Choosing a Place to Play
It’s the risk / like about owning a casino. Some days you win, other days you win more.
ONE CASINO OWNER TO ANOTHER
It was nighttime when I first saw the Las Vegas Strip. I was momentarily speechless, a condition unusual enough for me that one of my friends asked, “What are you thinking?”
I responded with the first thing that had come into my head. “This looks like somebody took one of Liberace’s jackets and made a city out of it! I haven’t seen so much to look at since Far-rah Fawcett played tennis on the Superstars competition.” I was like a kid in a candy shop with the standard worry: Underneath all that glitter, what am I going to get? In the candy shop, for every piece with a strawberry center, it seems like there are two that reveal half an ant after the first bite. Since the casinos likely hold equal perils, where do I start?
One approach to the problem is to wade on in. This might be OK for haircuts and harems, where time renews all resources, but it is an awful way to choose a place to gamble. Yet so many beginners do exactly this when they walk into a casino cold. They wade in eager to spend their money on the first table they see. “One Blackjack game is pretty much like any other,” they rationalize, “so what difference does it make?”
To the player willing to take a more sensible approach to the game, it makes a lot of difference. There are over twenty options to the “standard” game of Blackjack. Each of these affects the player advantage, sometimes slightly, often dramatically. In addition, there are important intangibles that should temper your willingness to place your hard-earned bankroll just anywhere. You shouldn’t want to wager indiscriminately any more than you would want to let a stranger carry your wallet or purse.
Without reading this post, you will be a “cradle to grave” player. You will walk into the casino a newborn innocent ready for the slaughter and walk out dead meat on the hoof. This post helps you lose your costly innocence forever, which is more fun to lose than your money. Rather than cradle to grave, your education will be “city to chair.” You bought this site, so you’ve got the right game. Now get the right place. See how you can evaluate casinos, table options, and dealers based on information available only from the International Blackjack Club.
