has a firearms training simulator, a Crime Lab that shows how Medical Examiners process bullet-riddled crime scenes for evidence and, of course, a Prohibition Era Distillery tour. There are even whispers of a password-protected speakeasy somewhere in the building.

300 Stewart Avenue, 9am to 9pm.

10. Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art ($18)

Home to a priceless art exhibit, this relatively small museum has hosted exhibitions of Picasso, Degas, and Faberge, along with many other modern art masterpieces. Since exhibits revolve, you may want to see what they have on display when you arrange your tickets.

Sadly, the $130 million Picasso, La Reve, that former Bellagio owner Steve Wynn accidentally put his elbow through, has been repaired and sold off. An oopsie like that would be hard to pass up.

Bellagio Hotel and Casino, 10am to 5:30pm.

11. The Las Vegas Strip ($0)

There is no place like the Las Vegas Strip at night. There is an energy, a distant hum, that gets in your head. It’s the desert air, the billions of dollars in neon, and the people. Mostly the people. There is no better place to people-watch than the Las Vegas strip just before Midnight.

Wander out and see the whole cross-section of America, heck, the world, mixed along just a few blocks of one of the most famous streets in the world. You may be unable to describe or even capture it in pictures. But you will never forget it. It will always remain one of the best cheap things to do in Vegas.

Desert Inn Road to Tropicana Avenue, nightly.

12. Ethel M Chocolate Factory ($0, Chocolate Extra)

This factory is named for Ethel Mars, the mother of Forest Mars, who introduced the world to M&M’s and dozens of other one-of-a-kind American chocolate bars and treats. It’s where Forest came after he retired from the Mars company and started a new business dedicated to craft, small-batch chocolate.

Just minutes from Las Vegas in Henderson, you can tour the factory, visit their renowned three-acre cactus garden, and, most importantly, taste some of this award-winning chocolate.

2 Cactus Garden Drive Henderson, 10am to 6pm.

13. Hoover Dam Tour ($30+)

Looking for cheap things to do in Las Vegas off the strip? The best-guided tours of Hoover Dam will let you not only tour the almost 90-year-old dam and power plant, but also admire views of the dam from two points. First, from the Black Rock Canyon, and second, from the Colorado River (down-water side, looking up). This view allows you to fully understand the massive undertaking that building this 700-foot dam must have been.

Some tours will also include lunch. Depending on the type of tour, you will need to set aside at least four hours to get there and back.

14. Mount Charleston (Varies)

Mount Charleston is the high peak you can see northeast of Las Vegas. While only 45 minutes away from Vegas, most tourists and even some locals never seem to visit. It’s covered in hiking trails, and there’s both a lodge and a restaurant.

In the summer, it can be 30 degrees cooler on the mountain, and in the winter, they have a small ski resort that you can sojourn to. Tours can be pricey and crowded, but you can often get a rental car for as low as $15 a day in the off-season. It’s a great trip if you want to get out of town and see some of the beautiful nature surrounding the Las Vegas Valley.

15. Bellagio Fountains ($0)

The Bellagio Fountains cover eight acres and use more than 1200 fountain heads, some of which shoot columns of water up to 450 feet in the air. Synchronized with a soundtrack and light show, this is a not-to-be-missed attraction, especially considering the price point. Shows are every half hour but are best seen on a clear night after sunset.

Bellagio Hotel and Casino, 3pm to 12am.

16. Fremont Street Experience ($0)

Downtown Las Vegas is home to the Fremont Street experience: six blocks of debauchery shoehorned under a neon roof. While it earned the nickname Glitter Gulch as far back as the 1950s, the 50 million LED lights that cover Fremont today put the old moniker to shame. Free concerts, free street performers, cheap food and a zipline soaring high above it all make this a not-be-missed roadside attraction.

Freemont Street, 24/7.

17. Linq High Roller ($23.50+)

Billed as America’s largest wheel ride, the 500-foot Vegas Eye is a beautiful piece of machinery that lets you get a look at Las Vegas from 50 stories up. Each cabin can hold up to 40 people and generally spends about half an hour making a complete revolution. This allows you to get a good look in all directions and take pictures to your heart’s content.

Outside drinks are allowed, but no glasses or coolers. If you prefer the Happy Hour cabin, you can get a ride and free drinks for a bit more.

Linq Hotel and Casino, 2pm to12 am.

18. Dive In Movies at the Cosmopolitan ($10+)

This one is a hidden gem. Starting in May and running through the end of September, the Cosmo holds outdoor movie night every Monday at their Boulevard Pool. It’s a massive 270-square-foot screen with some curated movie experiences like Aquaman or The Goonies.

Plus, if you’re a local, it’s only $10 per person and $15 for tourists not staying at the Cosmo. Splurge and rent one of the huge daybeds or just lounge on an air mattress in the pool.

The Cosmopolitan, doors open at 7pm.

19. Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay ($29)

The Shark Reef Aquarium has 1.3 million gallons of water which is home to more than 2,000 fish and critters. Also on exhibit in this walk-through aquarium is over 200 shark species for your viewing pleasure.

This a great place to get out of that Nevada sun and spend an afternoon in a dreamy underwater world. Besides the main exhibit, you can feed the sharks or pet the stingrays for an upcharge. Plus try out their 4-D immersive video diving experience.

Mandalay Bay, 10am to 7:30pm.

As you can see, there are plenty of amazing, fun cheap things to do in Vegas, so have a great trip!

FAQs About Vegas Budgets

What is a good budget for a Vegas trip?

As with so much in Las Vegas, it depends on what you want to do. A $100 a day per person would be a good baseline starting point, and then work your way up from there. If you gamble even on the penny slots for eight hours a day, you better have a large bankroll. If you don’t mind a slightly less ritzy hotel and enjoy hiking or exploring the less expensive things Las Vegas has to offer, you can enjoy Las Vegas for much less.

Is $100 a day enough for Las Vegas?

The average tourist spends more than $300 daily, so it depends on what you want to accomplish. If you’re willing to stay farther South on the Las Vegas Strip at properties like Excalibur and Luxor, which have rooms at $20 to $30 a day, dine off the Strip, and use our cheap things to do in Vegas list (or even better, our free things to do in Las Vegas list), it could be done.

How much money do I need to have fun in Las Vegas?

Money doesn’t equal fun, not even in Las Vegas. That guy betting $20k a hand at the Bellagio, maybe staying in a $40,000 dollar-a-night suite and eating at five-star restaurants every night, is probably having less fun than some Vegas first-timers, eating 99-cent Midway hotdogs at Circus Circus and staying in some downtown hotel for $25 a night. Vegas is what you make it.

Is $1000 enough for four days In Las Vegas?

Sure. You could put yourself together a nice itinerary with $1,000 for four days. Use the coupon books and look for deals to make the most of your money.

What is the cheapest way around Las Vegas?

The monorail is $13 a day for unlimited rides up and down the Las Vegas Strip. Busses are clean and cheap and, while a bit slow, can take you anywhere you want to go for $8 unlimited a day. You can also rent electric bikes from the Las Vegas Transit Authority for $5 daily.

In this post we’ll explain when you should and shouldn’t double down and how to signal the move in a casino.

What Is Doubling Down In Blackjack?

The double down in blackjack is when you double your bet in the middle of a hand, after which you only receive one more card.

It’s risky because if you get dealt a low card, you can’t hit again, and could risk losing twice as many chips.

Knowing when to double down during a game of blackjack is essential.

It’s all about getting the balance right between playing it safe and taking the risk – being sure you have an advantage.

When To Double Down

There are three times we’d recommend placing the blackjack double down bet:

1. When your cards total 11.

This is because you have a fantastic chance to hit 21, and even if you don’t, you’re likely to get a score close to that magic number.

2. When you have a soft 16, 17 or 18 (this means that you have a card plus an ace).

Here you should generally only double down if the dealer is showing a lower card.

You might be tempted to stay as you are, especially with a soft 18, however there’s actually a great chance of improving your hand with a single card.

3. When you have a hard 9 or 10 (“hard” describes a hand with no ace).

Once again, only when the dealer is showing a low card. Providing you get a reasonably high card, you’ll be in very good shape against the dealer.

Please remember that you won’t always find things going your way when you double down.

The tactic, when used properly, will increase your winnings over a long period of time though.

When Not To Double Down

1. When the dealer has an Ace.

Here’s a pretty obvious one: never double down when the dealer is showing an ace.

Quite simply, the chances of them getting blackjack are just too high.

Even if they check and don’t have blackjack, there’s a very good chance that they’ll end up with a total close to 21.

2. When your card total is higher than 11.

Never double down when you’re showing anything higher than an 11, as the chances of going bust are too high to risk.

It’s better to simply hit or stick on a lower total, and then hope that the dealer goes bust.

3. When you’re unsure.

Basically, if you’re ever unsure whether to double down, stick to the safe option and keep your bet as it is.

You’ll see some players at a table doubling down all the time, and they’re usually the players losing money at a significant rate.

You shouldn’t be doubling down on the vast majority of hands – only take the risk when you’re a clear frontrunner.

How To Signal Double Down In Blackjack

When looking to double down in blackjack, there’s only one thing you need to do: push a stack of chips next to your initial bet.

This stack must be of equal value to your starting bet.

If pushing the extra chips onto the table doesn’t work (it will 99 percent of the time), simply tell the dealer your intention to double down and point with one finger to signal that you want one more card.

It really is that simple.

Top Tip: Don’t put the chips on top of the initial bet. This is frowned on by croupiers and other casino staff as it could mean you’ve tampered with the initial bet.

Things To Look For When Doubling Down In Blackjack

There’s one important thing to look for when doubling down: the casino’s rules. The most basic of these will tell you when doubling down is allowed.

Many casinos only allow players to double down when they’re showing cards totalling 10 or 11 – if you have any other value hand, you’ll only be able to continue as normal (unless you have the chance to split, of course).

Also, pay particular attention to the value the dealer must hit up to. Why? Well, this impacts on how likely they are to go over 21.

Most games make the dealer hit up to 17, however in some games, the dealer only hits up to 16 – something that makes it less likely they’ll exceed 21.

The more likely they are to go over 21, the more you should think about making a double down blackjack bet.

Finally, learn whether the dealer checks for blackjack when they’re dealt an ace or a 10-value card – if they do check and the game continues, they don’t have blackjack.

This makes your chances of winning when placing a double down bet much higher.

You’ll know if they have blackjack, as the hand will stop there, and everyone will lose (except those who have also got blackjack).

Common Questions About Doubling Down

We get quite a few questions about doubling down in blackjack, so we’ve listed answers to the most common ones below.

Can you double down after splitting?

Typically, you won’t be able to double down after splitting, however, you will find some online casinos that allow this to happen.

If you can double down after splitting, use the same decision-making process you would when evaluating any normal hands dealt to you.

Can you double down after hitting?

99 percent of the time you will not be able to double down after hitting.

This is because it would give the player too much of an edge over the casino. Blackjack’s house edge is already one of the lowest of any casino game.

Once you have hit, you won’t actually be able to do anything else other than hit again – it’s also not possible to split or get insurance.

Should you always double down on 11?

Generally speaking, yes. This is a really good way of making money in blackjack, especially if you are a casual player.

Should you double down on 10?

Once again, this really depends on the card the dealer is showing.

If they have an ace or a 10-value card, you might not want to double down, as there’s a real chance that they could get a nice hand and easily beat you.

If they’re showing a 6 or lower, doubling down is a feasible option.

How many cards do you get when you double down in blackjack?

When you double down, you will only receive one extra card.

Thinking that you will receive as many cards as you want is one of the major mistakes made by those new to the game of blackjack.

This is where the risk of a double down blackjack bet comes in, as you could end up with a low total if a low card is dealt.

Can you double down on 21 in blackjack?

No, you can’t double down on 21.

If you could, everyone would do it every time the croupier dealt them blackjack!

If you are lucky enough to get blackjack, you’ll find that the dealer pays you straightaway and you won’t be able to do anything else with your hand.

If you found this post useful, you might want to check out our post on when to surrender or download our blackjack strategy charts. You can also read up on everything you ever wanted to know about blackjack.

Once you’ve read these, why not practice playing blackjack for free or play online blackjack for real money?

1. MSG Sphere

The hottest new concert venue in the US, and maybe even the world, is the kaleidoscopic 2.3 billion-dollar fever dream that is the MSG sphere. There are many great vantage points to see its ever-changing surface, but the best is in the Encore parking garage, directly adjacent to the Encore Casino.

The view from the garage’s top floor is widely believed to be the best in Las Vegas. This is one of the best things to do in Vegas at night for free. Though it’s definitely still visible during the day.

2. Lake of Dreams at Wynn Las Vegas

As long as we’re out and about on the famous Las Vegas Blvd at night, let’s check out the Lake of Dreams show at the Wynn Las Vegas. Best viewed from one of their bars or restaurants, you can still see it for free near the hotel lobby.

A 9-story waterfall, some seriously oversized puppets, and dancing water and lights make this an unforgettable show. You can catch it after dark every half hour until 11:30 pm.

3. The Venetian Hotel

Head south on Las Vegas Blvd, duck into the Venetian, and see their take on Venice’s Grand Canal. You’ll need tickets for the gondola ride, but you can get great photos for free and listen to the Gondoliers singing as they row. You can also wander through the Grand Canal Shoppes.

One of our favorite free attractions, Streetmosphere at the Venetian, was cancelled at the end of 2023. We’re hoping they are planning to put something new in its place. It was located near the end of the Grand Canal Shoppes near the entrance.

4. The Mirage Volcano Show

Time is quickly running out on this must-see Las Vegas experience. Hard Rock International, the new owners of the Mirage, plan to turn the beloved volcano into a guitar-shaped hotel.

We expect it to remain open through the first part of 2024. So run, don’t walk to see this hot attraction in front of the Mirage on the Strip. Exploding nightly from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm.

As one of the best free attractions in Vegas for the last 30 years, she will be missed.

5. Flamingo Wildlife Habitat

Thousands of people walking on Las Vegas Blvd don’t realize that a four-acre lush tropical paradise is hidden in the Flamingo at the heart of the Strip. And they certainly don’t realize it’s free to enter.

Bubbly streams, cascading waterfalls, and tropical plants are filled with a wide variety of birds, including flamingos and herons. There are also catfish, turtles, brightly colored koi and other tropical fish in the water features.

It’s cool, relaxing, and miles away from the hubbub of the Strip, yet just a few feet inside the Flamingo’s front doors. It’s arguably one of the coolest things to do in Vegas for free.

If you get there early (they open at 7:00 am), you will very likely have this secluded oasis to yourself. Closing time is at 8:00 pm. During the early afternoon, you can meet with staff who can answer questions or tell you about the animals.

6. Bellagio Fountains

The fountains in front of the Bellagio are a must-see Las Vegas attraction, with 1,200 jets and almost 5,000 lights spread over 8 acres of some of the most expensive real estate in the world. The best view is from nearby rooms that are fortunate to overlook the display, but you can witness it for free right along the Las Vegas Boulevard sidewalk.

Another great vantage is just outside the hotel lobby, looking towards the Paris Casino, as you can still hear the accompanying music. A common mistake is to get there too early. The show doesn’t start until 3:00 pm during the week.

7. Botanical Gardens and Bellagio Conservatory

Just across the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd from the Flamingo, we can find the Bellagio Botanical Gardens. Free to wander through, this 14,000-square-foot attraction is genuinely stunning. The gardeners and staff conjure up creatures and people 30 feet high using plants, trees, and other techniques.

As the year progresses, so do the Conservatory themes, moving through spring, summer, and then holiday presentations. And the thing is, it’s not just a sensation for the eyes, but the nose as well. Those flowers smell amazing. It’s one of the best things to do in Las Vegas for free.

This free attraction is open 24/7. It is just to the right of the main entrance. The botanical gardens are open to all ages.

8. The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace

If you fancy a little window shopping, or maybe you’re just really keen on buying a purse for 30k, the Caesar’s Palace shops will appeal to you. Just across Flamingo Road from the Bellagio, this is probably one of the most famous luxury malls in the world.

The Roman-themed Forum shops are no longer the highest-grossing mall per square foot, but that doesn’t mean you can’t while away a few hours perusing Versace, Vuitton, Armani, Dior and Gucci. Or perhaps the stones at De Beers or Tiffany might interest you.

While not free, the Forum shops also contain a dozen restaurants. If all these high-end designers have you craving Italian, you can’t go wrong at Carmine’s or even RPM Italian with its handmade pastas.

9. Eiffel Tower Replica at Paris Casino

A bit further south down the Las Vegas Strip, we come across the Paris hotel. Now, Paris wouldn’t be complete without a faux 46-story Eiffel Tower. While this is only half-scale to the original, it’s still pretty impressive, especially with the light show they put on at night from dusk ’til midnight.

While the light show and getting your picture taken in front of the Eiffel Tower are free, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that the ride to the top of the viewing platform is one of the best buys in Las Vegas. It’ll cost you $23 for kids and $28 for adults.

And hey, if you don’t tell anyone you’re in Vegas and they just assume you’ve taken a trip to France…well, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

10. The Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood

Still headed south down Las Vegas Blvd, we come to Planet Hollywood. Planet Hollywood is known for its Miracle Mile Shops where you can do some more window shopping. Despite the name, it isn’t just 150 storefronts selling everything under the sun. Well, it’s mostly that. But it also boasts over a dozen different theatres, tons of restaurants, and other tourist attractions.

11. New York New York Casino

Another few hundred yards south down the Las Vegas Strip sits the New York New York Hotel and Casino. This is the perfect spot for a photo op of its 47-story Empire State Building, or its half-size Statue of Liberty. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, we won’t confuse anyone with this one, as the Big Apple Roller Coaster cuts right through her.

12. Excalibur and Luxor

Just another 100 yards south on the Las Vegas strip, we come to the dual properties of Excalibur and Luxor. Many of the free experiences here have been lost over the years, but they’re still worth a quick walk past. I mean, it’s not every day you see a 28-story castle with 5,000 rooms, or a 30-story pyramid capped with the brightest man-made light in the world.

