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What You Must Know To Host a Home Poker Tournament and Be Successful
You have viewed poker on TV, perhaps played it on the internet, or even in a casino. Now you are ready to try to host your own poker tournament at home in your own game room or basement. Hosting your own poker tourney is much more personable than playing poker on the internet. The smack talk, the cross table body language, the feel of the cards in your hands, and the sound of the cards being shuffled are all great aspects of playing poker at home. Best of all may be the great feeling you have inside when you take down a huge pot of chips or make a great play and get some praise from your buddies. Of course, a badly run poker tournament at home can be a huge headache. So make sure yours is run right and your players will consistently return to your basement for your future poker tournaments. To run an effective poker tournament competition at home you need a high quality poker table, some top quality poker cards, clay poker chips, some kind of blinds timer clock, and a strategy. Sure you can host a tourney with some cheap cards and chips, but our objective here is to make it feel like a casino experience so your friends will continue to return and play in the future. A high quality professional felt poker table makes your poker experience that much better but it will also be one of your biggest cash investments. If you do not have a high quality professional felt poker table and do not have the budget for one you can still host a poker tourney with absolutely no problems. The most important aspect to keep in mind is the overall experience your poker friends are having. If you decide to perform on a cheap table, it will be more challenging to deal with the chips and to collect cards after each hand. Cards will fly across (and sometimes off) the home-made table. If you cannot swing a pro poker table, consider some other choices such as a felt table topper or just buy some poker felt on the internet and cover your table with it. If you're a handyman, consider building your own quality professional grade poker table; it is not that challenging. Quality poker playing cards are essential for a successful tourney. If you buy a two-dollar cheap set, they will become filthy, difficult, and get bent edges and have to be thrown out after 1 hour of poker play. It is well worth the investment to spend money on some top quality 100% proven poker cards. They will perform better and last much longer. You can even clean them if they become filthy. You will need at least two decks of cards for each poker table. This allows one poker play to be shuffling while one is dealing which keeps the pace of play moving which is important when you are playing with costly blind levels and timers. You should also get at least one cut card for each table to help avoid the end cards of the deck from being revealed. Poker chips are absolutely necessary to host a serious tournament. There are wide variety of poker chip options on the web that vary from pennies per chip to dollars per chip in cost. You do not have to have the expensive chips to have an excellent time at your tournament. Chips also come with or without cash values on them. Poker chips with cash values can be very practical, but are not necessary. Chips without cash values can be more versatile as you can allocate any value to them. If you choose to use chips without money values just publish a graph of what each colored chip is valued at. The quantity of chips you need really depends on the number of poker players attending your home poker tournament. Make sure you have enough chips so each poker playing has enough chips to make proper poker wagers. (20-30 chips is an excellent target to aim for) You will also want some bigger denomination chips so you can color up the chips when the blind levels reach a higher value later in the night. There are many choices for electronic blinds timers. You can use a simple egg-timer although this becomes very painful to manage as someone has to totally reset it for each blind change and it can be difficult to see at times. The Poker Genie is a great choice, or there are many programs you can get that will run on a laptop and you can even project your laptop onto your television screen. You could also buy a professional blinds timer and mount it to the wall in your game room if you are frequent player. Finally, you need a strategy. You should know in advance what your buy in price will be, whether you will allow rebuys, what your cash payouts will be, and what your overall blind structure will be. Your buy in and rebuys should be spelled out clearly to people when you invite them to your tournament. No one wants to show up with $20 in their wallet to find out you are having a $30 buy in game. Payouts need to be made and the payout structure should be conveyed to the players or posted on the wall for them to see. Publishing your rules on the wall or via email will eliminate any late night arguments that may occur. When establishing blind level changes consider how long you want your home poker tournament to last. Blind level structures depend on how many people are playing, the actual buy in, how many chips you are giving out and the value of each chip. Here is an example of an excellent blind level poker structure: Round 1: 100-200 Round 2: 200-400 Round 3: 300-600 Round 4: 500-1000 Round 5: 700-1400 Round 6: 1000-2000 Round 7: 1500-3000 Round 8: 2000-4000 Round 9: 3000-6000 Round 10: 5000-8000 Round 11: 7000-14,000 Round 12: 10,000-20,000 Round 13: 20,000-40,000 It is also a wise decision to go over all the rules with the poker players beforehand and to announce a moderator to make rulings if necessary as well as a back-up moderator for when the first one is not available or in the middle of making a rule at another table. Take your time to plan your home poker tournament so you will continue to have your friends come back to play more poker tournaments in the future. Good luck and I hope your first home poker tournament is a success.
Does anyone know any good places to find good quality, yet cheap poker chips for home games? We would typically play with 4-8 players, on €1/€2 blinds, with 5 different colour chips (up to a max denomination of €100). I'd like to get a sizeable amount chips so I don't have to think too much about giving slightly larger stacks to everyone, at the same time not costing me an arm and a leg. Thanks!
Metal Coins for Board Games, A Compulsion - Part II
Part II: In this half of this article, I discuss generic metal coin manufacturers and other options for adding metal currency to your games. Check outPart Ifor more info about games that include metal coins and coins designed with a specific game in mind. Edit: I've fixed the image link for the "new"Terraforming Marscubes. Thanks to u/halfisglassfull for pointing out the error. Back in 2016, I posted an article under my other username (u/Luke_Matthews) about my obsession with adding metal coins to board games, which you can read here: Board Games and Metal Coins, An Obsession What started as a diversion became an obsession, and since that article bloomed into a full-on compulsion. I’ve upgraded over 60 games with unique metal coins and currency, and I’d like to share the current state of this compulsion and what I’ve learned along the way. It’s such a strange thing, because metal coinage is a purely aesthetic upgrade. They don’t change game mechanics or offer any extension to the gameplay experience. Even so, deluxe editions have proven there’s a market for aesthetic upgrades, and metal coins have grown into one of the most popular. I have fallen down the rabbit hole of adding unique, thematic coins for each individual game. This approach is not for everyone. If, instead, you’re interested in adding generic coins you can keep aside and use for multiple games, I’ll talk about what sets I think are the best for that purpose at the end of this article. For now, let’s get on with the show! GAME TITLES ARE LINKS TO PHOTOS. For a more user-friendly image browsing experience, view this post on my website or on BoardGameGeek. NOTE:There is no way this will be an exhaustive list of all the metal coins available. I’ll talk about coins I have direct personal experience with, as well as make notes of other coins I don’t have and why I don’t have them. There will likely be a lot of coins not included here, and I encourage you to add your own experiences and pictures in the comments.
Fantasy Coin is one of the first companies I encountered making a range of different coin styles specifically for gaming applications, without tying them to specific games. Of all the coin manufacturers out there, Fantasy Coin are definitely my favorite. Their coins are thick and heavy with fantastic finishes and colors, and come in a wide array of fantasy and sci-fi themes. Getting ahold of Fantasy Coin’s products can be a bit fraught, though, as their primary source of income tends to be Kickstarter. Their website frequently sells out, and as their stocks dwindle, they’ll run another Kickstarter to replenish. Once one of their Kickstarters ends and ships, they’ll typically have stock which can be ordered directly from their website, but be warned you might have to do a little research to find out when more are available. They’ve had some logistical problems with a couple of their Kickstarter campaigns, but for the most part they’re really good at fulfilling them. Their latest campaign was really well handled, and I think they’ve done a great job of addressing their past issues. Some previous backers, IMO, go a little overboard blaming them for mistakes, but forgiveness is not a typical trait of spurned backers. Don’t listen to the haters. Fantasy Coin’s products are genuinely amazing and come at a great price, especially if you get them in bulk from Kickstarter.
