Casino at Bellagio (Las Vegas) - All You Need to Know

I avoided Vegas for all of 2020, not because I have any fears whatsoever regarding COVID, but simply because I felt that it was just going to be depressing and annoying combatting the virus hysteria. (Following the Vegas sub didn't help, as those folks pounce on anyone considering visiting as being selfish, despite tourism being the town's only export.)
I was pleasantly surprised that the Strip wasn't as post-apocalyptic as I was expecting. There still appear to be plenty of people visiting... the crowds weren't as thick as they normally would be, which some would say is a plus, but there also wasn't a dearth of people, either.
I was comped at both Caesars and MLife, so I booked at both. I stayed at the Paris and stuck my friend at the Grand. FWIW, the $20 trick worked at Paris (I figured it was an especially good play when the staff's income has taken a hit), and I was upgraded to a corner suite overlooking the Bellagio Fountains.
Onto the craps play... Sunday through MLK at noon, we failed to find anything below $15. I submitted my edits to the minimums spreadsheet that is stickied here. Oddly, Linq and Park MGM just did not open any tables at all... I'm not sure what the rationale is for that. We decided to stick mostly with Caesars properties, as they don't have Plexiglas dividers at the tables. All MGM properties have these, and it makes the casino look like a house of mirrors.
I had brought a $1k bankroll, but bought in for $300 each time...I tend to be very frugal, even while gambling. My strategy was to play the pass line, place the 6/8 for $12 each, and take 1x odds for 4/6/8/10. (I hate taking odds on 5/9.) After a place number hit 3 times, I would press on the 4th hit. That was usually a great way for the next roll to be an SO.
MLK afternoon at Paris I did "OK," but the recently lowered $10 minimum was raised back to $15 again. This depleted my bankroll faster than I expected, but I guess it makes sense, as my strategy went from costing me $44 to $66 per swing. There were a lot of PSOs, too. For reasons I can't understand, my friend and I could never get a good roll going, but there were two shooters at our table that we knew we could count on for recovery. I don't know how that is - the dice are the dice - but these two guys could always go on heaters for a long time. The dice would be passed to us, and after a few 2s and 3s, we'd PSO. After some ups and downs, I finally walked away with $250.
MLK evening, after some Beef Wellington at Gordon Ramsay Steak, the table was back to $10 again, and had no players, so my friend and I opened it. As with the above, our rolls were miserable. PSO after PSO. Other players would come and go, seeing how bad the game was going. I tried to switch to the DP when my friend rolled ("nothing personal"), and then he'd magically start making points. It was awful. I finally got down to my last $10, and bet the line with him, and he caught his second wind. Gradually brought me back to $292, and we colored up at 1am.
Although Paris doesn't have table dividers, they insisted on sanitizing the dice between shooters. Even when it was just my buddy and I, and I said we were in the same party, it wasn't necessary, they responded "well, it's for our safety." I bought that for a few minutes until I realized they hardly touch the dice, yet they don't mind grabbing everybody's chips that are getting intermixed with different people's germs.... whatever, it's all stupid theatre.
Tuesday afternoon, my friend headed back to Phoenix and I was waiting for a late flight. I stumbled upon a $10 table at Aria, and since it was just me, I decided to deal with the Plexiglas (which turned out to be wildly ineffective when I could still fist bump and talk to the player immediately left-of-stick from my catty-corner of the table, 3 feet away). My bad luck shooting dissipated. I hit several good rolls, and since it was my last day, I decided to loosen the wallet a bit, and would go up to 3x odds, particularly on 4s and 10s since they pay 2:1. I would also press 6s and 8s, which I had a real affinity for hitting, earlier than customary for me. (This probably still sounds like low rolling to many of you, but it's a big step for me!) I ended up more than doubling my buy-in, negating my losses from the other two sessions and putting me up slightly on the trip.
MGM has two sets of dice they can rotate between, and one goes in a golf ball washer while the other is in play. This seemed a lot smarter and didn't affect the game's momentum as much as Paris did, scrubbing them down with a ratty cheesecloth and diluted Clorox.
I still had 4 hours until my flight, which was bittersweet, but I'm glad I colored up when I got off of a good high shooting. It felt good, actually, that other players were disappointed that I was leaving, because I was making them some good money, but it was time for me to step back and enjoy my winnings. I bought my kiddo a T-shirt at the ABC store, waited an hour for the Centennial Express (told you I was frugal), and sat in The Club LAS until my flight boarded.
Both MGM and Caesars sent me e-mails asking me to book another complimentary trip before either room's folio arrived. I'm considering it.

With 42 crisp hundreds lining my pocket and child-like wonder pulsating, Vegas was summoning me from the bowels of hell. But first, I had to take a little detour by Morongo Casino for no particular reason other than recently reading up about Jackson's Seminole Wars and Cherokee policy; felt like the right thing to do.
I smoke a few bowls from my apple piece and do some Tai Chi in the parking structure to immerse into the zone. Within the zone, I am as objective as a poker player as I can comprehend; once the zone crumbles to ego, I am a PLO donk from the pit of eternal suffering and going all in on long shot stock options. It's a perplexing duality to rationalize and live with, though I wouldn't have it any other way. I lost a wee bit under 10k two weeks before with said degeneracy; regardless, there I was harnessing my Chi in the parking structure to redeem myself - maybe I should have been volunteering at a soup kitchen or raising malnourished kittens instead of this self centered quest, but the journey had already commenced..
The only game with an open seat is a 5/10 and I sit down with $666 for my own amusement. The villain of this hand had accidentally revealed his cards to my peaking eyes a few hands before where he floated 2x and bombed a paired board with nothing against a nit. Having known this, I flatted his 3b to 105 with my QQ's because his range is too wide to rip it and checked to him when the board came T95 rainbow, surprisingly he checks back. Turn is a 4 (bringing in clubs) and I lead for 60 to hopefully induce - he flats. River is an offsuit Ace and I check it, he insta rips all in for 550 effective. I ruminate on quantum theory and my mother's abuse, then make the crying call only due to the fact that I saw his donkalicous play before. Sure enough, he flops over 57h and the trip is off to a BANG. After playing tight for another hour and as the table slowly began to break, I walk out with nearly a grand more to my name.
I sat in my Volvo wagon with an American spirit fading to my finger tips and Bach's E Major Partita emitting from mere mm's of my phone's speakers, I realized I had completed the most objective objective of this trip.. The only reason I set off was because my cello "broke" the day before and the degen tingles were too convincing without a bow in hand, now I had more than enough in profit to get my baby tuned up. But who the fuck has the time to act upon their conscience, I'm tryin to GAMBOL! "Vegas, here I come darlin."
I stopped in Barstow to force myself to vomit and then gently placed a tab of LSD under my tongue in ode to Dr. Gonzo. I tried deciphering some meaning in the vast array of stars as I wandered the barren Mojave and after coming up short, I was back to flooring it on the 15. My optics were melting a tad and the road did permeate with my breath, but not an ounce of fear radiated within. I sang my favorite songs from "O Brother Where Art Thou" and didn't think about my ex at all with "You Are My Sunshine," baby steps. With the dusk hue fading as rays of light mustered over the horizon, our beloved capitalist wasteland was within eye shot. Before I could render the inclination of a responsible thought, I was in the Bellagio parking lot smoking weed with some drunk broad beggin for a few bucks to throw on slots - "Ganja is the only charity I provide hon."
After a few orbits at 5/10 with a far too many regs that I recognized and getting a walk with Aces, I stand up right there n then and get the hell out of that nit fest. My soul was aching for 4 cards and there's no forsaking such a ravenous urge, Aria was my destiny.
Due to the fact that live 1/2/5 PLO is actually abbreviated for BINGO, most of my play was incredibly standard and not worth typing out. There was only one hand for which wasn't a cognitive snap decision against a 10/20 pro for whom I had top set and let 3 potential straight combos get there from foolish slow play; after a minute of deciphering the hand and his perception of my image, I called his $400 river bet and got the good news. Aside from that single hand, any domesticated chimp could have been in my seat and it wouldn't have made a difference; the hands played themselves out. After 72 hours of continuous grinding and gettin lucky at 5/5/10, I reached the sacred $4,200 in profit and doubled my trip's first stop loss amount (which I had no intention of adhering to).
With 84 mildly crumpled hundreds in my pocket and that same child-like wonder pulsating; here I am wandering the strip looking for the stories in all these confused faces. But conceptualizing the seemingly infinite dimensionality within even the simplest of folk is futile when I am just as confused; I hope the find what they are looking for or find that the looking is the fun part, who the fuck knows. I appears as though the next leg of my journey is to visit my childhood home in southern Utah and commit Felony arson in spite of my mother - or I might just keep degening away. Only time will tell.
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Safe travels comrades.

ok , I promise not your standard " will this be open?" questions. We're still under Corona Rules, this is known, and literally everything is up in the air in Vegas in regards to what will be available.
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So, I'm turning 50 this year. As such, my wife and I who pre pandemic were fairly regular Visitors 1-2 times a year for several years running have been staying home, with the exception of one pre craziness trip last June. Realizing afterwards that particular trip was a bad decision, we decided to hold off until Nov of this year for my 50th. We invited a few couples as well, thinking that we would be able to make a group trip of folks, hopefully in a much better corona managed Vegas by then. As it stands we have 6 folks, 3 couples definite, with 3-6 other folks holding off until we see how the virus restrictions are doing in NV. Obviously, we want to start some light planning around hotels, exploring what is needed for group rates if possible, and some other options. Our group is planning 4 nights, 5 days and my wife and I usually stay at the Venetian, but we are open to other upscale venues ( Aria, Cosmo, Wynn ) for the group depending on rates, etc ( We are not opposed to spending money for what is likely our only Trip anywhere in '21, but not all of our friends are financially in the same position we are).
With all that said, whats our best path forward? Do we need to try and find a host to help us, and if so, whats the best way of doing so, or is our group too small to even bother with that route? Who would we check with in regards to getting a block of rooms at some of these hotels? As for interests, We are your general type Vegas visitors, We gamble a little (blackjack mostly ) , Like to run the speakeasies ( Mob Museum and 1923lv @ Mandalay are some fun places we like) and some of the signature bars at the casinos ( Elektra/ The Dorsey At Venetian, Vanderpump At Caesars, Lily at Bellagio, Whiskey Down At MGM, etc) not too much into the Nightclubs ( I'm late 40's people, I'm not the Creepy old dude at the club type). And real talk, we want to make this not only a birthday trip to remember for me, but a Trip to remember for our Friends, some of whom have never been to Vegas before, so they don't know what it used to be like, or what they are missing from the Pre COVID days.
I'm open to any and all suggestions and advice, and yes, I am fully aware that this all may be a moot point even in November with the COVID unknown still lingering. If it isn't safe, we'll cancel in a heartbeat, but it isn't even October yet, so save the "cancel now and stay home" comment trolls.

I decided on a last minute whim to play the Venetian 100k this weekend. I planned on entering flight 1C on Friday and to my surprise, I was alternate 180 at around noon. The tournament was around 200 capacity with no rooms for more because the cash games were going and was told to come back an hour later to check if I would be next. 4 o'clock rolls around and the tournament director isn't even close to calling my number. The blinds were 300/600 with 600 BB ante, and I de-registered and got my money back. I asked the cage personnel if I can register for flight 1D, and to my surprise they said no, and to come around at 8 in the morning to wait in line.
After getting my money back, I drove over to the Bellagio and played in a mix game that consisted of stud 8 and super stud 8. Cindy Violet was playing and running bad, and Chau Giang sat down for a brief moment not playing a single hand and leaving quickly. I played in the game for 14 hours and was down $485 and decided to call it a session. Bellagio poker room was not filled to the brim and my game was tucked in the corner closest to the cage.
I drove back to the Venetian at 7 am and got my $300 free play chips from the casino cage, and proceeded to run the free money up to $1000 real money on the blackjack tables. At around 8 am, I colored up and went to line up at the poker room. The line was already 50 deep and registration doesn't open til 9 am. By the time 9 am roll around the line has already stretched around the huge electronic baccarat tables and pass the Asian noodle restaurant. I registered and went back to my hotel room for shower and a 2 hour nap.
I woke up at 10:45 am, and ate a breakfast sandwich I had gotten before going to my room. I got to my seat at 11:05 and the tournament has just started. Room was very packed, you could not lift up your elbows without bumping into someone. Players at my table were filthy casuals who called preflop with 75% ranges, and I was able to double up my stack at level 2. Someone even called my pot size river bet with 95 high because they thought I was bluffing on a board KQ843, I was, but I had A9. At level 6, I lost a few flips, and a cooler spot where I had top 2 vs a turned straight. I went to my room to sleep for the rest of the day.
TLDR:
Venetian : Poker room is cramped, but the competition is very weak. I got a free bottle of white wine and $300 free play chips to stay there.
Bellegio: Poker room had a lot of space. Saw semi famous poker players.
Vegas: Mask were mandatory everywhere, a lot of people wore them incorrectly. No smoking at the blackjack tables. Strip is sketchier than normal, saw homeless lady in the Venetian fountains skimming for change.
Drove home on Sunday.

