Poker and Blackjack

[mofungoo]

I played poker in a casino today and while observing the game I reached an interesting conclusion. Poker dealers keep their own tips and what I noticed was that as a result of that they tend to keep the game moving and deal around 40 hands an hour to a table of 10 players. They realize that the more hands, the more they make in tips, and the more rake the casino collects. The good poker players make more money too. That's a win, win, win for all concerned.

With blackjack the opposite takes place. Tips are pooled and the fast dealers have no incentive to really crank it up. The slower dealers have no incentive to learn to speed up. Add to this casino management's tendency to slow the games down with less penetration leading to more frequent shuffling causing fewer hands to be dealt per hour, thus less casino winnings per hour. Besides that, casino management tends to want to save a few bucks by keeping fewer tables open and keeping them full of players which leads to a slower game. If they opened more tables and had fewer players per table more hands per hour would be dealt and as a side benefit covariance would be reduced leading to less fluctuations to the casino's bankroll. Labor costs would increase, more decks of cards would be needed, and there would be more maintenance needed on the tables. Even considering the extra costs, more money per hour would be earned by the casino, more than twice as much. The added expenses could be written off as tax deductions, further helping the casino's bottom line.

The casinos that are doing these are saying it's the APs damaging their bottom line. From the mid 90s through 2007 I played several thousand hours of blackjack and during that time frame I saw about 10 counters, 3 of whom appeared to be competent and with enough of a bankroll to be any threat. It seems to me that casino management, or actually casino mismanagement, is more to blame for their problems than APs are.

When are they going to wake up?

[moo321]

Casinos are constantly lighting money on fire with dumb procedures and policies. Penetration and complex shuffles are two of the best examples of costing yourself millions of dollars to stop someone from taking a few thousand.

[UK-21]

They may feel this way but it is a flawed concept. They should view tips as a team effort and help everyone on the team to bring in the most they can. The idea that your work has little value just makes for a lackluster team that makes relatively poor tips. It is a symptom of the "me" concept that has perpetrated modern society. Everything is about how it affects me to people that have fallen victim to this mindset. They fail to see the value of group success only seeing something that is just for them as valuable. This mindset will erode business success, community and family. It is the main driving force of a downward spiral that we find ourselves in. It is a cancer that has spread everywhere in society today.

Cor . . . . this is profound stuff ! Perhaps we should start another thread?

[Kat]

Cor . . . . this is profound stuff ! Perhaps we should start another thread?

It's all right, he usually gets over such outbursts of indignation pretty quickly.

[dharmaprija]

They may feel this way but it is a flawed concept. They should view tips as a team effort and help everyone on the team to bring in the most they can. The idea that your work has little value just makes for a lackluster team that makes relatively poor tips. It is a symptom of the "me" concept that has perpetrated modern society. Everything is about how it affects me to people that have fallen victim to this mindset. They fail to see the value of group success only seeing something that is just for them as valuable. This mindset will erode business success, community and family. It is the main driving force of a downward spiral that we find ourselves in. It is a cancer that has spread everywhere in society today.

I concur 100%. The seeds of this disease were sewn after WW2 with the New Deal(which was a good thing in itself) which gave people more $ and free time. These seeds were nurtured by the expansion of "individualism" during the 1960's drug culture. I am old enuf to recall the fact that the 70's was called the "me" generation. With a good economy, expendable income, higher education the hippie gen. gave birth to a generation that saw a childhood of Atari instead of manual labor like the dust bowl generation endured. This leisure led to the "drive thru" instant gratification mentality. The 80's was a time where most households became 2 income families (wages have stagnated over the past 40 years under 30 years of laissez faire economics) leaving TV and video games to raise two generations of children in the U.S.. Its sad but the generation now growing up has had everything handed to them, they have been conditioned to think that someone else will take care of them and they can spend all their time and money on designer clothes and electronics. The Jersey Shore brainwash has hit these kids hard as well, they think that all day everyday should be filled with shallow self centered behavior infused with mountains of vapid drama, drama, drama....well i gotta go its time for GTL.....

[Norm]

Careful, you're veering into politics.

[Ouchez]

Careful, you're veering into politics.

Norm,

You gotta admit, DHARMA is pretty much right on......

Ouchez

[First Normal Form]

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

- Plato/Socrates c. 400 BC

[Kat]

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

- Plato/Socrates c. 400 BC

What was that old goat whining about? He wasn't so smart... after all, he died. Besides, he wasn't even on Facebook or Twitter. Er, should I praise him for the Internet, or Al Gore...

[Norm]

Yeah, but Plato made it to 80 and Sophocles to 90. Not so easy back then. OTOH, Anouilh's version of Antigone was a lot more daring than Sophocles'.