I spent a long time trying to decide what coins I’d get for Alchemists. Since it only really requires one denomination, I had a ton of options (the Charterstone coins are a phenomenal choice, FYI). I decided on these coins from FC’s “Magic” set.
Caverna’s one of the first games I upgraded with FC coins, and I have WAY too many coins for the game. They’re real nice, though, all from FC’s “Dwarven” set.
Originally, these coins resided in my copy of Lords of Xidit. They’re a great, generic fantasy theme, so can go in many games. Once I picked up the Roll Player coins, though, I thought those were a better fit for LoX, so I moved these over to Clank. And they’re a perfect fit!
This is probably one of my favorite upgrades using FC coins. I couldn’t find any really good, affordable Arabic- or Middle East-themed coins (at the time, there are some now), so I decided to lean into the fantasy side for Five Tribes. The silver coins are from FC’s “Serpent” set, and the golds are from their “Air Elemental” set. I think both work really well as representations of djinn. Some people complain, when using coins like this for Five Tribes, you can’t hide their denominations. If it’s important to you to do so, I suggest getting either pouches or player screens to keep the coins hidden. However, I’ve never once found open money to have a significant impact on the game, so we just don’t bother.
I was originally planning on putting the old Brass coins into my copy of Lancaster, but when FC launched their latest Kickstarter and I saw their “Nottingham” set, I just couldn’t resists such a perfect thematic match.
Lunarchitects doesn’t actually have currency in-game, but one of the other great uses for metal coins is as victory point chits. Lunarchitects has a LOT of VP chits, and I definitely went overboard here, but it’s such a great game and I love these “Sci-Fi” coins from FC.
There are actually several different options for Japanese themed coins, including the Yokohama metal coins and Artana’s Japanese set (which you’ll see in the next section). I chose to go with Fantasy Coin’s “Feudal Japan” coins for Nippon, because I just love the way they look.
Here’s another couple of games without currency, but for which I’ve replaced the VP chits with metal coins. In this instance, I don’t think I went overboard at all, and these “Credits” coins from FC are just an amazing aesthetic upgrade for two classic games.
Yedo is one of my wife’s all-time favorite games, and ranks high in the worker placement genre for me. So, naturally, I bought the same “Feudal Japan” coins I used for Nippon for my copy of Yedo.
While Fantasy Coin is the company you’d turn to for fantastical and sci-fi-themed coins, Artana’s where you go when you’re looking for something with a more historical bent. While they don’t mimic specific real-world coinage, their designs evoke real-world cultures and time periods, which make them a fantastic choice for your average Eurogame. They tend to be lighter and thinner than Fantasy Coin, but not in a bad way. They also have 5 different sizes and finishes, from “Tiny” – which live up to their name – to “Jumbo” which are larger than a US half-dollar. Artana’s coins used to only be available via Kickstarter, but they’ve since shifted their model to selling through game-bling websites like The Broken Token and Top Shelf Gamer. Since many coin manufacturers still rely on periodic crowd-funding to release new products, Artana’s consistent availability makes them unique. I have just as many Artana coins as Fantasy Coin, and for good reason: they’re awesome. I’m primarily a Eurogame player so their coins are a thematic match for a lot of games I own. Their price-point is roughly the same as Fantasy Coin – on the lower end of the spectrum, overall – although because they have five different sizes and styles in every coin set, the price point varies depending on what specific coins you buy.
I’m still genuinely surprised at how perfect Artana’s “Ancient Greek” coins are for Akrotiri. The specific motif perfectly matches the designs in the game, and I couldn’t ask for more.
For Archipelago I wanted coins fitting a 1700’s nautical aesthetic. These are from Artana’s “Pirate Ships” theme. The other coins in the set were a little too “skull and crossbones” for what I wanted (although colonizers ARE just another form of pirate), but I thought these two coins fit the theme really well.
I mean, these “Early English Kings” coins aren’t technically thematically appropriate. But I had them and figured I’d toss them in with a game set in 1800’s Bavaria because… well because the game needed some coins.
Artana’s “Middle Ages” theme is great for a game set… in the middle ages. They’re a little more Anglo-Saxon than Frank or Norman, but no one’s ever really going to notice. Ystari games once made coins for Caylus which were a perfect thematic match for Troyes; alas, they are no longer available.
Really, any of the Japanese-themed metal coins I’ve seen or owned – from the Tokaido coins to Fantasy Coin’s “Feudal Japan” theme – would work well in Yamatai. But as beautiful as this game is, I wanted something with a bit more variety. Artana’s “Japanese” theme fit the bill perfectly.
I’m a little torn on the Giochix Historical Coins. On the one hand, they’re nice sizes and weights, and they feel and sound great. On the other hand, they’re not really filling any sort of necessary niche. Artana has the “historical” space covered pretty well, and Fantasy Coin’s selection of SFF themes is pretty universal. If they were going to create specifically thematic coins, I wish they’d have filled some of the holes in this tiny industry, or just gone completely generic, which actually would’ve fit their physicality a little better. All that said, Giochix did manage to create a couple of themes I found useful, specifically their “Pre-Colombian” theme, which is an area of the world other companies have neglected. It is, however, pretty niche, and I understand why they chose to make more applicable themes for Eurogames. I only have two minor gripes: First, the shiny finish – while not necessarily bad in and of itself – does make the denominations a little hard to tell apart at a distance. Second, the relief on the faces of the coins is very shallow, looking much more like modern Euros than anything fantastical or historical. The problem this leads to is making it very difficult to differentiate coins from different themes, but if they’re assigned to a specific game this shouldn’t really be an issue. (It’s only an issue for nutty people like me who have this many different coin sets.) They’re a good price, coming in at about 24¢ (US) per coin, which is on the low end of the scale. Their affordability goes a long way to ameliorate the complaints I have. Now, it’s just a matter of figuring out their availability outside Kickstarter.
There aren’t many coins out there with a South/Central American theme, so when Giochix made their “Pre-Colombian” set, I knew I had to put some in my copy of Altiplano.
Okay, so it’s a bit of a stretch to have Giochix’s “Spanish Colonial” set representing Heaven & Ale, a game about beer-brewing monks more likely set in Germany or Belgium, but there were Benedictine monasteries on the Iberian peninsula, so I’m just gonna run with it.
“Celtic Apogee”. Can’t be a better fit. As a side note, the metal coins for Clans of Caledonia would also be a great match for Isle of Skye, but I wanted to differentiate the two.
Since I got these sets in bulk from Giochix’s Kickstarter, I ended up also getting their “Ancient Rome” set. But I have no game to put it in. I would be suitable for Concordia or Trajan or any game set in Ancient Rome, but I already have coins in Concordia, and no other game with a Roman setting at the moment. Here’s a picture anyway.
