Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act hits my bank

From my bank's statement today:

Not that it'll matter much, since all the good bonuses dried up a couple years ago, and I've been living off the same PokerStars deposit since 2006, but still... that just ain't right.

The (Un) Lucky Dog closes

The Lucky Dog Casino on Hood Canal, which I referred to in 2006 as "the coziest crappiest only casino on the canal", is closing, according to the Kitsap Sun.

The owners blame the recession. I suspect it's more the fact that it's a weak casino in a bad location, particularly in light of the fact that it's the only indian casino to close during the recession. When it opened, it was slot machines only. When I checked it out in 2006, they had slots, blackjack, pai gow, and 3 card poker. They didn't open a poker room until mid-2007, and although I've stopped in a few times since then, I've never seen a game actually being played. The last time I was there, I looked for the poker room, but I think it'd been replaced with pool tables.

Beyond that, Little Creek Casino has more games, is more luxurious, and is only 16 minutes away. It's like comparing Happy Days to Emerald Queen. I get the distinct impression that the people who live near the Lucky Dog don't mind a few minutes of driving. If I lived in the area, I'd drive past the Lucky Dog every time, unless they had better promotions or poker tournaments. I don't recall that being the case.

Also interesting in the article: the Seattle Times is quoted as saying that statewide tribal casinos netted $2.11 billion in 2008, up from $1.96 billion in 2007, but that Snoqualmie Casino's revenue is currently only a quarter of what they expected.

What a trip - Vegas and the Inland Empire

It's been quite the week. If you've followed my Twitter feed, you know I've been all over Vegas and southern California's Inland Empire. Here's the details.

Sunday
I drove up to Bellingham (about 130 miles each way) to catch an Allegiant Air flight to Vegas. For a total price of $232, I got one round trip ticket, a room at El Cortez, and one additional companion ticket for free. It would have been more expensive to get two tickets without the El Cortez room, so I considered that to be a throw-away room.

My good friends Bill and Becca had already flown down to Vegas earlier in the day from SeaTac, and Becca had checked us into our hotel room at Planet Hollywood, at $54 a night, including a free bottle of booze per night, $25 buffet credit, and $40 in freeplay. The $20 trick failed -- the desk clerk told them "We don't do that; that's why we're still in business." Jerk.

Kim and I, however, were stuck at the Bellingham airport, because lightning had kept our plane grounded in Vegas. Fortunately, I had my laptop with me, so 90 minutes after our scheduled departure time, and learning that our plane had just left Vegas to pick us up, I ordered a pizza from Dominos, getting an evil look from my hungry cohorts in the waiting area.

The plane finally arrived, and after an uneventful flight, and after not getting longhauled by the cabbie, we arrived at P-Ho, woke up Becca at 2:30 AM to get our key, and checked into room 2764. Excellent. It's the Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey themed room. For our first date, Kim and I (and several dozen people from local BBSes) had seen Excellent Adventure, so this seemed pleasingly appropriate. But tonight.. zzzzz..

Monday
The next morning, I let Kim sleep in while I went down to the P-Ho Starbucks to chat with Bill and Becca. From there, we wandered over to Bill's Gambling Hall and Badly Painted Awning Emporium to check out the Tix4Tonight booth and see what's worth seeing. The line was too long, so after winning $5 from R2D2, I went back to the P-Ho to wake up Kim while B&B continued on to the Forum Shops to get an iPhone charging cable.

We met up again at the [begin Thurston Howell voice] Belahhhgio [/end voice] and I won $85 at the table games, then lost $20 on the slots. We wandered the conservatory, then headed over to the Flamingo, where Kim and I promptly lost $100 at 3 Card Poker. On the advice of a caller to the FiveHundyByMidnight podcast, we went back to the Bellahhhgio and got a table on the patio at Olives at 2:30. Lunch prices, and you still get the fountain show at 3:00 and 3:30. We got the fountain show, all right -- the finale of the 3:00 show drifted heavy droplets across our table. It. Was. Awesome. As was the food. I'd highly recommend this.