The previous post is here. It's getting buried so I figured we would make a new one.
Keep reporting those minimums:

Vegas Strip Casino	Day Min	Night Min	Dividers	Comments
Aria	10	10	Yes
Ballys
Bellagio	10	25	Yes, all tables	)May be lower on weekday nights, $15 has been seen) Poker tables open
Caesars	15	25	No	Poker tables open
Casino Royale	N/A	N/A	N/A	Table Games not open
Cosmo	15/25	50-100
Encore	50	100	Yes, on some tables	Reports of $10 tables during the day
Excalibur	10-15	15		10 crapless, 15 regular
Flamingo	10-15	15-25
Harrah's	15	25	No
Linq	10-15	10-15	No
Luxor	10	10
Mandalay Bay	N/A	N/A
MGM Grand	10	25	Yes, all tables
NY/NY	10	15-25	Yes, all tables
Osheas	Unknown	15
Paris	10-15	15	No	Opened 6/18 - Masks required at tables.
Planet Hollywood	N/A	N/A		No open date announced
Rio	N/A	N/A		No open date announced
Sahara	5	10
Strat	Day	10	Unknown
Treasure Island	5	15
Venetian	10-15	25	No
Wynn	25-50	50-100	Yes, on some tables	Updated 6/16

Downtown Casino	Day Min	Night Min	Dividers	Comments
Binions	5	10		Binions had $5 table several times with little to no social distancing
California	10	10		From 7/15 on Vegas Message Board
The D	10	15	No glass
Downtown Grand	10	10		Checks your temperature before letting you into casino, also NO valet, self-park only.
El Cortez	10	10	Yes, some tables	2 tables
Four Queens	10	10	No	From 7/16 on Vegas Message Board, Four queens had a $5 table in the morning on saturday
Fremont	10	10		From 7/15 on Vegas Message Board
Golden Gate	10	15		From 7/14 on Vegas Message Board
Golden Nugget	10	10		From 7/15 on Vegas Message Board
Plaza	10	10
Sams Town	15	15		1 table

Offstrip Casino	Day Min	Night Min	Dividers	Comments
Aliente	10	10
Boulder Station	10	10
Cannery	5	5		up to 2 tables - now allowing 4 per side
Ellis Island	5	5		1 table
Gold Coast	10	10
Green Valley Ranch	10	10		2 tables open
The Orleans	10	25		up to 4 tables, I was asked to wear a mask
Palace Station	10	10	Unknown
Palms	N/A	N/A		No open date announced
Red Rock	10	15
South Point	5	5		2-3x tables w/ only one $5 buy in
Strat	5	10
Sunset Station	5	5

Other NV Casinos	Day Min	Night Min	Dividers	Comments
Edgewater (Laughlin)	10	10
Harrahs (Laughlin)	10	15	no
Atlantis (Reno)	5/10	5/10		3 tables on weekends
Cal Neva (Reno)	5	5
Circus Circus (Reno)	Closed	Closed		Closed table game pit
Eldorado (Reno)	5	10
Grand Sierra (Reno)	15	15-25
Peppermill (Reno)	10	10	3 craps tables
Silver Legacy (Reno)	10	10
Hard Rock (Tahoe)	5	5
Harrahs (Tahoe)	10	10
Montbleu (Tahoe)	10	15

Non/NV Casino	Day Min	Night Min	Dividers	Comments
Foxwoods (CT)	15	25
Mohegan (CT)	10-50	10-50		2 were 10, 2 $15, 1 $25, 1 $50. Plus a high rollers table
Harrington (DE)	15	15-25		Must wear mask and face shield
Blue Chip (Michigan City, IN)	5	10		5 minimum prop bets, 5 min ATS bet.
Harrah's Hooiser Park (Anderson, IN)	10	10
Indiana Grand (IN)	10	15	No
Belle (Baton Rogue, LA)	5	10		one half sized table sometimes they open the big one. $5 small table and $10 big late at night
Hollywood (Baton Rogue, LA)	5	10		one half sized table sometimes they open the big one. $5 small table and $10 big late at night
L’auberge (Baton Rogue,LA)	15	15	No
L’auberge (Lake Charles,LA)	15	15	No	1 bubble craps $5 min
Harrahs (Shreveport, LA)	15	25
Margaritaville (Shreveport, LA)	25	25
Ocean Downs (MD)	10	15
Maryland Live (MD)	25	50	Yes	5 tables, 4 per side. Electronic craps 15 min
MGM @ National Harbor	50-100		Yes	4 craps tables 2 were $50 and 2 were $100 mins. Not bubble craps or low roller options.
Firekeepers (Battle Creek, MI)	10	15+	No dividers, only distancing	1-2 tables depending on demand, did see it at $15 during the day $25 on Fri/Sat night. Masks required, no smoking. $3 Bubble Craps.
Four Winds Casino	15	15		Digital craps table 5$ min Tuesday and Sunday night. Did not check bubble craps
Gun Lake (Wayland, MI)	10	15	No	Temp check, masks, usually the crapless table is open
Turtle Creek (Traverse City, MI)	5
Soaring Eagle (Mt Pleasant, MI)	10	15	Yes	5 players per side with glass. Tough to hear dealer.
Hollywood Casino, Maryland Heights (St Louis) MO	15	15		1 regular table & 1 no craps. 4 per side. No outside drinks.
River City (St. Louis, MS)	20	20	Unknown	4 players per side. $20 min. You have to have at least a $20 bet for every throw to "hold your spot"
Beau Rivage (Biloxi, MS)	25	25	unknown	3 tables
Boomtown (Biloxi, MS)	10	10	Unknown	1 table
IP (Biloxi, MS)	25	25
Scarlett Pearl (Biloxi, MS)	15	25	No	Masks required, temp check
The Palace Biloxi, MS)	10	15
Treasure Bay (Biloxi, MS)	10	10
Harrah’s Cherokee & Murphy	15	15	No
Harrahs River Valley (Murphy, NC)	25	25
Harrahs (AC, NJ)	15	15
Hard Rock (AC, NJ	25	25	Yes	2 tables
Resorts (AC, NJ)	15	25	Yes	1 table
Ocean (AC, NJ)	15	25	Yes	4-6 tables
Buffalo Creek (NY)	15	25
Seneca Niagra (NY)	10	15		1 table, can go up to $25
Hollywood (Columbus, OH)	10-15	Unknown	Unknown	2 tables, masks required
Hollywood (Grantville, PA)	15	25	Unknown	2 tables, masks required
Meadows (PA)	10	10		2-3 tables.
Windcreek (PA)	10	10
Mount airy (PA)	10	10
Parx (Bensalem, PA)	15	25		15 but maintaining 25
Sycuan (San Diego, CA)	10	10		Masks required
Barona (So Cal)	5	5		3 tables, dealers managing bets for players.
Harrahs (So Cal)	15-25	15-25		Bubble craps $5 min, Interblock bubble $3 min, 1 electronic table $5 min
Viejas (So Cal)	N/A	15		1 table
Southland Casino Racing (West Memphis, TN)	N/A	N/A	Yes	4 tables all closed. Other pit games open with plexiglas dividers. Bubble craps $5 minimum.

Last update 7/21
Pulled additional info from here.

As requested, I will provide DD for NAT, DHT Holdings and MGM based on votes from my previous thread. I'll start with the tankers. (Let me note that I do not expect the general market trend to be positive for the next few weeks)
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Preface: Positive Virus news is generally bad for Tanker company share prices.
NAT
Current share price: $6.12
EPS Q1 2019: $0.04
EPS Q1 2020 Estimate: $0.26
Earnings: 5/18 (Per NAT website, Thanks u/Nice_Block)
NAT operates Suezmax size tankers, the next step down from VLCC, and daily prices for Suezmax's are considerably less than VLCC. Current spot price is up 141% at $3.92 bpd from March of 2019 to March of 2020. I think that this earnings estimate is roughly accurate, but suezmax vessels have more room for positive price movement as more and more storage is filled to capacity. Suezmax ships allow producers more maneuverability and fluidity to store their oil, as such, turnover rates are higher than VLCC vessels.
Revenues at current prices indicate an earnings estimate closer to $0.36. This is the high end of earnings estimates. Additionally, demand for oil consumption is not likely to improve soon. If anything, a slow reopening of states without ports will not affect tanker company bottom lines and will extend the operating duration of oil producers in the permian. Keep in mind, if oil consumption does not increase, wells will either shut down, or more likely, prices will go negative again. This may have some effect on spot price for tanker transports. That said, spot prices are not likely to diminish significantly in the near future.
As a bonus, NAT recently (like yesterdayish) approved a buyback program to take advantage of increased revenues. This is the best news for NAT holders at this time. Their true intentions will be reflected in the earnings call.
Price Target: $8 in the short term. If quarantine continues through June with no oil production cuts, I would expect at $10+ is possible, but unlikely.
Historical action levels: https://imgur.com/a/dzsAZop
One week chart showing some consolidation for a potential breakout: https://imgur.com/a/10DZWE7
Note - I suggested this as a bullish play last weekend, and as such my $8 price target was hit on Tuesday. This ship may have already sailed. Pun intended. I would find another trade.
Recommendation: If you are dead set on an NAT play, shares at a reduced price through earnings, or options with expiry longer than 45 days out purchased next week.
​
DHT Holdings
Current share price: 7.10
EPS Q1 2019: $0.13
EPS Q1 2020 Estimate: $0.57
Earnings: 5/5
DHT operates operates exclusively VLCC tankers, of which the majority are on spot price rental. Current spot price for VLCC tankers up to 180k/day, up from an average of 19k/day this time last year. This is an over 9x increase. NAT is also currently operating more tankers on spot price rental, increasing volume under spot price contract over last year. They currently have 23 of 27 operating on spot pricing.
Historical action levels: https://imgur.com/a/X3W3kD4
One week chart showing downward channel (Im not sure this trend is completed yet) before potential breakout: https://imgur.com/a/CYCaYcv
Recommendation: I think the resistance levels for DHT are more relevant than those of NAT, and are also more realistic to be beaten. Calls mid week for EOW earnings at least 2 weeks out. General market sentiment is important for this trade.
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MGM
Current share price: 15.01
Summary of MGM's plans to reopen casinos: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2020/04/30/mgm-plans-reopen-las-vegas-bellagio-new-york-new-york/3061417001/
I would expect the mayor of Las Vegas to attempt to reopen the tourism to the city along with President Trump's guidance. If they are able, they will reopen soon. They likely will not have large scale shows or concert events to draw in customers, but gambling will be open to some extent. I do not expect casinos to see a large influx of patrons, and this will end up being a net negative for them in the coming months as their expenses will increase more than revenues. They may even potentially have to re-close if Covid testing reveals an uptick in cases in the Las Vegas area. That said, their saving grace is Macau, where a significantly large portion of their income is generated. China expects tourism to Macau to increase, but I would take that with a grain of salt.
Given MGM's recent meteoric rise to nearly $18 per share, I think they fall into the sentiment of the rest of the market and will suffer in the coming month. I expect the share price will visit mid-april prices of $13, or potentially lower following a general trend with SPY. Luckily, If you see these prices, I consider MGM a very long term and stable play. They have enough cash on hand to last an entire year with no revenue; a situation that is uncommon at this time. In general, event or discretionary based spending, hospitality and travel will be the last to recover, but this is a commonly assessed sentiment.
Historical action levels: MGM was not surprisingly rejected by the historical support level of $17.50 this week https://imgur.com/a/aoRNvk8
5 day chart does not provide any major price movement indication.
Recommendation: Sell shares, do nothing until share prices revisit mid-April levels.
​
As always, feel free to comment and tell me why I'm wrong.
EDIT - I accidentally switched which size tanker each company uses, it has been corrected - Shoutout u/kindlyblacksmith

Just got back from 4 days at Bellagio. I’ve been to Vegas probably 3-4 times a year for the last 20 years. This trip I saw a new phenomenon I hadn’t seen before - hoards of people in their 20’s and 30’s, very visibly able bodied using rascals to zip around the strip and casinos. Is this a new thing or a way for vendors to push rentals during a downturn?