REAL CURRENCY
Sometimes, fake coins either aren’t the answer or aren’t available. If you can’t find fake coins for your games, the best option might be actual currency, either historical or current. I’ve used real currency in 5 games, so far. The real problem with acquiring real currency, especially if it’s historical or foreign (I’m in the US), is availability and price. Most of the time you’re not going to find it any cheaper than fake coinage, and getting enough coins in large enough lots to use for board games can sometimes be a chore. If you’re willing to do the extra legwork, though, you can get ahold of some really nice coins.
Ukrainian Kopiyka/Hryvna
When I published the original version of this article, I saw people shortly after talking about Ukrainian coinage for games. I followed through on picking some up, because they are INSANELY cheap in this context, running about 8¢ per coin. Which, incidentally, is massively higher than the exchange rate for some of them, but still massively cheaper than fake coinage. The design is pretty, and is the same across all the kopiykas, and they come in all the standard European denominations. There’s a problem, though. The 1s and 10s are extremely small, thin, and light. Smaller and thinner than a dime, and significantly lighter. For me, this is a massive issue, for a number of reasons. They’re so small and thin I actually have trouble picking them up, which makes them frustrating to use. But more importantly, they’re not really an aesthetic upgrade from punchboard coins. Every time I used them, I found myself disappointed and just wanting to go back to the cardboard ones. There is one MASSIVE exception here: the Ukrainian 1 Hryvna coins, which I’ll detail below under “Village”.
The unlike the kopiykas, the 1 Hryvna coins are actually pretty fantastic. They’re a little bigger than a quarter, and they’re really beautiful. You’ll have to cope with a very, very Orthodox design, and they’re obviously only good for games with a single denomination. But all those features make them really perfect for Village, a game with a small number of single denomination coins and a church as a major part of the theme!
I couldn’t find good, fake coins for Le Havre, so I just bought real ones! These are WWII-era aluminum “Emergency Coins” from France, and they’re absolutely fantastic. They’re a little light, being made from aluminum, but they’re beautiful and thematic, even if the time period is a little off. Beware, though: There are two different kinds of these coins. Some are from the French Republic, occupied in WWII by the Germans but still opposed to them, and some are from Vichy France, a French state who became collaborationists with the Germans. You can tell them apart (both physically and in ideology) by their mottos: The Republic coins say “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” (or “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”), where the Vichy coins say “Travail, Famille, Patrie” (or “Work, Family, Fatherland”. YEAH). Don’t get the Nazi-adjacent coins.
Good Austrian coins for games are hard to find at a good price. The thematic ones – especially for a game like Grand Austria Hotel – are prohibitively expensive. Granted, it’s not entirely necessary to replace the money tracks in GAH, but I wanted to anyway. I ended up picking up a bunch of semi-modern Austrian Groschen. They’re a little small, and they might be too modern for the theme, but they’re Austrian and that’s enough for me.
I absolutely can’t take credit for this particular idea. I saw a reply on BGG from user TRONOFOTHEDEAD with the idea of using Indian Head Pennies and Buffalo Nickels for Great Western Trail, and I followed suit. I gotta say, I *love* these coins for this game, especially the 2-cent coin as the round marker. This is a rather expensive upgrade. The bulk of the coins aren’t too bad. The Buffalo Nickels are actually only about 7¢ per coin, but the Indian Head Pennies run about 60¢ each. The two, together, average about 37¢ per coin, which is on the high end, but not terrible. It’s the 2-cent coin which really breaks things, though. I paid $14 for the 2-cent coin alone, the common price range is for coins in not great shape. To be fair, when shopping for coins like these, you’re rarely going to get coins in decent shape at these prices. This is the cost for what are called “culls”, or coins collectors have separated out as junk and are selling in bulk because they’re not collectible. But they’re perfect for board games! As a side note, the metal coins for Montana: Heritage Edition are a near-perfect thematic match for Great Western Trail, if Big Kid Games decides to sell them at retail.
I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect upgrade than these. The included coins are clearly modeled after rubles, so real rubles are a great replacement. This set was comparatively expensive, costing me about $18 for 20 coins, but since I only needed those 20 and they were so thematically perfect, I bit the bullet. The problem, now, is 90’s era rubles are pretty difficult to find. I tried searching for them on eBay (where I got these) and couldn’t find a decent lot.
OTHER GENERIC COINS
These are a couple of examples of other fake coins not specifically designed for board games, but which work well under certain circumstances.
Pachinko Tokens
Pachinko tokens are an absolutely fantastic option for generic coins, especially if you want something vaguely U.S.A. themed. I originally bought a large lot of them for a planned LARP which never materialized, and have since repurposed them for several different games. Almost all pachinko/pachislo tokens are about the same size and weight as a US quarter, and most of them will come with Japanese, vaguely American, or casino/gambling designs. Mine are mostly U.S.A. themed, so I use them in games with a modern Western theme.
No Thanks doesn’t actually have currency, per se, but it does have a set of tokens used for gameplay. My generic gold pachinko tokens fit the bill very well.
Again, modern Western setting, and nearly thematic coins to go with it. A great addition to Suburbia. At least right up until I get my copy of the Collector’s Edition, which includes bespoke metal coins!
Pirate Dubloons
“Pirate Dubloon” is probably the most ubiquitous theme in fake coinage, both metal and plastic. I got these particular coins on Amazon, for really cheap. They’re about he same size as a US quarter and come in 4 different finishes. Note: these are the same coins Eagle & Gryphon Games sells for Empires: Age of Discovery, but they’re MUCH cheaper on Amazon and can be obtained in larger quantities.
I don’t have a hell of a lot of pirate-themed games in my collection, so I found the one game they work really well with.
CUSTOM POKER CHIPS
Some games just scream for custom poker chips instead of metal coins, and I can’t help but oblige. I’ve made custom chips both for currency and tokens for games, but I’ve only included pictures of the currency here. Making custom poker chips is actually fairly easy with a set of relatively inexpensive tools. I’ve created a tutorial on how to do it, which you can find HERE. That tutorial also has links for artwork which can be used for printing your own stickers for the games I detail here.
The square wood “coins” included with Capital Lux, frankly, baffle me. They neither look like gold coins nor match the theme of the game, and for a card game as beautiful as Capital Lux, with stunning art from the always amazing Kwanchai Moriya, they actually detract. So it was a no-brainer for me to design chips for the game.
There’s a chance I may replace these with full-size custom poker chips some day, but for right now I love using these mini poker chips in Lord$ of Vega$. These particular chips aren’t available anymore, as far as I know, which is a shame. They’re the only mini poker chips I’ve found modeled after regular chips instead of the plastic, ridged ones, which I viscerally dislike.