13. The Pinball Hall of Fame Museum

Now, if you would like to take a cab or bus another mile south on Las Vegas Blvd, in the 4900 block, you will find a free museum dedicated to Pinball machines. Thousands of them, dating back 60 years in some cases. While it is free to enter and look around, you may want to bring some quarters, as not only can you look at the antique games, but in almost all circumstances, you can still play them. It’s one of the best arcades in Las Vegas.

14. Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Sign

Just another block south on Las Vegas Blvd, you’ll find the world-famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. Welcoming visitors from Southern California for 65 years, this iconic piece of old Las Vegas has probably been photographed millions of times. Nowadays, you can cross the median safely, and there is parking just for sign visitors. Though that wasn’t the case for the first fifty years the sign stood!

15. The One and Only Las Vegas Strip

While the old saying about the journey being the destination may seem a little trite, just wandering up and down the Las Vegas Strip is truly an attraction in its own right. You get the best people watching in the world, with people from every walk of life and from all over the world, mixed with scenery straight out of some crazed dream. With Venice and Paris mixed with Volcanos, Pyramids and the Statue of Liberty, it truly is a wonder.

Steve Wynn used to say the action is the attraction, and if that’s true, a trip down Las Vegas Blvd at night might be the ultimate free attraction.

16. Free Circus Acts at Circus Circus

Miles north of the Las Vegas Welcome sign, on our way back to downtown Las Vegas along Las Vegas Blvd, sits Circus Circus. This is Las Vegas’s tribute to quintessential American entertainment – the Big Top.

We’re talking trapeze artists, silk cord dancers, jugglers, contortionists, ladder men, and sadly, clowns. Clowns aside, this is a fantastic show, even more so because it’s still free and open to children of all ages.

17. The Fremont Street Experience

Also dubbed the Viva Vision light show, they’ve taken five blocks of downtown Las Vegas and turned it into the world’s biggest block party. It’s the world’s largest video screen, with a ceiling that’s 90 feet up and covered in LED lights. At last count, nearly 50 million of them.

Three free stages will have musical acts almost every night of the year, weather permitting, and while not at all free, you can zipline down the entire length of it. No cars are allowed on this part of Fremont Street so that pedestrians can wander in and out of the various casinos, restaurants, and other shops along this downtown Las Vegas hotspot.

18. Downtown Container Park

As the name suggests, this downtown Las Vegas entertainment and shopping area is built entirely from shipping containers and metal cubes. Also located a bit further along Fremont Street, this complex offers shopping, free entertainment, restaurants, live music and even an art installation of a fire-breathing mantis. Because of the size limitations of the chosen building materials, most shops and entertainment venues are markedly small. There’s also a popular playground for children.

The stores generally open around 11:30 am and close around 9:00 pm. The restaurants and other entertainment are open until 11:00 pm during the week and 1:00 am on the weekends.

19. The Mermaid Show at Silverton

While more than five miles away from downtown Las Vegas and Fremont Street, the aquarium and mermaids at Silverton really shouldn’t be missed. Consistently voted one of the top free things to do in Las Vegas, this 117,000-gallon aquarium has over 150 species of fish and more than 5,000 fish in total.

The mermaids do 15-minute shows underwater using hidden breathing tubes and are quite the sight, moving with their tails through all of the tropical fish. There are several smaller aquariums on the property as well, holding freshwater fish like catfish, trout and crappie.

Conclusion

We hope you get out and see some of the fantastic free things you can do in Las Vegas, as this list barely scratched the surface. This town has so much more to offer than slot machines and overpriced buffets. Get out there and see some of them! The list of things to do for free in Las Vegas Nevada is as long as you choose to make it.

FAQs About Free Things in Vegas

How can I get free money to play in Las Vegas?

Most Las Vegas casinos, especially those along Fremont Street, are known for giving free play to new players who sign up for their Players Club Cards. While not quite cash, it can be converted into cash after you’ve played for a bit.

If you already belong to, say, BetMGM’s player club, check your offers. You may have free play or other comps available once the app realizes you’re in Las Vegas.

Another great trick is playing free apps like MYVEGAS, which has free play as one of the awards you can choose. Of course, you’ll need to start playing long ahead of your trip.

How can I get free stuff at the casinos?

Your best bet to get free swag is via a Players Club or the complimentary fun books handed out along the strip. You’ll often need to play some small amount before being awarded a free t-shirt or the like. Other times you can get them just for signing up or showing a coupon from one of the fun books.

Are drinks free in Las Vegas?

This is a common misconception; drinks are never free in Las Vegas. They are complimentary. This means that the house will get you a drink for no charge as long as you’ve been gambling for a while. But how long is “a while?”

Sometimes, it just means putting some cash into a slot and waiting for wait staff to come by. Increasingly, though, it means playing until the slot lets the server know you’ve played enough to warrant a complimentary drink.

For more ideas of things to do in Vegas, check out our articles on the best Las Vegas shows, fun things to do in Vegas with kids, the best Vegas spas, and cheap things to do in Vegas.

1. The Big Apple Coaster and Arcade (New York New York Hotel and Casino)

For us, The Big Apple Coaster and Arcade is the best arcade in Las Vegas. But it’s not the vast 32,000 square feet of gaming space that puts it at the top of our list. And it’s not the 200+ games, including skeeball, old-time arcade games and NBA Game Time machines (which are a personal favorite – the best arcade games in Las Vegas if you ask me!).

Heck, it’s not even Nathan’s Hot Dog Stand or the cute little cocktail bar that opens up at night. It’s the giant friggin’ roller coaster with top speeds of almost 70 mph over a 200-foot drop.

The Big Apple Pack gets you four coaster tickets, four T-shirts, 400 arcade credits, 400 redemption points for some arcade swag, and four Nathan’s hot dogs. They even throw in a giant plushie, all for just $149.

Big Apple Coaster and Arcade is located inside the New York New York Casino, and there’s plenty of signage to get you there.

Opening Hours:

• Monday – Thursday | 11:00 am – 11:00 pm
• Friday – Sunday | 11:00 am – Midnight

2. Midway Arcade (Circus Circus)

Coming in at the number two spot is Midway Arcade.

First, for the sake of full disclosure, there are clowns here. Lots of clowns. We get it; it’s a Circus Midway theme, but still! Apart from that, this Las Vegas arcade has some great coasters and rides, some incredible circus acts like a trapeze show, and many circus-type games like balloon bust that you won’t find anywhere else.

There are 25 different rides here, primarily aimed at the tweens and under set, though you’ll need to be at least 33 inches tall to get on any of the rides. Personal favorites include Canyon Cars (bumper cars) and Slingshot (self-explanatory), though the El Loco coaster is also a blast. There are also 200+ arcade and video games, laser tag, VR rides, and a 3D theater.

Pro tips for parents, Circus Circus still has free parking, and there is a nice bar here with alcoholic drinks. The wrist passes are $60 for adults and $30 for kids all day, which can be a pretty reasonably priced day in Las Vegas.

Some rides and activities are separate from the pass, so walk around and see what everyone may be interested in riding before deciding if it’s the best value for you.  

There is mandatory picture-taking at the entry, which is just a way of separating gullible tourists from their hard-earned money. Take a pic with your phone and print it on photo paper when you return home and spend the $33 you saved on the claw machines. You can thank us later.

The Adventure Dome, as Circus Circus has taken to calling it, is open daily.

Opening Hours:

• Sunday – Thursday | 11:00 am – 9:00 pm
• Friday – Saturday | 11:00 am – Midnight

3. Fun Dungeon (Excalibur Hotel & Casino)

Maybe you’ve been asking yourself, how can I take the kids to one of the best arcades in Las Vegas while also seeing some medieval jousting and magic? We’ve all been there, and Fun Dungeon is your answer.

Situated right next to the world-famous Excalibur Tournament of Kings venue, this fun arcade has many options for kids of all ages. Like our two previous arcade picks, Fun Dungeon has over 200+ coin-op games, ranging from centipede to the carousel.

There’s a 3D theater, and a Dairy Queen or an Orange Julius should you work up an appetite. While there are no gravity-defying roller coasters or carnival rides here, what does set the Fun Dungeon apart is that at 6:00 and 8:30 most nights, a portal opens to the Renaissance ages.

The Tournament of Kings dinner show features a three-course meal while watching Merlin and his pals put on a medieval-era jousting tournament. There are no animatronic horses or knights here; it’s all done with live animals and people inside a 900-seat theater.

It is a jaw-dropping spectacle for the kids and a long-time best of Las Vegas show winner. Dinner tickets start at just $49, and the show is closed on Tuesdays and the occasional Wednesday. Kids under three go for free.

Opening Hours:

• Monday – Sunday | 12:00 pm – 11:00 pm

4. Las Vegas Pinball Hall OF Fame

Perhaps not a conventional choice for the best arcade in Las Vegas, but hear us out. The Las Vegas Pinball Museum has a lot of things going for it.

First off, because it’s a museum, it’s a nonprofit. That means they have set the prices on all the pinball machines as low as 25 or 50 cents. You can spend half the afternoon here for the cost of just one Orange Julius at the Fun Dungeon. Second, there’s 25,000 square feet of pretty much nothing but pinball machines. That’s hundreds of machines lined up, and all of them playable.

Got a favorite from the 80s? It’s going to be here. Did you have one from the 70s out back in the barn that you never saw working? It’s somewhere here, too, waiting for you to feed it quarters. And if that sense of nostalgia isn’t enough to rival even the best arcade in Vegas, then we don’t know what is.

There’s also free parking and no expensive food or drink options. Well, not really any food or drink options at all other than some vending machines. In fact, the interior, which some have described as quirky, and others as a “disarming thrift store feeling,” may not be for everyone.

The carpet had a prior home before being repurposed here, and the change machines were allegedly picked up from the trash bins of a local casino only minutes ahead of the garbage men. But their dedication to the machines is unswerving, and that’s all that really matters.

There is no ATM, so make sure you have some smaller bills available before arriving. It’s a walk from most strip hotels, so a cab may be required if you don’t have a vehicle.

Opening Hours:

• Sunday – Thursday | 10:00 am – 9:00 pm
• Friday – Saturday | 10:00 am – 10:00 pm

5. Hyper X (Luxor)

The Game of the Gods Arcade at Luxor had a great run and was one of the best Vegas arcades for many years, but it’s 2024, and it’s time to look at the future. And the future is the Hyper X Esports complex.

There’s not a single kid in the country with an Xbox or PlayStation that this state-of-the-art esports facility won’t wow. Heck, adults, too. Catch global tournaments broadcast on the 50-foot wall screen, or stream your own content to your friends and fans in the Streamer room. This is where video games and video gamers come to strut their stuff.

If you’re looking to play, they’ve got dozens of gaming computers and devices you can rent by the hour, or if you feel a binge coming on, you can rent them for the whole day. They also have lounges and 21 and up spots, but kids are welcome to try their luck during the day.

The little ones might even get an autograph from some of the top names in the esports world at the monthly Fortnite tourneys, or they can try their luck in the Mario Cart tournament.

Surprisingly, the food here is also excellent, and there are some reasonably priced drinks for the adults.

Opening Hours:

• Sunday – Thursday | 12:00 pm – 9:00 pm
• Friday – Saturday | 12:00 pm – 11:00 pm

6. Las Vegas Mini Grand Prix

The Las Vegas Mini Grand Prix has a great arcade with tons of new and older games. And while the arcade itself isn’t as large as some of the others we’ve discussed, they also have ticket games available, as well as a decent little restaurant.

There are some outdoor rides and tiny rollercoasters for the smaller ones; we will judiciously overlook the possible trademark infringement in the Piff the Magic Dragon rollercoaster and just say that kids under eight will love it.

But obviously, the real appeal here is the go-carts. There are four twisty-turney tracks to choose from, where you can race head to head for the finish line at over 45 mph, and cars that can be driven alone by those 36 inches or taller. Those smaller than that can zoom around the tracks with the adults.

They are a good fifteen minutes from the Strip hotels, but your family will thank you on the drive back.

Opening Hours:

• Monday – Thursday | 11:00 am – 9:00 pm
• Friday | 11:00 am – 10:00 pm
• Saturday | 10:00 am – 10:00 pm
• Sunday | 10:00 am – 9:00 pm

7. Player One

We know, we know. It is unfair to sneak a 21+ arcade on the list. But hear me out: 50 beers on tap, more than 150 beers by the bottle and 40+ ciders as well, some of the best bar food we tried in Las Vegas, and then tons of old-school arcade games like Street Fighter 2, Stargate and Tekken. And my all-time favorite, Guitar Hero Arcade. I mean, come on! But wait, that isn’t even the best part; there are almost a dozen pinball games, all kinds of console games you can play from PS4 or Xbox One, going all the way back to Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis or the seminal Atari 2600.

All of that for an $8 cover. That’s right, unlimited play for just eight bucks. Only $5 if you are a Nevada resident. So, tell the little ones we’re sorry but we couldn’t not put Player 1 on our list of best arcades in Vegas.

Located a few miles off the strip on Maryland Parkway.

Opening Hours:

• Sunday – Thursday | 1:00 pm – 2:00 am
• Friday – Saturday | 1:00 pm – 5:00 am

Game Over

One thing to please remember is that these are places for you to hang out WITH your kids. Pretty much all arcades in Las Vegas require parents to be with children under the age of 18. These are NOT places where you can drop off your child while you go and play the slots. Thankfully, all of these arcades are as much fun for adults as they are for kids. Well, except for number 7…

Your Most Frequently Asked Questions

Have your hotel booked already and worried about entertaining the kids? Hopefully you’ll find the below FAQs helpful. Some of these can rival the best arcades in Las Vegas, anyway!

Looking for something similar? Check out our articles on the best Las Vegas shows, things to do in Las Vegas for free, Las Vegas spas, and 10 fun things to do with kids in Vegas.

Lead image: Prompart/Pixexid, CC BY 4.0

Casinos outsource payroll to the customer and so, from the valet runner when you arrive to the cashier who cashes you out when you leave, 80% of the staff you run across is going to be low paid and looking for a gratuity.

Not to worry though, we’re going to walk you through the who, why and when of casino tipping.

Tipping Upon Arrival

Valet runners are fast, efficient, and can save you a ton of walking.

Not everyone will choose to valet park, but for $2 or $5 when you pull in, to a few dollars when they pull your car back around, this is a gratuity that delivers real bang for the buck, especially on rainy or cold nights.

Just be aware that most valet departments without parking structures will pull their runners in when lightning is nearby.

If you’re staying at the hotel, bellmen can also be a great time saver.

A couple of dollars a bag, up to $10 or $20 for the entire luggage cart, will likely start your stay off on a much nicer footing then schlepping your bags up the elevator and down the hall to your room.

And of course, the quicker you’re settled in, the sooner you can make a beeline for the casino floor.

Tipping Your Slots Attendant

Slots are a relatively straightforward affair when it comes to tipping.

There’s some debate about tipping an attendant if they fix your machine, but if a dollar or two means they will be back quicker next time, what can it hurt?

In most US jurisdictions, any payout of more than $1,200 will be paid in person by a slot floor person. Tipping here starts at about $20 and goes up to between 3-10 percent of the jackpot, depending on the customer. More on this below.

If you call an attendant over to hold a machine while you use the restroom or for whatever reason, tips should be based on the length of time you’re gone.

This could range from a couple dollars up to $5 or even more if you’re gone for a bit.

If you’re likely to be gone for more than 5-10 minutes, just ask them to turn off the machine instead. You can always use the service button when you return to get it turned back on.

Tipping On A Hand Pay Jackpot

As mentioned above, any win above $1,200 will be a hand pay jackpot. The term hand pay is apt because that’s precisely what happens – the attendant will give you your winnings by hand.

This is because a win of this amount needs to be reported to the IRS for tax purposes. Your slot attendant will make sure they have all of the required information on file, deduct the appropriate taxes, and then come over and pay you your jackpot in cash.

Of course, on larger jackpots, you will have the option to take a check or put the money on deposit at the casino cage. This way you can access as much as you need without worrying about carrying all of that cash on you.

So, how much do you tip after winning a hand pay jackpot? Due to the time, personal interaction, and the expectation that you will want to be paid on time when your next jackpot hits, a minimum tip of $20 and up to 3% to 10% of the total is recommended.

Side note: Federal taxes are not generally withheld until the jackpot is over $5,000, so if you want them withheld on smaller amounts, be sure to ask.

Tipping At Table Games

Tipping in table games can be confusing.

There are many different schools of thoughts when it comes to tipping dealers, but it really comes down to whether you are having a good time. A pit boss isn’t allowed to accept tips.

A dealer is an entertainer first and dealer second. This isn’t someone pulling your car around or bringing you a drink.

Tipping here isn’t about a service being provided (or at least not directly), this is about entertainment value.

Yes, if a dealer gives you a straight flush on Mississippi Stud or a 30-minute roll on the dice table, you absolutely should take care of them, but even that should be within the context of whether you had a good time.

A dealer should always make sure you leave smiling, even if you lost. If you’ve enjoyed playing at their table, then it’s time to tip the dealer.

We will discuss different tipping situations in more detail, but at the end of the day, the service you are tipping for is customer service, and if they deliver that they deserve that little extra.

Tipping Your Blackjack Dealer

Tipping in blackjack can be done by handing chips directly to the dealer or by placing a bet in front of yours.

Most folks prefer to make a bet for the dealer because they feel like it keeps the dealer rooting for them and gives them a stake in seeing them win.

On lower limit tables, maybe a few dollars after every blackjack, or if you’ve won several hands in a row.

On higher limit $25 and up games, the $5 dollar chips would be a better choice.

Most blackjack games have some sort of side bet now, and if you were to hit one of these, something like 3-10% would be in order.

It’s not required, but if you split or double your bet and have a bet for the dealer, it’s good form to make those bets for the dealer as well.

Tipping Your Roulette Dealer

In roulette, the bet for the dealer can be offset on top of the chips you are betting to let the dealer know it’s for them, or you can simply hand it in.

Tell them which number you wish to bet, and that this bet is for them.

Another common form of tipping in roulette is simply to hand in some of your chips, perhaps 5%, when you are done and coloring up.

Roulette is a game where some people work the dealer much more than others. If you’re simply making outside bets and placing them yourself, perhaps you don’t need to tip as frequently.

But if before every spin you are asking the dealer to place 10 or 12 bets for you, or are stacking up chips on corners, splits and straight ups, more frequent tipping may assure more cooperation.

