Comments on: How Crown stacks the odds in its favour

By: Greg Angelo

Greg Angelo — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:14:24 +0000

The old adage that a fool and his money are soon parted is true. Anybody who thinks they can win at gambling is a fool. The tragedy is that individuals think they can get beat system, and like drug and alcohol addicts become hooked.

Spending money in the casino is no different to blowing your dough (pardon the pun) in the whorehouse, “you pays your money and you get done”. The rate at which you lose your money only affects the time you spend. There should be a sign at the door saying ” abandon hope all that he who enter here”.

At the political level the Brumby government has no moral scruples whatsoever so why would you expect its agencies to be exercising reasonable judgement. We have beer barns galore, street violence on the increase, a desalination plant drawing energy from the world’s worstpractice in electricity generation, a dysfunctional rural fire system, a second-rate public transport system, overcrowded hospitals, under resourced schools, shockingly expensive Grand Prix and massive subsidies to the polluting aluminium industry to nominate just a few. By comparison, the gambling fiasco is “small beer”.

By: james mcdonald

james mcdonald — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:58:10 +0000

Mark, this certainly is entertaining, and keep it up, but when the odds are tilted, doesn’t that just mean the casino draws forward in time some of the revenue it was going to make anyway? Assuming punters basically play until they’ve got nothing left to play with, regardless of the odds or how high they peak at, tonight’s big winner is tomorrow’s big loser? Even if it was tilted in the punter’s favour wouldn’t he still blow it all in the end? Or have I misunderstood?

By: jossy

jossy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:25:40 +0000

Mark, in a small way I think Crown is actually doing the mug punters (or “grind” as you call them) a massive favour.
The house always wins anyway so this way the punters do their money quicker and can get back out into the real world and enjoy their lives. Additionally when they realise just how little time they got at the tables for the money they spent they might even decide to avoid the place entirely in the future.

By: Tim Falkiner

Tim Falkiner — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:29:07 +0000

The rules of table games have always been varied in detail by casinos to increase or decrease the casino percentage. Casinos are a business and assuming the cost of operating a table is similar between high stakes tables and low stakes tables it is not surprising the casino operator would take a higher percentage of the lower turnover on the low stakes tables.
The big concern is the absence of controls on gaming machines. The players rules, the reel tables, are kept a close secret. It is like the player playing Blackjack without knowing how many ten count cards are in the deck or playing craps without knowing how many dice there are or what spots are on them. The reels do not even have to be the same; the manufacturer can, for example, leave just about all the Kings off one of the reels so the player keeps getting four Kings but misses on the starved reel (reel starving).
Gaming machines are responsible for 80% to 85% of problem gamblers.

By: meski

meski — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:49:11 +0000

“helpless addicted punters” ? No-one’s forcing them to play.