Okay, there are a couple of different sites offering a metal cube upgrade for Terraforming Mars, to replace the metallic plastic cubes included with the game. The upgrade is phenomenal, and it was one of the first things I ordered after getting the game. Here’s a pic of that set. But it’s always bothered me that the “gold” cubes in the set are the gold bars from the Stonemaier Treasure Chest instead of actual cubes. I know it’s a piddling thing, but it just seemed a little off. A friend of mine, Eric, is the biggest Terraforming Mars fanatic I know. My gaming group plays the game a lot, and Eric plays it even more, with multiple groups he joins to play. So it only makes sense he’d be the one crazy enough to actually requisition a new set of metal cubes for Terraforming Mars, ones better matching the style of the game by a) actually having CUBES for the gold, and b) all being different sizes. Here’s a pic of these new, awesome cubes. This set is better, IMO, than the ones you can get from The Broken Token**. Eric** plans to make them available via an Etsy page soon, and I’ll update this article with a link as soon as it’s up and running.
DISHONORABLE MENTION
I know I already mentioned the coins for Tokaido’s Collector’s Edition, but before I bought the CE I had these coins for my retail edition. They’re unmitigated garbage. They’re thin and flimsy and tiny and they don’t sound great or feel particularly good and they’re really not any better than the carboard coins and they’re Chinese and not Japanese and they’re trash. A pic of these awful coins I paid $2.47 for 40 coins, shipped, and I got ripped off, honestly.
COINS I DON’T OWN AND WHY
Obviously I’m not going to go into detail here about games I don’t own which include metal coins. I mentioned several sets in the Bespoke section above. But here are some details on some metal coins made by other companies and why I haven’t added them to any of my games. The main reason I don’t own any of these is price. I was willing to spend the extra bucks for game-specific coins for LoW and 7 Wonders, and maybe my set of Russian Rubles, because the theming made it (sort of) worth the extra cost (I’ll be honest: I own and love those coins, but probably wouldn’t pay the price again. Maybe. I think?). Most of the coins below cost nearly the same (75₵-$1 per coin), but aren’t specifically themed for a board game. In a lot of cases, getting enough coins for a board game involves multiple “sets” – as the manufacturers define them – so you don’t run short during play. With these manufacturers, multiple sets just end up being too damned spendy. That being said, the coins they make do look fantastic. The designs are really good, but they’ll need to come down in price before I’d be willing to buy some.
The designs here are really great. I contemplated getting a set of their Arabic theme for Five Tribes, but I couldn’t justify the cost. Even in bulk, at their cheapest offering, they’re still 70₵ per coin. Most games, in my experience, require 50-60 coins to ensure you don’t run out at higher player counts, which rounds out to about $35-$48 for a set (depending on how you acquire them). That’s a little above my top end; half-again to double what I paid for the coins from Fantasy Coin and Artana.
Campaign Coins are really beautiful, and have the most “high fantasy” feel of any I’ve found. I actually considered getting sets from them for Lords of Xidit, simply because they match better thematically. However, at their cheapest, they’re about identical in price to the Legendary coins, so just out of my range.
Minion Games doesn’t have a wide variety, with only two different themes: “Metal Dragon Coins” and “Futuristic Metal Coins” (the coins for Hegemonic), and they range in price from 70₵ to 90₵ per coin. Which is, frankly, absurd. They’re cool looking coins, but they’re absolutely not worth the price.
The only reason I don’t have experience with Moedas’s coins is because I just haven’t ordered any yet. They have some very awesome bespoke coins for specific games, including the giants like Terra Mystica, Great Western Trail, Lisboa, and more. Their prices are right in line with companies like Artana and Fantasy Coin, and their coins look genuinely great. They’re a Brazilian company and their website doesn’t handle currency conversion, so to place an order in North America you have to e-mail them directly, which does add a layer of difficulty. It’s not something I’m at all averse to doing – the owner replies occasionally on BGG and other users have posted positively about their products and service – I just haven’t done it yet.
Again, gorgeous, but expensive. Not quite as expensive as some of the others here, but still just outside what I would consider affordable. And, honestly, I haven’t seen any recent information about this company, so they may not be making coins anymore.
Shirepost’s coins aren’t really viable for this kind of application. They primarily do licensed coins (Lord of the Rings, Kingkiller Chronicle, A Song of Ice and Fire, etc.), and they’re not built for bulk orders. They’re designed to be a novelty, and are wildly expensive, coming in at well in excess of $1 per coin. So, they’re cool, but not really worth it for board gaming.
Rare Elements Foundry is one of the first companies I ever encountered making metal fantasy coins. Unfortunately, they are ungodly expensive for the most part. Their coins run around $22-$25 for a set of 10, pushing them up to and even beyond Shirepost’s prices. Their coins are very beautiful, but not feasible in quantity.
BEST GENERIC COINS
Here’s the thing: I love upgrading the coins in my games, and I think metal coins add a genuinely massive aesthetic boost. They’re absolutely my favorite type of upgrade. BUT, I also understand buying separate, thematic coin sets for a ton of different games isn’t for everyone. You might want metal coins, but would rather just have one or two generic sets you can use across multiple games whenever you play. So here are my opinions on the best coins for that purpose: Honorable Mention – Poker Chips Poker chips, either generic or custom, are a great option. They’re frequently cheaper than metal coins, and you can get them in a bajillion different styles with or without denominations. But they’re not metal, and that’s an issue. They’re a fantastic option, though. Honorable Mention – Pachinko Tokens Granted, pachinko tokens have a weird “theme” and they look more modern than thematic, but honestly they’re great coins and you just can’t find a better deal. They come so cheap and in such large quantities I have to mention them here as an option for the budget-conscious. Honorable Mention – Scythe Coins The Scythe coins are absolutely fantastic quality and, as I mentioned before, are almost so thematic they’re themeless. If you want a set of coins with a little extra flair and don’t think their odd theming will clash with your games, you absolutely can’t go wrong here.
BEST SINGLE-DENOMINATION COINS – CHARTERSTONE COINS
Stonemaier does it again with their Charterstone metal coins. You absolutely cannot get a better set of coins for games with a single denomination. Some examples of games these coins would work great in are Lancaster, Russian Railroads, Villages of Valeria, Alchemists, and Village. But, basically any game where you only need 1s, get yourself a set of these. Charterstone Coins
BEST OVERALL GENERIC COINS – SEAFALL COINS
The clear winner here are the Seafall coins from Plaid Hat Games. They may be rather generic, but their design is beautiful, and they’d make a fantastic addition to any game you’d want to use them with. They’re a tiny bit expensive at about 40¢ per coin, but there’s over 100 coins in the set and if you’re only buying them once, it’s an absolute no-brainer. They’re a great size and weight, and the colors and finishes are unmatched. I really like how distinguishable the colors are on these coins, and I absolutely love the satin finish because it keeps glare low and amps up the color variance, making the coins easy to tell apart from across the table.
I acquire new coins as I get new games, and sometimes coins change homes when a game leaves my collection. To track and show these changes, I’ve started THIS GEEKLIST on BGG. Do you have metal coins in your collection? Do you want to show them off? Please add your own pics and descriptions to that GeekList! I know my collection is not comprehensive, and the more pictures and suggestions for coins and they games they work with would be incredible! Thanks for spending the time to peruse my compulsion for metal coins in board games! I hope you’ve enjoyed the pictures and commentary. If you have metal coins of your own and would like to show them off, I’d love to see them added to the GeekList, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you want to talk about metal coins, or DIY upgrades, or board games in general, you can always find me on Twitter @PixelartMeeple, on Instagram @pixelartmeeple, on BGG at PixelartMeeple, and on my website www.pixelartmeeple.com! You can also hear my (much more succinct) thoughts on games on The Five By podcast. Thanks for reading, and happy gaming!