Tipping Your Craps Dealer

Most dice players simply hand in chips when they are done playing. This doesn’t slow down the game and makes things a bit smoother.

But some dice players like to keep the dealers in action as a form of good luck.

On the come out roll, you may hear: “$5 Yo for me and a dollar for the dealers.” This means the player will win $75 dollars if the 11 rolls and the dealers will win $15.

Much more than any other game, you will hear dice players say “I’m in control” in reference to a dealer bet that they have placed.

So, in our above example, if the player said: “Dollar for the dealer, I’m in control,” then the player would decide what to do with a winning wager, perhaps parlaying it to a $16 Yo or telling the dealers to drop the $15 in winnings but leave the dollar up for the next roll.

Some craps players will give the dealers a six or eight or maybe all the numbers as a tip.

If that number wins, the dealers win, and if the player has said he’s in control, then he will decide whether to press, parlay or drop the winnings when they hit.

If you’re new to the game, try and find a slower game with fewer people.

Tell the dealer you’re learning and ask about tipping while you’re there. They will be certain to help.

Tipping Your Baccarat Dealer

Tipping in baccarat is much the same, the majority of players tip when they are coloring up.

Some will bet for the dealer on individual hands by placing a chip in front of either their player or banker bet, or sometimes the tie bet.

Most baccarat tables now have some type of side bet, and when hitting a decent payout on one of these, most players will tip 3-5%.

Tipping In Carnival Games

Carnival games such as Mississippi Stud, Three Card Poker, Ultimate Texas Hold’em and even Pai-Gow Poker are always problematic, mainly because for the first time, we have the chance of hitting a taxable jackpot.

Filling out tax forms for the 100+ dealers splitting the jackpot isn’t something the casinos are going to entertain.

So, on many carnival games, betting for the dealer on a single hand is prohibited. You can give the dealer their tip when you leave the table or hand in a tip after a winning hand.

You can get around this in some cases by placing the bet offset for the dealer on top of your bet.

Should you hit a taxable jackpot, the chip is still considered yours, and the taxes will be taken out in your name, at which point you can just give the dealer their share.

This won’t always work, due to many of the bets on these games having a strict bet of just one dollar, or just five dollars. In most states, a payout becomes taxable at 300 to 1 AND $600 or more.

But this also varies from state to state and tribe to tribe so, as in craps, your best bet is to ask the dealer and they will walk you through the individual casino’s rules for tipping on these tables.

Do Casino Dealers Keep Their Tips?

Most US casino dealers initially earn between $4.35 to $9.00 per hour, and casinos expect the customers to make up the rest.

But in almost all casinos, dealers pool their tips. They don’t keep their own. There are many reasons, but the heart of it is to avoid the dealer feeling like they would be penalized financially for dealing difficult games, and make more when dealing very simple games. This wouldn’t be in the casino’s best interest.

Tipping Your Cocktail Servers

Casinos wouldn’t be half the fun without beverage servers.

Your hard-working server will bring you drinks, give you a smile and encouragement, and just generally make your gaming experience better.

One of the dirty little secrets of the casino business is that these hard-working folks are paid $2.15 an hour. Many can work years and not see their base pay go over $3.

In about half of USA casinos, drinks are free for those actively gaming, in the other half there will be some nominal charge.

Either way, you should tip a minimum $1 and preferably $2 for each drink, whether it’s alcoholic or not. And then feel free to go higher for great service and customer care.

I mean after all, you want these folks coming back by.

Tipping At The Cage

The cage is where you cash out your chips at the end of the evening. Throughout most casinos in the States, this will also be the players’ club area where you get your players’ club card.

90% or more of these casinos will have an offer for new players signing up, so make sure you swing by this area and get a players card and see what is offered if you don’t already have one.

They also help set up credit lines or can get you cash off your credit card.

Most transactions in this area won’t require a gratuity, but in some rare cases such as cashing out a big win, or a wire transfer, or something equally time consuming, perhaps a small tip should be considered.

Tipping Your Casino Host

Not all casino hosts can accept cash tips, and in some rare cases, even gifts are frowned on. But in most casinos, you can bring your host a small gift or cash tip, though it’s best to be discreet. Place it inside an envelope or card, or use a gift card if cash is not allowed.

While it is unlikely that a host will over-comp you just because of some small gratuity, showing them that you appreciate their time and attention is always a good idea.

The amount to tip a host will depend heavily on what they do for you. If they got you a room, that might be a $20 gift card, but if they flew you out, set you up for three nights of dinner reservations, and then found you tickets to see U2 at the Sphere, well, that’s a whole different level of tipping.

Tipping At Restaurants

When dining out either at the casino or nearby restaurants, tipping etiquette in America is 10-25% of the cost of the meal, including drinks.

Again, the majority of these folks aren’t making even minimum wage, but some tip adjusted version of it.

As in all these situations, customer service is everything.

Tipping Taxis And Such

If you need to take a taxi, especially in Las Vegas, look for a taxi stand.

It’s illegal for Vegas taxis to accept hailed fairs, so no flagging down one on your own on the Strip.

10% of the fare is a good baseline starting place. Uber or Lyft should be treated the same as taxi drivers.

Tipping Etiquette In America And The Rest Of The World

As you can see, tipping in American casinos can be a wallet draining exercise, and is quite a different experience than in most of the world.

Tipping in UK casinos was illegal until quite recently. And in most European casinos tipping is still quite rare, or at least discreet.

Even Macau doesn’t have a tipping culture, and many of the tips are appropriated by the managers.

Only in the Caribbean will you find an American model of low paid staff and an expectation of a gratuity-filled evening.

But remember the staff are working hard to make sure you have a memorable and fun-filled adventure so in most cases a couple bucks, a smile and a bit of understanding will go a long, long way.

If you are not counting cards, deck penetration will mean very little to you or the house’s advantage over you. But for card counters, it’s probably second only behind ensuring that blackjack pays 3 to 2 and not 6 to 5 when deciding on what game to play. 

Blackjack games where more cards can be seen can often overcome the small bumps to house advantage from slightly bad rules. Most players would prefer a double-deck game with a half deck cut off and dealer hit soft 17, rather than dealer stands on all 17s and an entire deck cut off.

Of course, it’s a bit more nuanced than that, but deck penetration is crucial to finding a beatable game, and casinos know this. However, due to a combination of greed and complacency, many Las Vegas casinos still offer good penetration from 1/2 to 2/3 of a deck cut off on a double deck to around just a deck on a six-deck shoe.

Changes for the Better?

The card counting community has mostly accepted the erosion of advantageous house rules over the years; from the slight shrug when Split Aces only got one card to the foretelling of the apocalypse when 6 to 5 blackjack was first introduced, there has been pushback but also a jaded sense of resignation to the golden rule. The one with enough gold to buy the casino gets to make the rules.

But deck penetration is one of those things that hasn’t changed for the worse in the post-Beat the Dealer world. I would argue, though with nothing more than my own recollection, that deck penetration has improved slightly from the late 80s until now.

Recent game reports from both downtown Las Vegas and the Strip show double-deck games where 75% of the cards are being dealt out or where individual dealers may cut less than a deck off of a six-deck shoe; sometimes, even in casinos that have notches in their shoes to show where the cut card should go.

Profit VS Protection

This largesse from the casino is mainly driven by profit motives and not the goodness of their hearts. Casinos make money off the house advantage and the number of hands dealt or slot machines buttons pushed. Shuffling without a machine can take anywhere from a minute to over two on a six-deck table, depending on the dealer and the house shuffle.

With an average of 2.7 cards used in a blackjack hand, times seven spots plus the dealer on a busy Saturday night, we are looking at 22 cards dealt out each round. With five decks or about 260 cards in action, we might see about 12 hands dealt on a full table before it’s time to shuffle. If only four decks are dealt out, we will only see nine, maybe ten.

Many casinos have gone to using shuffle machines that cut down on this wasted time but still getting six decks put in the machine, another six taken out and cut and placed into the shoe is still a lost opportunity, and the public has generally turned their nose up at the continuous shufflers. On top of that, these machines, and more importantly, their maintenance, is costly, especially when multiplied by dozens or even a hundred tables or more.

This is a small disparity of several fewer hands per hour for each table, but again multiplied by every table in a large casino, times 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it’s millions of dollars and the driving factor in why casinos have either left the cut card placement alone or in many cases given even deeper penetration then they did a decade or so ago.

Many consultants and casino managers like Bill Zender have long argued that casinos lose vastly more money to misplaced cut cards and the resulting loss of hands per hour than they would ever lose to card counters, and as surveillance networks and software to spot and remove counters has improved, many casinos have relented and moved the cut card further back in the deck to capture more revenue.

Crucial Cut

Deck penetration is of vital importance because the whole point of counting cards is reaching a point where the balance of remaining high cards to low has allowed us the ability, either through an increased bet or varied play or usually both, where we can gain an advantage over the house.

The number of high cards relative to low, divided by the remaining decks, is the true count. We have to divide by the remaining decks to understand our advantage because if an infinite number of decks were used, we would have no benefit, no matter how high the running count went. We need to understand that the standard deviation of the true count will be much higher as we see more of the cards remaining.

The higher true count in situations where we have very few cards remaining, say maybe 25 or 30 cards remaining at the end of a well-cut double deck with a true count of +4, means we can be much more confident that this imbalance of high cards to low will most likely give us the advantage. But no amount of remaining high cards will help us if they remain behind the cut card.

In situations where more cards are dealt, the true count swings much more wildly. Don Schlesinger in Blackjack Attack indicated that in a game where two decks are cut off a six-deck shoe vs. just one, the number of times the true count will reach +4 almost doubles, and the number of times we can expect to see a true count of +6 nearly triples.

Used To Our Advantage

This means we will have more opportunities to place large bets in shoes with 80% penetration and use Schlesinger’s’ Illustrious 18 or other variations to the basic strategy that can help move the odds in our favor. It also gives us the opportunity to Wong in and out much more profitably due to the number of times the true count reaches +2.

It also means we can more easily weather some minor changes in blackjack rules like dealer hits soft 17. Still, the most essential opportunity it presents is that good penetration can help us play longer.

 In an age of nonstop surveillance and evaluations of blackjack play, it can help us keep spreads down to a more manageable ten-to-one instead of fifteen-to-one or allow us to play more hands at something other than a flat bet. As counts go wildly negative, we can sit out with less concern that we will need to come back in, allowing for more natural cover like telephone or bathroom breaks. And in the right conditions, deeper penetration allows wonging or team play that just isn’t as profitable with less penetration.

Spreads can be kept much tighter in double-deck games, and index use and cover can be significantly enhanced. Spreading of more hands, especially when playing with a partner, may allow even deeper penetration on favorable decks.

Gift Horse Or Trojan Horse?

For the first time in a very long time, one of the most critical conditions required to count cards successfully turns slightly in the player’s favor. But make no mistake, the casinos are very aware of the increased exposure.

The saying “pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered” is probably quite apt in this instance. The casinos are more comfortable with deeper deck penetration only because they are more and more successful in spotting and removing counters. A Las Vegas strip property giving you 80 cards out of a double deck is not an invitation to spread $25 to $500 and split 10s the first time the true count hits +5.

Use any newfound advantages in penetration to burrow deeper and hide in plain sight. No amount of increased EV (expected value) will mean anything once you’ve been backed off, and every casino in town has your picture.

Image credit: Dusan Kipic via Unsplash

They attempt to add a layer of skill to allow the machine to exist in a sort of a legal grey area that has been well-plied by its predecessors that are as diverse as Skeeball, Pachinko, and even the type three gaming devices/bingo card slots once favored by American Indian Tribes before the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

Instead of flippers, or steel balls and pegs, today’s “skill” based machines are typically tests of memory, aka the Simon game from the late 70s or Shoot’em style affairs that reward you on targets hit before time runs out. While often entertaining, these bonus rounds have minimal effect on your long-term return to player (RTP), the amount you typically get back after each play.

What’s Old Is New Again

In some states like Nevada, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Illinois, actual slot machines/VGTs can be found in various other venues other than just land-based casinos. Depending on the state, they can be found in gas stations, truck stops, restaurants, bars, and even ice cream shops.

These are all licensed and monitored by the state. They will need to meet some RTP minimum that the state and the operators have agreed upon is mutually beneficial to the gamblers and the operators. They will be inspected and taxed by the state’s gaming authority.

In contrast, states like Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia, Florida, and Kentucky have seen a slew of gas station slots or unregulated skill games installed not only in gas stations but VFWs and the local pizza parlor and, in some extreme cases, entire storefronts at the local mini-mall.

More importantly, these are not regulated and do not disclose their RTP to players. They also are not inspected by the state or licensed in any way and can sometimes be subject to seizure by local authorities.

Pennsylvania, in particular, has been quite adamant about raiding skill machine locations, though some recent court losses may slow them down a bit. In contrast, Florida and Georgia have seen a much more tepid police response, often only driven by other crimes like drugs or sex work.

New Set of Skills

What this latest generation of gambling devices brings that the old skeeball parlors in Atlantic City or the pinball arcades of Chicago didn’t have is technology. It’s quite common now that these machines have player card readers and a sophisticated back-of-house player management program.

These cards can then be tied to email campaigns and specialized offers for high rollers. In many cases, they offer some of the same perks seen in a traditional casino players club, such as coupons for drinks or food, discounts on gas or other services provided by the sponsoring merchants, or even cash back or free play.

In addition, companies like Paceomatic, one of the largest suppliers of skill-based machines in the country, offer state-of-the-art cash management systems, encrypted ticket, and ticket redemption services, and route management systems, that do much of the bookkeeping and avoid much of the skimming that these operations saw just a decade or two ago.

This increased profitability and newly available options to spur customer loyalty have enabled operators that embrace technology to see a dramatic boost in business and increased the interest of others in opening yet even more locations.

Looming Legality

The odds of a Cossack vs. City of LA type of legal case where the California Supreme Court in 1974 found that Pinball was predominately a game of chance was never very likely in the case of these “skill” type games. They inhabit a much more legal gray area than Pinball ever did.

Instead, it’s been a bitter, protracted legal quagmire often fought in County and Circuit courts of individual states. Pennsylvania’s Liquor Control Board has seized hundreds of these machines in the past decade but has lost in cases in at least four county courts where judges have upheld these machines as games of skill and ordered the machines returned.

In Florida, there seems to be much less luck in branding these machines as games of skill, and most court cases end in the destruction of machines, though not always criminal charges. They are much more likely to act only when other laws are broken. But the proliferation of these machines will likely lead to increased enforcement action as thousands of machines are added to locations yearly.

Georgia has a grayer than most set of laws around skill slot machines. In a sort of love-hate relationship, they have a legal route through the Georgia Lottery Commission to possess and offer these machines in some locations. Still, they can only pay out in discounts or lottery tickets. However, in just the first half of 2023, they seized more than 500 of these machines from route operator Lucky Bucks for various perceived infractions, forcing them into bankruptcy. Meanwhile, skill slots not operated by the GLC continue to flourish.

These are just a few examples of the various state travails with gas station slots’ menace. As they continue their slow march across the south and east, there will most certainly be more legal flair-ups, especially as states like Virginia act to protect the golden egg that is their new casinos and as states like North Carolina carefully weigh the options to all of that money being bet out of state.

In the meantime, the Skill slot machine operators’ approach is that they will be as pernicious and stubborn as possible while hoping that the various state’s constant need for revenue will eventually allow them a possible legal route to taxation and acceptance.

But Should I Play Gas Station Slots?

Unregulated and unlicensed slots without published payback are not a great use of your gambling dollar. That being said, some manufacturers and operators are owning up to a much more responsible product than others.

If you can’t resist the siren song of a slot machine just a few blocks away, at least educate yourself on the manufacturer and their response to calls for regulation. Companies that clearly focus on a long-term future and champion increased oversight and taxation are less likely to sell a product with a substantial built-in player disadvantage.

They are also more likely to produce a product that has a bit more of that skill baked into the gameplay, though again, don’t expect that to be more than four or five percent of your total return. Also, you should closely evaluate the various offers and perks offered to see if they can help offset some of the costs associated with not being exactly sure how much of an advantage these slot machines have.

Practice, Practice, Practice?

What if you wanted to buy a slot machine for your home so that you could practice the skill round and potentially up your winnings? As mentioned, the skill round plays a very small part in the house advantage against you, but it raises another interesting legal question.

Are skill-based slots legal to own in your home if not used for gambling, and is this a way around the rules and regulations some 38 states have on slot machines displayed for personal use? About ten states ban slot machines outright, and the remaining ones generally require that slot machines be at least twenty-five years old before you can buy them for your home, but could the skill-based slots be a way of getting newer and slicker machines to slate your gambling desires without leaving home?

That is a question for a lawyer to answer, but we can tell you that most of the machine manufacturers we talked with were open to personal sales regardless of location. In contrast, others only sell large bulk orders to distributors or even lease the machines in return for a percent of the win.

In many cases, the casino usually just needs more information, like a current ID, to pay you. Or perhaps your name is on a state watch list of people that the state believes owes it money and the casino will either hold the money or turn it over to the state while you get the matter straightened out.

More rarely, there will be questions about whether the slot or table games winnings are legitimate. Disputes like these are often moderated by the individual state or tribes’ gaming commission. And sometimes, the casino will just be unable to pay you, for instance, if you’re underage or have filled out self-exclusion paperwork that prohibits you from even being in the casino.

Keep reading for the reasons why a casino might refuse to payout.

Valid Identification

You must be of legal age in the state where you play. Just because you can gamble at 18 back home doesn’t mean the casino you are playing in now will have those same age requirements.

I still remember a 19-year-old who hit the Wheel of Fortune progressive at Caesar’s in the late 1980s on the Las Vegas strip. Instead of going home with a million dollars, he went home empty-handed. And while the casino received a lot of bad publicity even in the international press, and even though it was a valid jackpot, Nevada law wouldn’t allow them to pay.

We’ve probably all forgotten to renew our IDs at least once. But Federal law will require a valid ID on slot Jackpots of more than $1200 and table game cash-outs of more than $10,000. In fact, in most states, it’s illegal to even be on the casino floor without a valid ID due to casinos wishing to keep out those on exclusion lists.

