Chicago Sun-Times: It's true -- Vegas Strip has lost its edge

I was walking past the table games pit at Empress Joliet, just minding my own business, lost in a semi-fog as I took a few mental notes, when a shout from the other side of the pit brought me back to full consciousness.

"Hey! I need to talk to you. You have some explaining to do."

That didn't surprise me. I've frequently had some explaining to do, ever since I could walk and talk. What the white-haired gentleman who was approaching me thought I needed to explain was a mystery, though.

"How can you possibly say the boats are better than Las Vegas? They're different animals altogether. Vegas is the majors. The boats are the bush leagues."

I shook my head. That's not exactly what I'd written. What I said back on June 4 in a column on survival tips for Las Vegas visitors was that the gambling by and large is now better in Illinois and Indiana than on the Las Vegas Strip.

"That's the same as saying the boats are better than Las Vegas," said my confrontational friend. "And that's just not right."

It's not the same thing. It's not even the same thing as saying the properties here are a match for the Las Vegas Strip -- and the Strip is not all of Las Vegas.

The Strip is a spectacle that a scattered assortment of boats and barges can't match. Nothing here approaches the production shows, revues and big-name entertainers appearing nightly in the showrooms at Las Vegas casino resorts. We have a pyramid-Sphinx motif at Empress Joliet and an old-style movie marquee at Hollywood in Aurora, but there's nothing in the same league as the fairy-tale castles, Roman temples and giant circus big tops lining a four-mile stretch of road in Las Vegas.

We have some really good restaurants and buffets at local casinos, but they're dwarfed by the sheer numbers and variety on the Strip. Heck, there are as many restaurants at any Vegas megaresort as at the four Illinois casinos closest to Chicago combined.

Walking up and down the Strip, sampling what different resorts have to offer, is an experience that's in a different universe from taking a drive to any of the Chicago area casinos.

No, my comments apply strictly to the gambling on the Strip, where game quality is in a sad, steep decline.

"Come on, you can't mean that," I was told. "I was just at New York-New York [hotel and casino] last week, playing blackjack with one deck. One deck! What do you get here? Six decks. Eight decks."

The blackjack, I told him, is a big part of the problem. Even using a single deck, it's inferior to the six-deck games we see here.

"That can't be right."

It is. There has been a single-deck explosion on the Strip in the last couple of years. Unfortunately, many of the games pay only 6-5 on blackjacks. Bet $5 and a blackjack wins $6, instead of the $7.50 we'd win with a standard 3-2 payoff. Other six-deck games are of the "Super Fun 21" variety, which offers the player a variety of favorable rules -- double down on any number of cards and late surrender among them -- but pays only even money on blackjacks unless they consist of two diamonds.

"So what? It's not like blackjacks happen every hand."

They happen often enough -- once per 21 hands -- to make a big difference. Paying only 6-5 on blackjacks hikes the house edge by 1.4 percent. The six-deck game at Empress Joliet, where we were standing, has a total house edge of 0.33 percent against a basic strategy player. Super Fun 21 has a house edge of 0.8 percent -- more than double that of the Empress game -- if you know a specialized strategy for the game, which most players don't. A single-deck game that pays 6-5 on blackjacks has a house edge of about 1.7 percent, give or take a couple of tenths depending on house rules. That's five times as high as the Empress edge.

Not only that. Some Strip casinos have started paying 6-5 on blackjacks even on multiple-deck games. That shoots the house edge up to around 2 percent. Empress' six-deck game would be one of the better games on the Strip.

"And that's it?"

No, there also has been a steep drop in the quality of video poker. The good stuff, such as full-pay Deuces Wild and 10-7 Double Bonus Poker, is mostly a thing of the past on the Strip. The Barbary Coast and New Frontier, once havens for full-pay Deuces, have dropped the pay tables. If you scout around, you can still find 9-6 Jacks or Better and Not So Ugly Deuces Wild, but not everywhere -- and I can play those games at Empress or Majestic Star. The games on the Strip aren't attractions, they're just games I can play here.

"You're trying to say the bread and circuses are better in Las Vegas, but not the gambling?"

He was almost there. The gambling ON THE STRIP is no better, and often weaker, than the gambling here. But there is better gambling in Las Vegas than around Chicago. Single-deck blackjack with good rules and full-pay Deuces Wild still exist. They're just not on the Strip. They're downtown on Fremont Street, and at the locals joints away from the Strip.

"So I have to choose between the bright lights and the gambling?"

Only if you want the best of what Las Vegas has to offer.