Metal Coins for Board Games, A Compulsion - Part I
Part I: In this half of the article, I will focus on games that include metal coins and metal coins designed with a specific game in mind. In Part II I talk about other coin manufacturers, and more options for adding coins to your games Back in 2016, I posted an article under my other username (u/Luke_Matthews) about my obsession with adding metal coins to board games, which you can read here: Board Games and Metal Coins, An Obsession What started as a diversion became an obsession, and since that article bloomed into a full-on compulsion. I’ve upgraded over 60 games with unique metal coins and currency, and I’d like to share the current state of this compulsion and what I’ve learned along the way. Since it’s technically an update, much of this article may be redundant, but I’m including a bunch of new coin sets and a whole slew of pretty new pictures. You may have seen my previous posts about game upgrades, including my tutorials on replicating those upgrades. I’ve been enamored with “Deluxe” and “Collector’s” editions of games for a long time. My first exposure to a wildly over-produced special edition was the Catan Anniversary Edition, but my first experience with metal coins in a game was our copy of the SmallWorld Designer Edition. Dear god, these coins. They’re are, to this day, some of the best fake coins I’ve ever seen, and they kicked off a near-addictive obsession with adding that same delicious, clinky aesthetic to as many board games as I could. It’s such a strange thing, because metal coinage is a purely aesthetic upgrade. They don’t change game mechanics or offer any extension to the gameplay experience. Even so, deluxe editions have proven there’s a market for aesthetic upgrades, and metal coins have grown into one of the most popular. I won’t deny it: there have been Kickstarters I’ve nearly backed solely for the metal coins. Most of the time, clearer heads prevail, but if I’m on the fence, the inclusion of metal coins will tip me over the edge. I have fallen down the rabbit hole of adding unique, thematic coins for each individual game. This approach is not for everyone. I have the means and the inclination, and it’s a fun hobby for me. Unique metal coins are not a necessity, though! If you’re interested in adding generic coins you can keep aside and use for multiple games, I’ll talk about what sets I think are the best for that purpose at the end of this article. For now, let’s get on with the show! GAME TITLES ARE LINKS TO PHOTOS. For a more user-friendly image browsing experience, view this post on my website or on BoardGameGeek. NOTE:There is no way this will be an exhaustive list of all the metal coins available. I’ll talk about coins I have direct personal experience with, as well as make notes of other coins I don’t have and why I don’t have them. There will likely be a lot of coins not included here, and I encourage you to add your own experiences and pictures in the comments.
BESPOKE COINS AND GAMES INCLUDING METAL COINS
I’ve combined these two categories because, in many cases, coins included with a deluxe edition are purchasable as an add-on, and it just makes sense since those coins are designed specifically with one game in mind (which is what I mean by using the term “bespoke”). A note on pictures:A few of these coin sets came with games I no longer own, and the coins exited my collection along with the games. Even though I took all new photographs for this article, some of those games will have photos that don’t match the look and style of the new ones, because they were taken before I sold the games.
7 Wonders is a bonafide classic, a staple of modern games. It’s fitting it should have awesome bespoke metal coins, and this game actually has two completely different sets! Repos Productions makes a set, but my coins are from The Broken Token, and they do not disappoint. They’re heavy, well designed, large, and perfectly thematic. The only problem? They’re pretty expensive. Right now, they’re available for $35 for 57 coins, which puts them over 60¢ per coin. That’s the very upper limit of what I’m willing to spend (most of the time). Still, we really wanted perfectly thematic coins, so we bought enough to fill out 7 Wonders proper and 7 Wonders Duel. But what happens when you decide not to keep a game you’ve upgraded with metal coins? Many secondary market buyers aren’t interested in paying extra money for coins, and when they’re this thematically linked to a game, it’s hard to find somewhere to put them. It took a long time for us to find games to house these coins. Spirit Island Spirit Island was the first. The 1’s and 3’s are a near perfect thematic match for the game’s Energy Tokens. We threw a few of the 6’s in the mix, too, just because we had them. But this game didn’t need enough to take all the coins… Queendomino It wasn’t until we picked up Queendomino we found a home for the rest. The coins split perfectly between the two games, and Queendomino’s theme and denominations were a great match. Yeah, the largest coins are 9’s rather than 6’s, but it hasn’t hindered our play at all.
Wow, these are nice little coins. They’re about the size of a quarter and evoke the feel of 13th or 14th century Europe, but with just a little bit of a cartoony edge, perfectly matching the graphic design of Architects. My only disappointment is they weren’t included with Architects like the metal coins from Raiders of the North Sea, but they’re still a relatively inexpensive upgrade at $15 for 50 coins. And they’re “historical Europe” enough to match the theming on a LOT of games.
Opening up Black Fleet and finding metal coins inside was a genuine surprise. For such a light pick-up-and-deliver game, the components are absolutely off the charts. The included coins aren’t as chunky and heavy as some of the others in this article, but for a $30 game to have metal coins at all is a miracle. The problem, now, is Black Fleet seems to be out of stock everywhere. Second-hand copies can be picked up fairly cheap, and even if you don’t like a simple pick-up-and-deliver game, the 20ish bucks for a used copy might be worth it for the coins alone.
Brass Deluxe Edition (1st Edition)
The original Brass Deluxe from Eagle Gryphon Games wasn’t the greatest production in the world – and pales in comparison to the new versions – but it did produce some pretty solid metal coins. They’re way heavier than I expected them to be. The finish on them can be a little spotty, but for the most part they’re very nice, very generic coins. EGG has gone on to sell them independently, marketing them for Lisboa. They’re a fantastic deal, too, at 100 coins for $30. My only gripe is the amounts of each denomination are a little strange: 40 “1”s, 60 “5”s, and 10 “10”s. It’s always a tad awkward to have way more of the middle denomination than the lower, and has resulted in me having a bunch of extra 5’s. These coins found homes in two games: Mombasa A perfect thematic match considering the game is about 18th century British colonization of Africa. Nurnburg Sure they’re not really Germanic looking, but they’re generic enough to fit pretty well with any of the ubiquitous historical-western-Europe games. With the new editions of Brass, Roxley games developed lovely poker-chip currency they’ve dubbed “Iron Clays”. They are a fantastic design, but they’re also some of the most expensive poker chips you’ll buy. For a single box, for a single game, they’re not a terrible value, but when I’m used to poker chips costing around 5-15 cents per chip, paying 35 cents per chip is a little rough. It’s still well within reason for metal currency – and around the price you’d pay for the Brass coins or even coins from Artana or Fantasy Coin (which I discuss later), so for me it really is just a mental block. I just need to file Iron Clays into the same basket in my brain as coins rather than chips.
