> The Palms asked the Las Vegas Advisor to conduct a study of slot machine payouts. The results show the following.
| Location | Hold | House edge |
| Strip | 92.8% | 7.2% |
| Downtown | 93.6% | 6.4% |
| Clark County | 93.7% | 6.3% |
| State of Nevada | 93.9% | 6.1% |
| North Las Vegas | 94.0% | 6.0% |
| Balance of County | 94.7% | 5.3% |
| Boulder Strip | 94.8% | 5.3% |
| Palms | 95.5% | 4.5% |
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.
I'm not sure if there's anything stopping someone from immediately cashing out their card and collecting the extra $5, but in the interest of fairness, I burned through $18 worth of $1.50 spins (Meltdown's got a tiny top prize, meaning more then usual smaller payouts), ending with $51 on the card. I stopped at the $3 blackjack table, pocketed one chip for my collection, won the match play, won one more hand, toked the dealer a buck, and ended up ahead another $9.
Up $34. Not bad for a 10 minute stop. I also got a $2 food coupon that I should have used, but didn't.
Oh, and their poker room is -- to put it nicely -- quaint. The size of a normal house's kitchen, it's got only two 10-seat tables. It doesn't open until 5 p.m. (although I was there at 5 and it was empty) and closes at 2 (midnight on weeknights). No idea what they spread, but with only two tables, you know it's probably $3/$6 and one higher limit game.
A recap of my gamblin' activities in Spokane follows.Friday: After the pre-event dessert, I returned briefly to my hotel, then moseyed over to the bowling alley across the street. The table games were jumping, but when I poked my head into the poker room, it was like entering a cone of silence. Four empty tables, and a lonely looking security guard talking to the cashier. They said that once the 6:30 tournament had finished, everyone bailed out. They did, however, refer me to "Ringo's" casino just a few blocks down the road.
Ringo's offered $5/$10 and $2-$6 spread. I'd encountered spread once before (at the now-bankrupt Northstar Casino, where I watched a few games of $1-$8 spread), but I'd never played. I like it a lot -- the blinds are lower than $3/$6 (being $1 and $2 instead of $1 and $3), and a too-tight player like me will still get action from a few players when I raise to $4 or $6 or $8 pre-flop. I was up for a while, down for a while, and ended +$13 after two hours of play. It was time to go to bed -- the cache machine was starting early on Saturday.
Saturday: After the cache machine dinner, I considered going to Northern Quest, the big indian casino near Spokane. I knew that their only tournaments were 10:30 a.m. daily, so it'd be cash games only. I wasn't dressed for it, though, and as exhausting as the day was, once I made it back to the hotel to change, I decided to go to sleep instead. That was probably for the best -- I play crappy poker when I'm tired.
Sunday: I woke up earlier than I expected, and figured I'd hit Northern Quest on the way home. I wanted to be home by 6:00 p.m., because that's when the rest of the family would be back from visting the in-laws, and my mapping software showed that it would be a 5½ hour drive from the casino to my front door. To play it safe, I'd have to be out of there by noon. No tournament for me this morning.
I arrived at about 9:15 and signed up on the $3/$6 list. Their poker room is one of the nicest ones I've seen in the state. Ten tables, new looking felt, fairly comfy chairs, lots of room. They gave me a pager, and I went and signed up for the players club. I got a free wooden pen set and deck of cards. Yay. I played on the slots (-$20) and roulette (-$24) for a while. The slots were disappointing, because I thought I'd read that this was the one casino in the state with slots that actually take coins instead of tickets or cards; it doesn't. Roulette was fun, because I tried out a new system instead of betting on my standard numbers. Yes, I know it's a dumb unwinnable game, and no systems work -- see my next posting for my amusing take on this.
I returned to the poker room at about 10:00 and waited, read a couple poker magazines, waited, read news on my blackberry, and waited some more. At 10:30, the $3/$6 game broke, and the tournament started with 60 players at six tables, plus 20 alternates. During the first 15 minute level, nobody busted out. The empty four tables weren't being used, because even though there were 15 people on the list (with my name at the top), they didn't have enough dealers.
At 11:00 I bailed, hit the road, and drove west. Almost two hours, no poker seat open. It's a nice looking poker room, but I question how well it's managed.
I stopped in Ellensburg for lunch at about 2:15, and discovered the Wild Goose Casino. I poked my head in, but a tournament had just started at 1:30, and with a 2-3 hour drive ahead of me, I couldn't afford to wait. I had lunch at Perkins instead, and was back on the road at 3:00, arriving home at 5:00.
Net for the weekend, -$31. That's still cheap entertainment.