From there, we hopped a cab to Sahara, where the four of us looked forward to cheap poker against bad players. Unfortunately, only 3 seats were open (Kim playes slots instead), and worse, the bad players don't seem to hang out at Sahara at 4:00 on Monday afternoons. Lost $9. We took a cab back to the P-Ho to freshen up for dinner, and I'm pretty sure I got longhauled after the driver talked me into taking Koval instead of the Strip due to construction on Harmon.

We grabbed another cab to Mandalay Bay and had dinner at Strip Steak. My steak was good, but not spectacular. Bill, however, is a scotch snob, and was very pleased with the flight of scotch that he ordered. After dinner, we wandered through the Luxor and up to MGM, where Bill and I played the plastic ponies of Sigma Derby ("the stupidest thing I've ever done with $5" he said; I ended up ahead 50¢), and then played for a couple hours in their poker room. I ended down $17 there, and began wondering where my poker skills have disappeared to. Meanwhile, the women wandered back to the P-Ho, picking up drink mixers on the way and grabbing our free bottles of booze.

Late. Time for bed. Tuesday's gonna be busy.

Tuesday
We're up in time for 10:00 breakfast at Mon Ami Gabi, which was good, as usual. We do a slow wander up the stripm ending up at the Mirage tram and riding into TI, where Bill plays blackjack, and Kim and I lose another $100 at 3 Card Poker. The women decide to head back to the P-Ho for a nap, and after I lose $40 at the blackjack tables, Bill and I take the Deuce downtown.

We first stop in at Binion's, where Bill and I sign into a $2/$4 limit game, I lose $29, and Bill makes the best checkraise ever. That's a story for him to tell.

Then, we head to the El Cortez to check out my free room. To my surprise, I get a room upgrade and a $25 dining credit. Checking in with Bill and with no luggage, I suspect the clerk thinks I'm gay. *snicker.* NTTAWWT. The room turns out to be nicer than I expected, kind of a shabby Holiday Inn quality, but yeah, I could see staying here. We then head to Fitzgerald's, where I hit quad 3's on Double Bonus video poker for $20, then lose $10 of it on the slots.

On the way back to the bus, we call the wives, and pick up tickets to Fab Four Live. This was a fun show, worth the half price tickets, but probably not for full price. We then went to Margaritaville and watched the volcano blow, twice, and then wandered up to Caesars and rode the spiral escalators. Then, back to P-Ho for the nightly booze line. Holly Madison and her doggy were in line behind me. Either she's an attention seeker, or even the headlining star of the casino's headline show doesn't get celebrity treatment at Planet Holly.

We head up to Bill and Becca's room, drink a little, then head to bed.

Wednesday
We use our buffet credits at Spice Market for breakfast (very good), then bid Bill and Becca goodbye. Kim heads to the pool to do some sunning, and I use the $40 freeplay coupons at slots and roulette, ending up ahead $71. As I'm doing this, I get a tweet from @LuxorLV: "How many Twitterers do we have in Las Vegas right now? If I were to say meet me at Luxor at 2 pm for a free gift how many of u would come?" I show up at 2:00 and get a Dexter DVD and $10 match play (which I turn into $8 cash).

I meet up with Kim again at 3:00, after waiting in the 103° shadeless heat for the Deuce, across from Luxor (the tram between Luxor and Excalibur was down). We wander down to the Flamingo and check out Nathan Burton's show. Fun, and I figured that with the free buffet included, it'd be well worth the $20 ticket. It is alone worth the $20. The buffet, we'll learn tomorrow, is a negative on the balance sheet.

We've got a bunch of downtown coupons to use, and Kim wants to see the Binion's $1,000,000, so we hop the bus downtown again. I try to impress her with the El Cortez coffee shop (my $25 credit covers the $24.92 bill), the slots at Binions (I lose $6 with a match play), and free tickets to Kevin Burke's show at Fitzgerald's, but she mostly spends the time downtown coughing from all the cigarette smoke. Eventually, we escape downtown (though I did see a few minutes of the Fremont Street light show), and head back to the P-Ho.