Here’s a perfect example of me flat over-spending for coins. I’ve done it three times. Every single time it’s been at The Broken Token, and every time a bespoke set for a specific game (7 Wonders and Lords of Waterdeep being the other two). The Broken Token’s Carson City coins are, frankly, amazing. They’re perfect metal representations of the cardboard chits from the game. They look nice, feel awesome, and sound great. And they’re too damned expensive. They’re one of the few sets of coins I feel a little bit of buyer’s remorse over. At over 75¢ per coin, they’re exorbitantly priced, and no matter how much I like them, I just cannot recommend them. But wow, I really do like them.
The coins in Century: Spice Road are great. They’re not used for much – they’re over-produced secondary victory-point chits – but they’re an awesome addition to a beautiful game, and I’m glad they were included. They’re each between the size of a nickel and a quarter with a great design and finish. And they’re included in the cost of a relatively inexpensive game. Win/win.
Charterstone
I’ll admit, I don’t own a copy of Charterstone. It’s just not the type of game my wife and I would enjoy. But you’re damned right I bought a set of the metal coins, because I really, really, really like them. They’re a great option for any game with a single coin denomination. In our collection, they would go well in Alchemists, Village, Lancaster, Russian Railroads, or Ulm. In our case, though, we chose to add them to… Villages of Valeria
I was a bit surprised to find a small company like Karma Games decided to make bespoke metal coins for their little-economic-Euro-that-could. The coins are fine! They’re not the best coins I’ve seen, but certainly not the worst by any measure. They’re perfectly thematic, which is great, and is one of the less expensive bespoke sets out there at roughly $29 (depending on retailer) for 70 coins.
They’re great! What can I say, other than I really like the coins. They’re not the heaviest coins in the world, but the different coins range in size from roughly the size of a penny to a little bigger than quarter. The finish is nice – technically a modern, “shiny” finish, but with a sort of pebbling to dampen their reflectiveness, which makes them easier to differentiate. They’re very, VERY tied to CO2 and thus not really usable outside the game, but for CO2 specifically they’re absolutely fantastic. My only problem with them: There are 4 denominations (1, 2, 5, and 10), but only 3 colors, so the 2s and 5s are both silver, and thus a bit hard to tell apart at a distance. I think it’s a pretty major design error, making it easy to get the wrong change or pick up the wrong coin, and being suddenly ahead or behind by 3 money might be a problem for gameplay. Since I know about it I don’t expect it to be a major issue, and otherwise these coins are fantastic.
The “X-Treme Edition” of Dinosaur Island came with a pretty awesome set of metal coins. They’re one of the few painted sets on the market (rather than just finished), adding to the over-the-top neon 90’s theme of Dinosaur Island. They’re in roughly the same quality camp as Stonemaier’s coins for Viticulture and Scythe – which is to say they’re pretty nice. Apparently the first edition of Dinosaur Island XE came with much thicker, heavier metal coins, and people complained. Which, honestly, baffles me. I’ve never seen them in person, but being a metal coin nut I’d love to get my hands on a set of the heavier version. If you’re one of those folks who has those coins and doesn’t like them, hit me up and I’ll trade you for the new ones. It looks like the X-Treme Edition was a Kickstarter exclusive, which is a real shame, but there are used copies floating around.
Like many of Tasty Minstrel’s “Deluxified” games, this version was only available as a Kickstarter exclusive. And I gotta admit: I was disappointed in the metal resource tokens when I got the game in the mail, for two reasons: One, they’re almost too tied to the game, and actually say “One Resource Token” and “1RT” on the faces of the coins. Don’t get me wrong – I’m never going to fault a company for making metal coins or tokens specifically designed only for their game just like any other component, but I always like to see coins which can be used outside their source material. Count this as a very minor gripe. It’s really not the crux of my dislike. My main issue is they’re just way too small. At their tiny size, there is very little difference between these metal tokens and cardboard or wooden chits. Making them out of metal was, I’m sure, great for the marketing of the Deluxified edition, but basically meaningless from an aesthetic standpoint.
Here’s one of my other cases of overspending. Especially at these coins’ original price. Don’t get me wrong: These are fantastic coins and, at the time, were the only coins in existence to mimic the unique shapes of the coins from Lords of Waterdeep. But when I bought them (over three years ago), they were $60 for 60 coins. Looking back, I… vomit in my mouth a little bit. I had a ton of bias pressing me into that decision. LoW was my favorite game at the time, and arguably the game which sent me spiraling into my current gaming obsession. But spending $1 a coin for an upgrade is nuckin’ futs, and I highly suggest you don’t do it. Even now, the BT coins for LoW are $45 for 60 (or 75¢ per coin), which is still just too damned expensive, even if the coins are great. And ESPECIALLY because Fantasy Coin makes their own set of Lords of Waterdeep coins for significantly cheaper – about $30 for a full set of 60. Still on the slightly spendy side overall, but a WAY better deal than the BT coins. Fantasy Coin can be an… interesting company to try to order from, but I’ll get into more detail in their section below.
The coins in Montana: Heritage Edition are fairly specifically themed, designed to evoke old, worn United States currency. For the old-west theme of Montana, they’re fantastic. They’re good quality coins, too, with a great weight and size. These coins are also a perfect thematic match for Great Western Trail (although I have another solution for GWT, detailed later). Unfortunately, it seems like the only way to get these metal coins would’ve been as an add-on to the Heritage Edition on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. Hopefully Big Kid Games will make them available separately at some point.
The coins in the Orleans Deluxe edition are nice, if a little bland. They look exactly like their cardboard counterparts, but they’re just a touch light and have an odd sound to them. I know it seems super picky to complain about the sound of metal coins included with a board game, but let’s be real here: this is an entire article about metal coins for board games, so let’s not go down that rabbit hole, mmkay?
Back when I still had a copy of Puerto Rico, I really wanted the Anniversary Edition, but I wasn’t willing to spend the $300+ to get it. When we started replacing all of our coins, this was one of the first games I looked for. There are a TON of “pirate dubloon” style coins out there (even some mentioned later in this article). I was genuinely surprised to run across a set of coins made very specifically for Puerto Rico, by a third-party. I was even more surprised by the price – only around $27 USD for 70 coins. To top it all off, I was – and still am – absolutely floored by the quality. Unfortunately, it looks like these coins are no longer available. These are some of the largest, heaviest, nicest looking and feeling coins in my collection. They’re made of pewter, so they have a bit of a different feel and sound than most of the other coins you’ll find, but their weight and quality were absolutely worth the price. After selling our copy of Puerto Rico, we dropped these coins into our copy of… Champions of Midgard They’re obviously not thematically appropriate, but the design is muddy enough for them to pass as Viking-ish, if you squint and don’t look directly at them.
Oooh, boy do I like these coins. Raiders is one of my favorite worker placement games of the last few years, and thematic metal coins being included in the base game is just phenomenal. As far as I can find they’re not available on their own, but it’s fine because they’re so thematically linked to Raiders they’d have limited use outside of it. They’re really nice, though.