1 The Statue of Liberty
📷
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York, in the United States of America. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, to celebrate the friendship the two endured during the American Revolution. Over the years, the Statue of Liberty has symbolized the freedom and the democracy of the United States. It serves as a popular tourist attraction, where visitors can learn about the history of Liberty Island and explore museums and exhibits on site. The best times to visit are Autumn and winter, if you want to avoid longer lines and waiting times. Depart on the ferry before 2 pm. The Statue of Liberty would take around 2-3 hours. If you want to visit both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, allow 5-6 hours for your visit. @Travel All Around The World
2. The Grand Canyon National Park
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The Grand Canyon National Park, in Arizona, is home to much of the immense Grand Canyon, with its layered bands of red rock revealing millions of years of geological history. Viewpoints include Mather Point, Yavapai Observation Station and architect Mary Colter’s Lookout Studio and her Desert View Watchtower. Lipan Point, with wide views of the canyon and Colorado River, is a popular, especially at sunrise and sunset. The best times to visit the Grand Canyon are March through May and September through November when daytime temperatures are cool. Five to seven hours according to park surveys, but if you really want to see the beauty of The Grand Canyon you should spend at least 2 day here. @Travel All Around The World
3. The Yellowstone National Park
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The Yellowstone National Park is a nearly 3,500-sq.-mile wilderness recreation area atop a volcanic hot spot. Mostly in Wyoming, the park spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho too. Yellowstone features dramatic canyons, alpine rivers, lush forests and gushing geysers. Yellowstone is known for its red-tinged canyon walls and awe-inspiring natural wonders like Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs. It's also home to hundreds of animal species, including bears, wolves, bison, elk and antelope. The best times to visit Yellowstone National Park are from April to May and between September and October. It takes longer than two days to really experience the Yellowstone area. @Travel All Around The World
4. The Golden Gate Bridge
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The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. It was the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a total length of 2.7km. You can see the Pacific Ocean on one side and the San Francisco Bay on the other. More than 10 million people visit the Golden Gate Bridge each year. The best time to visit it is either September or October. This is the best time to explore this place as the fog dissipates and the temperature becomes warm and enjoyable. 45 minutes to an hour, is good time to explore, enjoy and take some photo for your profile. @Travel All Around The World
5. The Glacier National Park
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The Glacier National Park is a 1,583-sq.-mi. wilderness area in Montana's Rocky Mountains, with glacier-carved peaks and valleys running to the Canadian border. It's crossed by the mountainous Going-to-the-Sun Road. Among more than 700 miles of hiking trails, it has a route to photogenic Hidden Lake. Other activities include backpacking, cycling and camping. Diverse wildlife ranges from mountain goats to grizzly bears. The best time to visit Glacier National Park is during the summer months of July, August, and September. June and October are also lovely times to go. To make a Glacier National Park trip worth it you need at least 3-5 days. @Travel All Around The World
6. The Niagara Falls
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The Niagara Falls is a city on the Niagara River, in New York State. It’s known for the vast Niagara Falls, which straddle the Canadian border. In Niagara Falls State Park, the Observation Tower, at Prospect Point, juts out over Niagara Gorge for a view of all 3 waterfalls. Trails from the Niagara Gorge Discovery Center lead to other viewpoints. The Aquarium of Niagara is home to Humboldt penguins, seals and sea lions. The best time to visit Niagara Falls is June to August. While summer is consider as a peak season. Based on this plan of the day, you should be spending anywhere between 8 to 10 hours at Niagara Falls and surrounding area. there is plenty of thing near to Niagara Falls. @Travel All Around The World
7. The San Antonio River Walk
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The San Antonio River Walk is a city park and network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio River, one story beneath the streets of San Antonio, Texas, United States of America. Lined with bars, restaurants, biking trails, and museums, the Walk has become one of the most popular tourist spots in the state and is one of America's largest urban ecosystems. The San Antonio River Walk boat tour connects you to the city's culture, history, architecture, and timeless charm. The best time to visit San Antonio is from November to April, when the weather is comfortable and suitable to take a boat tour and Sightseeing. 2 days on the Riverwalk, ideally it will take 3-4 days. It is most beautiful decorated at time of Christmas, try to visit at that time too. @Travel All Around The World
8. The Las Vegas Strip
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The Las Vegas Strip also known as Las Vegas Boulevard,is the most recognizable street in Las Vegas. Lined with upscale casino hotels, the neon-soaked Strip is quintessential Las Vegas. As well as gambling floors, the vast hotel complexes house a variety of shops, restaurants, and performance venues for music, comedy and circus-style acts. Attractions like the soaring, choreographed Fountains of Bellagio and the High Roller observation wheel draw crowds.

