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Reason #2 why the Wizard likes Bodog:
No-hassle practice games
Most online casinos spend more effort trying to separate you from your money than they do trying to give you a good experience. They have all kinds of popup windows, they usually make you download their software, and if do they offer play-in-browser games then you have to register an account before you can play. And if you do register then they start sending you emails trying to get you to deposit real money.
But Bodog is different. They have no popup windows at all, and their practice games play right in your browser, with no download, and no registration required. You don't even have to give up your email address. It couldn't be simpler: Just one click and you're playing the game.
I wish all online casinos showed this much respect for their players. Other casinos practically ask for your first born child to play for free. Meanwhile Bodog is patient and does not twist anybody's arm to play for real money. You can play as long as you like for free with no obligation. The real-money games are available if that's your preference, but if not, you can play the free practice games for as long as you like without hassle. (Visit Bodog)
Try blackjack at Bodog.
One click and you're in:
 No popups, no download, no registration, no B.S., just the game.
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 Ground-breaking
Pai Gow strategy
I recently completed one of my
proudest accomplishments, a new strategy for
Pai
Gow (tiles) which I call the
Wizard
Way. Before I released this
strategy your main choices were to use the
casino's house way, which has a higher house
edge, or to use optimal strategy, which is so complicated I doubt anybody knows it. My new
strategy is an excellent compromise: It is fairly easy
enough to be practical to use, but gives the
player much better odds than the typical house
way, lowering the house edge from 2.44% to only
1.81% on a 5% commission table when the player
is not banking. This is very close to the 1.67%
edge from using complicated, optimal strategy.
This analysis took over 100 hours of work and I
believe it is a significant addition to the pai
gow literature. Ironically my readers seem to be
least excited about the analyses that I consider
the most meaningful, but this work has brought
me a great deal of satisfaction nevertheless.
The
gambling scene in Washington State
I was in Washington State June 3 to
7 and visited casinos in Pullman, Spokane,
Seattle, and the Coeur D'Alene casino in
Idaho.
According to the 'Ultimate Casino Guide' by
Michael Wiesenberg there are 26 Native-American
casinos in Washington, which offer full blown-
gambling, table games and slots. There are also
about 40 small "card rooms" which have poker and
up to 15 table games.
This trip I did not visit any of the Indian
casinos. However, about three years ago, I did
visit the Northern
Lights Casino near Anacortes. It was a nice,
fairly large, casino with all the usual table
games. As I recall, there were no video poker
games, nor 3-reel stepper slots. All the slots
were video. When I tried to inquire about why, I
was quickly rebuked for uttering the word
"slot", and told their games were technically
not slot machines. To this day I do not
understand why, they looked exactly like the
video slots here in Vegas. The only difference I could tell was that you couldn't put money in directly, but had to buy a voucher, and then put the voucher in.
The card rooms I visited were:
- Zeppoz
in Pullman
- Classic
Rock casino in Spokane
- Ringo's Little Vegas casino in
Spokane
- Jerry's Valley Casino in Spokane,
and
- the Silver Dollar casino near the Seattle
airport.
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Giant wagon in Spokane. The
handle is a slide.
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All of these offered Texas Hold 'Em and several
table games. What was bizarre was that the
number of no-nonsense traditional games like
blackjack,
craps,
baccarat,
and roulette,
was zero. 100% of the games were either new
inventions or a traditional game with a side bet
tacked on. To be specific, games I noticed at
all casinos were Three
Card Poker, Texas
Shootout, Fortune
Pai Gow Poker, and Spanish
21. I also noticed blackjack games as long
as a side bet was tacked on. Often it was
Match
the Dealer, the same type as in Spanish 21,
and I noticed a new one called 2
run 21, which I just analyzed and
explained on WizardOfOdds.com. I also saw a new
game called Three Card Blackjack was also
noticed, which I plan to analyze and write-up
soon.
Except for the Silver Dollar casino, near
the Seattle airport, all the casinos were fairly
empty, although to be fair I was there mid-week.
At Jerry's Valley casino they had drawings
every half hour among all the players in the
casino, and there were only four in the whole
place, including me. I was there for two of
these drawings and won neither (dang!). The
Silver Dollar casino was fairly busy, with an
average of about three players per table.
All these casinos had dozens of pull tabs
available for purchase, which I didn't
patronize, of course, because of the high house
edge. Alcoholic drinks are not free to players
but are reasonably priced. If I remember
correctly a beer was $1.75. Two of the casinos I
went to were connected to bowling alleys. All of
them were simple affairs, with little decoration
or fanfare. The best thing I can say is all of
them were wonderfully and totally
non-smoking.
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Another state to cross off the
"visited" list. Just Montana, Wyoming,
North Dakota, and Kentucky are
left.
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On the drive between Pullman and Spokane I
decided to drive through Idaho, because it was
one of five states I needed to complete by
50-state visit. On the drive I passed by
the Coeur
D'Alene Casino. This was the opposite of the
table game casinos I visited in Washington. It
was a vast, quiet place filled with nothing but
video based games. There was a smattering of video
poker and video keno, but about 95% of the
machines were video slots. What little video
poker they had was on old machines with stingy
pay tables. There was also an off-track racing
room. The facility was very clean and modern,
with self serve soda bars. However there was
nothing I deemed to be playable so I didn't stay
long.
I ended the trip with a visit to my father
and brother on Vashon Island, near Seattle. On
Wednesday night I had my heart set on a weekly
$3/$6 poker night at the Eagles Lodge.
Unfortunately it was canceled because it
conflicted with a baseball game. I would like to
put in a good word for the Back Bay Inn in
Burton, where I stayed. The restaurant there is
outstanding. I've eaten at lots of the high-end
restaurants here in Vegas but the dinner I had
at the Back Bay was the best meal I've had in
years.
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Boat ride on Vashon Island (a
rare sunny moment)
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 Still
no money from Neteller
It is now day 182 that my $30,000 in
Neteller has been stuck in limbo. In the
last newsletter I mentioned that they stated
they would establish a plan to return funds to
American players after a 75-day investigation.
This period ended on June 6, with Neteller
issuing another
statement that they need more time and they
extended the tunnel to July 13.
Ask
the Wizard!
Here's an excerpt from the newest
Ask
the Wizard, column
#191.
Every time I go to the
Blackjack games there is a grumpy simple
individual, who wants to stone some poor soul
for "messing up the shoe." Is there any truth to
this? -- Jim.
from Las Vegas
In ten years of running this site I
have steadfastly denied the myth that bad
players cause other players to lose in
blackjack. However, you are the lucky 1000th
person to ask, so I took the trouble to prove
it by random simulation. My program modeled
liberal Strip rules over 1.05 billion hands
and showed that the first player lost 0.288%
when the second player played perfectly, and
0.282% when the second player played poorly.
So the house edge of the basic strategy
playing first player was almost the same,
regardless of whether the second player
played correctly or wildly incorrectly. I
hope this puts and end the third baseman
myth, but I doubt it. As I have said many
times, the more ridiculous a belief is, the
more tenaciously it tends to be held.
(more...)
Free
book drawing winner
This month's winner of the Wizard's
book, Gambling
102, is Pete Walker -- subscriber #7831
(alphabetically) of 11,159, and who signed up
for the list way back in January 2004.
Congratulations to Pete.
What's
new on the site
Michael Bluejay will be back in the next
newsletter.
Until next time, set
your expectations high.
Read
back issues
Visit
WizardOfOdds.com
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