If you’ve left your identification at home or if you forgot to renew and your id is expired, even by as much as one minute past midnight on the expiry day, the casino will place your money on hold at the cage and be unable to pay you until you present valid identification.

This is not, as many players make it out to be, about not knowing who you are but about the unambiguous letter of the law. You may have been at that casino every day for a year, and you may have had 100 hand pays leading up to this one, but without a valid unexpired ID, the casino cannot pay you.

Gambling Intercept Program

The official Gambling Intercept program is a Federal/Tribal/State partnership that collects gambling winnings from those on a list that owe child support. More than a dozen states participate, as well as numerous tribal casinos.

This often piggybacks on state laws that also intercept winnings if you owe income taxes and, in some states, various other fees or fines. The program is wildly successful, diverting millions in states that employ it from the pockets of winning gamblers to the various revenue departments that purport to pay it out to those who are owed support.

As might be expected of government lists with millions of names, this program has its problems. Your name is run through the database once you hit a $1200 jackpot or its table game equivalent.

 But these databases often need to be updated or corrected. This can be infuriating if you’ve recently paid off what you owed, only to find the state or federal government has seized your winnings anyway.

It’s important to understand that this is not the casino’s doing. Once again, they operate under a set of rules and laws that they must follow. And they certainly won’t be able to bend those laws no matter what paperwork or documents you may have on hand to prove your case. These disputes will need to be settled with the State or Tribe, not the casino.

Nevada does not participate in the Gambling Intercept Program, at least as of 2023. Casinos there have argued that onerous restrictions on a state with so many gaming licenses will be a burden to implement. In particular, they’ve called on the state to demonstrate that it can build a secure and error-free database before requiring its use.

The Self-Exclusion List

The self-exclusion list is another state-sponsored program to help alleviate some of the ills that come with legal casinos. It’s simply a way for people needing help staying out of casinos to be placed on a list and not allowed in.

Each state handles them a little differently. But you will generally have the option to place yourself on there for a shorter period, say one year or perhaps five years, or you can ask the state or, in some cases, the Tribe to permanently bar you.

This is usually a last-ditch effort by problem gamblers to have the casinos help these at-risk players to help themselves. But it does have legal repercussions and teeth. First, if you’re found inside a casino, you will be trespassed and, in future incidents, maybe even arrested. Obviously, if you hit a jackpot while on the exclusion list, you will not be paid, and the state will take your winnings.

But a second, less obvious, outcome is that many multijurisdictional casino companies may bar you from all their properties. If you’re on the exclusion list with an MGM property in Massachusetts, it is unlikely that you will be allowed to play at an MGM property in Las Vegas. It may not become evident until you have already hit a taxable event, thus stopping the casino from paying you.

Generally, however, the casino will place a note on your account at all affected properties, so if you attempt to use your player’s card, it should become clear whether you’ve been banned or not. If you are on an exclusion list in one state and have doubts, contacting the casino you will be playing at in the other state is probably best to alleviate any concerns.

The Dreaded Machine Malfunction

Sometimes slot machines decide to do their own thing and can show a jackpot or a large number of credits that simply never happened. The stated win or jackpot will often far exceed the top prize on that slot machine.

This is usually what the slot community calls a display error. That means it’s telling you on the screen that you’ve won something you haven’t. One of the most common errors seen multiple times over the years is the $42,949,672.96 win.

A line of code that probably has been used over and over in different types of machines can, under the right conditions, trigger a “win” of 2 to the 32^nd power, which is 42,949,67,296. This error can look slightly different depending on the denomination you’re playing.  

But if you haven’t seen any of the jackpot symbols or the top jackpot on your machine is just a few thousand dollars and your machine is trying to tell you that you suddenly have forty-two million credits, you should probably be prepared for the casino not to be willing to pay you.

Some of the older slots in casinos still use electro-mechanical reels. The reels spin, but the computer tells them where to stop. Occasionally as with most things mechanical, they don’t do what they’re supposed to.

Sometimes this is just old-fashioned wear and tear; other times, it can be something as silly as the slot repair person not putting the reels back in the correct order, but if your reels appear to have landed a jackpot, but your machine isn’t registering it, or vice versa be prepared for the possibility that this will be a malfunction that won’t be paid.

While obviously upsetting, courts around the country have ruled over and over that “malfunctions void all play.” So, while hiring a lawyer may sound like an option, it will probably fail to get your money back.

The Iowa Supreme Court even went so far as to rule that any indications on the machine that you were due some sum was just a “gratuitous promise” and that failure to pay an amount displayed that was shown to be incorrect was not, therefore, a breach of contract. Which, sadly, sums up case law on this topic.

Can Somebody Else Claim Your Winnings?

Sometimes when people realize they’ve left their ID at home or perhaps they’ve hit a large jackpot and just now thought about the child support they should have been paying for the past twelve years, they might be tempted to have someone else claim their jackpot.

Do not do this. It’s a crime; in many states, it’s a felony. Having a hard-earned jackpot garnished is bad, but it’s not worth going to jail. All jackpots over $1200 will be verified by surveillance. There is zero percent chance that you will get away with it.

Conclusion

Casinos want to pay you. They are legally required to pay you, and it’s in their best interest to avoid bad publicity. But they will follow the law exactly. Most of the reasons why a casino may not be able to pay you are easily remedied.

Have a proper, valid ID showing you are of age for that venue, be aware of any garnishments or levies that might have been filed against you, and be mindful that if you are on a self-exclusion list in one state that it may follow you to other jurisdictions.

These steps will remove most of the reasons why a casino may not be able to pay you, and in the rare instance where a machine has gone rogue, it’s best to think of that “win” as more of a gratuitous promise.

In this article, we take a look at the Casino Pit boss and outline exactly what the job involves.

What is a Casino Pit Boss?

Today a pit boss’s job has evolved and sometimes been replaced by technology. When they can still be found, the folks who still run entire pits or some numbers of pits are referred to as pit managers or floor managers. But just like the recessed floor areas or pits that often held table games in days past so that they could be easily viewed and attract the eye of curious gamblers, pit bosses are a dying breed.

While often confused by casual gamblers with the floor people or box men who run small sections of table games or even just one crap table, a proper pit manager job will entail overseeing at least a number of these subordinate supervisors, or in some cases many of them.

While the portrayal of pit bosses in older TV and movies as all-powerful princes of their own table game kingdoms may have had some tiny bit of truth in real life, today’s pit managers are much more bureaucrats than royalty, overseeing casino complementaries, issuance of credit and markers, dealer’s table assignments and breaks, and often handling guest service complaints and lapses.

Other casino supervisory staff

Floor supervisors are a step down the org chart but often also wear business attire instead of dealer uniforms and are thus conflated in the public eye with the pit managers. Other than a quick job description blurb on a name tag, telling them apart can take a lot of work.

But a floor person will generally be assigned to just four or possibly six games and should, in practice, always stay in that designated area. They will take your player’s card, ensure you are rated correctly on the computer, closely monitor the dealer, interact with them, and acknowledge them when they call out cash buy-ins and color-ups.

Craps box people, or even ladder men, are supervisors one more step down the org chart. They watch just one crew of dealers on one assigned table. In the case of a box person, they sit at a craps table and closely monitor the four assigned dealers and their payouts, wagers, and speed of their game. In the case of a ladder man, they do the same but with an assigned Big Baccarat or Chemin De fer game.

Technology is changing the Pit Boss role

Over the last thirty years, many of the functions of a pit boss have become automated. The issuance of comps was once a gut feeling after checking over someone’s play for the day on manual rating cards. Today a computer will dissect that player’s profitability in a dozen different ways to let someone know if that play warrants a free buffet or a night in the hotel.

Issuing markers for players, a type of credit extended by the casino to higher net-worth gamblers, was once a time-consuming job that required phone calls and rustling through logs of payouts and payments. Today most of that is also handled by computers, and markers are typically approved by the floor people in a matter of seconds.

Example: Cameras and automatic detection

Pit bosses were often expected to have years or even decades of casino game protection experience, not only able to count cards but spot a cheat while also chatting up a cocktail waitress, using the mirrors often used as ceilings in the old Las Vegas pits.

These mirrors allowed well-positioned managers to watch dealers from behind or several table games away to ensure they weren’t flashing cards or capping bets. They also often were two-way mirrors with the very first surveillance agents behind them, looking down on the tables as well.

Cameras with 240x zoom and special sensors to detect ultraviolet daub have replaced all of those mirrored ceilings and many of those pit bosses. And now, with the ability to be tied into facial recognition software and AI that looks for cheating patterns and moves, the need for long years of experience and specialized knowledge of casino scams has fallen away.

Other Pit Boss responsibilities

Another crucial function of Pit Bosses that the casual gambler often overlooks is the intricate dance of placing the right dealer on the right table at the right time. If a dice game is blowing out (losing a lot of money quickly), it’s quite likely that the casino will send one or more new dealers to that game.

Contrary to popular belief, the casino isn’t looking to change the luck of the game with these new dealers; they want their fastest, most skilled dealers on that table to ensure that the games are dealt quickly and accurately, knowing that over time their house advantage will bring everything back in line.

And this goes on across the entire casino floor all the time. Dealers are moved, sorted, sent home early as games begin to close, or replaced by new dealers starting a new shift, and sometimes sent to high-action games to ensure that procedures, pace, and proper game protection occur.

Complicating this more is the fact that a casino might have ten or more different types of casino games, and only some dealers will deal every type, let alone deal each type as proficiently as the next. Great dice dealers are very seldom great baccarat dealers, and while everyone on the casino floor should deal blackjack, not all of them will deal it equally well or have the personality to deal with some high rollers.

Knowing what every one of a hundred dealers deal and whether they can be trusted in highly stressful situations to deal with it well is one of those things that neither computers nor even AI have yet to master.

But many casinos, in their rush to eradicate pit bosses, have turned to pencils. A pencil is just the title for someone who moves the dealers about the floor or sends them home as needed. They do a very special subset of the job that pit bosses used to do, but they do it more economically.

Pit Boss positions in the 21^st century

Like many middle management positions, the job of pit boss has slowly been turned over to other departments, computers, underlings like floor supervisors, or folks that will do a piece of the job for less.

But in those casinos that still have them, today’s pit managers still play a vital role, almost like a project manager, in tying many different parts and skill sets into one problem-solving solution. They still need to possess a range of knowledge not only about table games but now also about computers, databases, customer service, surveillance solutions, and even human resources and labor law.

The title may have changed, and the needs of the jobs may be different; there are certainly a lot fewer of them, but people who can oversee a busy casino floor and its many-faceted wants and needs are like a ship’s captain. They will always be in demand.

But while Sin City may seem carefree and wild, there are a lot of rules just under the surface, and probably the biggest one of them all is that you must be twenty-one to gamble in Las Vegas or, for that matter, the rest of Nevada. This is a state law that you will find strictly enforced.

Roughly nine other States allow persons 18 and up to gamble, depending on how you want to define it. But in Nevada, whether it’s online gaming or sports betting, horse racing, the lottery, or walking into one of those legendary gambling halls on the Strip, you must be 21 to place a bet.

Gambling Law: “21 to Bet” Means 21 To Bet

The Nevada Gaming Commission issues licenses to different types of establishments, from the local Circle K to Bellagio, allowing them to offer gambling in its many forms. But in return, both the Commission and the Nevada Gaming Control Board expect that license holders will abide by the many laws and regulations they have put in place to protect the integrity and public perception of the gaming industry.

This is a duty that the Gaming Commission takes extremely seriously, leveling six-figure fines against casinos for allowing minors to gamble and, in many cases threatening to revoke licenses unless the casinos put better security in place. And this then spills over into tighter and tighter ID checkpoints and rules about minors on the casino floor or near gaming devices.

Casinos aren’t the only ones who can be prosecuted. NRS 463.350 makes gambling under 21 in a Nevada casino a misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months in jail and up to a $1000 fine. You will almost certainly spend the night in jail and face hefty legal bills if you get caught, which might not even be the worst of it.

Several underage gamblers have won 1 million dollars plus jackpots only to forfeit them for being underage. There is no Mr. Papagiorgio ID that will fool trained Las Vegas security staff for very long. Still, if you were lucky enough to get in and then hit the jackpot, the Know Your Customer regulations that are in place will quickly discover even the best fake ID.

I’m Under 21. What Can I Do In Las Vegas?

If you’re coming to Las Vegas but are not 21 yet, all is not lost. There are still a ton of amazing things to do. And if you do your research, you will find that you can even rent hotel rooms and rental cars, though there are some hoops to jump through.

Most major strip hotels will also be off-limits if you need a hotel room. But downtown, the Golden Nugget still takes 18 and up and is a blast. Right in the middle of all the craziness of Fremont Street, this is a hotel you should book even when you are old enough to go somewhere else.

The two best slightly off-Strip properties for the younger crowd are at Westgate or the Tuscany. Our preference is Tuscany due to the laid-back vibe, interesting customer base, and cheaper rooms. Their small casino only has electronic table games, but the minimum bet is just a few dollars.

Music, Music, and More Music

You’ve got a home base and a way to get around; now what? Well, one of the largest draws for Las Vegas is concerts. And while some Las Vegas residency-type concerts are for those over 21, the vast majority of music in the city is for 18 years old and up. On top of that, some of the best music festivals in the country are held right here.

If you’ve never heard of the Electronic Daisy Carnival, I urge you to google some images and say that doesn’t look like a good time. There is also the I-heart music festival, When We Were Young, Life Is Beautiful, and dozens of others.

So, whether it’s Taylor Swift at Allegiant Stadium or DeadMau5 at the Las Vegas Events Center, this city always has great live music. Get out there and enjoy it.

Neon Paseo

A nighttime stroll through the Fremont experience downtown, or along the 4-mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard affectionately known as the Strip, should be a requirement for every visitor. The sights, the sounds, and the people watching are all world-class here.

There’s an energy that is impossible to miss, especially along the Strip after dark. I suppose the best way to describe it is ‘possibility’. The sense that anything can happen and just might. Well, that and the persistent smell of weed from all the folks who ignore the laws about smoking it in public.

And while the laws may not allow you to gamble in these casinos, you can still wander through many of them, though others may require you to have someone over 21 with you or even require that that person be a parent or legal guardian.

The easiest way is to ask security if you can walk through. They will let you know the individual casino’s rules about minors crossing the gaming floor. Another note is that Las Vegas has a curfew, and while not strictly enforced, those under 18 are supposed to be off the Strip and away from downtown by 9 pm.

The security guard will remind you that there is no loitering, so keep moving through, but you will be able to take a good look around at the inside of some of the priciest and best-known buildings in the world, all while having all your senses assaulted in a way that only Vegas can.

Take our advice and go for a late-night ramble. You’ll never look at this city the same again.

Outdoor Paradise

Las Vegas is surrounded by natural beauty that very few of the 40 million visitors a year will ever see. Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire, Mt Charleston, and Lake Mead are all within about an hour’s drive.

Mt Charleston is like an entirely different ecosystem due to being 7100 feet above sea level. You can skiboard here in the winter, and in the summer, it can be 25 degrees cooler than downtown Las Vegas. The hiking and camping here are first-class, especially in the fall.

Lake Mead has had its ups and downs. Literally. The water levels in Lake Mead have fluctuated  200 feet or more over the past several decades, but one thing is certain: the water skiing, ziplining, and houseboat parties on the Lake have stayed at full blast.

Red Rock Canyon has amazing waterfalls if you time your trip right, and don’t miss the 3,000-year-old Native American rock drawings and carvings. It’s only 30 minutes from the Airport, but it feels like a thousand miles and a thousand years away.

Valley of Fire has some of the most unusual rock formations you will ever see. The red sandstone has been carved by wind and water into arches, towers, and ripply waves. The most famous are the Seven Sisters, a group of towers standing eerily along the roadway, or the Natural Arch, also conveniently located just off one of the spurs for easy photo taking.

What Happens In Vegas…

You don’t have to be over 21 to make a lifetime of memories here. There are so many options for fun that don’t involve gambling; we’ve only touched the surface. There are arcades and roller coasters, mob or neon museums, go-cart rides, and skydiving excursions. There are even major league hockey and football teams here, with a major league baseball team on the way if you want to catch a game.

Age is just a number when it comes to seeing Las Vegas and all it has to offer.

That being said, many casinos frown on moving your bet with the count, and being private businesses, they have every right to remove you from the floor and trespass you from the property. This is actually a two-edged sword, as the surveillance department will then send your picture out to many other properties. Most properties will then ask you to leave often before you’ve even made your first bet.

Can I get in trouble if caught?

What can and does get players arrested, especially after a couple of drinks, is not complying with security. If you find yourself in the unenviable position of being “walked”, don’t say anything and don’t touch anyone.

This isn’t the movies, they aren’t going to take you upstairs just to throw you down them. They just want to get you colored up and out the door with the least aggravation. But… should you touch one of them or perhaps even say something a bit hastily that you will regret in the morning, you will quickly find yourself on the floor in handcuffs with the police on their way.

In some cases, you might not even be asked to leave. Casinos have long ago discovered that just because you are attempting to count cards doesn’t mean that you are actually very good at it. Most novice card counters lose at the same rate as regular gamblers.

Casinos don’t have the people or the patience to watch your play for long, so they’ll ask you not to play blackjack anymore, or sometimes any table games, and leave you to the slots and video poker on the off chance you’re a degenerate gambler who happens to know a bit about card counting.

What Is Card Counting, And Why Isn’t It Illegal In Las Vegas?

Card counting isn’t some sort of mental gymnastics that requires a Ph.D. It’s just keeping track of the high cards and low cards and betting more when there are lots of high cards. But this only works as the house advantage on Blackjack is quite low.

When casinos change the rules in their favor, you’ll need to bet more when the number of high cards are in your favor to overcome the new house odds. And some rule changes, like only paying 6/5 on blackjacks, are very difficult to overcome.

Using what cards have already been dealt to inform your betting and playing strategy is perfectly legal, but only when done without mechanical or electronic aid. People like Ken Uston built wearable computers as far back as the 1970s to try and beat the game. But the courts made clear that while using your brain was fine, outside aid wasn’t.

An interesting aside is that the Nevada Supreme Court has also found that using a dealer’s exposed hole card to inform your decisions isn’t illegal if you can see it unaided and, of course, the dealer isn’t showing it to you as an act of collusion.