Since the Diamond Casino update, I have seen a large number of 12-year-olds posting Blackjack memes on this sub. As a parent, this has me very worried.
On top of that, I have seen some of the most trustworthy GTA Youtubers giving flawed gambling advice, which can have damaging impact on their gullible audiences.
So that's why I decided to write this up, to educate everyone on the subject, so there will be no more misunderstandings.
(2020 Update down at the bottom.)
If you're one of those Youtubers that wants to use this information in a video, feel free to do so. The more people (especially kids) that become educated about gambling, the better.
But then also please go back and review your own work, and delete or edit the videos that are giving out the wrong advice, like where you're saying you have "a good strategy for making money with roulette", or some other nonsense that I've heard this week. Delete that please.
Before I get into the individual games, I need to discuss a few concepts first, that will make understanding the rest a lot easier.
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Expected return and variance
A game like Roulette or Slots has a fixed expected return on your bets. This is a percentage that you have no way of influencing. Say you are flipping a coin against a friend, and you both put up $1. The winner gets the pot. Since the odds are even at 50%, in the long run, you will expect to break even. Your expected return is 100% of your bet.
But imagine if you would play this coin flipping game in a casino against the house. On the "house rules" listed at the table they would probably say that you would only get 95 cents back for every win, while you are forfeiting a dollar on every loss. Would you still play?
Sounds stupid to do so, but still, everybody does it. Every bet they place on Roulette, every coin they put into a Slot machine, is based on the same concept.
Those few cents they take on every bet are their profit margin, and has paid for all the Vegas lights, the Mirage volcanoes, and the Bellagio fountains. Make no mistake - casino gambling games are not designed to make you lose, because sure, you can get lucky on a single night, but they are designed to make them win. That's the beauty of it. They can both exist at the same time.
Too many people that don't see how this works, are just destined for disaster. Just because you went on a lucky streak and won 8 games out of 10, does not mean that flipping coins is a profitable game, or that choosing tails is a winning strategy. Always be aware of the house edge, your true chances of winning, and just realize that you got lucky. There is no such thing as a strategy in flipping a coin that will give you a higher expected return, so it's just pure gambling, just like Slots and Roulette.
Most casino games are made in such a way, that your expected return is a little under 100%. This means that from every dollar bet at the tables, the casino expects to keep a few cents. For individual players, results may vary. Some will win, most will lose. But for the house, it doesn't matter. They take millions of bets each day, so for them, the expected average works out a lot sooner. In short: the house always wins.
When looking at the house edge, we're talking about the expected long-term result, based on the game's house rules. But for a player, it can take literally tens of thousands of hands or spins before you also reach this average number. Until that time, you can experience huge upswings and downswings, that are the result of nothing but short-term luck, which is called variance.
Some games and some bets have a much higher variance than others, which means your actual results will differ enormously from what you're expected to be at.
Take for example betting on red/black at the Roulette table. This is a low-variance proposition, because it has a high percentage chance of occurring, and a low payout.
Contrast this with betting single numbers in Roulette, which only win once every 38 spins on average. This bet has a much higher variance, meaning you can easily hit a dry spell, and not hit anything for 200 bets in a row, or you can see a single number hit three times in five consecutive spins. This is not a freak occurrence in high-variance bets.
Even though the expected return in both these bets is exactly the same, there's a huge difference in variance, causing massive differences in short-term results, which can go both ways. You need to be aware of this, before you decide what types of bets you are comfortable with placing.
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Gamblers' Fallacy
Another thing to realize, is that each individual game, hand, or spin, is completely independent from the one(s) before it, and after it.
Gamblers tend to believe, that the chance of a certain outcome is increased, based on previous results.
The most famous example comes from the Casino de Monte Carlo, where the Roulette wheel managed to land on black 26 times in a row. Gamblers lost many millions during that streak, all frantically betting on red, believing that the odds were in favor of the wheel coming out on red, after producing so many blacks. This is not true. Each round is completely independent, and the odds are exactly the same.
You will hear people say things like a Blackjack table being "hot" or "cold", which is completely superstitious, and should be ignored. The exception was when Blackjack was being dealt from a shoe. It made card counting possible. But with the introduction of shuffle machines, and continuous shuffling like is being used in GTA, this no longer exists.
This is also why "chasing your losses" is a very bad idea. After being on a losing streak for some time, many gamblers believe that now it's their turn to start winning. So they will often increase their bet size, believing that when their predicted winning streak comes around, they will win back their losses, and more.
The reality of it, more often than not, is that people will indeed start playing higher and higher limits, until they are completely broke. Nobody is ever "due for a win". There is never a guarantee that you're about to start winning. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true. You are, after all, in a casino.
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Betting systems
Some people like to think that they have a fool-proof betting system, like the Martingale system. Simply increase or even double your bet when you lose, and keep doing that until you win. In theory, this system will always win. So that's why table limits were introduced, and where the system fails.
If you start at the Roulette table, playing red/black, with a small 750 chip wager, and just double your bet every time you lose, you only have to lose 6 times in a row, before you will be betting the table limit of 48,000, just to get that 750 chip profit.
Sure, you can go on all evening without this happening, winning 750 chips each time, but this losing streak only has to happen once, and you're bust. Any betting system like this is ill-advised, because you are hugely increasing your so-called "risk of ruin", and that's what we were trying to avoid.
And even if your starting bet is only 100 chips, after only nine straight losses, and nine doubled bets, you are betting the table limit at 50,000 chips. If you lose that bet, you're 100,000 chips in the hole, with no way to recover that with your 100 chip base wager.
So don't believe anyone that says this is the perfect system to always win in the casino. Sooner or later they will understand why they were wrong, when they're asking you for a loan.
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Set your limits BEFORE you start playing
One final point before we get into the games, a general tip for people that head out to play: money management.
Just like in real life, before you go to the casino, decide on a maximum amount that you are WILLING TO LOSE.
Bet small enough, so that amount can last you through the entire evening, and you will not be tempted to run to the ATM to continue playing.
Considering GTA money, some people will be comfortable losing 1% of their GTA bank balance, some people will be comfortable with gambling away 5% of their total GTA savings. It's up to you what you can handle. Decide for yourself where it will start to hurt, and don't cross that line.
But whatever number you decide on, as soon as you lost that amount, get up and walk away. Don't chase your losses, stick to your limits, and accept that this has not been your day. There is always another game tomorrow. Always agree with yourself on a simple stop-loss rule, how much you would want to lose at most, and simply stop playing when you get there.
Same goes for winning. You can decide on a number, how much profit you would like to take away from the casino. You can go on a hot streak and be up half a million in a short period of time, but if you would continue to play longer, looking for more, chances are that you're going to lose it all back.
Most people are happy with doubling their daily casino budget, for example. Others are looking for 10 bets profit in Blackjack. Whatever you choose, when you hit that number, you can stop playing and bank your profits, or you can continue playing if you're still enjoying the games, but then only just play minimum bet sizes. Then you're just playing for fun, not for money. You've already made your profit, so simply keep it in your pocket, and don't risk losing it again.
Either way, decide on what your money management strategy will be, and STICK TO IT.
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Casino games in GTA Online
Now, I'm going to dive into the games that you can find at the Diamond casino, ordered from worst to best.
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6) Slots
Generally the rule is this: the less strategy a game has, the worse it is for the player. And with slots, this is definitely the case.
The only influence you have, is choosing what type of machine you're going to play. Basically, there are two types of slot machines:
-high frequency, low payout slots
-low frequency, high payout slots
In the first type, there is no huge (progressive) jackpot on offer, just your average selection of prizes that don't go up to crazy amounts.
This will result in a player having many more spins resulting in a win. The amounts that you win on the bigger prizes, will be smaller, but they do come around more often. This type of slot machine has a lower variance, which means that your money should last you longer, winning many smaller prizes along the way to keep you going.
The second type of slot machine lures you in with the temptation of a huge jackpot prize. Even though the long-term expected return on these machines is the same as the previous type, the prize distribution is hugely different. The large jackpot prize weighs heavily on the scale of expected return, but the chance of it hitting is extremely small. This results in a much higher variance on this type of machine. Usually your money will go down very fast, because the smaller prizes are less rewarding than on the other type of machine.
At the Diamond, the info screen says the player return at slots is set at 98.7%. This means that, on average, for every maximum bet of 2,500 chips, you expect to lose 32.5 chips.
This might not seem like a lot, but the danger of slots is that the game is extremely fast. You can spin about once every 6 seconds, which would result in an expected LOSS of about 20,000 chips per hour of playing.
But again, in this long-term expected number, the large jackpot awards are also factored in, and as long as you don't hit those big prizes, you'll see your money go down a lot faster.
In any case, thank heavens the max bet is only set at 2,500, or else we would see more players go bankrupt at alarming rates.
Optimal strategy for slots:
There is none. Because after betting, you have no more influence over the outcome. The only choices you have, is what type of machine you want to play at, and how much money you are going to risk. And those are all personal preference. As long as you stick to your loss limits, as discussed above, there's no harm in having a go every once in a while, hoping to get a lucky hit. Just realize that you don't have a high chance of scoring a big win, so as soon as you do, get up and walk away.
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5) Roulette
Roulette is also a game where you have no influence over the outcome. There is zero skill involved. You place your bet, and that's it.
In traditional French roulette, a table has only the single-zero, but of course, for American casinos that wasn't enough of a house edge, so they simply doubled their profits by adding a second zero. The house edge was increased from 1/37 to 1/19, which is huge.
This makes playing on a double-zero roulette table by definition a sucker's play.
The payouts scale evenly, which means that a bet on a single number, and a bet on half of the numbers, and everything in between, yields the same expected return. The only difference, again, being the variance that you are willing to subject yourself to.
The player return for double-zero Roulette for all bets is 94.74%.
Except for the 5-number bet, which can only be made by placing a bet on the two top rows that contain 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3. The expected return on this bet is lower: 92.1%. This is because it only pays out 6-1. Why? Well, the number 36 isn't divisible by 5, so the greedy people that came up with double-zero Roulette had to round it off someway, and as expected, it wasn't going to be in the players' favor.Just remember that that 5-number bet is the worst bet at the table, and should be avoided. All other possible bets have the same expected return.
So it really doesn't matter how you spread your bets, if you bet only one chip, or if you litter the entire table with a bucketload of chips. Each chip you put out there, has the same expected return, so there is no strategy that will improve your long-term results.
Assuming that you're betting the maximum table amount of 50,000 chips, you will be looking at an expected loss of about 2,630 chips per spin. Considering that a round takes about 45 seconds to complete, your expected LOSS at the GTA Roulette tables will be around 200,000 chips per hour of playing.
Optimal strategy for double-zero roulette:
Stay away. Stay far away.
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4) Three Card Poker
With Three Card Poker, we come across the first game where there is actually some strategy involved. You get to look at your cards, and then decide if you want to fold, and surrender your ante, or double your bet.
Additionally, you can choose to place a side bet on "Pair Plus", which offers progressive payouts.
There are some websites out there that ran all the numbers with computer simulations, and even though I would like to quote the source here, these websites are understandably littered to the max with online casino ads, so that's why I have decided against doing that.
Optimal strategy for Three Card Poker:
For this game you only have to remember one strategy rule: Always bet on any high card queen-six-four or better, and fold any high card queen-six-three or lower. That's it. Just don't forget to double check if you're not folding a straight or a flush, and you'll be fine.
This strategy will result in an expected return of 96.63%.
The Pair Plus sidebet, with the payout table that is used at the Diamond casino, gives you an expected return of 97.68%, which is actually a bit better than the main ante bet.
So by playing both wagers, you're reducing your expected losses per bet, but since you're betting more, you're also increasing your expected loss per hour.
My advice would obviously be to not play this game at all, but if you do, put as much of your bet as possible on the Pair Plus, while making our Ante bet as small as you can.
To be able to compare it to the other games at the Diamond, let's stay on that 50,000 maximum wager, meaning making your ante bet 35,000, and your pair plus bet 15,000, if the table would allow it.
This results in an expected loss of about 1,525 chips per hand, and with a round taking about 45 seconds, this adds up to an expected LOSS of around 120,000 chips per hour of playing. In comparison, if you would only play the ante bet for 50,000 per hand, you expect to lose 1,685 chips per hand, which means an expected LOSS of about 135,000 chips per hour. So the more out of that 50,000 wager you can put on the "Pair Plus" sidebet, the better.
Even though it may be fun to try out this game for a bit, since there's only one simple strategy rule to follow, you'll soon find yourself robotically grinding down your bankroll until it has vaporized. You're not missing out on anything if you skip these tables, there is no real challenge.
Just like with Roulette and Slots, if you want to try it out nonetheless, you can just bet the minimum amounts and only play for fun, so it won't matter if you win or lose.
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3) Blackjack
Blackjack is the most complicated game by far. Simply because the player has to make a series of decisions, which will largely decide the outcome. Luckily, there is such a thing as an optimal strategy, which will be outlined below.
However, the strategy is also dependent on the house rules. These not only affect your expected return, but in some places also your decisions.
Here are the house rules at the Diamond casino:
-The game uses 4 standard decks, and a continuous shuffle.
-Blackjack pays 3 to 2, dealer checks for early blackjack.
-No insurance offered, no surrender.
-Dealer stands on soft 17.
-Double down on any two cards.
-Player can split only once, but doubling after split is allowed.
-Seven-Card Charlie.
Under these rules, and following the "basic strategy" chart, your expected return at Blackjack is a shade under 99.6%, which is extremely good for a casino game, that's why Blackjack should be your table game of choice.
But it comes at a price: you are going to have to memorize the relatively complicated strategy chart, or at least stick it to your monitor until you have it in your head. But in case you ever stumble into a real-life casino, you won't regret having this table memorized, so I would definitely advise you to work on that.
The strategy chart might look complicated at first, but you will be able to notice certain patterns. Your decisions are mainly based on the dealer's upcard, which is basically divided into a weak card (2 to 6), and a strong card (7 to ace).
When a dealer shows a strong card, you will be hitting more often with the risk of going bust, but when a dealer shows a weak card, you're not taking that risk, and you will be standing more, but also doubling and splitting more. You want to increase your bets when the odds are in your favor, and get out cheap when they're not.
But it also helps to take some time to think about why a certain advice is given. For example, why does it say that you always have to split two eights, even against an ace. Well, that's because two eights equals 16, which is the worst total you can have. It's better to split them up, and give yourself a chance of finding a 17, 18 or 19 with the next card. Once you see the logic in that, you'll have one less thing to memorize.
The playing advice in the basic strategy chart is a result of computer simulations that ran all possible outcomes against each other, and produced the most profitable decision for each situation. So you can't go wrong following it.
Optimal strategy for Blackjack with Seven-Card Charlie
The added house rule of Seven-Card Charlie, adds a small advantage for the player, and it does influence a few strategy decisions. For example, you might have a 14 with 6 cards, against the dealer's 5 upcard.
Normally this would be an automatic stand, but if you're only one card away from the Seven-Card Charlie, meaning an instant win for the player, regardless of the dealer's hand, it turns it into a hit.
Here's the most optimal strategy chart to follow for the Diamond Casino house rules: https://prnt.sc/olct6g
You'll see that two fives are missing from the chart, and that's because you never split them. You treat them as a regular 10. You also never split tens. Just stand on 20.
If you follow this strategy religiously, even with a maximum wager of 50,000 chips, you only expect to lose about 215 chips per hand, and with rounds taking about 30 seconds, that amounts to an expected LOSS of 26,000 chips per hour, which is only half a bet. A small price to pay for an hour of entertainment.
But since the expected return is so extremely close to 100%, you will see more positive short-term results than with other games. But obviously it can also swing the other way. Again, this is supposed to be the game where your money lasts you the longest, but always set your loss and win limits before you sit down. That rule simply always applies.
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Still, even with optimal strategies applied, all these games are expected to lose you money in the long run. So betting any kind of large amounts is not advised. If you simply want to enjoy playing these games, there's nothing wrong with betting a minimal amount. Playing these games for a longer period of time will already cost you money anyway, since your daily property fees will still be charged while you're playing in the GTA casino. As long as you can play for fun, there's nothing wrong, but when you see yourself betting insane chunks of your entire bank balance to try to recoup some unfortunate losses, you're doing it wrong.
As the commercials in Britain all correctly say: when the fun stops, stop.
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2) Virtual Horse Racing
Now onto the good stuff. I ran some numbers, and I believe Rockstar has made a mistake with the horse racing game. Because as it stands, and if I read the numbers correctly, this game is actually profitable for the player. You can actually make money with this, at least, until Rockstar figures out their mistake and patches it.
If anyone wants to jump into the math and double check this to make sure, please do so. I will add any corrections to this post. This is one of those "to good to be true" things, so I keep thinking that I might have overlooked something. So please verify it if you can.
The setup is this. There is a pool of 100 horses, each with their own attached payout. These are divided into 3 groups, ranked by their odds. From each group, 2 horses are randomly selected to provide a pool of six runners for you to bet on.
Now it's not an actual race you're looking at. You are looking at a raffle. This is important to realize.
Each horse gets awarded a certain number of raffle tickets. The favorites get awarded more tickets than the underdogs, and therefore, have a higher chance of winning.
If this distribution works like it does in the real-life casinos, then the raffle tickets are awarded according to the betting odds.
Example 1: imagine a race with 3 runners, all have 2/1 odds, representing a 33.3% chance of winning. (Because 2/1 means 2 AGAINST 1, so 3 total.) In this case, each horse gets one third of the raffle tickets, giving them an equal chance to win.
Example 2: imagine a race with 3 runners, one has 1/1 odds (or EVENS), representing a 50% chance of winning, and the other two horses are marked up as 3/1, with a 25% chance of winning. The favorite gets half the tickets, the other two get a quarter of the tickets each.
A ticket is drawn, and you'll have a winner.
It doesn't matter in this game which horse you bet on, because the expected return is always the same: 100% or break-even, for the above examples.
Now, what happens if the percentages don't exactly add up to 100%?
They must add up to 100%, because there will always be a winner. And only one winner.
So when this is the case, the actual winning chances of the horses are adjusted to meet the 100% requirement, using their payout odds to determine the scale.
So, if the represented percentages add up to more than 100%, the actual winning chances of the runners will be DECREASED, resulting in all bets becoming losing propositions for the players.
Example: In a 6-horse race, all runners are listed at 4/1, representing a 20% chance. Only with six runners that amounts to 120%. So all chances are scaled down by 1/6th, to end up at 100%.
This means your horse's chances are reduced from 20% to 16.67%, turning it into a losing bet: 5 times you will lose your bet, and 1 time you will win, but only get 4 bets back in this instance, instead of 5. A losing bet in the long run.
This is the type of odds that you find in regular casinos, with fields as large as 15 runners to bet on, where the assumed winning chances always add up to more than 100%, therefore are decreased for all runners, resulting in a house edge.
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But in GTA Online's Inside Track, there are other scenarios, because of the small field, and the way that they are put together.
In some cases, the represented percentages when added up, are LESS than 100%, meaning that the actual winning chances of all runners, are INCREASED.
This creates profitable bets for the players, because in the long run, you're expecting to win more money than you lose. This is a gambler's dream, pure and simple.
So, according to the in-game information, the three groups of horses are divided as follows:
-Favorites: EVENS to 5-1
-Outsiders: 6-1 to 15-1
-Underdogs: 16-1 to 30-1
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Let's take the two most extreme examples to show what's happening.
The worst possible field to bet on: two runners at EVENS, two runners at 6-1, and two runners at 16-1.
EVENS represents a 50% chance, 6-1 is 14.29%, and 16-1 is 5.88%. Add those up and you land on a total of 140.34%.
This means that the actual winning chances of the horses are decreased by 28.75% (to get that 140% down to 100%), which makes betting on this field extremely unwise.
A horse at EVENS will only come in as a winner 35.63% of the time, instead of 50%,
a horse at 6-1 will only win 10.18% of the time,
and an underdog at 16-1 will only win 4.19% of the time.
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The expected return on a bet on any of the horses in this field is only 71.26%, so a maximum bet of 10,000 chips on any of these horses holds an expected LOSS of 2,875 chips.
These returns are the same, because the winning chances are scaled equally, according to the payout numbers. So it really doesn't matter which horse you bet on, in the long run, you expect the same results.
But as explained before, it does influence variance, and therefore your short-term result, which can swing both ways.
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But now, the best possible field to bet on: two runners at 5-1, two runners at 15-1, and two runners at 30-1.
Odds at 5-1 represents a winning chance of 16.67%, 15-1 odds means 6.25% chance, and 30-1 odds means a 3.23% chance of winning. Add these six horses together, and you only get 52.285%.
This means that, to get from 52% to 100%, the actual winning chances of these horses will be almost doubled! Multiplied by 1.91 to be exact.
So the 5-1 favorites will now win 31.88% of the time, instead of 16.67%,
the 15-1 runners will win 11.95% of the time,
and the underdogs at 30-1 odds will still win 6.17% of the time.
When betting on this field, the expected return on your bet is 191.25%!
This means that a max bet of 10,000 chips will result in an expected PROFIT of 9,125 chips.
This is printing money, if there ever was such a thing.
Optimal strategy for Virtual Horse racing
So all you have to do, is only bet high on the games where you have an expected positive return, and bet the absolute minimum on the games where your expected return is negative. Or back out of the racing game to refresh the field.
If you don't have a way to quickly add up all the percentages, and until somebody shows up here with a neatly formatted table, just use a few general rules of thumb:
-Always bet the maximum on a race with favorites at 2/1 and 3/1 or higher in it.
-Simply skip all races with two favorites at EVENS in it, and at EVENS and 2/1. Or bet the minimum, if you can't skip or refresh the field.
-To decide if you should play races with other favorite combinations EVENS and 3/1, EVENS and 4/1, EVENS and 5/1, or two favorites at 2/1, the payouts on the other four runners determine whether or not it's profitable to play them. The results of betting on these fields vary from an expected 1,330 chip loss (worst-case) to an expected 1,680 chip win (best-case), with a max bet of 10,000 chips.
But if you're not looking for another strategy chart, you might just want to skip these borderline cases, and just cherry pick the best ones, which are easy to recognize, and with which you can never go wrong.
It's difficult to put a number on an expected win-rate, because it all depends on which fields you get presented with, but it's not unreasonable to state that you can maintain a steady win-rate of around 200,000 chips per hour, with about 50 seconds per race.
Remember, you're not trying to win every race. You're trying to win the most money per hour. So don't sweat it when you bet on a 4/1 favorite, and lose a couple of races in a row. It will still be more profitable in the long run. You have the math on your side.
To reduce negative variance, always bet on the favorite, when betting on profitable fields. We're not gambling anymore, we're grinding out a steady profit. We want to keep the swings to a minimum.
I contacted Rockstar support to verify if this is indeed how it works, but the only reply I got after 6 weeks is that they were "looking into it".
User u/Garsant made a useful Excel-worksheet, available for you to download, where you can quickly type in the payouts on the horses, to see if it produces a profitable bet or not. You can find it in his post here: https://www.reddit.com/gtaonline/comments/ekp8na/gta_online_inside_track_odd_calculato
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1) Wheel of Fortune
The number one profitable casino game in GTA Online is obviously the Wheel of Fortune, because it costs you nothing to play.
Unfortunately, you only get one free spin per day, but it holds great value, so make sure you do it.
With a chance to win a super car, vehicle discounts, expensive mystery prizes (which also can be vehicles), and a lot of cash and chips, the expected return on a single spin is around $100,000 in value.
So don't forget your daily spin, it's definitely worth your time.
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2020 Update:
As of the Diamond Casino Heist update, the Inside Track horse racing is confirmed to still be as profitable as outlined above.The only thing that seems to be changed, is that you can't refresh the field anymore by backing out of the screen. This does affect your hourly rate in a negative way, but does not change the fact that this game has a huge positive expected return, and should be your go-to when you're trying to take money from the house, without having Lester's nagging voice in your ear. That should also be worth something.
​
And with that, I conclude my 5,000 word essay on gambling in GTA. Questions, comments, feel free to add your input to this guide.
​
Cliffs:
-Gambling games should only be played for fun, not for big money. You should expect to lose in the long run. The house always wins.
-A casino game doesn't have a memory, and betting systems don't work.
-Set your limits before you start, how much you are willing to lose or win, and then walk away when you get there.
-Don't play slots, roulette, or three card poker.
-Only play blackjack following a basic strategy chart (https://prnt.sc/olct6g).
-Inside Track betting can be played profitably, if you only bet on fields WITHOUT a heavy favorite.
-Wheel of Fortune is always your best bet, because it's a free bet.