We stop for a kiss in front of the Bellahhhgio fountains, grab our fourth and final bottle of booze, Kim heads to bed, and I head to the poker room. Over the next three hours, I win $55, watch three hookers get escorted out, and see a parade of nightclub-bound women wander past with necklines so low that one of them actually popped out. Ahh, Vegas. It pays to play tables late at night, where everyone else is drinking.

Thursday
It's our last half-day there. We walked up to Coke and M&M world to get a few gifts, and it's so dang hot we take the bus back to the Flamingo for a brunch buffet. Big mistake. At free, it's way overpriced. The ribs are like chunks of lumber slathered in BBQ paste. The waffles are like styrofoam. The drinks take 10 minutes to arrive. And the swarming flies remind us that just outside the window is a moat of flamingo poo. Big mistake. Should've followed FiveHundy's advice. (And table service? It's telling that we forgot the small bag of gifts on the table, wandered around the flamingo exhibit for 20 minutes, then made it out to Margaritaville before realizing we'd left it behind. When I went to pick it up, the table was untouched.)

We check out, catch a cab from P-Ho to the airport, and have an uneventful flight and drive home, giving me 12 hours before I have to be in a meeting in southern California.

Friday
My flight to the Ontario airport was uneventful, and I made it to my 11 AM meeting 30 minutes early. My work went quick and trouble-free, so I grabbed a late lunch at In-N-Out, then headed to the San Manuel casino for some $2/$4 poker. After several hours of play, and frustratingly down $77, I hit the road and made it to my hotel in Palm Springs just before dark. Grabbed dinner, surfed the web, and went to bed.

Saturday morning, I drove to the Agua Caliente casino, played the $3/$6 limit game, and lost my $100 buy-in in just over an hour. I'm still holding onto overcards too long (I've gotta learn to fold AK when the flop comes 579). I'm playing the right starting hands; it's my aggression that's losing me money when I miss the flop, or when someone playing an unexpected hand catches up. I'm grumpy.

To cool down before my flight, I drive towards the mountain that seems to be planted right at the edge of town. When I get there, I'm surprised. Yup. There's a mountain here. Looks like a near-vertical wall. And there's no town that direction. Google's topo maps show why -- less than 7 miles away is San Jacinto Peak at 10,804 feet. I'm at about 520. There's a trail here, but there's no telling where it leads. I should've looked for a geocache (there's one 100 feet from where I parked), but it was 104°, and that's too warm to do anything. I grabbed lunch at Taco Del Mar instead, used the airport's free wi-fi to post the start of the Tri-Cities cache machine page, and had an uneventful flight home.

Exhausted? Heck, yeah. Did I have fun? Heck, yeah. Would I do it again? Once I learn to play poker, heck, yeah.

Goofy gambling laws

Part of the fun of playing poker and other games in states other than Vegas and Washington is the unusual hoops the casino has to go through to allow gambling. In Washington, as you may know, the slot machines and video poker machines are really "video lottery terminals", which pull virtual scratch tickets from a virtual pile of pre-programmed prizes, then animate the reels to match the prize.

In Wisconsin, it's virtual bingo. A virtual card is drawn from a virtual pile, a set of X bingo balls is selected, and the pattern they make on the card determines the payout. The reels are then animated to match that payout.

I just experienced Arkansas slot machines at the Oaklawn racetrack. Buttons numbered 1-10 are lit up, and you select three of them. A horse race is selected from what must be a very deep pool of races (I saw some going back to 2002). If the finish of the race matches some or all of your picks, you win. The reels are animated to match that payout, as a 4-second clip of the finish race is shown in a little 2x3 windown on the screen. They call it "instant racing". The alternative is a bank of slot machines that spins the reels twice -- you pick which reels to hold after the first spin.

Also, to play poker, I had to sign up for the players club, load the players club card up with money, then use that card at an electronic poker table (no human dealer, no real chips, no real cards -- just 10 touch screens and a center screen). What a hassle. The only game they spread was $1/$2 no-limit hold 'em, which, I'll admit, I prefer a lot less than limit games. I left $100 lighter. Poor Arkansans.

