They’ve been getting worse for the past five years but they’re now reaching a point to where it’s almost not fun to gamble on casino games. I was so on tilt from casino gambling on my summer vacation that I just wanted to gamble with worse odds so I could be closer to the booze. I wasn't the only person. I could see and hear it in just about every casino.
Almost every blackjack game under $25 pays 6:5 on blackjack. This has been a growing trend but it’s now the norm on the Strip. Some casinos alter the rules so much that you’re playing a game with a house edge over two percent. You know what? If you're wagering under $25 per hand, 6:5 blackjack is one of the better card games you’ll find on the Vegas Strip now.
Three-Card Poker seems to have the second most tables in Strip casinos and that comes with a house edge beginning at 3.37 percent for the ante and play wagers and a house edge of 7.28 percent for the pair plus wager. Your $5 minimum game in Three-Card Poker is actually $10 or $15, so it isn't exactly cheap.
One of the other popular alternative card games, Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em, comes with a house edge of about 2.43 percent. In today’s Vegas Strip casino, this isn’t so bad unless the casino alters the pay tables. I don’t play the game, so I’m not sure if they do or not.
Craps, the greatest game ever, remains one of the best table games you can play on the Vegas Strip. During the day you can find $5 minimums at many casinos and at night you can find $10 minimum wagers. Your passline and come bet odds are 3x-4x-5x so you’ll really never have too much money in play, especially if you’re on a $5 table. This is probably the only place in Vegas Strip casinos you'll always see people having fun. Always.
The biggest disappointment was running into a relatively new reduced “Bonus Poker” pay table. I put the name in quotes because I’m not sure how the game is actually called Bonus Poker. One of the reasons many people play this version of video poker is because the strategy is simple and you’re paid different increments for different four of a kind hands.
In traditional Bonus Poker, four 5-King pays 25 credits, 2-4 pays 40 credits and four Aces pays 80 credits for each coin or dollar you wager. Multiply that by five when you play max credits. A full pay Bonus Poker game returns 99.17 percent. Most of the quarter games you’ll find at bars on the Vegas Strip only return 97.38 percent. Not good but these bad pay table has been downgraded even further. The new pay table that I saw doesn’t pay differently the four of a kind. The returns on this new game are about 96.2 percent.
That’s almost a 4 percent house edge on video poker. This was the game that people play on the Vegas Strip so they can have a complimentary beer while they slow down their losses on other games. I’ve noticed this pay table at multiple Caesars casinos and SLS. I’m not sure where else this is offered and I’d rather not find out.
Casinos on the Strip continue to make it more difficult to win. I get it, the new Vegas customer doesn’t gamble so they want to increase the house edge on the shrinking number of gamblers. The business model makes sense from a bean counter point of view.
The business model doesn't make sense from a practical point of view. There's a point where gambling stops becoming fun. The buzz of the casino floor is part of what made being in Vegas so much fun. It will be difficult to replace that excitement when it's gone.
Don't get me wrong. There are still some people having fun playing 6:5 blackjack, roulette, craps, pai gow, etc. But the buzz on one of the busiest weekends of the year was more muted than usual. That's not fun.