those don't have any concept what they are approximately to walk into. Down right here to have a great time, they discern 'why not supply poker a try?' in any case, how special can it be from the house sport they have played their whole lives?"
메이저 토토사이트
For most people, our first poker enjoy was nowhere near a casino. Both we learned from friends or own family contributors in domestic games, or we plugged into the online poker craze. Nonetheless, the idea of playing poker in an real brick and mortar (b&m) on line casino, with all of the attendant points of interest and sounds, is very tempting for most. So what do you need to recognize while moving your home or on line abilties to casino play? There are numerous differences among on line and b&m play, but two factors you can without delay want to take into account are tells and casino kind.
1. Tells
The principle issue the general public have when shifting from online to b&m play regards tells. A tell is a physical movement a player plays which can supply combatants a clue to his hand, inclusive of placing a hand to the face while bluffing.
On line, on account that your fighters can not see you, bodily tells are not really problem (there are online tells, however that is past the scope of this newsletter). In reality, one famous poker room has an advertising campaign where they invite those gamers who've a "bad poker face" to sign up for, for the reason that nobody can see your face on-line. Inside the film "rounders," quoted at the start of this newsletter, the villain is undone by using the way wherein he handles an oreo cookie depending on whether or now not he has a huge hand.
In fact, tells are not often this extreme. Maximum of the time when you play in a casino, in particular a "tourist" on line casino (see following), your warring parties are a whole lot more worried with what they're conserving than what you are.
Even when an opponent scrutinizes you, staring you down at the same time as thinking of a call, they are commonly simply considering how lots they like their own hand. Actual inform-spotting calls for long, cautious remark of a player's inclinations; you are now not possibly to give a great deal away on an man or woman hand.
Experts like to present the affect that they can just appearance right into your soul and recognise what you are retaining, however there may be loads extra to it than that. If you're really concerned you could buy a pair of reflective sunglasses to put on so no person can see your eyes. You can additionally usually wait a predetermined quantity of time (5 or ten seconds) earlier than acting whether your hand is powerful or now not so robust and choose a predetermined spot on the desk to stare at even as looking forward to a person to respond for your action.
2. Kinds of online casino
All casinos are not created same. Ten years in the past, before the explosion in poker popularity, maximum casinos did no longer have a poker room at all, or at pleasant, a small phase of the blackjack floor partitioned away in which or 3 $1 to $2 restriction games would possibly take location.
Manifestly, matters are one of a kind now, however there are nonetheless incredibly unique forms of casinos wherein one may play poker. The first is a card membership. Those are maximum normally observed in locations like california, wherein poker as a recreation of talent is legal, but a few other playing games aren't. Even though they have multiplied to different video games, those clubs are on the whole designed to play poker.
As such, you are probably to locate the most skilled poker gamers right here, despite the fact that no longer necessarily the most powerful and they have their share of vacationers as nicely. The more not unusual sort of casino is a las vegas style casino. These casinos have made fortunes on blackjack, slot machines and roulette and did no longer certainly awareness on poker inside the beyond as it is not a big cash maker for the on line casino.
In contrast to the alternative video games, that are towards the residence (the on line casino) and are based in order that the residence usually wins in the long run, poker is a recreation wherein the on line casino handiest makes cash through taking a percentage of every pot (referred to as "the rake," normally no more than $four a pot) for themselves. Despite the fact that now rare, some casinos take "time" rather than a rake, which means every 1/2 hour a representative of the casino comes round and collects a predetermined amount of money from every player in the game.
Of those las vegas style casinos, you may find what i consider as poker casinos vs. Tourist casinos. A poker casino is one that has constantly had poker as a part of its draw. Those consist of the bellagio and the mirage in las vegas and the taj mahal and borgata in atlantic town. A tourist casino is one of the aforementioned casinos that did now not have poker in any respect until the recent increase made it worthwhile as a draw to get gamers into their casino. Of path each of those kinds of casinos cater to travelers, but the poker casinos are where you are much more likely to locate specialists. Which of those types is extra for your taste is for the person to determine.
The maximum important issue to bear in mind is that whether it's online or inside the casino, poker is poker. Play a clever recreation and you have to rake within the chips, whether or not they're digital or product of clay.