WSGC: All in for $500? Oops.

Back in May, in response to the Washington State Gambling Commission raising the all-in bet limit, I pointed out the following oddity of the rule:

You're holding pocket aces, and you've got $600 in chips in front of you. What can you bet while still complying with the law? Remember, "the maximum amount of a single wager must not exceed $40, except that an all-in wager ... may not exceed $500."

I think you're stuck tossing in $40, but that doesn't seem right at all."

Well, this quarter's WSGC newsletter is out, and they admit they were confused, too. They write:

The change allows "all in" wagers, only, to exceed the $40 poker wagering limit. The rule does not allow players to make call or matching wagers exceeding the $40 limit. Additionally, the rule is ambiguous as to who is eligible to make an all-in wager. For example, if a player has $550, could they wager $500, or, would they be ineligible to place the all-in wager? In other words, does a player have to have $500 or less to be able to place the all-in wager? Prior to the "all in" wager change, all [poker room] wagers were limited to $40.

Their proposed solution, which I expect they'll fast-track: removing the "all in" reference, allowing the rule to revert back to the $40 limit.

No other big news this time, except that they clarified that a poker room supervisor is allowed to accept tips.

Ruleslawyer rule number 1: Know the rules

The situation is as follows: It's late in a $1 + $0.10 single table double-or-nothing Omaha tournament. Top five positions pay $2.00 each, and the game ends once the 6th player is eliminated. There are six players remaining. On the button is the small stack, Eye Candy X, with 245. I've got 320 UTG, and blinds are 200/400. (See the attached screen shot for clarification.) I'm dealt A♣ K♦ J♦ 6♣. I'm going to be in with a random hand next time, or this hand now, and this isn't a terrible Omaha hand. I'm all-in for my 320.

As I'd expect, the big stack to my left calls, cutoff folds, and Eye Candy X folds pushed his 245 into the pot. What is he thinking? There's absolutely no reason for him to get involved in this pot, unless he's certain that his hand is good enough to beat the three players who are already in, plus the small blind if they call. There's no way to be certain of that, so even if he's holding AAKK there, folding is the right move.

Small blind folds, the board is irrelevant, as the bigger stacks correctly just call it down. The big stack to my left wins, and Eye Candy X and I are eliminated on the same hand.

The rule in this case: "5. If two or more players are eliminated on the same hand, the player with more chips at the beginning of the hand is placed higher." I started with 320. Eye Candy X started with 245. He goes out in 6th. I go out in 5th. The remaining four players tie for first. I and the other four players each get $2.00. Eye Candy X gets nothing.

WA rules update: No electronic poker tables; all in for $500

The April 2009 issue of the Washington State Gambling Commission's Focus on Gambling newsletter is out today. Poker-related items include:

• Minors will now be fined up to $125 and 4 days community service for gambling. The governor is expected to sign this bill. Currently, only those to allow minors to gamble are penalized; there is no punishment for minors.
• The WSGC did not approve PokerTek's electronic tables. We won't be seeing them around here any time soon.
• There's a rule change up for action in July, allowing quarters or 50¢ pieces to be used for the rake. I expect this will actually reduce the rake a little bit.

And here's the big one: Currently, WAC 230-15-135(1)(c) states that the maximum amount of a single poker wager must be $40 or less. Effective July 1, the limit is the same, except that a player may go all-in in Texas Hold'em for $500 or less, if they have no more than $500 remaining. This is at a way higher level than I'd ever play at, but I'm trying to figure out how this would work. Assuming a $2-$40 spread game, which is the closest we have to No-Limit Hold 'Em off the reservations, we could get a round of:

Small blind: $1
Big Blind: $2
UTG: $40
UTG+1: Call $40, raise $40
Middle position: "All-in for $250"
Fold, fold, fold, and it's to you on the button. You're holding pocket aces, and you've got $600 in chips in front of you. What can you bet while still complying with the law? Remember, "the maximum amount of a single wager must not exceed $40, except that an all-in wager ... may not exceed $500."

I think you're stuck tossing in $40, but that doesn't seem right at all.