Chicago Sun-Times: Casino crosses the line in treatment of craps player

It was Nov. 15, the first of two full days of seminars at the Frank Scoblete Gamblers Jamboree in Tunica, Miss., and a familiar figure was waving from across the room.

"Did you hear what happened at the dice table last night?"

It was Lefty Al from Chicago. He'd been a fellow student when the Golden Touch craps crew had come to Oak Brook a few months earlier to give a weekend of seminars. Al had been one of the more avid students in class, and he was back for more in Tunica, practicing his roll at the training tables between seminars at the Gold Strike Casino.

There had been a welcome party on Friday night, after which Al went to try his hand at the Gold Strike craps tables. He'd had a couple of pretty decent rolls -- no monsters, but he held the dice 10 minutes or so each time and was ahead by a few bucks.

The third time the dice came to Al, he got things going his way. He was off on a longer roll. Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes. And the boys in the pit didn't like it at all.

"They told me I was crossing the line," Al said. "I didn't know what they meant. What line? They said I was reaching down the table too far before I released. The stickman held his stick out, and said I couldn't reach out any farther than that."

Al lofted the dice over the stick. Up came a hard 6 -- two beautiful 3s that made winners of place bets on 6 and bets on 6 the hard way.

Again, Al lofted the dice over the stick. The result? Hard 6.

He sevened out on the next roll but walked away with a nice win. And he resolved to play elsewhere for the rest of the weekend.

He wasn't alone. Even though the event was at the Gold Strike -- although not sponsored by Gold Strike -- instructors and attendees alike were made to feel much more welcome next door at the Horseshoe. Scoblete and other instructors played at the Horseshoe, and players followed. A Horseshoe official told one of the jamboree organizers that its slot drop -- the amount wagered on slot machines -- was up by more than $1 million over a typical weekend and that its table drop -- the amount of buy-ins at table games -- was up 4 percent. I don't know what that 4 percent comes to, but at a casino that gets as much table action as Horseshoe Tunica, it's considerable.

The jamboree was a terrific, fun event, with seminars, contests and door prizes. There was some good gambling, too -- even if it did take a little walk to get it.

ALBUQUERQUE ACTION: Scoblete has been busy putting on Golden Touch craps seminars around the country and is blazing a busy early trail with the jamborees, in which he and other gambling authors and experts speak on a variety of casino games, as well as giving instruction on rolling the dice at craps practice tables.

A few weeks after Tunica, many of the same instructors headed to New Mexico for the second stop in what promises to be a busy schedule.

In Albuquerque, the jamboree was sponsored by the Isleta casino, more than happy to welcome instructors as well as the 200-plus who attended.

The Albuquerque event on Dec. 5-6 was smaller than Tunica, with a small Friday gathering followed by one full day of seminars. After having spoken on video poker strategy and blackjack side bets and variations in Tunica, I took on new table games in Albuquerque, while Scoblete, Henry Tamburin, Jean Scott, John Robison and Golden Touch craps gurus Dominator and Billy the Kid handled other topics.

At my Albuquerque seminar, someone asked a question identical to one I had been asked in Tunica: Is Three Card Poker better or worse for players than blackjack?

The answer is that it depends on how well you play blackjack. If you know your basic strategy, blackjack blows away Three Card Poker or any of the new, poker-based table games. A basic strategy player can get the house edge down to half a percent or so, depending on house rules. But if you don't learn basic strategy, it's a different game.

In rating players for comps, the house figures it has an edge of about 2 to 2.5 percent against an average player. In deciding whether to hit or stand, split or double down, average players make enough mistakes that they lose four, five or more times as fast as basic strategy players. They lose an average of $2 to $2.50 per $100 wagered.

That brings average blackjack players into about the same range as Three Card Poker Players. The Pair Plus portion of Three Card Poker has a house edge of 2.3 percent; play against the dealer spots the house 3.4 percent of antes or 2 percent of total action. That means players average about $2.30 in losses for every $100 they wager on Pair Plus, and $3.40 per $100 in antes, or $2 per $100 wagered when taking into consideration both antes and bets in play against the dealer.

At that level, players are really choosing between whether they want more frequent even money wins in blackjack or a shot at a bigger one-hand jackpot in Three Card Poker.

My recommendation? Learn basic strategy in blackjack.