This is not mine, the creator of this is u/enderpiet
​
Since the Diamond Casino update, I have seen a large number of 12-year-olds posting Blackjack memes on this sub. As a parent, this has me very worried.
On top of that, I have seen some of the most trustworthy GTA Youtubers giving flawed gambling advice, which can have damaging impact on their gullible audiences.
So that's why I decided to write this up, to educate everyone on the subject, so there will be no more misunderstandings.
(2020 Update down at the bottom.)
If you're one of those Youtubers that wants to use this information in a video, feel free to do so. The more people (especially kids) that become educated about gambling, the better.
But then also please go back and review your own work, and delete or edit the videos that are giving out the wrong advice, like where you're saying you have "a good strategy for making money with roulette", or some other nonsense that I've heard this week. Delete that please.
Before I get into the individual games, I need to discuss a few concepts first, that will make understanding the rest a lot easier.
Expected return and variance
A game like Roulette or Slots has a fixed expected return on your bets. This is a percentage that you have no way of influencing. Say you are flipping a coin against a friend, and you both put up $1. The winner gets the pot. Since the odds are even at 50%, in the long run, you will expect to break even. Your expected return is 100% of your bet.
But imagine if you would play this coin flipping game in a casino against the house. On the "house rules" listed at the table they would probably say that you would only get 95 cents back for every win, while you are forfeiting a dollar on every loss. Would you still play?
Sounds stupid to do so, but still, everybody does it. Every bet they place on Roulette, every coin they put into a Slot machine, is based on the same concept.
Those few cents they take on every bet are their profit margin, and has paid for all the Vegas lights, the Mirage volcanoes, and the Bellagio fountains. Make no mistake - casino gambling games are not designed to make you lose, because sure, you can get lucky on a single night, but they are designed to make them win. That's the beauty of it. They can both exist at the same time.
Too many people that don't see how this works, are just destined for disaster. Just because you went on a lucky streak and won 8 games out of 10, does not mean that flipping coins is a profitable game, or that choosing tails is a winning strategy. Always be aware of the house edge, your true chances of winning, and just realize that you got lucky. There is no such thing as a strategy in flipping a coin that will give you a higher expected return, so it's just pure gambling, just like Slots and Roulette.
Most casino games are made in such a way, that your expected return is a little under 100%. This means that from every dollar bet at the tables, the casino expects to keep a few cents. For individual players, results may vary. Some will win, most will lose. But for the house, it doesn't matter. They take millions of bets each day, so for them, the expected average works out a lot sooner. In short: the house always wins.
When looking at the house edge, we're talking about the expected long-term result, based on the game's house rules. But for a player, it can take literally tens of thousands of hands or spins before you also reach this average number. Until that time, you can experience huge upswings and downswings, that are the result of nothing but short-term luck, which is called variance.
Some games and some bets have a much higher variance than others, which means your actual results will differ enormously from what you're expected to be at.
Take for example betting on red/black at the Roulette table. This is a low-variance proposition, because it has a high percentage chance of occurring, and a low payout.
Contrast this with betting single numbers in Roulette, which only win once every 38 spins on average. This bet has a much higher variance, meaning you can easily hit a dry spell, and not hit anything for 200 bets in a row, or you can see a single number hit three times in five consecutive spins. This is not a freak occurrence in high-variance bets.
Even though the expected return in both these bets is exactly the same, there's a huge difference in variance, causing massive differences in short-term results, which can go both ways. You need to be aware of this, before you decide what types of bets you are comfortable with placing.
Gamblers' Fallacy
Another thing to realize, is that each individual game, hand, or spin, is completely independent from the one(s) before it, and after it.
Gamblers tend to believe, that the chance of a certain outcome is increased, based on previous results.
The most famous example comes from the Casino de Monte Carlo, where the Roulette wheel managed to land on black 26 times in a row. Gamblers lost many millions during that streak, all frantically betting on red, believing that the odds were in favor of the wheel coming out on red, after producing so many blacks. This is not true. Each round is completely independent, and the odds are exactly the same.
You will hear people say things like a Blackjack table being "hot" or "cold", which is completely superstitious, and should be ignored. The exception was when Blackjack was being dealt from a shoe. It made card counting possible. But with the introduction of shuffle machines, and continuous shuffling like is being used in GTA, this no longer exists.
This is also why "chasing your losses" is a very bad idea. After being on a losing streak for some time, many gamblers believe that now it's their turn to start winning. So they will often increase their bet size, believing that when their predicted winning streak comes around, they will win back their losses, and more.
The reality of it, more often than not, is that people will indeed start playing higher and higher limits, until they are completely broke. Nobody is ever "due for a win". There is never a guarantee that you're about to start winning. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true. You are, after all, in a casino.
Betting systems
Some people like to think that they have a fool-proof betting system, like the Martingale system. Simply increase or even double your bet when you lose, and keep doing that until you win. In theory, this system will always win. So that's why table limits were introduced, and where the system fails.
If you start at the Roulette table, playing red/black, with a small 750 chip wager, and just double your bet every time you lose, you only have to lose 6 times in a row, before you will be betting the table limit of 48,000, just to get that 750 chip profit.
Sure, you can go on all evening without this happening, winning 750 chips each time, but this losing streak only has to happen once, and you're bust. Any betting system like this is ill-advised, because you are hugely increasing your so-called "risk of ruin", and that's what we were trying to avoid.
And even if your starting bet is only 100 chips, after only nine straight losses, and nine doubled bets, you are betting the table limit at 50,000 chips. If you lose that bet, you're 100,000 chips in the hole, with no way to recover that with your 100 chip base wager.
So don't believe anyone that says this is the perfect system to always win in the casino. Sooner or later they will understand why they were wrong, when they're asking you for a loan.
Set your limits BEFORE you start playing
One final point before we get into the games, a general tip for people that head out to play: money management.
Just like in real life, before you go to the casino, decide on a maximum amount that you are WILLING TO LOSE.
Bet small enough, so that amount can last you through the entire evening, and you will not be tempted to run to the ATM to continue playing.
Considering GTA money, some people will be comfortable losing 1% of their GTA bank balance, some people will be comfortable with gambling away 5% of their total GTA savings. It's up to you what you can handle. Decide for yourself where it will start to hurt, and don't cross that line.
But whatever number you decide on, as soon as you lost that amount, get up and walk away. Don't chase your losses, stick to your limits, and accept that this has not been your day. There is always another game tomorrow. Always agree with yourself on a simple stop-loss rule, how much you would want to lose at most, and simply stop playing when you get there.
Same goes for winning. You can decide on a number, how much profit you would like to take away from the casino. You can go on a hot streak and be up half a million in a short period of time, but if you would continue to play longer, looking for more, chances are that you're going to lose it all back.
Most people are happy with doubling their daily casino budget, for example. Others are looking for 10 bets profit in Blackjack. Whatever you choose, when you hit that number, you can stop playing and bank your profits, or you can continue playing if you're still enjoying the games, but then only just play minimum bet sizes. Then you're just playing for fun, not for money. You've already made your profit, so simply keep it in your pocket, and don't risk losing it again.
Either way, decide on what your money management strategy will be, and STICK TO IT.
Casino games in GTA Online
Now, I'm going to dive into the games that you can find at the Diamond casino, ordered from worst to best.
6) Slots
Generally the rule is this: the less strategy a game has, the worse it is for the player. And with slots, this is definitely the case.
The only influence you have, is choosing what type of machine you're going to play. Basically, there are two types of slot machines:
-high frequency, low payout slots
-low frequency, high payout slots
In the first type, there is no huge (progressive) jackpot on offer, just your average selection of prizes that don't go up to crazy amounts.
This will result in a player having many more spins resulting in a win. The amounts that you win on the bigger prizes, will be smaller, but they do come around more often. This type of slot machine has a lower variance, which means that your money should last you longer, winning many smaller prizes along the way to keep you going.
The second type of slot machine lures you in with the temptation of a huge jackpot prize. Even though the long-term expected return on these machines is the same as the previous type, the prize distribution is hugely different. The large jackpot prize weighs heavily on the scale of expected return, but the chance of it hitting is extremely small. This results in a much higher variance on this type of machine. Usually your money will go down very fast, because the smaller prizes are less rewarding than on the other type of machine.
At the Diamond, the info screen says the player return at slots is set at 98.7%. This means that, on average, for every maximum bet of 2,500 chips, you expect to lose 32.5 chips.
This might not seem like a lot, but the danger of slots is that the game is extremely fast. You can spin about once every 6 seconds, which would result in an expected LOSS of about 20,000 chips per hour of playing.
But again, in this long-term expected number, the large jackpot awards are also factored in, and as long as you don't hit those big prizes, you'll see your money go down a lot faster.
In any case, thank heavens the max bet is only set at 2,500, or else we would see more players go bankrupt at alarming rates.
Optimal strategy for slots:
There is none. Because after betting, you have no more influence over the outcome. The only choices you have, is what type of machine you want to play at, and how much money you are going to risk. And those are all personal preference. As long as you stick to your loss limits, as discussed above, there's no harm in having a go every once in a while, hoping to get a lucky hit. Just realize that you don't have a high chance of scoring a big win, so as soon as you do, get up and walk away.
5) Roulette
Roulette is also a game where you have no influence over the outcome. There is zero skill involved. You place your bet, and that's it.
In traditional French roulette, a table has only the single-zero, but of course, for American casinos that wasn't enough of a house edge, so they simply doubled their profits by adding a second zero. The house edge was increased from 1/37 to 1/19, which is huge.
This makes playing on a double-zero roulette table by definition a sucker's play.
The payouts scale evenly, which means that a bet on a single number, and a bet on half of the numbers, and everything in between, yields the same expected return. The only difference, again, being the variance that you are willing to subject yourself to.
The player return for double-zero Roulette for all bets is 94.74%.
Except for the 5-number bet, which can only be made by placing a bet on the two top rows that contain 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3. The expected return on this bet is lower: 92.1%. This is because it only pays out 6-1. Why? Well, the number 36 isn't divisible by 5, so the greedy people that came up with double-zero Roulette had to round it off someway, and as expected, it wasn't going to be in the players' favor.Just remember that that 5-number bet is the worst bet at the table, and should be avoided. All other possible bets have the same expected return.
So it really doesn't matter how you spread your bets, if you bet only one chip, or if you litter the entire table with a bucketload of chips. Each chip you put out there, has the same expected return, so there is no strategy that will improve your long-term results.
Assuming that you're betting the maximum table amount of 50,000 chips, you will be looking at an expected loss of about 2,630 chips per spin. Considering that a round takes about 45 seconds to complete, your expected LOSS at the GTA Roulette tables will be around 200,000 chips per hour of playing.
Optimal strategy for double-zero roulette:
Stay away. Stay far away.
4) Three Card Poker
With Three Card Poker, we come across the first game where there is actually some strategy involved. You get to look at your cards, and then decide if you want to fold, and surrender your ante, or double your bet.
Additionally, you can choose to place a side bet on "Pair Plus", which offers progressive payouts.
There are some websites out there that ran all the numbers with computer simulations, and even though I would like to quote the source here, these websites are understandably littered to the max with online casino ads, so that's why I have decided against doing that.
Optimal strategy for Three Card Poker:
For this game you only have to remember one strategy rule: Always bet on any high card queen-six-four or better, and fold any high card queen-six-three or lower. That's it. Just don't forget to double check if you're not folding a straight or a flush, and you'll be fine.
This strategy will result in an expected return of 96.63%.
The Pair Plus sidebet, with the payout table that is used at the Diamond casino, gives you an expected return of 97.68%, which is actually a bit better than the main ante bet.
So by playing both wagers, you're reducing your expected losses per bet, but since you're betting more, you're also increasing your expected loss per hour.
My advice would obviously be to not play this game at all, but if you do, put as much of your bet as possible on the Pair Plus, while making our Ante bet as small as you can.
To be able to compare it to the other games at the Diamond, let's stay on that 50,000 maximum wager, meaning making your ante bet 35,000, and your pair plus bet 15,000, if the table would allow it.
This results in an expected loss of about 1,525 chips per hand, and with a round taking about 45 seconds, this adds up to an expected LOSS of around 120,000 chips per hour of playing. In comparison, if you would only play the ante bet for 50,000 per hand, you expect to lose 1,685 chips per hand, which means an expected LOSS of about 135,000 chips per hour. So the more out of that 50,000 wager you can put on the "Pair Plus" sidebet, the better.
Even though it may be fun to try out this game for a bit, since there's only one simple strategy rule to follow, you'll soon find yourself robotically grinding down your bankroll until it has vaporized. You're not missing out on anything if you skip these tables, there is no real challenge.
Just like with Roulette and Slots, if you want to try it out nonetheless, you can just bet the minimum amounts and only play for fun, so it won't matter if you win or lose.
3) Blackjack
Blackjack is the most complicated game by far. Simply because the player has to make a series of decisions, which will largely decide the outcome. Luckily, there is such a thing as an optimal strategy, which will be outlined below.
However, the strategy is also dependent on the house rules. These not only affect your expected return, but in some places also your decisions.
Here are the house rules at the Diamond casino:
-The game uses 4 standard decks, and a continuous shuffle.
-Blackjack pays 3 to 2, dealer checks for early blackjack.
-No insurance offered, no surrender.
-Dealer stands on soft 17.
-Double down on any two cards.
-Player can split only once, but doubling after split is allowed.
-Seven-Card Charlie.
Under these rules, and following the "basic strategy" chart, your expected return at Blackjack is a shade under 99.6%, which is extremely good for a casino game, that's why Blackjack should be your table game of choice.
But it comes at a price: you are going to have to memorize the relatively complicated strategy chart, or at least stick it to your monitor until you have it in your head. But in case you ever stumble into a real-life casino, you won't regret having this table memorized, so I would definitely advise you to work on that.
The strategy chart might look complicated at first, but you will be able to notice certain patterns. Your decisions are mainly based on the dealer's upcard, which is basically divided into a weak card (2 to 6), and a strong card (7 to ace).
When a dealer shows a strong card, you will be hitting more often with the risk of going bust, but when a dealer shows a weak card, you're not taking that risk, and you will be standing more, but also doubling and splitting more. You want to increase your bets when the odds are in your favor, and get out cheap when they're not.
But it also helps to take some time to think about why a certain advice is given. For example, why does it say that you always have to split two eights, even against an ace. Well, that's because two eights equals 16, which is the worst total you can have. It's better to split them up, and give yourself a chance of finding a 17, 18 or 19 with the next card. Once you see the logic in that, you'll have one less thing to memorize.
The playing advice in the basic strategy chart is a result of computer simulations that ran all possible outcomes against each other, and produced the most profitable decision for each situation. So you can't go wrong following it.
Optimal strategy for Blackjack with Seven-Card Charlie
The added house rule of Seven-Card Charlie, adds a small advantage for the player, and it does influence a few strategy decisions. For example, you might have a 14 with 6 cards, against the dealer's 5 upcard.
Normally this would be an automatic stand, but if you're only one card away from the Seven-Card Charlie, meaning an instant win for the player, regardless of the dealer's hand, it turns it into a hit.
Here's the most optimal strategy chart to follow for the Diamond Casino house rules:https://prnt.sc/olct6g
You'll see that two fives are missing from the chart, and that's because you never split them. You treat them as a regular 10. You also never split tens. Just stand on 20.
If you follow this strategy religiously, even with a maximum wager of 50,000 chips, you only expect to lose about 215 chips per hand, and with rounds taking about 30 seconds, that amounts to an expected LOSS of 26,000 chips per hour, which is only half a bet. A small price to pay for an hour of entertainment.
But since the expected return is so extremely close to 100%, you will see more positive short-term results than with other games. But obviously it can also swing the other way. Again, this is supposed to be the game where your money lasts you the longest, but always set your loss and win limits before you sit down. That rule simply always applies.
Still, even with optimal strategies applied, all these games are expected to lose you money in the long run. So betting any kind of large amounts is not advised. If you simply want to enjoy playing these games, there's nothing wrong with betting a minimal amount. Playing these games for a longer period of time will already cost you money anyway, since your daily property fees will still be charged while you're playing in the GTA casino. As long as you can play for fun, there's nothing wrong, but when you see yourself betting insane chunks of your entire bank balance to try to recoup some unfortunate losses, you're doing it wrong.
As the commercials in Britain all correctly say: when the fun stops, stop.
2) Virtual Horse Racing
Now onto the good stuff. I ran some numbers, and I believe Rockstar has made a mistake with the horse racing game. Because as it stands, and if I read the numbers correctly, this game is actually profitable for the player. You can actually make money with this, at least, until Rockstar figures out their mistake and patches it.
If anyone wants to jump into the math and double check this to make sure, please do so. I will add any corrections to this post. This is one of those "to good to be true" things, so I keep thinking that I might have overlooked something. So please verify it if you can.
The setup is this. There is a pool of 100 horses, each with their own attached payout. These are divided into 3 groups, ranked by their odds. From each group, 2 horses are randomly selected to provide a pool of six runners for you to bet on.
Now it's not an actual race you're looking at. You are looking at a raffle. This is important to realize.
Each horse gets awarded a certain number of raffle tickets. The favorites get awarded more tickets than the underdogs, and therefore, have a higher chance of winning.
If this distribution works like it does in the real-life casinos, then the raffle tickets are awarded according to the betting odds.
Example 1: imagine a race with 3 runners, all have 2/1 odds, representing a 33.3% chance of winning. (Because 2/1 means 2 AGAINST 1, so 3 total.) In this case, each horse gets one third of the raffle tickets, giving them an equal chance to win.
Example 2: imagine a race with 3 runners, one has 1/1 odds (or EVENS), representing a 50% chance of winning, and the other two horses are marked up as 3/1, with a 25% chance of winning. The favorite gets half the tickets, the other two get a quarter of the tickets each.
A ticket is drawn, and you'll have a winner.
It doesn't matter in this game which horse you bet on, because the expected return is always the same: 100% or break-even, for the above examples.
Now, what happens if the percentages don't exactly add up to 100%?
They must add up to 100%, because there will always be a winner. And only one winner.
So when this is the case, the actual winning chances of the horses are adjusted to meet the 100% requirement, using their payout odds to determine the scale.
So, if the represented percentages add up to more than 100%, the actual winning chances of the runners will be DECREASED, resulting in all bets becoming losing propositions for the players.
Example: In a 6-horse race, all runners are listed at 4/1, representing a 20% chance. Only with six runners that amounts to 120%. So all chances are scaled down by 1/6th, to end up at 100%.
This means your horse's chances are reduced from 20% to 16.67%, turning it into a losing bet: 5 times you will lose your bet, and 1 time you will win, but only get 4 bets back in this instance, instead of 5. A losing bet in the long run.
This is the type of odds that you find in regular casinos, with fields as large as 15 runners to bet on, where the assumed winning chances always add up to more than 100%, therefore are decreased for all runners, resulting in a house edge.
But in GTA Online's Inside Track, there are other scenarios, because of the small field, and the way that they are put together.
In some cases, the represented percentages when added up, are LESS than 100%, meaning that the actual winning chances of all runners, are INCREASED.
This creates profitable bets for the players, because in the long run, you're expecting to win more money than you lose. This is a gambler's dream, pure and simple.
So, according to the in-game information, the three groups of horses are divided as follows:
-Favorites: EVENS to 5-1
-Outsiders: 6-1 to 15-1
-Underdogs: 16-1 to 30-1
Let's take the two most extreme examples to show what's happening.
The worst possible field to bet on: two runners at EVENS, two runners at 6-1, and two runners at 16-1.
EVENS represents a 50% chance, 6-1 is 14.29%, and 16-1 is 5.88%. Add those up and you land on a total of 140.34%.
This means that the actual winning chances of the horses are decreased by 28.75% (to get that 140% down to 100%), which makes betting on this field extremely unwise.
A horse at EVENS will only come in as a winner 35.63% of the time, instead of 50%,
a horse at 6-1 will only win 10.18% of the time,
and an underdog at 16-1 will only win 4.19% of the time.
The expected return on a bet on any of the horses in this field is only 71.26%, so a maximum bet of 10,000 chips on any of these horses holds an expected LOSS of 2,875 chips.
These returns are the same, because the winning chances are scaled equally, according to the payout numbers. So it really doesn't matter which horse you bet on, in the long run, you expect the same results.
But as explained before, it does influence variance, and therefore your short-term result, which can swing both ways.
But now, the best possible field to bet on: two runners at 5-1, two runners at 15-1, and two runners at 30-1.
Odds at 5-1 represents a winning chance of 16.67%, 15-1 odds means 6.25% chance, and 30-1 odds means a 3.23% chance of winning. Add these six horses together, and you only get 52.285%.
This means that, to get from 52% to 100%, the actual winning chances of these horses will be almost doubled! Multiplied by 1.91 to be exact.
So the 5-1 favorites will now win 31.88% of the time, instead of 16.67%,
the 15-1 runners will win 11.95% of the time,
and the underdogs at 30-1 odds will still win 6.17% of the time.
When betting on this field, the expected return on your bet is 191.25%!
This means that a max bet of 10,000 chips will result in an expected PROFIT of 9,125 chips.
This is printing money, if there ever was such a thing.
Optimal strategy for Virtual Horse racing
So all you have to do, is only bet high on the games where you have an expected positive return, and bet the absolute minimum on the games where your expected return is negative. Or back out of the racing game to refresh the field.
If you don't have a way to quickly add up all the percentages, and until somebody shows up here with a neatly formatted table, just use a few general rules of thumb:
-Always bet the maximum on a race with favorites at 2/1 and 3/1 or higher in it.
-Simply skip all races with two favorites at EVENS in it, and at EVENS and 2/1. Or bet the minimum, if you can't skip or refresh the field.
-To decide if you should play races with other favorite combinations EVENS and 3/1, EVENS and 4/1, EVENS and 5/1, or two favorites at 2/1, the payouts on the other four runners determine whether or not it's profitable to play them. The results of betting on these fields vary from an expected 1,330 chip loss (worst-case) to an expected 1,680 chip win (best-case), with a max bet of 10,000 chips.
But if you're not looking for another strategy chart, you might just want to skip these borderline cases, and just cherry pick the best ones, which are easy to recognize, and with which you can never go wrong.
It's difficult to put a number on an expected win-rate, because it all depends on which fields you get presented with, but it's not unreasonable to state that you can maintain a steady win-rate of around 200,000 chips per hour, with about 50 seconds per race.
Remember, you're not trying to win every race. You're trying to win the most money per hour. So don't sweat it when you bet on a 4/1 favorite, and lose a couple of races in a row. It will still be more profitable in the long run. You have the math on your side.
To reduce negative variance, always bet on the favorite, when betting on profitable fields. We're not gambling anymore, we're grinding out a steady profit. We want to keep the swings to a minimum.
I contacted Rockstar support to verify if this is indeed how it works, but the only reply I got after 6 weeks is that they were "looking into it".
User u/Garsant made a useful Excel-worksheet, available for you to download, where you can quickly type in the payouts on the horses, to see if it produces a profitable bet or not. You can find it in his post here: https://www.reddit.com/gtaonline/comments/ekp8na/gta_online_inside_track_odd_calculato
1) Wheel of Fortune
The number one profitable casino game in GTA Online is obviously the Wheel of Fortune, because it costs you nothing to play.
Unfortunately, you only get one free spin per day, but it holds great value, so make sure you do it.
With a chance to win a super car, vehicle discounts, expensive mystery prizes (which also can be vehicles), and a lot of cash and chips, the expected return on a single spin is around $100,000 in value.
So don't forget your daily spin, it's definitely worth your time.
2020 Update:
As of the Diamond Casino Heist update, the Inside Track horse racing is confirmed to still be as profitable as outlined above.The only thing that seems to be changed, is that you can't refresh the field anymore by backing out of the screen. This does affect your hourly rate in a negative way, but does not change the fact that this game has a huge positive expected return, and should be your go-to when you're trying to take money from the house, without having Lester's nagging voice in your ear. That should also be worth something.
And with that, I conclude my 5,000 word essay on gambling in GTA. Questions, comments, feel free to add your input to this guide.
Cliffs:
-Gambling games should only be played for fun, not for big money. You should expect to lose in the long run. The house always wins.
-A casino game doesn't have a memory, and betting systems don't work.
-Set your limits before you start, how much you are willing to lose or win, and then walk away when you get there.
-Don't play slots, roulette, or three card poker.
-Only play blackjack following a basic strategy chart (https://prnt.sc/olct6g).
-Inside Track betting can be played profitably, if you only bet on fields WITHOUT a heavy favorite.
-Wheel of Fortune is always your best bet, because it's a free bet.

