If you go Downtown, 10am-2pm is relatively solid if you want to play multiple hands on the weekend in most joints, aside from that, good luck. You won't get many windows again until 3am+
If I wanted to play $10 and below games I would avoid the strip like deion Sanders in his prime. Most will be 6:5. If I didn't rent a car, I would stay downtown where there is plenty of low stakes games or at palace station, gold coast, or the Orleans where there is $5 and $10 double deck and shuttles to and from the strip.Originally Posted by smatchemosmall
At Palace Station I've seen $5 Blackjack Double Deck games but the problem is that the table is always full (5-6 players). How can you make money by playing less hands. They don't have that many six deck tables that you can table hop. I'm not suggesting not to go there but that was my experience when I was last present. It is good to go and scout out the games and see what opportunities you will get don't find any opportunities just leave and go to another casino.
Last edited by seriousplayer; 06-19-2014 at 10:13 PM.
It depends on the time and day of the week. From my experience unpopular days and times have lower minimums, ie. Mondays through Thrusdays and late nights and early mornings. Furthermore, on holiday weekends I know the prices jump up to at least 10 to 25$ on the strip. It may be the same for weekends. Moral of the story is that it fluctuates and you'll probably have to hunt for games.
So I have now been in Vegas for a full night and day and though I'd share my thoughts while they were fresh (although I did also take notes as was suggested!). Hopefully any other newbies or just people looking to play in Vegas on the cheap will find it useful.
As for casinos to find cheap BJ at for 6D (note this is strip only, my friends had already made plans to stay at the Bellagio and I am lazy and didn't feel like going too far way):
Bellagio: AVOID. On the Friday night I arrived there were no $10 min tables at all, and all the $15 min tables for AS. During the day (probably around 3pm) there were some $10 tables mixed in but they were also all AS.
Cosmo: Not the worst, if you can stand popular music. Friday night there was a $15 min table doing 6D and the Saturday day there was a $10 min table. Is near a bar area that pumps the latest "hits" (think Turn Down for What on a loop) but if you can handle that it's not too terrible. Mix of dealers was weird, some were super good and I played quite quickly and a few were pretty slow. Also super solid pen, at worst 5/6, and sometimes even 5.5/6!
Aria: I had almost forgotten to write about this because, well, as far as I'm concerned it doesn't exist for BJ. All 6:5 and nary a $15 min table in sight.
Monte Carlo: The best casino for cheap BJ I found. Only one pit but multiple $10 min tables there and I never got heat for anything. Where I spent a decent amount of my time.
NYNY: All the BJ I saw was 6:5, maybe I missed the 3:2 but if not, no reason to come here. Did have $10 min tables but as Norm says, 6:5 is not even real BJ.
Like I said I didn't go downtown but I imagine that has to be the place to be for some good, cheap BJ. Considering I was able to find anything decent on the strip on what is basically a holiday weekend (giant music festival in town), downtown must be like heaven!
And a few random thoughts:
- I did not prepare adequately for how high/low my emotions would get once I reached the high end of my betting range. I only did 1:8 as I have a rather small bankroll and this seemed vaguely sustainable based on some of the charts in Modern Blackjack, but putting out those 8 unit bets destroyed my counting ability. Really need to practice this and if anyone has any tips on best ways to try and deal with this I would love to hear them!
- This was the cheapest I've been in a loooooong time. I usually don't mind spending a bit of money, but for me it was all McDonalds and walking around. I never tipped dealers and they didn't seem to mind. (Only place where I messed this up was cabbing to hotel. Don't do it! If you arent renting a car use SuperShuttle or hitchhike or whatever. Just don't cab it.)
- As others have said, no need to have huge amounts of chips in front of you when playing. I pulled bills out constantly and they were only too happy to take my money. Everyone does it and it doesn't look fishy at all.
I might play a bit more tomorrow and update some of this, but regardless thanks so much for all the advice, it has been immensely helpful. Not the best first trip ever (or at least not yet), but I have learned so much and look forward to doing it again (with a lot more practice and hopefully a bigger bankroll =) ).
The $15 min tables at Bellagio is not so bad since they offer 6 deck S17, DAS, RSA, LS with three people and good penetration the game is profitable. I play games with automatic shuffle machines before and it make the game faster.
Not trying to be sarcastic, but to me, $40 isn't worth it to play if you're going to play $10 min tables. If you're willing to play $15 min, then you have options on the strip. How long do you have to play to make up $40 if you're a $10 player at these games?
Well, if your option is to not play any decent 3:2 DD 10 dollar tables, or spend 40 bucks to go play them, I'd spend the 40 bucks. Its called opportunity cost, and many guys here, despite knowing the math and ins and outs of advantage play, don't understand how a "business" works sometimes. Everyone's looking to milk +EV, but sometimes you need to spend a little to get the +EV in the first place.
All I'm saying is, if I took a trip out to vegas, $40 dollars is NOTHING. Especially if its your first time. Hell, you'd be an idiot NOT to go to FSE and hit up all of their casinos. And here's my rationale behind that. When I went in April, my first trip there of legal age, I hit up EVERY casino there, signed up for the club/players card, and got a sheetful of free shit and incentives from each place. Almost EVERY place down there will give you a matchplay voucher, and every other place will give you that, plus a voucher for a free ace.
I played 25 hands while I was in vegas on night 1, won 24 of them, and basically every one of those hands was played with a voucher ( I didn't have time to play tables on night 1, we had too many tourist things to do ). Made a killing on night 1, it was unbelievable.
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