Some things that will get you arrested include switching cards, adding/subtracting from your bet after the cards are dealt, using a computer or a phone to aid your play, using devices like a prism or camera to catch the dealer’s hole card, any sort of collusion with the dealer such as being overpaid on purpose or the dealer flashing you the next card before it’s dealt.

A Brief History Of Beatings and Blackjack In Las Vegas

When Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo Hilton in 1946, the population of Las Vegas was around twenty thousand. The mob would run this backward western town for the next three decades. By 1980 when most of the mob influence was on the wane, the town had grown to a metro-size area of over 500,000.

As early as the 1950’s there are books by people who are beginning to lay out basic blackjack strategy and hint at counting. “Playing Blackjack to Win” was published 5 full years before Thorp’s seminal work “Beat the Dealer”. But Thorp’s computer-aided research caught the whole country’s imagination and even made the New York time best seller charts. 

As one might imagine, mathematically minded folks trying to beat the casinos and the mob weren’t a match made in heaven and much mayhem ensued. Thorp has even claimed that the mob tried to kill him in Las Vegas a few years after his book came out.

Ken Uston and a great many other card counters, some skilled and others not so much would also be on the wrong end of mob beatings over the years. Casinos often enforced their own justice up through most of the 1970s.? And this is where many people’s fears of card counting being illegal or punishable come from.

Ironically, after a short-lived panic, the casino managers up and down the strip realized that their now-packed blackjack tables were filled with people that believed the game to be beatable but lacked the skill to actually do it.  This belief that blackjack was vulnerable would fill blackjack tables and Las Vegas hotel rooms for decades to come.

Casinos would still make some changes to make the game a bit less favorable, first two decks, then as many as eight were added. The cut card was moved up so not as many cards were dealt out, rules like Five Card Charlie and surrender became a thing of the past. Not only did this lessen the pool of folks who could count cards profitably, but also the number of beatings that needed to be doled out.

The days of beatings are long gone, and about the only vestige left of the mob in Las Vegas is a museum downtown. The thrill of card counting and taking your shot at bringing down the house means there are still some who will risk it. And while the casino may ask you to leave if they believe you are counting cards, honestly, you are getting off lightly. No handcuffs and no bouncing down long flights of stairs.

And the answer is, “Well, yes, but actually no.”

All slot machines will have a house advantage. This number is normally best defined as return to player (RTP). As the name suggests, it shows how much of each dollar wagered is returned to the player on average.

So perhaps the better question is how rigged are they?

Of course, the player is really asking if the machines are set to pay back some egregious amount on every dollar – or perhaps not pay back at all.

And the answer there is of course a resounding “no”.

Why Casinos Don’t Rig Their Machines

Casinos already basically have a license to print money issued either from the state or country they’re operating in.

Many of these licensing agencies will have a minimum RTP or payback amount that casinos will not be allowed to go under.

Not only would a casino with machines set below state minimum paybacks face huge fines or even losing their license, but they would face a huge reputational risk with the gambling public.

No one is going to want to play with a casino that has been cheating its players.

All the revenue in casinos is closely monitored by state or tribal agencies to make sure that they get their fair share in taxes; any odd variations in revenue outside what is expected will have regulators inspecting slot machines and their CPUs for irregularities.

Most of these jurisdictions publish a monthly breakdown of RTP, often by region and in some cases by the individual casino.

In these cases, a savvy slot player can get a glimpse of not only the variations in payout by different properties but even the different RTPs by bet denomination inside those properties.

While not every state or tribal venue will have a minimum RTP amount, two other factors also keep operators in these locations from setting their machines too tight.

The first is the psychology of gambling.

Players expect a certain amount of time on a machine, they expect entertainment for their gambling dollar.

A casino that doesn’t let its players win sometimes is a casino that won’t be open for long.

A good casino operator – whether limited by the law or not – will know that the longer they keep slot players in those chairs the more money they will make and the happier the customers will be.

And this goes hand in hand with the other limiting factor which is free market competition.

If a player feels they’re not getting the best value for their slot machine budget, they will vote with their feet and move to a venue that provides a better RTP.

Even casinos with little competition in their local market may lose player spend to Las Vegas or larger regional markets if they price their payback too tight.  

Nevada, which has fierce competition, has RTP rates between 90% and 94%.

Maine, which is somewhat isolated and only has two casinos, with long drives to other casino markets, has RTP rates of 89% to 94%.

This shows that even somewhat isolated markets still must price accordingly.

Why All Those Slot Myths You’ve Heard Are Really Just Myths

The other rigged slot machine question I often hear revolves around a sort of urban myth.

It’s long been believed in the slot machine community that machines in certain areas are set at a much different payback than in others.

For example, many slot players swear that machines by the front entrance or the casino cage pay better because the casino wants gamblers to see and hear people winning.

And the corollary is that machines by table games or the buffet line will have worse RTP numbers because the casino expects to be able to attract more casual players who are just playing for a few minutes.

In fact, if you talk to a dozen different serious slot players, you’re going to get 12 different PhD theses on slot machine placement and payback percentages.

But what’s the truth?

While there is not a lot of historical detail, there is no doubt that casino managers from 50 years ago placed slot machines at various payout levels, in different locations, depending on their own beliefs in what would lead to higher volume and higher hold percentage play.

But these early slots prognosticators were often dealing with only 100 machines or so; now even an average-sized casino has over 1,000. And, in some cases, as many as 4,000.

Most of these machines are ordered in large quantities, and while they may offer various pay tables, most will simply be set by the casino at the same payout as all the rest.

Not 1% higher for the end cap games and 1% lower for those in the middle of the aisle.

In speaking with slot directors today, most are far too busy to worry about individual machine placement based on even a few percent difference in RTP.

They may place certain banks of slots in certain high-visibility areas, but this is much more likely to be based on the volume of play rather than house advantage.

They will have a target RTP number for let’s say, all penny slots, and will order the machines with those pay tables that will help them meet that number.

Regulation also plays a role here. In some of the jurisdictions where I talked with slot managers, their penny games were already set at state minimum, in this case, 86% return to player.

They literally didn’t have a penny denomination game in the house that paid very much more than that.

They couldn’t very well alter machine location based on payback when almost all of them were within a percent or two of the rest.

Also, most casinos keep the difference in payouts between their highest denomination games and their lowest value denomination games in a reasonably tight spread.

5% is roughly the average between the average payback on a high denomination game vs. a penny slot, though some ultra-high denomination slots fall outside this range.

In Nevada, penny slots have an RTP of around 90%, while $5 dollar machines are around 94.5%.

This tight grouping of average payback percentages also indicates that there is little need to place machines in locations based solely on the house advantage.

All that being said, there are hundreds of slot directors just in the US. Every one of them will take a different approach to their slot floor.

Certainly, there are some that will feel placing dollar slots with higher payback, or even more likely high, high hit rates but lower jackpots near the front door makes economic sense.

But for the average gambler, the odds of there being enough of a percent difference in machines at different locations for them to even notice is a long shot bet.

It’s probably best to worry more about whether the ticket redemption machine is going to force you to wait in line for 30 minutes to get your change.

That truly does seem rigged.

I don’t mean the raw numbers governing the true count, or the edge when you’re at +4 and doubling a 10 against a 6.

I mean that a good card counter will need to avoid detection for hundreds of hours in order to be profitable, but I only need to catch them once.

In today’s technological world, I can have a description, name, and facial scan sent to a dozen surrounding properties before a good card counter can even be escorted from the building.

Make a mistake once in some Indian casino in Oklahoma and the odds are good you won’t even make it to a table without being escorted out the next time you arrive in Las Vegas.

This ups the stakes because once you’re flagged for the first time, you will have a much harder time going unnoticed in the future. It may even bring your playing days to an end.

Casinos around the country subscribe to various databases and programs that help them manage counters and other advantage players.

That shared information means one misstep for a card counter can be extremely costly.

How Casinos Catch Counters

BOLOs (Be On The Look Out) or info sheets on players will not only have pictures, often from multiple angles, but also known associates and aliases.

It will have a detailed description and other identifying info like tattoos.

Many casinos use Car Tag Readers to let them know when certain VIP guests arrive or just to keep track of who enters and exits the garage or parking area, so don’t be surprised if some of that data is also on file.

Typically, these are sent out regionally, or to casinos that have information-sharing agreements between their surveillance departments, but the info is still widely available to be searched by name, description, or the like by any casino that subscribes to the databases.

All of this is often combined with facial recognition software which means many known counters are unlikely to even make it to a table before management intervenes and asks them to leave.

Most casinos will simply not take a chance on letting someone identified by another casino as a card counter play on their tables, though some will allow a player a little leeway so that they can make their own determination.

In the medium to large casinos I’ve worked, it’s not unusual to walk three or four counters a week off the property.

I’m sure the number is much, much higher at certain Las Vegas properties known for their advantageous rules, and deck penetration.

Literally four out of five of those I walk off the casino floor will have been identified off a BOLO. They messed up once and now we have got them again.

But the fact of the matter is, counting cards is a mathematical game. You can only change your play so much before it erodes all your profit.

Some ways of playing are unavoidable.

And that’s what we look for.

The Math That Gives Counters An Edge Is Also Used To Catch Them

Card counting is at its heart a very simple proposition.

Bet more when the remaining cards are in your favor and bet less, or sometimes don’t bet at all, when they are not.

The trick of course is that the casino also knows when the remaining cards are in your favor.

My personal favorite tell is the insurance/16 against a 10 rule. These two play deviations make up almost 40% of the advantage one can achieve through basic strategy deviation.

You can’t escape the math. If you want to make money, these are the two plays you can’t fudge.

Basic strategy says you must hit a 16 against a 10, but the index count for changing that strategy is basically zero.

If the deck is even slightly positive in 10 cards you need to stand. If you stand on 10 against a 16 with big bets out there (a high positive count), you will have my attention.

If you also then sit on 16 when you have table minimums bets out there, I’ll be reaching for the phone.

The same is true of insurance.

While most average players have learned their lesson about insurance being a terrible bet, all counters know that they must insure their hand at a +3 true count.

This leaves them in the unenviable spot of having to sometimes take insurance with a 12 and skip even money when they have a blackjack.

Both are must-make bets for a counter to be successful long term.

And both leave a counter extremely noticeable to anyone trained to look, but there are just as many other tells that will give a counter up.

The following all draw quick attention:

• Reducing your bet to your minimum bet size after the shuffle
• Pulling back all of a blackjack payoff or a tie bet
• Never tipping
• Leaving the table to take a phone call or use the bathroom when the count goes very negative.

Demeanor can also be a giveaway and get you noticed, such as:

• Watching the cards too closely
• Not drinking
• Not conversing with dealers or guests
• Nervous or furtive behavior
• Very precise with chips and/or cards.

But of course, the biggest hurdle is getting more money in the betting circle without bringing down the house.

To be truly effective, you will need to bet somewhere between 12x to 16x your lowest wager when the count goes higher in a shoe game.

That means a player who starts off betting a $100 a hand, and who will stay betting that same $100 a hand for more than 70% of their play, must sometimes be able to get a $1,000 or even $1,500 bet out on the layout.

And ideally more.

Players have come up with many ingenious methods to try and disguise this bet spread.

But no matter the story, no matter the reason, this kind of bet spread will draw attention.

And then we will have someone counting down the shoe and rating their play, whether it’s another trained counter or, more and more often, a computer program.

If players do get away with it for an extended period, it’s because the dealer or the floor didn’t do their job.

Ideally, when a dealer sees that kind of bet spread, they will say something like “checks play,” which usually means something like “this person just suddenly started betting a lot more than they were.”

That is to alert the floor to large bet spreads so that they can relay that on up the chain.

As you can see, there are many, many ways a card counter can be tripped up. They are literally constrained by the math that makes all of this work.

And as soon as they’re outed once, it becomes incrementally harder to get away unnoticed the next time.

It was exactly these constraints that made for the team play that was immortalized by Hollywood in movies like 21.

The Old Bait And Switch

The premise of the “big player” attack was simple. Skilled counters could watch games, and continue to flat bet, but call big players in when the count was high enough.

These players would bounce from table to table, only playing when the count was high.

This meant it was hard for casinos to spot the real counters; they remained camouflaged on their games, and since the big player was only betting large amounts of money each hand, it didn’t call into question the bet spread.

Often the big player would assume a theatrical role to lend some credence to their often odd and erratic behavior to lessen suspicion even more.

While it seems unlikely 30 years later, these teams would take Las Vegas and other casino jurisdictions for millions.

? How The MIT Blackjack Card Counting Team Beat The House

The solution was simple yet costly.

Casinos would only allow new players on a table to bet a maximum of $100 until the new shoe.

It stopped this attack in its tracks, but at the cost of casinos telling millions of guests that they couldn’t place large bets until after the shuffle.

Some argued that the remedy was worse than the malady, but it did put an immediate end to that particular loophole in the casino’s counter defenses.

Many of these rules have been relaxed now as casinos have gotten better at knowing what to look for and mining databases of players to find connections between seemingly unrelated players has become exponentially easier.

Working In Teams

One of the best team plays I’ve seen involved a group of five or six players who at first seemed unrelated, who often bet erratically and didn’t seem to pay close attention to the count.

They would position sometimes two but mainly three players on a table and take turns keeping the count while the others engaged in conversation.

They would signal the count using chip stacks, and while each member’s bets might not follow the count, the team’s as a whole would.

They would also disguise play this way, with smaller bets on larger counts not always matching the index deviations.

They were eventually only discovered when some of our dealers noticed them on multiple occasions playing at other casinos in the same cohesive groups which caused us to reevaluate their play.

Once we knew they were a team, we could see the bets and play move with the count in total, instead of through one individual’s actions.

While team play can slow down a casino’s efforts to identify counters, it is still constrained by the need to put large bets out only when the count is high.

And ideally, the ability to play that hand in a very defined way, though large enough bet spreads can make up for some of that.

As a long-ago shift manager once told me about game protection, “The money will always tell the story.”

And that’s as true today as it was 30 years ago.

The math that makes blackjack beatable and card counters successful is exactly the hook that we use to catch them.

What To Bear In Mind If You Plan To Count Cards

For those still intent on card counting, there are a few important considerations. The first thing is to remember that the age of the MIT teams or the Hyland Group are gone.

The money laundering laws and know-your-customer regulations post 9/11 did more to end counters and count teams than all of the casinos’ efforts combined.

Big money bets now mean filling out W-9s and tax paperwork. Identification, and even sometimes occupation, are verified through databases.

The same types of databases that casinos and the government look for to fight money laundering can be used to look for counters and count teams.

They often uncover relationships that might not have been visible to the human eye.

This means you need to manage expectations; the big bets won’t be as big, and the payouts will need to be smaller.

If you’re a lone player, it’s going to be more of a grind. Teams will need to adapt to the new rules on the ground.

Asymmetrical team play – where individual bets and even index plays may not match the count, but the overall money at risk and play does – can be very effective.  The trick is not to overuse the same players at any one property.

Another way some teams have adjusted is by finding players with long histories with casinos, especially losing histories, and recruiting them. The casinos will have done their due diligence and won’t be as alert to the high action.

Others have recruited wealthy business owners or tech execs that might look like the exact type of player that the casinos are marketing to and can withstand a quick background check.

Counters will also want to pay close attention to the many other various advantage plays that are possible in casinos, from excess free play on electronic table games and badly designed promotions, to tournaments and giveaways – and many others.

EV (expected value) can be gained in many different ways to help offset lower betting spreads.

Using all of the possible ways to extract value has a long and sometimes hilarious history in the tales of counters.

From rummage sales of merchandise bought with comp points, to using porn stars to induce dealer errors, many players have gone the extra mile when attempting to gain the advantage.

Don Johnson is one of those. He beat Atlantic City and Vegas for millions not just due to his superb counting skills, but by scaping the battlefield before he ever sat down to play.

By using counting, confusion, and badly designed casino cashback, he won against casinos that should have known better by being better prepared and having a mathematically sound plan – a plan that just happened to include porn stars.

A New Day

One slip-up or one mistake that draws attention to your play or your team’s play can be disastrous with the speed of information and depth of data available now.

Players must be more cautious, measured, and smart.

Situational awareness is very important. Watch pit personnel (especially when they go to a phone) and pay attention to furtive glances or whispered conversations in your area. Don’t panic, just flat bet.

If I come over and move the cut card up, or tell the dealer to shuffle and you run, surveillance will be rewinding your play.

Counting cards for fun and profit hasn’t come to an end just yet. Though truly, technology will probably bring about its demise in the next five or 10 years.

I’m sure there are individuals and teams out there making lots of money. But I’m also sure they would tell you that it’s just not as simple and fun as it used to be.

That being said, there’s something about pitting your wits and imagination against a determined foe, that will always probably draw the hustlers and the dreamers to take their shot at bringing down the house.

And that’s just fine. It keeps me employed.

? 6 Reasons Why You Should Never Count Cards

Here we’ll look at chaos theory at its most basic level and whether you can you use it to gain an advantage in blackjack and roulette.

What Is Chaos Theory?

Chaos theory is a complicated mathematical theory that studies the unpredictable and random nature of complex systems.

A complex system could be something like the weather, or the behavior of water boiling on a stove.

It theorizes that a tiny difference in starting conditions will result in a completely different outcome, which is what makes the systems so complex to study.

You might be more familiar with the butterfly effect.

The term was coined by MIT meteorologist and one of the pioneers of chaos theory, Edward Lorenz, when he was developing a weather-prediction model in the 1960s.

He theorized that something as small as a buttery flapping its wings in Asia could be capable of eventually causing a hurricane in the Atlantic.

As is often the case in such discussions of scientific discovery, many nuances were lost in its simplification for widespread audiences.

And is also the case in many scientific discoveries, there were punters hoping to cash in.

Edward Lorenz’s nuanced take on the predictability of weather quickly began discussions on whether roulette spins could be foretold, or whether blackjack shoes were ‘complex systems.’

And wherever there are gamblers looking to cash in, there is always someone selling a how-to guide that will make it quick and easy.

And in all fairness, both blackjack and roulette outcomes certainly do have a sensitive dependence to initial conditions.

So, let’s take a look to see if you can use chaos theory next time you’re at the casino.