Roll Player
These coins sort of snuck up on me. I didn’t even know Thunderworks Games had made bespoke coins for Roll Player until I saw someone post online that they were having a big Black Friday sale last year. At half off on sale, these coins were only $12.50 for 60 coins, and that was just way too good a deal for me to pass up. And you know what? They’re great! Deep relief, nice size, good weight, and a great, generic high-fantasy design means they’re not only awesome for Roll Player, but can go in a ton of other games. Since I don’t actually own Roll Player, my set went into my copy of… Lords of Xidit …and they’re perfect there! Here’s the catch: When they’re not on sale, the coins are $25 for 60 coins, putting them at about 41¢ per coin. That’s at the top end of what I normally like to spend, and I’m not entirely sure I can recommend these coins at that price, with so many awesome options available in the 30-ish cents per coin range. I 100% recommend them if you own Roll Player. That slight price bump is worth it for bespoke coins. For other games, though, I’d wait until they’re on sale again.
Scythe has some of the best metal coins ever made for a game. They’re an interesting thematic choice, too, with each denomination representing one of the country-factions in the game. They’re not thematic to a specific place as much as they are to the game as a whole, which makes them so thematic they’re almost generic. Which, in truth, is kind of awesome. They’re great looking coins and could easily be used as a generic set for just about any game with the ubiquitous Europe-gone-by theme. They’re purchasable separate from Scythe, just be aware there are two denominations not available in the base set (the 2’s and 50’s). They’re only available as promo add-ons. If you’re a completist, Stonemaier released painted versions of the 5s and 10s after some players complained they were a little hard to tell apart. I’m not a huge fan of how they look (I think Dinosaur Island is the only game where I actually like the painted coins), but they’re out there if you want ‘em.
Seafall
These coins are genuinely the best thing to come out of Seafall. Wow, did Plaid Hat hit the mark with these coins. They’re good looking generic coins with a design which somehow manages to straddle just about every genre you could think of. They work with historical, fantasy, and sci-fi themes. I think they only theme they might not work so well in is a modern-day one, but even then they’re so generic they’d probably be fine. They’re a great size, the denominations are clear, and the coloring on them is a unique sort of matte rendering of the typical copper, silver, and gold, which makes their colors and denominations really easy to distinguish from across the table. They’re a little on the light side, but that’s not a problem for a set of 100+ coins. I don’t own Seafall, so these coins currently reside in my copy of… Terra Mystica …and they look absolutely beautiful there!
I mean, what can I say about these coins I haven’t already said? They’re some of the most beautiful coins I’ve ever seen for a board game, but obviously they’re mostly unattainable. The SmallWorld DE goes for upwards of $1000, and Days of Wonder has never made these coins available outside it. Which, to be honest, isn’t a huge deal, because they have a big ol’ “SW” on the back of every coin, so they’re pretty heavily tied to SmallWorld. They’d be a great addition to a retail copy, but I can’t imagine DoW can make them cheap.
These coins surprised me. They’re smaller in diameter than I expected, but they’re really thick and heavy, and such a great aesthetic addition to a game like Tokaido. They’re also available separately, and at $18 for 50 coins, they’re actually a pretty great deal. I’m not really sure how widely they can be used, since they only have a single denomination, but they’re a fantastic addition to any copy of Tokaido.
Stonemaier was one of the first companies I ever saw making metal coins available outside the deluxe version they were designed for. The Viticulture metal coins are very nice, with good weight and size and beautiful finish. The only downside is they’re heavily thematically tied to Viticulture, with all the coins displaying a bunch of grapes and a stylized “V”. If you don’t care about your coins specifically matching a game’s theme, they’re a great deal, but I struggled to find any other use for them outside Viticulture. Until I picked up… Vinhos Deluxe
These coins are really great. Designed to mimic actual 19th century Japanese coins, these have a really nice weight and feel, and would be a fantastic addition to just about any game with a Japanese theme. Games like Tokaido, Nippon, or Yamatai would all benefit from these coins.
OTHER GAMES WITH BESPOKE COINS
The games below all come with metal coins, and run the gamut of availability. I don’t have any personal experience with any of these coins, but I’ve included pictures of each. The only ones I’ve ever really wanted were the Caylus coins, not because I particularly love Caylus, but because they are a near-perfect thematic match for one of my all-time favorite games, Troyes. Alas, they’re almost impossible to get ahold of.
Belfort 10th Anniversary Edition (Upcoming, No Photo)
Photo courtesy Amazon.com. Thank you for joining me for the first part of my journey with metal coins! For more information and pretty pictures about other coin manufacturers and options for your games, check out Part II HERE. If you want to talk about metal coins, or DIY upgrades, or board games in general, you can always find me on Twitter @PixelartMeeple, on Instagram @pixelartmeeple, on BGG at PixelartMeeple, and on my website www.pixelartmeeple.com! You can also hear my (much more succinct) thoughts on games on The Five By podcast. Thanks for reading, and happy gaming!
Me and my mates like to play home tournaments every now and then and the poker set i have is a really cheap basic one with 5 different denominations (5,10,25,50,100) and everyone usually starts with 10 of each chip but we have started to use a 4:3:2:1 format with 1 100 chip also (so if 4 people are playing its 20 5chips 15 10chips 10 50s and so on) . Basically what im getting at is whats the best way to set up peoples starting stacks, should i use the 4:3:2:1 or something different. Also im looking at buying a EPT poker set which has 7 different denominations (links below) and how should i go about setting a poker set like that up?, should i use all 7 denominations? only 4?. Cheers for any help EPT Poker Set
Playing A Live Tournament For The First Time - Tips & Advice
There have been a lot of posts on poker recently asking what to do when you first go to the Casino to play a tourney. Hopefully this can be posted on the sidebar for future first timers. Here is a long list of pointers that are good to read through before heading to the Casino to play your first tournament. You won't be able to remember all of them, and you won't need to, in my opinion bolded ones are the most important. The most important thing to remember is poker is supposed to be fun. Don't go to the Casino trying to remember everything. It's your first time, have fun, else you won't go back.
Research online. Find out as much as you can about the tournament you're going to play. If you're not sure what certain things mean, use the lingo and abbreviations page.
Get to the Casino early. Especially if you've not been there before. Familiarise yourself with the layout, and where the bathrooms and bar etc is. It will make your tournament breaks much more time-effective.
Make sure you're in the best condition you can be to play your best. Don't play hungover, or when you're ill (it's also pretty bad hygiene playing in a Casino when you have the Flu). Eat a solid meal beforehand and keep yourself hydrated. Avoid alcohol and caffeine unless you absolutely have to have it.
Be clean! There is nothing worse than sitting next to someone at the table who has the personal hygiene levels of a hippo. Be showered, smell nice, have nice breath, cover your mouth when you cough. (Also always wash your hands after going to the toilet. If you don't, the next person that holds your cards, or chips is also holding your dick.
Ask the cardroom staff any questions you have - They are there at your service. Part of your buy-in is paying for them to be there, so use it!
Take your seat as soon as you can. Say hello to the dealer and if there is no-one else around, let him know its your first time
Learn the rules to a tee before you go. Learn the hand rankings, learn the raise/re-raise sizes etc. Nothing makes you look more like a fish and become a target more than showing down a straight wish a huge grin when there's 4 to a flush on board and your opponent has already shown he's got the nuts.
Verbalise every move you make - you are playing with real money and people don't tend to let you get away with things, even if it's your first time. If you're folding, say "I fold" before you pass your cards forward. Want to bet? Say "I bet" followed by the amount. Want to raise? Say "raise" and then cut out the amount of chips you want to raise.
