Did you know that in 2006 the casinos in Nevada won $12.2 billion dollars! Read that again "the casinos in Nevada took in $12,200,000,000 billion dollars"! Casino win is how much money is left at the tables, slot machines and sports books after all bets have been paid and does not include the money made from hotel rooms, restaurants, night clubs or other casino hotel attractions.
For me that's a difficult number to imagine… but just one hundred million (100,000,000) looks like this:
$1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00 +1,000,000.00
A stack of money worth $12 billion dollars money would be a block about 90 feet high, 100 feet long and 40 feet deep (das a whole lotta cash).
So how does the casino make all this money?
Slot machines lots and lots of 'em. In '06 they took in $8.1 billion with a hold (how much the casino expects to keep) anywhere from 2% to 14% this is one of the worst bets in the casino. Keep in mind the lower the denomination the higher the hold. A $100 slot may require two or three coins-in ($200 or $300 a pull) and have a low 2% hold but the same quarter machine (75 cent coin-in) may be set as high as 14%.
By the way the casinos hold (%) on an average slot machine is computed over TEN MILLION pulls (called the Law of Large Numbers) and it takes a year of constant play for a popular machine to hit that.
Table games brought in $4.1 billion. The biggest loser (err most popular game) is Blackjack ($1.3 billion), Baccarat ($743 million), Craps ($462 million) and Poker won $153 million.
Table games are a good choice but not all games are created equally, the edge on the Big Six (Giant Wheel) can be as high as 24%! At the crap table it can be lower than half a percent (with free odds).
And finally the sports books won $141 million.
What’s the best way to "Win in Vegas?" Choose a game that works for you. For me it's gotta be fun and easy after all I'm on vacation and I don't wanna work at gambling.
Take a break… walk around, do some shopping or see a show. I think it's better to bet $25 a hand and play for one hour than it is to play $5 a hand for five hours. The longer you play the more tired you'll become and the more tired you are, the more errors you'll make and the more errors you make, the more money you'll lose (the casinos know this).
Check out the www.wizardofodds.com for easy to understand explanations of all the games, strategies to best maximize your play and free games to practice on.
Next month here on Oceanic's Around Hawaii "Vegas Travel Tips"!
For the latest Vegas news and more Kimo's Vegas visit us at www.kimosvegas.com.
