Category: Questions

As a big fan of online slots, where you’re dealing with a known quantity, I was curious to find our whether there are ways to predict when slots are going to pay out. It is, or at least was, possible to predict when a slot machine will pay out. In a well-chronicled case, a criminal gang based in St. Petersburg, Russia successfully reverse-engineered the pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) employed by certain, older model slot machines, so that they could predict, with split-second accuracy, when a payout was due. The gang employed dozens of operatives, each of whom could reportedly profit by $250,000 a week, to exploit this vulnerability in slot machines in casinos in eastern and central Europe and in the United States.

The problem with a PRNG, as casinos discovered to their cost, is that results appear random, but are not, in fact, truly random. The algorithm, or set of rules, that generates pseudo-random numbers is initialised by a 32-bit integer value, known as a ‘seed value’; if the starting point in the sequence is known, the sequence can be reproduced at a later date.

The answer, as far as modern slot machines are concerned, was replacing the PRNG with a true random number generator (TRNG), which relies on atmospheric noise, rather than an algorithm, to generate random numbers. Consequently, it is impossible to predict when any modern slot machine, in a bricks-and-mortar casino or online, will pay out. The return to player (RTP) percentage, which describes what proportion of money wagered on a slot machine is returned to players over time, indicates what you can expect in the long-term, but not what to expect from one spin to the next.

Card counting is a technique employed by so-called ‘advantage’ Blackjack players to reverse the house edge – which is less than 1% in any case – and give themselves a small mathematical edge, typically between 0.5% and 1.5%, over the game.

One of the most popular card counting techniques, known as the ‘high-low count’, assigns a value of -1 to aces, court cards and tens, which are considered favourable to the player, +1 to twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes, which are considered favourable to the dealer, and 0 to sevens, eights and nines, which are considered neutral. Fairly obviously, at the start of a shoe the so-called ‘running count’ is 0, so the card counter simply adds or subtracts the appropriate value as each cards is revealed. The final step is to divide the running count by the number of decks left in the shoe, or a rough approximation thereof, to provide the so-called ‘true count’. As the true count rises and falls, the card counter can raise and lower his bets, and adjust his playing strategy, accordingly.

As far as legality is concerned, card counting essentially involves just basic arithmetic and requires nothing more sophisticated than the human brain, so is perfectly legal. Of course, card counters cannot win every hand they play; it is only over the course of hundreds of hours playing and tens of thousands of hands that they can expect to make a profit. Even so, casinos take a dim view of card counting and, if they suspect that a player has an advantage over the game, even in the long-term, take steps to remove the advantage. This could simply involve shuffling the cards when a card counter raises his bet or, in certain jurisdictions, to stop playing Blackjack and/or leave the premises.

The oldest casino in the world is Casinò di Venezia or, in English, Venice Casino, which is housed in a Renaissance-style palace, known as Ca’ Vendramin Calergi, on the Grand Canal in the Cannaregio district of northern Venice. Ca’ Vendramin Calergi was constructed over a twenty-eight-year period during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, but did not become the home of Casinò di Venezia until 1959, after it was bought and renovated by the City of Venice.

Casinò di Venezia first opened its doors in 1638, in a wing of Palazzo Dandolo – a Venetian Gothic palace near Piazza San Marco, or ‘St. Mark’s Square’ – formerly known as Il Ridotto, or ‘The Private Room’. Under the auspices of the City of Venice, the space was converted into the first legal, commercial casino to be open to the public in Western Europe. Casinò di Venezia soon became famous, or infamous, as a centre for entertainment and, although it was closed in its original location in 1774 at the behest of the Venetian authorities, has existed, in one form or another, ever since.

The modern Casinò di Venezia is an eclectic mix of the old and the new, offering olde worlde style and sophistication, without a hint of stuffiness. Tuxedo-clad dealers operate against a background of modern décor, illuminated by cool, atmospheric lighting and the range of table games, which includes blackjack, poker and roulette, and slots should be sufficient to satisfy even the most ardent gambler.

Caribbean Stud Poker, which originated as ‘Casino Poker’ or ‘Tropical Poker’ in the Eighties – depending on whose account you choose to believe – is a straightforward variant of Five-Card Stud Poker. However, unlike Five-Card Stud, Caribbean Stud is played, solely, against the house, so bluffing is impossible. Multiple players may play simultaneously against the house, but collusion is prohibited.

Each player makes a forced or ‘ante’ bet and, optionally, an optional $1 side bet, the majority of which is added to a progressive jackpot meter. To win some, or all, of the progressive jackpot, a player must have a hand of a flush or better; a royal flush pays 100% of the progressive jackpot.

Each player, including the dealer, is dealt five cards, face down, although the dealer turns the fifth and final card in his hand face up. Each player may fold, in which case he loses his ante bet, and side bet, if he made one, or make a raise bet, of twice his ante bet. When the action reaches the dealer, he turns over his remaining four cards and requires at least an ace and a king to ‘open’ his hand, or ‘qualify’.

If the dealer fails to qualify, each player wins his ante bet, which pays even money, and ties, or ‘pushes’, on his raise bet. However, if the dealer does qualify, he may or may not beat each player. If the dealer wins, the player loses his ante and raise bets and, if the dealer loses, the player wins his ante bet, at even money, and his raise bet, at odds according to the pay table; if the dealer and player tie, ante and raise bets push.