Accent On Tampa Bay #213 Sept/Oct 2015 Sept/Oct 2015 | Page 59

Madonna returns to the MGM Grand Garden Arena
Saturday, Oct. 24 for another legendary performance.
Madonna continues to be one of the most successful

Dear Mark: I agree
with just about
everything
you
with Mark Pilarski
write, especially
making bets that
www.markpilarski.com/
have less than a
2% casino advantage. That said, I would not by any stretch call myself
a successful gambler. It seems I am like every other
want-to-be winner, just trying to grind it out. Is there
something in the equation I am missing? Jimmy P.

DEAL ME IN

Even for the canny blackjack, craps, baccarat or video
poker player, grinding it out against the house is the best
any gamester can hope for. Yes, Jimmy, two thumbs up for
playing the best bets. However, the one thing, which you
are still up against, is when the “low house edge” commingles with the “speed of the game.”
In gamblese, it is called “incremental game speed.”
What that means is the more often you are exposed to the
built-in house edge, even with games or bets with only a
2% or less casino advantage, your bankroll can be cannibalized when decisions come at a lickety-split pace.
The ideal game for the casino is one with a high house
edge played at high speed. An example would be the onearmed bandit. For the player, the perfect game would be
one that has a low house edge played at a turtle’s crawl.
Smart video poker played at a leisurely pace, on the bestof-the-best paytables, would be a good example.
When it comes to slot machines, most players will play
approximately ten decisions per minute, or 600 decisions

touring artists in history – her shows are legendary. The
“Rebel Heart” tour follows the March release of Madonna’s Rebel Heart album on Interscope Records.

per hour. Some of those machines, Jimmy, can have up to
an 18% house edge.
Consequently, on a penny machine at $3 a spin, multiplied by 600 decisions per hour, and the house possibly
holding an 18% edge on your play, you can expect to lose,
theoretically, $324 every sixty minutes. No grinding it out
here, Jimmy. More like a good old-fashioned whooping.
Now let’s take a look at a $25 minimum blackjack table, with five players, and each player averaging about 70
dealer-shuffled hands per hour. Here, each player would
be placing $1,750 per hour at risk, approximately the same
amount as our penny slot player.
If the dealer is squared off against the average player,
the house edge could be as high as 5%. The dealer will
pilfer their wallet for as much as $87.5 per hour.
Against the strong basic strategy player where the
house would have a measly .05% edge, their expected
hourly loss drops significantly to $8.75. Present an automatic shuffler into the equation, with players now averaging 90 hands per hour, the keen player’s expected hourly
loss escalates dramatically from $8.75 to $11.25. Even with
perfect play, Jimmy, the competitive player is still grinding it
out against the casino.
When I write and recommend which games or wagers
are the crème de la crème, those are bets with the lowest house edge. Nevertheless, gamblers must balance that
against the speed of the game. Ignore speed, Jimmy, at
your peril.
I recommend slowing down your play when possible.
What’s the hurry? Chop-chop play can send you home
empty-handed.

www.AccentOnTampaBay.com

59