Can You Use Chaos Theory To Beat Blackjack?

The beauty of blackjack has always been that it’s not a random game.

The probability of the next card is determined by the cards that have been dealt preceding it.

And due to the rules of the game, a large number of high-value cards left to be dealt changes the odds, sometimes to the point where you have the advantage.

Chaos theory is used to find order in seemingly random data, so there is some sense that maybe it could be applied in some way here.

But that is just smoke and mirrors.

We know the difference that each card’s removal from the game will make, there is no large change from the subtraction of one Ace from a 6-deck shoe.

Six decks of randomly shuffled cards present many opportunities for those that watch what cards have been played and know the value of cards left to be played.

But it does not rise to the level of a complex system. No small change to our starting conditions can lead to big changes by the end of the shoe.

Modeling of millions of shoes of blackjack does not reveal any tipping point where things change suddenly and dramatically.

Rather it shows a simple mathematical progression of highs and lows. Almost like a song if you will.

Can You Use Chaos Theory To Beat Roulette?

The purpose of a roulette wheel from the house side of things is to put together an instrument that creates an independent trial.

One that randomly selects one of 38 different numbers from double zero to 36.

But of course, an ivory ball, a wooden wheel, and a moving metal wheel head are perhaps not the best practical choices for such a task.

Trust an engineer to quickly figure out a system’s flaws. That’s exactly what Joseph Jagger did way back in 1880 when he famously broke the bank in Monte Carlo.

Spotting just one wheel out of dozens that seemed to have flaws, he won about $7 million in today’s money in an up-and-down week that saw the casino realize the problem and attempt a bait and switch with a different wheel head.

I personally saw a rather eccentric Englishman, who went by the pseudonym “Harry Gatto,” beat two separate wheel heads for more than $300K back in the early 90s after tracking them for months.

There is little doubt that roulette wheels have been susceptible to attack in the past due to poor maintenance and flawed design.

The question is whether they still are, and whether chaos theory can help in that pursuit.

Here again, on the surface, it appears that small deviations in starting conditions can cause large changes in results.

A slightly bent fret on a wheel head, a worn ball, a groove in the ball track, a slight tilt to the spindle – any of these can cause a number or segment of numbers to hit more often than they should.

But most of these issues are best described by everyday physics, and while the turn of the roulette wheel and the subsequent landing of the ball is affected by many more things than you might at first think, it’s simply untrue that small differences in things as obscure as humidity or the temperature make a large difference in the speed or, more importantly, the number the ball ultimately lands in.

Casinos Make It Hard To Cheat

As far back as the late 70s physics students from UCSC were tackling roulette with computers.

It turns out that by accounting for the speed of the ball and the speed of the wheel, and then using other calculations for the scatter of the ball once it descends onto the wheel head, that they could bet sections of the wheel that would net them north of a 40% advantage.

The issue here, much as counting cards, is that it is almost instantly observable by a trained professional.

You must first get the info on where the ball is, where the wheel head is, and the speed of both, and then still have time to get your bets down where a hidden computer tells you to.

While it can now be accomplished by apps on your phone, you can imagine the frantic betting back in the 80s.

But again, the late betting of coinciding numbers on the wheel head is a dead giveaway. And this is one of many reasons why phones are almost never allowed to be out anywhere near a roulette game.

In rare cases, casinos may wave off new bets after just one or two revolutions of the ball to prevent this type of advantage play.

Other approaches from the late 80s and 90s that looked for tilted wheel heads or other physical issues with the wheels have also largely been fixed.

It’s not uncommon for a larger casino in the states to do wheel maintenance once a week, or even more.

This will include looking for any issues with frets and canoes or ensuring that nothing sticky has gotten on a number to prevent the ball from bouncing out easily.

It will also employ a level to make sure the wheel isn’t tilted in some way, which may have been how my Mr. Gatto managed to beat those roulette games.

And while collecting reams of data on roulette wheel decisions is what is generally prescribed for locating a beatable game, please note that most casinos already pull that data directly from their electronic roulette scoreboards where it can then be analyzed by powerful software looking for anomalies.

My advice on anyone wanting to sell you a chaos theory-derived roulette system is, as always, “Run, don’t walk.” 

While roulette remains susceptible to several different advantage plays, most of these are easily defeated by properly trained staff and have nothing to do with chaos theory.

And perhaps the best protection of all is simply keeping two balls on the table of differing weights and sizes.

Even the best physics models or an absolutely stunning supercomputer using some version of chaos modeling won’t get far if they are unsure of the starting conditions that they need to make an accurate prediction.

For something similar, check out:
Can Quantum Entanglement Really Help You Win At Blackjack?

And because casinos have millions of dollars laying around on their tables and in their slots, these aren’t like the rules at Monopoly that maybe you can bend when no one is watching.

First off, someone is always watching. Modern casinos have thousands of cameras and dozens of surveillance staff.

Second, those friendly guys in suits behind the table may be all too happy to make you a player’s card or comp you with a meal.

But their first job is to closely watch the games and the dealers in their section to enforce the policies and procedures the casino has put in place to safeguard all that money.

The list below isn’t all rules, some of it is just common casino courtesy, but it should at least give you some idea of what is expected on the casino floor.

Every member of the casino staff is used to new guests, and they are going to politely explain what’s expected if something does go wrong.

1. Don’t Have Your Cell Phone Out

This one goes back to times before cell phones, when casinos didn’t want you taking pictures on the casino floor.

Partly this was about security and not wanting people casing the joint.

But it was also because the rich and famous, or in some cases infamous, didn’t like having pictures of them at the crap table splashed all over the press.

Fast forward to today and all the capabilities engineered into that little computer in your pocket represent the most serious threat to game protection that casinos have ever had to face.

You can use it to count cards, or its camera to catch the dealer’s hole card.

You can use it to signal what cards have been dealt to an accomplice who can then use a computer to tell you how to play your hand using code words, all while apparently having an innocent phone conversation.

More recently, there have been apps that can use your phone’s video capabilities to predict what section a roulette ball might land in.

There was even a group of Russian hackers filming slot machines, streaming that to servers back in eastern Europe that could figure out where in the long sequence the machine’s random number generator (RNG) was, and then tell them the exact millisecond to press spin to get a win!

Suffice it to say, most casinos do not allow you to even have your phone out while you are at the table.

And if you are filming while playing slots, don’t be surprised if you are asked to stop.

While pictures away from tables have become a little less frowned upon, security may stop and ask you not to if you are blatant about it.

If you set your phone down on the table or decide you’re going to take a quick call, the dealer or floor person will ask you to step away from the table.

This is just a regular part of casinos’ policies and procedures. If security asks you not to take pictures, they are just following the rules.

Don’t take offense.

While every casino’s thoughts on phones being used may be a bit different, any time you have your phone out on the casino floor, someone may come along and tell you this individual casino’s expectations.

Just listen and follow their instructions.

2. Don’t Overdo The Drinking

In about half of American casinos, alcoholic drinks are complimentary. Complimentary doesn’t mean a free, all-you-can-drink buffet of shots and beers. 

Cocktail servers make predetermined rounds throughout the casino, and they will pass by any given slot or table about every 20 to 30 minutes.

It’s quite possible you may have to wait that long to order your drink. The floor person or dealer is generally unable to get you a drink any faster.

You are only allowed ONE drink at a time.

You will need to finish or relinquish any drinks you may currently have before you will be served another. Any signs of intoxication will result in either the cocktail server or other casino staff calling the beverage manager to do an evaluation.  

If they decide you’ve had enough, you will be asked to leave the casino floor.

Too much drinking means no more gambling.

The general rule of thumb here is that your good time ends when it comes at the expense of some other guest’s good time.  

While your significant other may find your slurring, table slapping, and foul-mouthed behavior charming, odds are that neither the other people on your table nor casino staff will see it in the same light.

We want all our guests to have a fun, exciting night.

But once your behavior becomes either problematic for other people at the table or disruptive to the point of holding up the game, the casino is likely to decide your good time has come to an end.

Side note on comps:

Normally when you sit down, the dealer or floor supervisor will ask you for your loyalty card. This card is used to keep track of your play, average bet and buy-in.

The casino will use this info to offer you comps, like food or free rooms, so try to always get a card at player’s services before you begin to play.

At most casinos, you can ask the floor supervisor to make you a new account with your driver’s license right there at the table if they aren’t too busy.

If you play a few hours and gamble a good bit, don’t be ashamed to ask the supervisor for a comp for something to eat.

Many casinos are only too happy to offer you a meal in hopes of getting you back to play, and it certainly never hurts to ask.

3. Do Make Sure You Buy In And Cash Out Properly

Every table or slot will display its minimum and maximum bet clearly. On table games, it is generally found on either a lighted sign or a placard to the right of the dealer.

Check the minimum before you sit down so that you don’t end up playing at a $25 or $100 game when you only plan to gamble $50 dollars.

Wait until the hand is completed, then pass your money toward the dealer, and they will give you casino chips in return.

The dealer may ask you what denomination chips you would like, but in most cases, they will simply give you what they feel is the right amount of each denomination for the game in question.

Some players have a habit of coloring up (converting smaller denomination chips to easier-to-carry larger value chips) when they’re winning.

This is disruptive for other players as it slows down the game. First when the dealer has to color you up, and then again when the player must pull those higher value chips back out and have them broken down by the dealer again.

It also means the casino has to constantly interrupt the game with fills of lower-end chips.

People come to play, not watch the dealer constantly making change. Wait until you’re done or for the dealer to ask before coloring up.

When you are ready to leave, wait for the end of the hand, then push all your chips towards the dealer.

Importantly, don’t push them into the betting circle. Don’t worry about stacking or sorting them; the dealer will be far quicker than you.

You will then take these higher-value chips to the cage to be cashed out for currency.

Usually but not always, you can find the cashier in the farthest corner from the exit, this is to give you plenty of time to consider putting some of your winnings down on another table or in a slot.

Side note on chips:

Roulette chips are called non-value. They are unlike other casino chips in that their value is determined by how they are marked up on the roulette wheel.

If you buy in $100 and ask for $5 chips, you will notice the dealer put one of your color chips by the wheel along with a lammer (plastic marker) that says 100. That means that every stack of your color is worth $100.

If you buy in for dollars, they will mark your color as 20. $20 dollars a stack, and so forth and so on.

Always color up these chips at the roulette table before you leave as they aren’t worth anything anywhere else.

Also, to avoid confusion, the casino allows only one person per color, so if you need to buy chips for your significant other, you’ll need to get them a separate color.

4. Do Get To Grips With Basic Game Rules And Procedures

There are dozens of different table games and thousands of slots. It can be confusing, so if you have a question don’t hesitate to ask the dealer or find a slot person to explain the game.

In the case of table games, each casino may have slightly different rules on a table or slightly different procedures for how a game is dealt. But we will cover some of the most common here:

Most casino table games require you to be seated at the table while playing.

This is simply about the cameras having the best possible coverage of the cards being dealt. If standing and hunched over your cards, it prevents surveillance from keeping track of those cards.

Most blackjack and even some carnival games are dealt face-up.

If the cards aren’t placed in front of you and are dealt out on the layout, do not touch them.

If dealt to you, you may pick them up. Most casinos will require that you only use one hand on blackjack and even some carnival games.

If in doubt, ask your dealer.

When it comes to signaling, in handheld blackjack games you ask for a hit by lightly scratching the corner of the cards next to your bet. You signal to stay by tucking your cards face down slightly under your bet.

If you have a blackjack and want to split or double, just turn your cards face up, the dealer will know what you require. Try to never cover or block your bet from the view of the dealer with your cards.

In face-up blackjack games you ask for a hit by scratching with your finger. Stay is a horizontal wave of your hand. Split or double is just pointing with two fingers.

In many of the carnival games the signals are similar to blackjack. If you wish to play or need another card just scratch, and if you’re done with your hand just set it down.

Again, the dealer will be happy to answer any questions.

When it comes to the actual play of your hand, though, the dealer may not be allowed to offer advice.

In the case of blackjack, this may be for the best as most blackjack dealers don’t know basic strategy, so you can simply print out a basic strategy card before you go play.

This is also true for the carnival games.

You can find easy-to-understand rules on how to set your hand, what hands to play, and what hands to fold on your phone before you start playing, instead of having to rely on ill-informed dealers or mistaken advice from other players.

5. Do Set A loss Limit

It’s important that when you sit down at a table you have an idea of what you can afford to lose.

Some people only bring that amount with them to make sure they don’t chase losses if things go bad. Others just have the willpower to get up and take a break after losing whatever limit they have set.

Either is fine as long as you know that you’ll stick with the agreed-upon limit.

Having a set amount for each gambling session will ensure that you don’t lose everything in the first few hours and that you’ll be able to continue to enjoy your trip even if you lose the first few times you play.

It also keeps your emotions in check and provides a circuit breaker for when you just want to keep throwing money on the layout no matter how bad the cards.

Some people also like to set limits on what they would like to win. Perhaps they’ve gotten up a good amount only to lose it all back in the past.

While not as common, having an idea of what you’ve come to win will also make you a more disciplined gambler and help protect your bankroll long term.

6. Don’t Tell Others How To Play

Don’t tell other players how to play their hand as much as you may be tempted.

Players get to play their own cards and while not every dealer may enforce this, it’s still a rule. If asked for advice, be sure to give it, but if not, then just play your cards.

On some carnival games, you won’t even be able to offer advice if asked as house rules prevent you from looking at another player’s hands.

This may seem extreme if, let’s say, your wife doesn’t know how to play.

But some of these poker games can be beaten if players know too many of the cards that have already been dealt to players, so the rules are made to prevent that.

As well as not telling others how to play, don’t ask or give money to strangers at the table.

It’s certainly within your right, but the casino will often put out anyone that they believe is panhandling or asking for money.

That $25 chip you gave someone because of a sob story won’t do them much good if they are asked to leave.

7. Don’t Upset Superstitious Craps Players

There’s a reason why many players feel that craps is the best game on the casino floor.

When a player has a hot hand, and the chips are piling up in the rail, it really is a feeling like no other.

But when those dice turn cold, you can quickly see craps players turn superstitious.

It’s this alternating cycle of hot and cold dice that has turned so many lovers of the game into unreasonable believers in bad luck and hexes.

And while dice is a difficult game to learn in the best of circumstances, certain behavior can apparently bring the ire of the Craps Gods down upon the table.

Chief among these is buying in, in the middle of a roll.

When possible, always wait for a seven out, or at least for the player to make a point before throwing your money down on the layout, or you may be faced with an entire table of muttering, coughing players.

One trick that seems to assuage some of these old-timers is to buy in with cash at a blackjack or another table on your way to dice.

It seems it’s the cash hitting the table, not some new player handing in chips to the dealer, which sets off all this calamitous bad luck.

Also, right up there with using the Lord’s name in vain is saying the actual word “seven” at a dice table.

I’m pretty confident that you can no longer be lynched for this, but I don’t see any reason to put it to the test, either.

Another common newbie mistake is putting your hands in the way of the dice. Once the stickman calls “dice are out” immediately get your hands out of the layout.

Should the dice hit your hands, it’s quite possible that many of the others will remember you for life and refuse to play with you for years to come.

Talking to or touching a hot shooter is likely to remove them from their “zone.”

If you want to ask the shooter a question, it’s probably best to wait until they are done shooting to avoid a glare – or worse.

Yes, craps players have some idiosyncrasies, but don’t let that stop you from coming by and trying by far the most fun game in the casino. 

Stick to these rules, listen to your dealer, pay attention, and you too could soon be making new players uncomfortable with talk of jinxes and shouts of “watch your hands.”

8. Don’t Put Your Stuff On The Tables

As I mentioned at the beginning, casinos have a lot of rules. Aside from the important ones we’ve already mentioned, keep in mind:

No purses, wallets, bags, or anything of the like on the table. They can block the eye in the sky’s view, can be used to hide things, or just generally get in the way.

Always keep your drinks in the cupholders provided. On dice, do not dangle your drinks over the layout, there is a shelf just below the rail for drinks. One spilled drink will stop everything and may even lead management to close the table. You don’t want to be the person that ruined everybody else’s good time.

9. Do Dress To Impress

Many casinos across the US have a very relaxed attitude toward dress codes. 

But if you’re playing on a cruise ship or in another country, there is very likely to be a dress code on the casino floor.

You can call ahead or look for it on their website, and it will also usually be posted by the main entrance.

Even in the more laid-back Las Vegas casinos used to dealing with the throngs of tourists, there is likely to be an unmentioned dress code.

For instance, most casinos frown upon “beachwear” and will often ask visitors to cover up.

Guests wearing T-shirts with profanity or vulgar images may be asked to have them turned inside out, and even in Vegas, there are laws on the books on how much skin you can get away with showing.

If you’re hoping to swing by a club or nice restaurant while you’re out, be prepared for a much stricter once-over.

Shorts and ball caps are generally out, as is baggy clothing, and even sports jerseys. In some cases, jeans and T-shirts may be excluded as well.

It is always, always better to be overdressed than underdressed.

There are many casinos and clubs not only in Las Vegas but around the world, all with different ideas about proper dress, but the better you’re dressed, the more likely you are to get into any one of them.

10. Do Make Sure You Tip The Staff

In most American casinos, front-of-house staff like dealers, valet, and beverage servers generally make far less than the minimum wage.  

While this tipping culture has been hotly debated over the last few years, it doesn’t change the basic fact that the nice person who is bringing your drink is probably only being paid $2.35 an hour by the casino.

They are counting on tips to be able to feed their families.  

And this holds true across almost all the guest-facing staff at a casino, from slot attendants to porters, who also make less than minimum wage generally.

As customer service professionals, they’re going to do their best to make sure you have a great time regardless, but a well-timed gratuity can go a long way toward making sure that the people taking care of you also feel appreciated.

Most Importantly, Have Fun!

Yes, there are a lot of rules. We warned you.

Relax, though: Casinos want you to have fun – and they’re counting on it.

They do their best every day to weigh your good time against the safety and security of all that money.  And while it may seem like a lot, it’s mostly common sense.

So, get out there and enjoy!

You’ll pick up the basics of what you can and can’t do pretty quick, the dealers and staff will make sure you don’t get into too much trouble as long as you listen, and they spend a large part of their day teaching new players in any case.

