STREETWISE BLACKJACK

Streetwise Blackjack

Al Dente

By Peter Ruchman

      I was having a business dinner this past week with two men from Massachusetts in town to discuss a venture. They thought Gambler's Book Shop might be a natural for the proposition. We had some preliminary discussions and it turned out that indeed they are onto something worth pursuing. So, Howard Schwartz and yours truly were invited to dine at a medium-priced Italian restaurant located in one of the off-Strip casinos. We were treated to a good meal and after the talk, we toured the casino area.

     One of the two men, Gary, is a blackjack player, and made note of the fact that he had been coming to town for about a decade. He plays at a high enough level to be rated by the casino for a complimentary room when he came into town. He had been in Las Vegas several weeks ago when I met him for the first time, staying at one of the largest off-Strip properties and had been proffered a decent sleeping quarter.

     This time, here with his company's business development manager, the two men were stuffed into a small room complete with roll-away and Murphy beds‹not exactly luxurious accommodations. Gary was not a happy camper. The gambling industry is a business and possibly the most misunderstood and upsetting part of a far-flung casino trip, after losing ones hard-earned cash, is the comp system. You and your play are evaluated by each casino. A person in charge of "player development" is assigned the task of evaluating the amount of freebies or complimentaries you deserve.

     Let me state right at the beginning things are different than they used to be. Isn't that true of almost everything? Relationships change, people change, businesses change, technology changes -- life is about change. The casino industry isn't being run by the Mob any longer. Corporations began coming in with Howard Hughes in the mid-1960s and the transition from individually-owned hotel/casinos to the present state of close to 100 percent corporate ownership was completed by the mid-1980s, twenty years later. We are about fifteen years down the road from that point now, and believe me, I understand that it ain't like it used to be. But it isn't going back to the way it was either.

     With that in mind, here are a few basics concerning how things are handled -- how the comp system actually works. I'm not going to single out any one property. For specific information on your favorite casino, I would offer you this advice: make an appointment to sit down with a casino host and inquire about their rules and formulas. Inquire about any current or upcoming planned promotions. Make sure you are on the official mailing list with the correct information. If you aren't going to receive a pair of front-row seats to the next major heavyweight championship fight, find out what you can realistically expect for your level of play. The operative word is "realistically."

     Generally speaking, the larger the property, the larger the "play expectation," with the converse true as well. Here in Las Vegas, a locals-oriented casino like the Orleans will not have the same standards as Bellagio. The first property depends on repeat business from a loyal and local customer base while the second deals with an upper-class business and tourist clientele in town for a short duration. The play expectation and player profiles are completely different. In other words, depending on your level of play, i.e, how much you really bet, you'll possibly receive a better bang for your buck from a place that doesn't count on the action of high-rollers but emphasizes moderate play on a regular basis.

     Another point worth mentioning is that because the potential and actual return from slots and video machines is much greater, casinos reward those who play those games with more goodies than table players except at the higher levels. Again, this is simply a business matter. The formula for determining how much you get back from your play is dependent on several factors. The first is called "theoretical win," and is determined by average bet x hours played x decisions per hour x house advantage.

     A player's average bet size, along with the amount of hours played is documented on a rating card by casino supervisory personnel, then entered into the computer system for each individual player by casino employees. The remaining factors of decisions per hour and house advantage are already part of the casino software's algorithms, adjustable, but generally entered for each specific activity. If a casino's double-deck blackjack game with its current rules is said to have a 2.5 percent advantage for a poor player down to a .5 percent advantage for a good basic strategy player, those figures are dependent upon the floor supervisory personnel's assessment and profile when each individual sits down to play.

     If the player rating system contains values of 80 decisions per hour and a house advantage of 1.5 percent for an evenly skilled better-than tourist-but worse-than-good-basic strategy player, and the average bet size is thought to be $25 with play lasting 2 hours, the formula breaks out to: $25 x 2 hours x 80 x 1.5=$60.00. In other words, the casino has calculated that it is supposed to win $60 from this player after two hours. Notice the entire system is predicated on the initial evaluations made by the floor personnel as to the type of player and thus house advantage. If the floor manager's assessment is off, it could cost the casino or player.

     The casino uses one of a variety of software packages to rate the player. One of the more popular was developed by Logical Solutions International (LSI) of New Jersey, in use by more a greater number of large casinos worldwide than any other. The software needs data entry personnel of the casino to input the type of game played, the player's average bet size, the player's skill level, and the speed of the game. This software requires a prior input of the house advantage, a number corresponding to player type and the speed of the game.

     If an average player rated at .60 (with 1.00 being poor and .20 being tough) is betting $100, the game is progressing at a medium pace of 80 hands per hour and played 4 hours with the House advantage at 2.5 percent, the formula works out to: $100 x 2.5% x .60 x 80 x 4=$480 of theoretical win by the casino from this player. That is how much the casino hopes to win and is the basis for evaluating the player's complimentaries.

     I realize that this doesn't make for scintillating reading but if you want to understand how the system really works, you might as well know the formulas by which your play will be analyzed.

     We will continue this examination next week.