Casino Questions

In 1926, the biography of James Butler ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok reported that the man dubbed ‘The Prince of Pistoleers’ died while holding the ace of spades, ace of clubs, eight of spades, eight of clubs and another, unconfirmed card in a hand of five-card stud poker. In fact, Hickok had shot in back of the head by disgruntled rival, Jack McCall, at Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory fifty years earlier; no contemporary accounts describe the exact hand Hickok was holding at the time of his death, but two black aces and two black eights has ‘officially’ been known as a ‘dead man’s hand’ ever since. Of course, even after his death, legends and tales about Hickok continued to appear in pulp fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so it is, perhaps, understandable that his name also became associated a term that had already existed for some time.

Nevertheless, several reliable references to a ‘dead man’s hand’ date from the period between Hickok’s death in 1876 and the publication of his biography in 1926, but make no mention of Hickok. A newspaper article dating from 1886 recounted the tale of a down-on-his-luck Illinois judge who staked his livelihood on his full house, jacks over tens, lost to another full house, queens over tens, and died of shock. Later reliable accounts, in the early years of the twentieth century, linked the term ‘dead man’s hand’ to jacks and sevens or jacks and eights.

In formal card games, such as those played in casinos, a ‘burn card’ is a card dealt from the top of the deck stub, but discarded, or ‘burned’, unseen and unused by the players. Burning a card before each round of betting is intended as a deterrent against illegally altering playing cards, by bending, nicking or otherwise marking them, so that their value and suit can be determined without seeing the face of the card.

In poker variants, such as Texas Hold’em and Omaha Hold’em, that use community cards, knowledge of the next community card is obviously extremely valuable. Consequently, before dealing the flop, turn and river the dealer deals a burn card, face down, next to the discard pile, or ‘muck’. Even in the event of marked cards, players cannot see the next community card until immediately before it is dealt, so have little or no time to take advantage of any markings. Without a burn card before each round of betting, a marked card could be lying, in plain view, at the top of the deck stub for the whole of the previous round, allowing players ‘in the know’ an unfair advantage over their fellow competitors and/or the house.

Of course, in a modern casino, any attempt at card marking is unlikely and, unless highly sophisticated, will probably be discovered sooner rather than later in any case. Nevertheless, burn cards are retained in bricks-and-mortar casinos as a matter of custom or tradition.

Authentic casino chips or, in other words, casino chips manufactured to the standard of those used in Las Vegas, are typically made from clay or ceramic. That said, so-called ‘clay’ casino chips rarely, if ever, consist of 100% clay, but rather a composite of clay and other materials, such as chalk or sand. Likewise, so-called ‘ceramic’ casino chips are actually made from plastic or resin, which creates the ‘look and feel’ of ceramic, but contain no clay.

The processes involved in the manufacture of authentic casino chips is a closely-guarded trade secret and, because they can be exchanged for currency, casino chips, a.k.a. ‘checks’ or ‘cheques’, are subject to stringent security measures. Of course, what we do know about authentic casino chips is that they are labour-intensive, and therefore relatively expensive, to manufacture.

This is especially true in the case of clay chips, which are created by compression moulding or, in other words, squeezing materials into a preheated mould and applying heat and pressure to bind them together. Clay chips have a round, recessed centre, often inlaid with a graphics label, surrounded by mouldings of various designs. Notably, any contrasting lines or spots around the edges of clay chips are created not by painting, but by replacing the original base material with a different colour before moulding. By contrast, ceramic casino chips are produced by injection moulding – that is, producing injecting molten material into a mould – to create a completely flat surface, which can be printed with large, high-quality graphics.

At first glance, the game of craps offers dozens of betting opportunities but, for the experienced player, almost all of them are nothing more than window dressing, intended to tempt the unwary to play at inherently poor odds. The most profitable bet in craps, in terms of house edge, is the Odds bet, a.k.a. ‘Taking the Odds’. Indeed, the Odds bet is one of the few bets offering a house edge of 0%, but players need to place a ‘Pass Line’ bet, with a house edge of 1.41%, or a ‘Don’t Pass Line’ bet, with a house edge of 1.36%, before they can place an Odds bet.

The Odds bet is essentially a side bet made after a point is established or, in other words, after the shooter rolls 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 on the come-out roll. The Odds bet pays odds of 6/5 on points of 6 and 8, 6/4 on points of 5 and 9 and 2/1 on points of 4 and 10, which are the fair, mathematical odds against the shooter rolling the point number again before rolling a seven.

Consequently, some, but not all, casinos limit Odds bet stakes to three, four or five times the original Pass Line or Don’t Pass Line bet, depending on the point established. Other casinos may offer five, ten, twenty or even more times the original stake on Odds bets but, either way, betting the table minimum on a Pass Line or Don’t Pass Line bet, followed by the table maximum on an Odds bet, allows you to take full advantage of the 0% house edge on offer.

Keno is a simple, numbers-based, game of chance, akin to the National Lottery. In its early days in Nevada – where lotteries were, and still are, illegal – names of racehorses rather than numbers were written on keno tickets and the game was known as ‘racehorse keno’. Each game of keno was, and still is, called a ‘race’, but keno has been played exclusively with numbers since 1951, when state law was changed.

In a bricks-and-mortar casino, keno is typically played in a separate, dedicated keno lounge. In traditional, ‘live’ keno, players choose a series of up to ten, or possibly even up to twelve or fifteen, numbers, or ‘spots’, between 1 and 80 and marks or circles them on a paper ticket with a crayon. Players hand in each ticket, in return for a duplicate and, at regular intervals – typically every few minutes – twenty numbered balls are drawn, at random, from a hopper. The aim of the game is to match as many numbers, or ‘catch’ as many ‘spots’ as possible; prizes are paid according to a set pay table, which varies from casino to casino and according to how many numbers chosen, how many numbers matched and the amount staked.

Keno requires little or no skill or strategy and, like similar casino games, features a high house advantage, or ‘edge’. In Las Vegas, the house edge on live keno games is typically between 20% and 35%, which compares less than favourably with other non-slot casino games, such as baccarat, blackjack and craps, to name but three.