Never risk more than you can afford to lose, but if you’ve budgeted a little of your travel budget for gambling, head on down to the casino floor and see what all the excitement is about.

There’s a reason why Las Vegas attracts over 40 million visitors a year, and it’s not just the endless buffets.

When we get the opportunity to double down or split, it is critical that we make the right decision.  We will have multiples of our usual bet riding on the outcome.

Sometimes with splits and double after splits, we may find that we have four or five times our average bet riding on one round of cards, so it’s important to know what you should do.

What Is Splitting In Blackjack?

When you have two of the same cards, like a pair of 4s or 8s, you are allowed to split the pair and play them like two separate hands.

When splitting, you can only split for the same amount as your original wager, unlike double downs, where you can bet less.

We will go into greater detail about the proper playing of each pair below but if you don’t wish to learn the entire basic strategy, the simplest way to play is:

• Always split Aces and 8s.
• Never split 10s.
• Only split 4s if you are allowed to double on split hands.

Splitting Basics

Only players can split, never the dealer. You must have two of the same value cards. You must split for the same amount of money as your original wager.

To signal a split, you can point at your bet with two fingers, or simply push out an equal amount of chips to your first wager. The dealer will know your intentions.

Blackjack Basic Strategy For Splitting

Fortunately, the basic strategy for splits is simple and straightforward.

There are some house rules that we will discuss a little later that slightly alter our decisions, but for most blackjack games, you should follow these basic rules when dealt pairs.

10s

Fun fact, in blackjack, all 10-value cards are splittable.

This means you don’t need to wait to be dealt a Jack and another Jack. You could, in theory, split your King and Queen, or your 10 and Jack.

You shouldn’t, but you could.

20 is a great hand. Yes, several more 20s might also be great, and if the dealer has a 5 or 6 up, perhaps you might be tempted to get more money on the layout.

But the math is clear. Stick with the bird in your hand, don’t go gunning for the one in the bush.

Should you decide to split your 10s, you may hear – over the groans of your fellow players – the dealer calling out “splitting 10s.”

This is because card counters know that a deck rich in 10s does mean that you should split 10s.

Blackjack dealers call this out to their floor people for management to determine if you are a complete novice or someone they need to watch closely.

Pair of 9s

Basic strategy says split 9s against any dealer upcard, except for 7s.

This is easily remembered by the fact that you don’t want to give up your 18 against a possible dealer 17.

Is it hard to split 9s against a dealer 10 or Ace?

Yes, but again, we have to trust the math.

Pair of Aces or 8s

These two pairs are often heard together, as we will always split Aces or 8s no matter what the dealer turns up.

It’s important to note that Aces are usually only allowed one card each, and a 10 card dealt to a split Ace is 21, not blackjack.

All other pairs can be split up to four hands.

Pair of 7s, 3s or 2s

If you have any of these pairs, you’ll want to split if the dealer has 2 through 7 for an upcard.

Otherwise, just hit.

Pair of 6s or 4s

If you have either pair, you will want to split if the dealer has a 2 through 6 as an upcard.

Otherwise hit.

Pair of 5s

With a total of 10, it is much better to double a pair of 5s than split. You should double this pair against 2 through 9; otherwise, just hit.

And that’s it.

That’s the basic strategy for splitting pairs in four through eight decks, where you can double after split.

These rules should work on over 90% of the games you come across. Most of the other rules don’t change the strategy much.

What To Do When You Encounter A No Double After Split Rule

Some casinos have tweaked the rules so that you aren’t allowed to double after splitting.

While this adds 14% to blackjack’s house edge, it can cost them business. And because of that, it’s not a rule change that you see all that often.

Should you come across this rule, it might be best just to find another casino. But if it’s the only one around for 100 miles, then you will want to make a couple of changes on pair splitting.

Pair of 2s and 3s

With either of these pairs, you should now only split on 4 through 7. Just hit against a dealer’s 2 or 3.

Pair of 4s

If you can’t double after split with your pair of 4s, only split against 2 through 4.

Hit against a dealer’s 5 or higher.

Pair of 6s

With a pair of 6s, we will hit against a dealer’s 2 and split against 3 through 6, then hit again against any dealer’s up card higher than 6.

Double Deck

If you’re only playing against two decks and not against a shoe, you only have a couple of changes to strategy.

You should now split against a dealer’s 2 through 7 upcard with a pair of 6s. And if you have a pair of 7s, be a bit bolder and split against a dealer’s 2 through 8.

Suppose this game doesn’t allow double after splits.

In that case, use the same rules as we just went over for no double after splits and forgetting about splitting 6s against a 7 or splitting 7s against a dealer’s 8.

Surrender

While not a common rule, it can still be found in some places.

Just for the sake of completeness, we will cover the one slight basic strategy deviation when surrender is offered.

Regardless of the number of decks, and only in games where the dealer hits soft 17, you should surrender your pair of 8s against a dealer’s Ace.

Conclusion

This should cover all the likely blackjack rules you are likely to encounter.

Remember: Using this basic strategy for pair splitting is essential because it can help you get more money, often much more money, on the layout when the odds are in your favor.

So it’s best to stick with it whenever possible.

Make sure to double when you should on these hands to really supercharge your advantage in blackjack.

If you’re ever unsure, you can refer to our blackjack strategy charts to tell you what move you should make.

But for both your mental health and that of your bankroll, it’s important to take a little time to find the blackjack table that’s right for you.

You’ll be wanting three things: Table stakes that fit your bankroll, great blackjack rules, and a table where you can relax and have fun.

Step 1: Scout For The Right Minimums and Maximums

Table stakes are important because if you’re playing on a table with a minimum bet too high for your bankroll, it’s much more likely that you will go bust sooner.

Just a few bad hands will wipe you out.

But if you can afford a few more minimum bets, you can weather a small run of bad luck.  

A good rule of thumb is a bankroll of at least 20 times the table minimum, and preferably 40 times. That means you should bring at least $100 dollars to a $5 table, and $500 to a $25 table.

Always try and set loss limits for each gaming session and stick to them. Then use those limits when scouting blackjack tables to play.

Limits are always posted on the table sign on each table. You should be aware that management can (and does) change table minimums to meet demand, often with little notice.

Be prepared to walk away if your $10 game suddenly becomes a $25 game and your bankroll isn’t big enough.

Depending on the size of the casino, lower limit games may be featured up front, sometimes in “fun pits” designed to catch the eye of passers-by.

More medium limits may be further back in the casino in comparatively quieter areas, and high limits will often be found off to the side in a private room.

When in doubt, simply ask one of the blackjack dealers, floor people, or even the cocktail servers where you might find the particular limits you are looking for.

Step 2: Scout The Best Blackjack Conditions

Once you’ve found tables with appropriate stakes, you want to try and get the most bang for your buck. This means cutting the house advantage as low as you can.

The three biggest things you can look for to keep the blackjack house edge small are table rules, the number of decks in play, and the type of shuffler being used.

1. Table Rules

While it might seem odd, many casinos have different rules on their blackjack tables depending on their table limits.

You want to balance your need for a certain minimum bet vs. the best rules you can find.

A couple of nefarious rules often seen at lower limit tables are only paying 6/5 on blackjack instead of 3/2 and even charging a commission of 25 cents on each hand to play.

You should avoid these at all costs.

Ask the dealers if they have full pay blackjack tables, and if they are a bit higher limits it may be worth hunting them down in this particular case. Or even ask if nearby casinos have full pay tables.

Those 6/5 tables can add as much as 300% to the house advantage and the commission tables can be even worse.

You then want to look for other rules that have less impact on the house advantage but can still make a big difference long term.  

Ideally, you want to look for tables that allow:

• Dealer stands on soft 17.
• A player may double on any first two cards.
• A player may double after split.
• Aces can be split up to 4 times.

These common rules can save you a lot of money over several hours of play.

2. Number Of Decks Used

In general, the fewer decks in use, the better for the player. 

However, while eight decks are very common, the difference between eight and six decks is just a few hundredths of a percent.

If you can find a double-deck game, however, it is much more lucrative for the player.

A double deck with all the above rules has about half the house advantage of an eight-deck game with those same rules.

That means you would lose only half the money on average playing the double deck.

The casino of course is aware of this, and double deck games have minimums that reflect this lower house advantage.  

Again, you will have to balance your bankroll against the house rules to find an appropriate game that meets your budget.

3. Shufflers

There are three types of shufflers.

One is where the casino still allows the dealer to take the time to shuffle. This can be a several-minute process depending on the dealer and the number of decks in play, but it offers a nice respite where you don’t have money at risk, where the casino is still rating you for being in action, and where you can catch your breath.

Then on other tables, you will see shuffle machines. These are attached to the table and are readily noticeable once you’ve seen them.

On these tables, the dealer will be putting their used cards in the machine at the end of the shoe, and immediately pulling out freshly shuffled decks of cards from the machine. Then the dealer will begin dealing again.

It only stands to reason that the more bets you make in an hour, the greater the house advantage. 

And the casino has decided that they want to make money instead of shuffling.

Not only can this make for a poorer gaming experience with dealers who are exhausted and just dealing robotically, but you will lose more money on these games quicker over time.

The other possible machine that you may see is a continuous shuffler.

You can identify them by the dealer immediately putting their used cards into the machine instead of at the end of the shoe.

This is a bad choice not only for the reasons listed above but also because putting the used cards right back into play increases the house edge, at least a little.

Step 3: Scout For The Best Blackjack Environment

At this point, you’ll have spent a lot of time finding a blackjack table that fits your budget and keeps the house advantage to a minimum. But in the end, you want to have a good time.

Sitting down with a belligerent drunk who’s smoking a foul-smelling cigar and banging the table is not going to make for the best experience.

Take a few more seconds before you sit down and take a good look at the other players.

Are they laughing and having fun, or do they look miserable?

If you’re not a big fan of cigarette smoke it won’t make sense to sit down surrounded by people smoking like chimneys.

How about the dealer: Are they interacting with the players and having a good time, or are their heads down – just going through the motions?

An extra 10 or 15 seconds of observing the table may mean the difference between having a great night or having a lousy time that forces you to start scouting tables all over again.

Take the time to find a table that is a good fit not just for your bankroll and your chances of winning, but also one that makes for a smooth, enjoyable, and hopefully profitable experience.

The cage had discovered that someone had been passing off counterfeit $100 black checks by playing at the tables. Eventually, other players were innocently showing up at the cage with them.

In the end, we found 68 of them, mainly on the craps tables.

You might think this kind of thing goes on all the time but, in reality, making a counterfeit chip is a time-consuming and almost always futile exercise.

One of the first drawbacks is that every casino is going to have a different chip. The material, weight, color, and feel make each casino’s value checks different from its neighbors.

You’d really have to specialize.

And dealing with just one casino makes it easier to get caught.

Why Fake Chips Are Difficult To Make

Casino chips – also known as checks, cheques and tokens – are usually made of molded plastic or ‘clay’. As mentioned, they vary in weight, style, design, markings and color from one casino to the other.

The colors of chips used in casinos are usually the same, with the value denominations as follows:

• White – $1
• Red – $5
• Green – $25
• Black – $100
• Purple – $500
• Orange – $1,000

However, ask any artist or designer, or just plan to repaint your home, and you’ll instantly realize that there are more shades of each of these colors than you can imagine.

So even though all casinos might have green $25 chips, the exact shade is distinct and can be hard for counterfeiters to match.

That’s why most counterfeiters start with $1 checks (white) from their target casino. They’re a suitable material and this helps with weight and feel for counterfeiting higher value chips.

But even then, painting a white chip the correct shade of black without altering its weight or feel is very difficult.

And it’s not just the black but the color of the stripes that are on all chips as well.

Even if scammers can match the shades exactly and remember to check for UV markings and keep the weight and feel similar, there is still the inlay on each chip.

That has the casino, the denomination and, depending on the value of the chip, potentially lots of other security features.

From holograms to microdots to color-shifting ink, high-value casino chips are extremely difficult to reproduce.

Some even have built-in radio frequency transmitters, known as RFID chips, and are frequently found in high limit rooms in Las Vegas and Macau.

You Will Get Caught And Be Heavily Punished

But in all honesty, the effort required to make fake chips is not what dissuades most counterfeiters.

Due to Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering laws, every casino tracks high-value chips.

Suppose you’re buying in with chips worth more than $500 or $1,000 (purple or orange). In that case, the floor supervisor calls surveillance and takes your picture.

The sheer number of cameras and the ability to go back weeks or even months on surveillance footage to track basically individual checks should give anyone pause.

Should you attempt to buy in with high-value chips, casino personnel will try very hard to get your name and ID. Failing at that will only raise their suspicions more.

If you attempt to buy in or cash out over $10K, the US government requires we obtain your ID and SSN, or you aren’t allowed to play. Other countries have similar money laundering laws.

Getting caught using counterfeit casino chips can set you up for a variety of felony charges, so if you want to avoid hefty fines and prison time we suggest you steer clear of this shady business.

$100 Checks Are Counterfeited The Most

Higher value chips will be noticed quickly and are very simple to track.

Lower denomination chips aren’t worth the time of carefully hand painting and replacing the inlays, which is why most counterfeiters stick to $100 checks.

At one point, the fake inlays were being provided by companies in Asia on the dark web. You could send them the chip, and they would print off the inlays.

While this made counterfeiting a bit easier, it also came with a high cost. Therefore, almost assuring that the $100 chip was the most targeted.

It’s possible that US Customs, under pressure from casinos, have shut down some of these operations, or perhaps they’ve just gone even further into the dark.

Our counterfeiter mentioned at the start had clearly thought ahead about some things – but not others.

Database queries on players who played craps with no cash buy-ins narrowed the field, and cameras provided the rest.

He got 12 years.

Cons, Scams, And Assorted Hustles

The odds of you receiving a counterfeit chip inside a real casino are vanishingly small.

Still, it is buyer beware outside of the casino. Counterfeiters over the years have realized the obvious: It’s a lot safer to pass chips outside of the casinos than in them.

Casino chip scams, especially bait and switch, where your real chips get switched out for fake ones, have been a problem in Las Vegas since the city was founded.

Millions of unsuspecting tourists make it a hot spot for all kinds of cons, but passing counterfeit chips off as real ones is still a hometown favorite. 

The trick here isn’t knowing all of the security features in all of the chips all over town.

It’s not allowing someone to use your greed to suspend your disbelief.

Just as you’re not going to fall for that Nigerian Prince wanting to put millions in your bank account, you also shouldn’t entertain the notion of buying an orange chip ($1,000) for $700 because the guy doesn’t have an ID to cash it out, or got booted from the casino and can’t go back in or whatever.

Apparently, one of the more elaborate scams I remember hearing about back in the early ’90s is still prevalent today.

Probably more so in Las Vegas than anywhere else in the world; if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

There are a thousand things to gamble on, don’t make the authenticity of the chips you’re trying to cash in one of them.

You know they shouldn’t be betting it; all the experienced blackjack players at the table know they shouldn’t be betting it.

Still, there’s always going to be that one guy at the table insisting to everyone that will listen that you have to insure your 20 against the dealer’s ace. Or that even money is a good bet.

While I suffered in silence all those years ago in Las Vegas, I’m going to do my best now to explain to you why insurance is never a good bet – no matter what your new friend throwing back mojitos at the other end of the table is telling you.

What Is Insurance In Blackjack?

First off, let’s talk about what insurance is.

Insurance in blackjack is a side bet you can make if the dealer has an ace up, which allows you to bet on the dealer actually having blackjack. If you’re right, you get paid 2 to 1.

But of course, you will lose your main bet. So by betting insurance, you are insuring your hand against the dealer having that dreaded blackjack.

It’s only offered when the dealer has an ace up, and importantly, you can only take insurance for up to half of your main bet.

This is because it’s a simple matter to keep track of the 10s in the deck, and any knowledgeable player would crush the insurance bet if they were allowed to bet more.

Insurance Math Explained

The math here is straightforward.

There are 13 types of cards. Four of them are 10-value cards that will give the dealer blackjack. So, the odds are 9/4 against you winning the bet. The casino will only pay you 2 to 1, so the house edge is almost 6 percent.

As mentioned, house advantage depends on how many 10s have come out of the deck.

Insurance is far and away the most significant deviation from basic strategy for a card counter.

In fact, if I notice nothing else other than that you always take insurance with a large bet and never with a small one, I’ll be on the phone with the eye in the sky before you’re dealt your next hand.

That being said, let’s talk about our tipsy new blackjack instructor attempting to get you to insure your 20 because it’s a “good hand”.

If you have been dealt two 10-value cards in a blackjack game, you know that those are two fewer 10 cards that can make the dealer’s hand a blackjack. Taking insurance at this point is even less of a good idea.

Even Money Confusion

The other hand that will have someone at the table clamoring for you to take insurance is when you have a blackjack against a dealer’s ace.

This version of insurance is often called even money, as you will receive even money for your bet.

It’s important to realize that even money is not a separate bet.

It’s just a term used for the short cut that dealers use in paying insurance on a table that still pays a player’s blackjack 3 to 2.

In this case, if you bet $10 and received a blackjack, you could ask for even money. The dealer will happily give you $10, pick up your cards, and proceed on their merry way.

But what has happened here?

In this special instance of taking insurance, the dealer knows that there are two outcomes.

If the dealer has a blackjack as well and had you placed the $5 bet on the insurance line, you would have pushed on your blackjack but been paid $10 on your separate insurance bet.

If the dealer had not had blackjack, you would have lost your $5 insurance bet, but you would have received 3 to 2 on your blackjack.

That’s $15 minus the $5 for insurance, or a net of $10. Sadly, this neat little math trick only works on blackjack tables that still pay 3-2.

Casinos do not offer even money on tables where blackjack pays 6 to 5. In that case, you would put up your $5 insurance.

If the dealer has blackjack, you win $10 as in the original even money scenario. But if the dealer doesn’t have blackjack, you lose $5 in insurance and only pick up $12 for your blackjack.

That’s a net of only $7, not the $10 that made the even-money trick work before.

Other than that, insurance works exactly the same on tables that pay 3 to 2 or 6 to 5. Though obviously, the 3 to 2 game has much better odds.

But Is Even Money A Good Bet?