My sister is downtown hearing gunshots running for her life and there is no news coverage what the fuck is going on down there
ROUTE 91 HARVEST FESTIVAL
A video of the concert being interrupted by gunshots.
9:34AM 10/2/2017 MOVING EDITS UP HERE TO THE TOP.
IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A LOVED ONE: 1-866-535-5654 FAMILY REUNIFICATION CENTER: Metro Headquarters at 400 South MLK Blvd Building B
Donate blood at United Blood Services at 6930 W Charleston or 601 Whitney Ranch Dr. PLEASE DONATE BLOOD.
Confirmed info: One shooter , 64 year old man , shot from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay into the festival. He then turned the gun on himself after 10-15 minutes of shooting. He has 8-10+ rifles in the room with him. Man is from Mesquite (not Las Vegas) , Nevada , and is said to have operated alone.
The alleged man with a rifle walking in the Bellagio employee entrance was CONFIRMED TRUE, it was a good Samaritan, trying to help, in the least helpful way. The man just had his guns on him , and took of to try and save lives. The thoughts were right, the process was not.
Reports of gunfire from anywhere BUT the Mandalay Bay are false, all shots originated from the Mandalay. Again: Shooter acted alone, and it is believed his girlfriend was not involved.
As of right now, 9:39am the casualties are 58 people killed, and 500+ injured, in the deadliest Mass Shooting in American history. There are plenty of videos of the gunfire, before during and after, however I do not feel the need to keep linking them here.
Thank you everyone for your thoughts, prayers and compliments. I do not see myself a hero im just a 19 year old kid he needed his sister alive and home, though there were many REAL heroes on the strip last night, people assisting in loading the injured to hospitals, officers and LVMPD and LVPD came together to neutralize any threats, and save as many people as we could. This is a tragic day I will certainly never forget, and I urge everyone to fully read my live edits below, as even now as I look back through them, it still scares me to relive the panic I was in trying to locate my sister.
I might reiterate my story and my sisters below, but don't count on it yet. There is a lot more to her story and I'm not fully willing to ask her if I can tell the whole world about it.
Lastly, I'd like to comment on my lack of confirm able information: Anything I said was "CONFIRMED" was information I was hearing off the Police Scanner, or information off the news. Much of this was later unconfirmed, but during the live events I felt it was best to be posting ALL information from the event so that if anything was true, people would know where NOT to go. The Rifleman in Bellagio was true, and I didn't want anyone running there, even though the guy wasn't involved. I was doing my best to condense as much information as I could, and i was not totally accurate. To those saying: "don't post the live details of police" I really don't think if you're the shooter(s) in this event, the first thing you're doing is updating Reddit, but if youre being shot at, you might be checking Reddit for a "what the fuck where do i go whats going on" update.
( First gun shots were 10:08 PM. I believe this post was at 10:11 PM, it was posted before officers arrived, and before there was anything on the Scanners. First EDIT was around 10:17 or 10:18, and the edits there after were about a minute apart until the 10:29 Edit where i started using Timestamps. )
EDIT: SAYING IN MANDALAY HOTEL ROOM SHOOTING DOWN
EDIT: SISTER SAYING GUNSHOTS HAVE SLOWED/STOPPED.
EDIT: POLICE SCANNER SAYING MULTIPLE DOWN/DEAD. FOX5 REPORTING ACTIVE SHOOTER.
32nd FLOOR MANADLAY SECURITY GUARD SHOT.
32ND FLOOR OF MANDALAY OF POLICE SCANNER 29-32ND FLOORS
10:29 : POLICE SCANNER 2-4 SHOOTERS SOME OFFICERS PINNED DOWN
10:30 MY SISTER SAYS A TRUCK RAN THRU THE AIRPORT GATE SHE IS NOW ON THE TARP RUNNING TO SUNRISE HOSPITAL AT THE AIRPORT
10:31 POLICE SCANNER TALKING PEOPLE RUNNING THRU MCARREN ON THE RUNWAY (my FUCKING SISTER)
10:32 POLICE SCANNER TRUCKS LOADING PEOPLE INJURED TO HOSPITAL. BLACK CHEVY??
10:34 WHY THE FUCK ISNT THE NEWW COVERING THIS
10:35 POLICE AT CONVENTION CENTER MOVING TO FIRST FLOOR
10:35 FOX NEWS SHOWS FUCK TON AMBULANXES AND POLICE. POSSIBKE ACTIVE SHOOTER. POSSIBLE MULTIPLE FATALITIES
10:35 VEGAS BLVD CLOSED.
10:38 POLICE SCANNER SYAS NO SHOTS 10-15 MINUTES
10:40 FOX 5 CONFIRMED 1 ACTIVE SHOOTER, UNCONFIRMED 2+ SHOOTERS
10:42 MOTEL 6 ON TROP OLDER WHITE MALE WENT INTO MOBILE HOME TROPICANA MOTEL 6 STAY AWAY
COBALT AND TROPICANA WHITE RV WHITE MALE WITH A BLACK BAG
10:45 NORTHERN MOST ROOM OF 32ND ROOM MANDALAY BAY
10:47 SCANNER SAYS TWO SCENES. INJURED PERSONEL
10:49 RENO AND TROP
10:51 NSFW VIDEO SOUND OF THE SHOTS https://youtu.be/bobkg9-hGtE
10:53 CONFIRM TWO SHOOTING MANADALAY AND PARKIGN GARAGE??
10:55 NO GUNSHOTS AT LUXOR CONFIRMED.
MY SISTER IS AT THE AIRPORT
10:56 SCANNER KEEPS COMFIRMING MANY SHOT MANY INJURED
10:59 at least 8 critical injuries on scanner in last T minutes. Many going to Sunrise Hospital
11:00 2 LOCATIONS CONFIRMED AT MANDALAY BAY AND ALI BABA
11:02 so many injuries being confirmed on the scanner.
11:03 FOX5 News says All clubs are closed and locked down. My sister is MGM employee her boss says ALL MGM properties ( all the strip really ) is on LOCKDOWN. STAY SAFE PLEASE
11:05 scanner just said 3 shooters UNCONFIRMED. HACIENDA AND TROP/ VEGAS ?? Has bodies / shooters. Not sure when last shots were fired. Tropicana Offramp Is CLOSED
11:06 so many fucking injuries being reported. SCanner says multiple 419's? Scanner saying DO NOT WORRY ABOUT INJURED, NEUTRALIZE THREAT.
WHITE CAR DRIVING DOWN VEGAS TOWARS MANDALAY
11:07 OFFICERS OUTSIDE ALLEGED SHOOTER ROOM AT MANDALAY. SO MANY INJURED BEING REPORTED.
11:09 FOX JUSTSHOWED VIDEO OF THENSHOTS. LIKE 80 SHOTS FIRED, PROBABLY RELOADED TWICE , SOUNDED AUTOMATIC
11:11 VIDEO BEFORE AND DURING SHOOTING HOLY SHIT. https://twitter.com/davidsakach/status/914730995147870208
11:13 NYNY SHOOTER IS HEADING TO THE EXCALIBUR
11:13 my sister saying airport feeling unsafe maybe more gunmen fuck fuck fuck
11:15 HEARING MORE SHOTS MORE SHOOTERS MANDALAY BAY. ALI BARA. NYNY GOING TO EXCALIBUR.
11:16 BLACK DUALIE POSSIBLE CHEVY RIPPED OUT OF EXCALIBUR. PLEASE BE SAFE GUYS
11:17 SAYING LUXOR
I AM READING ALL COMMENTS AND ADDING TOCTHOS PLEASE KEEP COMMENTING HELP ME KEEP PEOPLE SAFE
11:19 KEEP SAYING MORE SHOOTERS PLEASE BE SAFE
11:20 TROPICANA
11:22 STRIKE TEAMS CLEARING MANDALAY 32 29 and CASINO FLOORS. Teams on starwells
11:24 UNCONFIRMED SUSPEDT DOWN MANDALAY BAY
11:25 WHITE RV ON SCANNER AGAIN
11:26 REDDIT LIVE THREAD IS UP BUT IM STILL UPDATING POLICE SCANNER AND MY FUCKING SISTER
11:26 MANY CALLS FOR MEDICAL STILL
11:28 ONE SHOOTER FOUND DEAD MANDALAY ?? FOUND ??
11:30 IM LOSING SCANNER. GOING FROM COMMENTS FOR NOW.
SISTER MOVING FURTHER INTO AIRPORT.
NEWS KEEPS SAYING ONE SHOOTER BUT SCANNER CONFIRMING WAY MORE
11:34 UNCONFIRMED SHOTS AT PARIS. MEDICS BEING SHOT AT TROPICANA.
11:37 CAESAR AND BELLAGIO MAYBE
11:39 SHOTS CONFIRMED EVERYWHERE. ALSO COMFIRMED NO SHOTS ANYWHERE.
CHAOS PEOPLE. ITS CHAOS. ASSUME SHOTS EVERYWHERE STAY SAFE. outside world , assume shots only Mandalay Ali baba and Tropicana. Maybe NYNY and maybe Excalibur
11:41 LOTS OF MISINFO. SCANNER CONFIRM NO SHOTS NYNY BUT SHELTER IN PLACE. NO SHOTS NY NY
11:42 MAN WITH RIFLE ENTERS BELLAGIO. CONFIRMED POLICE SCANNER.
11:44 BELLAGIO EMPLOYEE ENTRANCE RIFLE CONFIRMED.
11:46 I'm hearing way less injury , way more negative gunshots.
11:47 I AM LEAVING I AM GOING TO GET MY FUCKING SISTER. I CAN NO LONGER UPDATE. PLEASE BE SAFE GUYS
Freeways are dead, cops all over. UPDATE 12:15 215 IS CLOSED BY AIRPORT FUCK OP is wlive. Got my sister.
OP is home and safe. One suspect down. Two dead.
1:34 METRO PRESS CONFERENCE. 20+ DEAD. 100+ INJURED. TWO SUSPECTS DEAD ONE DETAINED. ONE POC.
ALL THREATS ARE REPORTED NEUTRALIZED.
My story: sister was 20 ft from the stage, texted us immediately "gunshots." She hid behind a bar, had ricochets hitting the bar, thought shooter was on floor coming closer. She ran out, someone hooked their truck to a fence and pulled it down. She jump through the fence with her boyfriend , and they ran to a private airport thing. Stole a golf cart, got a bunch of people to safety. I left to get her , she made it to just north of McCarran airport , I broke some laws to get there , but pulled in and grabbed my sister her boyfriend , his aunt and 4 other girls piled into my car. One girl was shot in the leg . Dropped the 4 girls off with a friend of theirs at the airport, drove to fire station 19 and dropped his aunt with his uncle there. Drove home , and currently am at home.
That's the jist. I may update more details. I am a 19 year old UNLV student. She is 21.
Thank you everyone for your kind words and helping the information flow. I apologize for inaccuracies throughout the night and I'm just glad it's all over.
Goodnight everyone. See you in class tomorrow !
9:04am : I'm awake now, reading some comments and replying. I've calmed down quite a bit , but what a stressful night. I'll update with any confirmed info I can find
9:34am: Moving edits to the top now.

Be Tree-bark, a smarty friend in a Californian herd
Uni the Unicorn was on her way to a mythical new place
Didn't tell you it led through miles of desert
Uni is a bitch, no matter how firm and big her teets are
You are going to give baddest special hugs to her when you see her
Suddenly, the last toughy friend in your herd, Oats, points a hoof
"Wook! Wights! Maybe hooman food and wa-wa!"
Head towards the lights
You recognize a tower with human lights going up and down
"Smawty saw Uni come thwough dis! Dat stawt-o-pheawe towah! Dis Was Vegas!"
You have followed Uni!
Reach the outskirts of the city
Take inventory of the herd
"Oats, whewe aww ow mawes?"
Oats looks around too
No mares have survived
"Fwuffy hewd haf no mawes! We die wit no babbehs!"
"Qwiet! We mus find mawes in city!"
"Twee, bawk, how we fin mawes in city wike Was Vegas?"
Turn around, and there are three very pretty mares right in front of you!
They have color in their fluff around their eyes and cheeks
They smell sooooo good, too
"Hewwo big, stwong fwiends! Wan specia hugs?"
A big meanie human behind them growls, "Girls, these are ferals. They don't have money."
"No specia hugs?" you whine
"Sowwy, we onwy giff specia hugs to fwuffies who daddeh gif monneh to owa daddeh."
You think as hard as you can
"How much monneh?"
The man snorts. "For just a fluffy, without a human to pay for one of my ladies here?"
He motions to three human mares with less fluff than most humans, but more pretty
"I'd say thirty-five a piece. Hell, you've got a herd here, so all three for ninety."
"Okay, we get ninety hooman monnies and be back"
The nice big man nearly falls to the ground laughing
You turn to the herd, "We find hooman monies!"
Oats sighs and asks, "But whewe we fin hooman monies in a city wike Was Vegas?"
Suddenly, a man who smells like silly-juice stumbles out of a shiny door
So many pretty lights in there
He drops a white and blue round thing with a triangle on it
Look up, and, sure enough, you are in front of the big triangle with a light coming off the top of it
You remember seeing that when Uni came here!
The man who dropped it was trying to pick it up
Not seeing it, he says "Ah, no biggie' jus a vani-hic-a beeen" and walks off
This is a bean?
You pick it up and try to eat it
Not a bean
A human at the door says "Hey, fluff, give that back, unless you're going to play"
"Pway?" your herd says
"Yeah, that's a chip, it's worth a dollar. You play a game and try to get more."
You puff out your cheeks and demand "Hooman show hewd game! Wan get ninety dowwas!"
"Heh, why not." he says, and leads you inside
Another human comes up and says "What are you doing with these vermin?"
"Hey boss, they have a chip and want to play!"
"Are you serious?"
"Come on, boss, it's just a buck. They're adults for their species. There's no rule saying they can't play."
"I swear, if they shit on the carpet, you're cleaning it with your bare hands."
You say "We gud fwuffs! No make poopies inside!"
"Come on boss! You've given me a great idea! Craps!"
The other human sighs. "Fine. What's the worst that can happen?"
**********
Be the pit manager in the Luxor
After the weirdest night of your life
One of your employees set a fluffy pony down at a craps table
The amused gamblers quickly gave fluffy an explanation on how to be a shooter
You preceded to watch for an hour an a half as a fluffy pony shot craps with all his might
And never miss the damn pass
Not
Even
Fucking
Once
The damn fluffy pony put down an original bet of a dollar
Made it up to $8,000 before you had to call them on the limit
Not counting the hotel room you convinced them to purchase
And the $90 that one sent out for whatever reason
And of course, all the players who love a hot roller
You've paid out quite a bit
Now you've got to explain to your bosses what happened
"Anon," they start "We're not mad at you"
That's good news
"There's a new place out east that's marketing as a theme park for fluffies"
Oh no, don't say it
"After what we saw today, we want to market a casino to fluffies too"
"Of course," says your direct manager, "you will be compensated handsomely for agreeing to manage this"
Maybe it's not that bad
**********
Be Lucky, smarty friend of a herd in Las Vegas
Earlier today you were Tree-bark from California
But now, you have a big human bed for your herd and three new mares
Apparently the man who sold them to you was so surprised he let you keep them
Something about being able to buy a hundred replacements with that money
Now you have a new herd and a new place to stay
New mares and a fluffy-mark of the number seven in red
You give special hugs to one of the new mares as the other fluffies figure out the magic box
And by figure it out, they mean stomp on it until something happens
Uni comes on the magic box
"Dis is Wells Fawgo centah! We in Denvah!" she says
"Wook, smawty, is Uni! She went to Denvah! We go Denvah?"
You instantly feel the good feel at the sight of her beautiful white fur
You collapse and say, "Why botha? We high wollahs."
Thus, fluffies that happen in Vegas stay in Vegas
For a day at least
Next day, try your luck at the Bellagio
Herd drowns in the fountains

I had the holidays to myself this year (mid 30s bachelor, siblings were with in-laws) and had a comped room at Aria so I made a trip to Vegas from San Francisco, CA. I had told myself I will take a day off the Strip to visit Fremont.
My strategy - This is a more aggressive style I've been playing this holiday season. Before I never pressed my bets and it was just a grind session. While this trip was a negative, I believe that if I did not press my bets on the hot shooters, my losses would be greater and my wins would be less. The data does not show the times where I was out 75% of my buy-in and a hot shooter came in to save my ass

1. Make the pass line bet for minimum. On $5 tables, I went max odds up to 5x. On $10, $15, $25 tables, I went with 1x, 2x, 3x.

1A) If the dealer is friendly and making jokes and small talk, I would bet $1-$5 on the pass for them.
2) I place all the inside numbers 5, 6, 8, 9 for the minimum bet.
3) If the point is 4, 6, 8 10, I make a two way hardway for just the point number for $5 and $1 tip
4) If there is the ATS bonus, I typically played it. On $5 tables, I bet two way 212 ($2 All Small, $1 All, $2 All Tall). At $10 and $15 tables, 555 for me, 212 for dealers
5) I try to press my wins up to quarters (for 5/9, it goes along $5 > $10 > $25. for 6/8, $6 > $12 > $24 > $30) before collecting.
5A) If it's a cold table and I'm in the red, I would collect the first win before pressing.
5B) If I have successfully pressed it up to quarters, if I collected a win off the pressed bet, and if I had already made a good profit (more than 50% of my buy-in, I keep pressing up past $100.
6) If the table is cold, I give it 2 go-arounds to see if it heats up. If a shooter had a hot roll, I play 1 more go-around to see if they still got heat.
7) After color up, I leave all the loose $1 and $5 chips on the table
​
Some highlights

1. Another player and I both hit either All Tall or All Small for $5 each several times in a session
2. At Planet Hollywood, I bought in just as a shooter started to heat up. He was a new player so he only had the pass line, no odds, and the field. I had my inside numbers pressed up to $100+ each. Made $500 off the guy's roll and his own stack never grew. We kept telling him to place odds and to play the numbers, but he kept his own style. I was the next shooter and rolled for 25 minutes, again pressing several up past $100+
3. At MGM Grand, we had a hot shooter and the dealer was just giving a lot of us shit for not pressing enough or adding to our bets. I had pressed up to $100+ and he just kept shaking his head at us. The players next to me never pressed.
4. At Bellagio, I stepped in just as a quiet older lady started her roll. She had a hot roll and hit the points instantly several times, hitting several hard points, and I had pressed up again. She only made one side of the bonus and it got me out of the red. I head over to Park MGM and 30 minutes later she joins the table. This time she hits the bonus for my 555/212 bet. Session ended with $1200 profit. If you wanted to know - she always played stick left, no dice setting, just picked it up, and flicked the dice like a lady throwing her silk handkerchief
5. At Excalibur, I stepped into a roll in progress. For some reason, the other side of the table had the puck off and I bought in mid-roll. This is my personal NO-NO rule. I would have waited it out, but I made a mistake and disturb the roll. The guy was hot and I pressed my $5 to $100. After he PSO, I just colored up.

​
Some take-aways

1. My best sessions were just being in the right place at the right time.
2. The female players had the best rolls. The better ones were playing besides their husbands. Single women, not too "hot"
3. Set the dice if you want and if you believe. No one cares as long as you're winning. One beginner shooter had a hot roll, but he had the worst roll style in the world. The dice wouldn't even make it down the table, it slipped out of the hand, if he manages to get it down the table, he chucked it so hard it destroyed all the stacks.
4. TIP THE DEALERS!! I played and tipped constantly at Park MGM and the dealers recognized me every night. They even talked to the pit boss to let me play with the lower minimum if they had just upped it before I joined in. I tipped at every table during the entire trip so the dealers knew my bets and would remind me if I had missed something.

​

Day	Date
Casino	Table Minimum	Odds	Length of Play	Buy-in	Color Up	Rounds	Comments

​

Wednesday	12/25
Aria	$15	3, 4, 5	1:20	$600	$300	3 rounds
Planet Hollywood	$15	3, 4, 5	1:00	$600	$1500	2 shooters	30 min roll, follow by 25 min roll. Couldn't see the dancing girls from the craps tables
Paris	$10	3, 4, 5	1:30	$600	$175	2 rounds
Bally's	$10	3, 4, 5	0:25	$300	$135	1 round	This felt like a Reno casino
			Day Total	$2100	$2110		well.....what a haul
Thursday	12/26
MGM Grand	$15	3, 4, 5	1:20	$600	$1075	3 rounds
Mandalay Bay	$10	3, 4, 5	0:30	$475	$305	3 rounds	It was dark and empty
Luxor	$10	3, 4, 5	0:30	$305	$105	6 shooters	One table, too close to other games
Excalibur	$5	3, 4, 5	0:30	$500	$825	1 shooter
Park MGM	$10	3, 4, 5	2:00	$700	$1400	6 rounds	Bonus All Tall x 2
NY NY	$10	3, 4, 5	0:30	$500	$260	1 round	It felt cramped due to it being placed underneath some overhead structure
			Day Total	$3080	$3970		Much better this time
Friday	12/27
Cromwell	$15	100	0:20	$500	$185	1 round	Did not like the atmosphere
Flamingo	$10	3, 4, 5	0:40	$500	$355	1 round
Linq	$10	3, 4, 5	0:20	$220	$170	2 rounds	Felt like a shopping mall
Mirage	$10	3, 4, 5	2:00	$500	$700	5 rounds	Lots of open space around the tables
Aria	$15	3, 4, 5	1:00	$860	$490	4 rounds
Bellagio	$15	3, 4, 5	1:45	$1490	$1500	5 rounds	Too many reserved tables for $50, $100, and $300 min
Aria	$25	3, 4, 5	1:45	$2000	$1500	7 rounds
Park MGM	$15	3, 4, 5	1:15	$500	$1700	2 rounds	Bonus ATS
			Day Total	$6570	$6600		Down then back up
Saturday	12/28
Four Queens	$5	5	1:15	$200	$400	4 rounds
The D	$5	10	1:45	$400	$700	1 round	Cutest cocktail waitresses in LV
Fremont	$5	2	0:30	$200	$140	1 round
Binions	$5	3, 4, 5	0:30	$240	$275	1 round	One table had cute female dealers in ref stripes
Golden Nugget	$10	10	0:45	$375	$430	2 rounds	Bonus All Small
Golden Gate	$5	10	1:00	$530	$140	3 rounds
Plaza	$5	10	0:30	$340	$240	3 shooters	One table, felt like an old gambling hall
Main St Station	$5	20	0:15	$220	$380	1 round
California	$10	2	0:30	$380	$265	1 round	All older asian men
Aria	$15	3, 4, 5	1:00	$1000	$635	3 rounds
Park MGM	$10	3, 4, 5	1:15	$635	$385	3 rounds
			Day Total	$4320	$3990		Oh no
Sunday	12/29
Excalibur	$5	3, 4, 5	3:00	$1000	$300	6 rounds
MGM Grand	$15	3, 4, 5	0:45	$800	$825	1 round
Park MGM	$10	3, 4, 5	1:15	$825	$700	2 rounds
Aria	$15	3, 4, 5	1:45	$1500	$560	5 rounds	Some NBA players had a reserved table. I didn't see their bets but people kept asking them for pictures which they seem cool about
			Day Total	$4125	$2385		Oh NOOO

​

Sessions up	Sessions down		Length of Play	Total in	Total out	Times as Shooter
13 out of 33	20 out of 33		~ 37:00	$20395	$19055	~70 - 80