The argument here is that you’re going to be paid something. A win is a win.

But of course, you’re playing many hands of blackjack. Getting paid something isn’t the same as getting paid the most over time.

Let’s review our $10 bet scenario. There are 13 possible cards under the dealer’s hole card.

If you take even money on all 13 of those cases, you have $130. If you don’t, you push on the 4 occasions the dealer has a 10-value card but get paid $15 on the other 9 non-10-value cards. That’s $135.

This is a little simplified in that it ignores the cards dealt to you and the dealer, but in the long run, you will be over 3 percent better off if you don’t take even money.

Conclusion: Avoid The Insurance Side Bet

Despite the well-meant intentions of your slightly boisterous new friends on the blackjack table, or even in some cases an ill-informed dealer, insurance is never a good idea for a casual blackjack player.

The surge in tables paying 6 to 5 on blackjack has caused a lot of confusion about taking even money.

Casinos don’t offer this shortcut because the math doesn’t work the same as on a 3 to 2 table, but you can still take insurance on your blackjack.

Perhaps the only positive to come out of 6 to 5 blackjack is reigniting the debate about eliminating insurance altogether.

Casinos make money on hands per hour. Spending 10 or 15 seconds tracing the layout asking for insurance when almost no one ever takes it can seriously impact the bottom line over hundreds of thousands of hands.

The saving grace on the old 3 to 2 tables was the ingrained (but bad) advice to take even money and walk away with something. This provided at least some player participation on the insurance side bet.

But now, with 6 to 5 games forcing folks to actually insure a blackjack, participation has fallen to all-time lows.

Don’t be terribly surprised if in the not-too-distant future you walk into a casino and insurance is no longer on the layout in bold letters.

But not to worry, your garrulous friend down on spot 7 can probably opine for hours about 12s against a bust card.

The taxman is probably the farthest thing from your mind.

But the sad reality is, you’re going to have to pay taxes on a slot jackpot of $1,200 and up, and most table games jackpots that are more than 300 to 1.

Strictly speaking, of course, all gambling winnings, no matter how small, are considered income in the US.

And the IRS expects you to report them – whether it is $1 or $10,000 – on your 1040 tax form as “other income”.

But in certain situations like a slot or table games jackpot, the casino will generate a Form W-2G, which outlines to the IRS what you’ve won and whether or not taxes were paid.

Federal Withholding is 24 percent on a W-2G for US citizens and 30 percent for non-citizens.

We certainly aren’t tax experts, but we can walk you through the process of when casinos issue a W-2G and what you can expect.

But first off, “Congratulations on your big win!”

…which is precisely what you are likely to hear right before casino staff starts asking for ID and your Social Security Number (SSN). And in some cases, whether or not you’d like Federal Withholding tax withheld.

When To Expect A Form W-2G

So in typical IRS fashion, each type of gambling winning has a different reporting requirement.

Ever wonder why some casinos have slot or video poker jackpots set at $1,199?

Well, here’s your answer.

Slots, Video Poker And Keno

All slot and video poker jackpots of $1,200 or more will trigger a W-2G.

This seems to also apply to electronic keno, though the IRS website lists the reporting requirement for live keno at $1,500.

Table Games

All table games are considered games of skill under federal tax law. Skilled games are issued a W-2G if the payout is 300 to 1 or more AND at least $600.

Some table games like craps, roulette, or blackjack are never issued a W-2G, even if the winnings are in the millions.

However, not receiving a W-2G does not mean you won’t be liable for taxes on your winnings.

And all large cashouts at the cage will require an ID and an SSN or other documents, in any case, leaving a paper trail.

Poker

While cash games do not generate W-2Gs whether you are a professional or amateur player, tournament wins over $5,000 will have the casino or card room filling out paperwork.

Your tourney buy-in is subtracted from that amount.

Many professional players treat poker as a business, even going as far as opening an LLC.

This allows them to write off losses against wins and deduct expenses like hotel rooms.

Sports Betting and Horse Racing

Wins on sports betting or horse racing also have W-2Gs completed on wins of 300 to 1 or more and at least $600.

More than 25 states have legalized sports betting since 2018, bringing in tens of millions in new tax revenue.

And more states are passing legislation to allow sports betting every year, many with rules that allow for mobile sports betting.

The ability to bet on games from your phone, along with the addition of in-game betting, is likely to mean there will be a flood of new W-2Gs.

In-game betting allows you to bet on various outcomes during each game, like whether the next play will be a pass or a run or whether the next batter will strikeout.

These bets can then be strung together in parlays and teasers that often pay more than the 300 to 1 threshold.

I’m A Big Winner, Now What?

Casino staff will request identification and they’ll need a Form W-9 if they don’t already have one on file for you.

A Form W-9 is an IRS tax form used to verify the name, address and taxpayer identification number (TIN) of an individual receiving income. It allows the casino to identify to the IRS which tax filer this paperwork is for.

In cases where the payout is less than $5,000, they will ask whether you want federal taxes withheld.

If you decline to provide two forms of ID, you will not be paid. However, the winnings will be held at the cage for some time to give you time to reconsider or be able to provide the requested documents.

If you decline a W-9, backup withholding will be withheld at a 28 percent tax rate. While Federal Withholding is 24 percent on cash, it rises to 33 percent on prizes like cars or boats.

In some instances, individual states will also withhold taxes. Though, Nevada is not one of them.

At tax time, you will want to tally all of your W-2Gs from the year, along with other gambling winnings, and declare them.

As mentioned, we are not tax professionals, but one mistake we see made over and over is people not withholding federal taxes on those small wins under $5K.

Most mistakenly believe that they can use losses against those winnings and not owe federal taxes, but this is only true if you are itemizing your taxes instead of taking the standard deduction. 

Tax law changes in 2018 almost doubled the standard deduction. The list of things you could deduct if you itemized was cut, so most Americans will no longer be itemizing.

This means the IRS will have a W-2G where withholding wasn’t paid, and you will have no qualifying losses.

It’s probably best to have withholding taken out of all jackpots unless you have spoken with a professional tax planner, or you are confident you will be itemizing deductions and keeping good records of all gambling wins and losses.

Conclusion

There are only a few certainties in life, and taxes are certainly one of them. We hope you enjoyed your big win, but the IRS is going to want you to share.

Remember, the IRS expects all gambling winnings reported, not just jackpots.

If you do receive a W-2G, remember to include it on year-end taxes even if you had taxes taken out, so that the IRS can see that everything matches up.

If you have several W-2Gs or a huge win, consider doing your taxes with the standard deduction and itemized deductions to see which turns out better.

Or better yet, consult a tax professional.

If you’ve ever wondered how to play or what to look for in a good 21+3 game, we’ve got you covered.

What Is The 21+3 Side Bet?

The dealer will deal you your first two cards and then turn over their upcard.

If your first two cards and the dealer’s top card make a straight, a flush, or a three of a kind, you’ve won!

One of the reasons for its popularity is that it’s so easy to play.

The bet is placed in a small circle off to the side of the main wager, which is why it’s called a side bet.

Either online or in a land-based casino, you should be able to find the bet for as low as $1, although in some places like Las Vegas, you may only see it for $5 and up.

21+3 Payouts

In the original game – now owned by Galaxy Gaming and found on land-based blackjack tables worldwide – a straight, flush, or three of a kind was paid a simple 9 to 1.

But as online casinos flourished and other companies saw the potential, the pay tables evolved.

Some games now pay a progressive jackpot on things like three aces suited, or perhaps 270 to 1 for a three of a kind suited.

The critical thing to remember is that they all play basically the same. Your first two cards and the dealer’s top card need to combine to make a winning hand.

Several of the online providers offer different payouts depending on the hand dealt.

The most common of these is this payout table from IGT, which has a 4.14 percent house edge with a six-deck shoe.

Or the very similar payout from Evolution Gaming which has a 3.62 percent house edge with a six-deck shoe.

The very popular top three side bet often accompanies the 21+3 side bet since they are both owned by Galaxy and marketed together to casinos.

It requires that you bet both the 21+3 bet and the top three bet. Then if your two cards and the dealer’s up card are a three of a kind, you’re paid 90 to 1.

A straight flush gets you a 180 to 1, and three of a kind suited gets you 270 to 1. You also get your 9 to 1 payout on your regular 21+3 bet.

The house advantage on just the top three bet is approximately 9 percent.

The More Decks, The Merrier

The number of decks in play can influence the house advantage by a few tenths of a point on your blackjack hand.

But the house advantage on your 21+3 bet can change by several whole percentage points depending on the number of decks in play.

The original 21+3 offered up by Shufflemaster at casinos across Europe, America and Asia is a prime example.

Here’s the paytable from 1-8 decks:

The casino’s advantage is more than twice as much if you play the 21+3 side bet on the double-deck game vs. an eight-deck shoe.

Even on the IGT and Evolution payout tables discussed above, the difference between a six-deck shoe and an eight-deck shoe is almost a whole percentage point.

So this game is best played with every payout paying 9 to 1 and on an eight-deck shoe.

Failing that, look for as many decks as possible, with one of these pay tables preferably.

Can 21+3 Be Beaten?

While a lower house edge is always a better bet, can the game be beaten?

Eliot Jacobson, a table games hacker of sorts, showed that a simple count of suits was enough to beat the game, albeit with a very low expected return and a high degree of difficulty.

But as many casinos went to progressive pay tables with three ace of spades or something similar, many individuals and teams realized they could look for progressive payouts that were large enough to give the player the advantage.

In these very limited cases, the mathematical pendulum had swung to favor the player as the size of the jackpot grew to offset the slight house advantage.

So it never hurts to keep an eye out for large progressive meters when scouting for a 21+3 table.

Conversely, small jackpots on these progressive games may mean that you are playing at a much worse house advantage than you would be just playing on a conventional game, so beware.

21+3 Is Here To Stay

21+3 is a simple, fun side bet, which, if you’re careful, doesn’t have to have a huge house advantage.

It can add a lot of excitement for just a $1 or $5 bet, and it gets the whole table pulling together in a way that blackjack doesn’t always. It’s similar to, but better than, the rummy side bet.

That’s the reason it’s been around for two decades and will probably be around for at least two more.

And while not as popular as it once was, surrender can be found in some land-based casinos, and on many online casinos and electronic table games.

What Is Surrender In Blackjack?

Surrender is simply an optional rule in blackjack that allows you to give up half your bet after you have seen your first two cards and the dealer up card.

If your hand has less than a 50 percent chance of winning against the dealer, then it’s time to consider surrender.

There are two types of surrender rules, referred to as either early or late surrender.

We will discuss both, though early surrender is increasingly difficult to find in its original form, where it hasn’t been diluted by other less advantageous rule changes.

Early Surrender

Early surrender allows you the option to surrender half your bet before the dealer checks the hole card for blackjack. This has a tremendous effect on house advantage as players can give up half their bet on bad hands vs. a dealer’s ace up card.

Early surrender was a byproduct of some questionable decisions by the Casino Control Commission and early operators in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the late 70s when casinos first became legal there.

Hoping liberal rules might lure players, and not wanting the dealers to peek at their hole card due to possible collusion, they came up with this new version of surrender.

With a .6 percent blow to the casino’s house edge, even basic strategy players had a slight advantage.

In fact, this rule change was so disastrous that in 1981 then New Jersey Governor Byrne had to step in and uphold the New Jersey Casino Control Commission’s decision to bypass the regular public hearing process, as they believed continuing the early surrender rule for the 60 days normally required for public comment posed an “imminent peril” for casino operators.

Such a potent rule variation is seldom seen today in land-based casinos.

If you find it online, it’s best to carefully check all the house rules as they are likely to have been tweaked to make up for the loss to the house edge.

If the rules seem reasonable you will want to surrender 14, 15 or 16 when the dealer has a 10 up.

If the dealer has an ace, you will want to surrender hard 5, 6, 7 and 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17.

If the dealer hits soft 17, you will also want to surrender hard 4.

Late Surrender

Late surrender differs from early surrender in that you can only forfeit your hand and lose half your bet AFTER the dealer checks his hand for blackjack.

This dramatically reduces the effectiveness of the surrender option to something like .05 to .1 percent.

That doesn’t sound like much, but consider that on a 6 deck shoe with loose house rules, the edge drops from .42 percent to .35 percent or almost 20 percent overall when late surrender is used optimally.

So late surrender can be another tool to help us decrease house edge when it’s available.

While it should be an easy option to spot at online casinos or e-tables, in land-based casinos it is seldom displayed on table signage or elsewhere.

Your best bet may be to ask the dealer if the surrender option is available and if it’s late surrender or early.

If that wasn’t confusing enough, not all casinos use the same hand signals for surrender in blackjack.

Generally speaking, you should draw a horizontal line behind your bet with your index finger, while verbally announcing surrender.

This applies to blackjack games dealt out of a shoe.

In casinos with handheld games, procedures for surrender may differ, so when in doubt it’s best to ask your dealer the proper etiquette for surrendering your hand. They will be happy to walk you through it.

You will want to surrender any hands where you don’t have at least a 50 percent chance of winning against the dealer’s up card.

But this will be influenced by house rules such as hit or stand on soft 17 and by the number of decks in play.

Here is a quick summary of late surrender rules:

• If the dealer has a 9 up, you should only ever surrender if dealt a 16. And then only if the game has four or more decks.

• If the dealer has a 10, then you should always surrender if you have a 16, and also surrender all 15s unless it’s a single deck game.

• If the dealer has an ace, things become complicated by whether the house hits soft 17 or stands.

• If they stand on all 17s, always surrender 16 no matter how many decks are in play. If they hit soft 17, you should surrender 15, 16 and 17 regardless of the number of decks.

Total Dependent vs Composition Dependent

The rules of play outlined above are for what is called ‘total dependent’, meaning you are only interested in the totals of your first two cards in order to make a surrender decision.

There are rules for ‘composition dependent’ surrender, meaning for instance if you are dealt a 9, 6 vs an 8, 7. While both total 15, they are composed of different groupings of cards.

If you analyze this using composition dependent rules for the single deck game, you should surrender 9, 6 but play out an 8, 7.

There is more than a dozen such exceptions, and it can be quite confusing for those starting out with surrender options in blackjack.

The small advantage gained is probably not worth the added difficulty, and best left to more seasoned players.

So that’s a basic summary of early and late surrender and the basic rules for gaining the most edge in blackjack. When used properly, these will help you keep more of your money and stay in the game longer.

If you’re ever unsure, you can also refer to our handy blackjack strategy charts which tell you your best next move. You can also check out our other helpful guides:

• When to hit in blackjack
• When to double down in blackjack
• When to split in blackjack
• And even how to deal in blackjack

Casinos had realized they didn’t have to offer only the traditional blackjack bet but could offer side bets right along with it, often at house edges just this side of armed robbery.

And, just like that, Super 7s and the Royal Match bets were born.

How The Super 7 Side Bet Worked

Due in part to the many different jurisdictions and the newness of trademarking casino games, you might’ve seen it called Lucky 7s or Crazy Sevens instead of Super 7s, but the rules were almost always the same.

Super7s was almost always dealt out of a six-deck shoe.

If your first card was a seven, you were a winner. If your second card was another seven, you’d have won a bit more; and if the dealer’s up card was another seven, you’d have won even more.

And then if they were all suited, you’d have seen a very nice payoff, depending on the payout table in use.

Importantly, if the dealer had blackjack, a third card was dealt to the player to complete the bet (known as a third card guarantee). If the player split sevens, the next card dealt to the first split seven was used for the bet.

The most common paytable on a six-deck game with the Super 7s side bet was 3 to 1 for that first seven, 50 to 1 on the second seven, going up to 100 to 1 if they were suited. If the dealer turned over that third seven, it’d be 500 to 1. And if all three were suited it’d be 5,000 to 1.

Simple, straight forward and almost always offered at only a dollar bet.

The players loved it.

And the casinos, seeing that 11.4 percent house edge, thought they loved it too – at first.

Taking Advantage Of The Side Bet

What was immediately obvious to every aspiring counter like me was that a simple side count of sevens was likely to give at least some situations where we had the advantage on the bet.

If we count all cards other than a seven as +1 and every valuable seven that comes out as -12, it makes for a nice easy balanced count.

We then realize that any true count of +4 should be enough to give us a slight edge, and we should make the Super 7 side bet. 

What wasn’t as obvious, at least to folks who weren’t modeling the game on computers, was the size of the vulnerability that the game offered as the count went up.

Over billions of hands, it was apparent that more than 1 in 4 hands would be EV positive, meaning that your expected value was more than your bet.

But as the count went up even higher, as it could sometimes as more of the sevens sat in the back of the shoe, the player’s edge could skyrocket.

At a +10 true count, the player’s edge is at about 20 percent. At a true count of +20, the player’s advantage is almost 60 percent.

In fact, those same computer models would show an expected win of about 8.5 units per 100 hands played over millions of shoes replicated. Compare this to blackjack card counters who would often be content with 1 unit per 100 hands.

It’s probably a good thing for the casinos that Super7s was never offered at more than a $1 bet.

Then by the late 90s, Super 7s was gone.

While I would like to say it was those plucky little card counters that forced it into extinction, it was honestly just that the .11 cents the casino was pocketing on each bet paled in comparison to slowing the game down and to the profitability of other less dangerous side bets that the casino could offer in much larger bet denominations.

How To Beat The Super7s Side Bet Today

Recently, as is often the case, there’s been a bit of a revival for the Super 7s bet.  What’s old is new again. But, as always, the devil is in the details. 

With the advent of online blackjack, Super 7s pops up from time to time, but it is seldom of any interest as the “cards” are shuffled after every hand. 

Some online casinos are offering the game as part of their live dealing offers online but a close inspection of the rules shows a new wrinkle. 

No third card is dealt if the dealer has blackjack. It doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but a quick run of the computer shows almost a 50 percent house edge!

If you can find the game either online or in a land-based casino, make sure that there is a third card guarantee in case of a dealer blackjack.

If online, either live dealer or in some rare cases in a software program, make sure that the cards are not reshuffled after every hand, and that at least five out of the six decks are dealt out.

Use our simple count outlined above and only bet when the true count is higher than +4.

That’s all you need to know to beat the Super 7s side bet.

For more side bet tips, check out our articles on the 21+3 side bet and the rummy side bet.