Nearly every tournament buy-in will be split up between your Prize pool buy-in, and the Rake. It's usually displayed something like $20+5. What that means is that from your $25 investment, $20 goes into the Prize pool that everyone can win, and $5 goes to the running of the tournament.
Always verbalise your action before you move your cards or chips. Casinos have different rules, and you will most likely not know the ones for where you're playing yet. They all have different rules when it comes to throwing a single chip in the middle, or moving a stack across the line. If you verbalise what you want to do, you can't go wrong.
Don't be afraid to ask the dealer information about the hand. They can't tell you everything (action on previous streets or what you should actually do) but they can tell you what the min-raise should be, they can spread the chips in the pot (but in my experience cannot tell you exactly how much is in there) and you can ask for a count on your opponents stac. Note: you don't have to tell your opponent how much you are playing, ever. If there is an all-in, you can ask the dealer to count the stack. If the action is not all in, you do not have to say how much. You DO need to have your biggest denomination chips at the front of your stack, and you must make your stack visible if someone asks.
Don't be intimidated by the other players. Just because they have been there before, or spend their life playing tournaments at the Casino is does not mean they are any better.
Don't talk about your hand whilst the hand is live. Even if you've folded.
Don't try and act cool. Just because you've seen someone riffling chips on YouTube, or helicopter their cards into the muck, you shouldn't try and copy them. People won't look at you any differently if you just slide the cards/chips over the line.
Pay attention all the time - Even when you're not in a hand. If its your first time you'll be wanting to pick up as much information about the game as possible. If you're not in a hand, watch how it plays out and try to figure out what your opponents have. Plus, it's easier to not lose focus that way
On breaks, use all of the time wisely. Go to the toilet, hydrate yourself, and rest. Don't go straight to the pits or slot machines.
People like to see cheap flops and call down light. If you've only ever played online, you'll be surprised at how many people limp into pots. If you have a decent hand, don't be afraid to raise.
Don't get fancy! Don't go looking to 3b speculative hands because you saw someone do it in a Doug Polk Polker Hands video. Play basic ABC poker to start with. You're in unfamiliar surroundings in a relatively new game (even if you've put in thousands of hours online). Pick good spots.
Don't tilt. Tilting in live poker is so much easier than online because you see such fewer hands. Variance happens, get over it and set back to square one for the next hand.
Be prepared to be berated for a bad play (even if it was fine). Live players LOVE to berate you for calling their bluff with second pair. Just smile and stack your chips.
Don't berate players for bad plays. Them being there makes your night more profitable. Encourage them to come back, and tell them to bring a friend.
Keep an eye out for who is in the hand, and where the action is. Some Casinos will give you a 1-hand ban if you act out of turn. Just keep an eye out for who has cards in front of them.
Pay attention to your stack, and the stacks of others around you. As your stack diminishes, or grows, the dynamic of your game should do too. Likewise with the stacks around you. People should be playing more hands with a bigger stack, and only limping and playing pots with short stacks with a very narrow range.
Pay attention to the blinds and antes. One way to really piss off your dealer is to be the one guy at the table who forgets to put in their blind and ante. It doesn't take much. Just do it.
Don't let other players force you into making bad decisions. Just because some guy looks like an absolute pro, it doesn't mean he's being totally honest.
Have fun, and don't be disappointed if you didn't turn $20 into $1m. Poker is all about volume. The best in the world don't win every time, and you won't either. As long as you feel happy that your $20 buy-in wasn't wasted, you've done a good job.
Feel free to contribute more. Most of this was based from a post in a recent thread from airwalkerdnbmusic so thanks to him. He might also be able to contribute some more advanced tips with regards to basic strategy in the comments?
Hey everyone! I recently came into possession for very cheap a large number of clay poker chips and decided to turn some of them into coins for my boardgames. I have seen the tutorial on reddit and bgg on how to make them and the only step is to find or create a design. What are your guys' favourite coin designs? I was hoping for some inspiration on something that looks like Gold Coins or Old Ancient Coins. Note my trial run will be with white poker chips and the circle punch I have will make the paper cover most of the chip. Thinking of trying 50 coins first (all just worth a single coin, no other denominations atm). Thanks in advance :).
Hello all! Ill get right to it. I play a lot of online poker but have never run a game myself and im not sure about the chip count. We have 5-7 guys coming and for our first game the buy-ins going to be real cheap (like 2-5$) We plan to play for a few hours and then call it quits. We have a new set with plenty of colors but im not sure which denominations to use or how many chips in general. Any advice at all will be much appreciated. Thanks!
In the unlikely event the US dollar falls a lot, with US real estate it doesn’t matter, because the US dollar is still the world benchmark for wealth, and a store of wealth. The US dollar is not only a reserve currency, but everything (such has oil, gold, etc.) is denominated in US dollars, not Euros, Francs, Pounds, or Yen. Consequentially, the US can print as many dollars as it needs to prop up its assets, as it did in 2008-2014, and buyers of asset classes such as US stocks and US real estate benefit. Some call it fiscally reckless, but the US has the power to do this without suffering from the consequences of ‘wealth destruction’ and hyperinflation, that no other country in the world has.
Right. The dollar can be printed as much as the Fed feels like, exporting America's problems to other countries. That benefits the large companies (Nasdaq, Dow 30, or the tech giants), while will kill smaller outfits who will not be able to borrow on cheap or people with fixed income. It doesn't matter how much it might fall against other currencies, since they will have to depreciate their own currencies to buy dollar-dominated goods, such as oil and virtually all kinds of commodity. And if some countries want to do commodity trading on their own currency or other means, they can watch Kadafi's last video before choosing to do so. It may not be fair, and it will be cruel to non-Americans and those stuck with fixed incomes, but it is the reality and smarter people know about it and will benefit from it. Basically, the rest of the world will have to suffer so people who invested in American assets could prosper. The shareholders are inimical and very efficient, and will not leave anything left on the table for the rest. Basically, it is playing poker against someone who has the ability to add chips at will during a play. Sooner or later you will lose because you will be outbid. The ability to print as much dollars as the giants feel like means they can wait for a long time even if their real estate holdings will stay empty. In fact they will deliberately destroy good housing, like GM destroying the streetcar lines, to eliminate competition and make their existing real estate even more valuable. Like a poker tournament where people who can't win other's chips or simply sit still will be crushed by the ever-rising blinds, Ordinary people will be crushed by the ever-rising rent, property tax, insurance, registration fees and a plethora of intangible expenses which will be set by today's winners, and paid by free money if needed if they are in trouble.
By Request: IAmA former Slot Machine Technician, AMA
This is in response to this thread: http://www.reddit.com/IAmA/comments/os8xb/iama_request_casino_slotmachine_technician_o I will post verification after I eat dinner, I am just now leaving work. I will also post a quite technical explanation of how slot machines work when I get settled down at home. For now, this link will have to do (I wrote this a couple years ago): http://fatboy.geekside.com/misc/slotmachine.php I worked at a casino in Indiana, not Las Vegas, but most of the slot machines you'd find in Vegas, you'd find at the casino I worked at as well. Answers to the original questions: 1) It's completely random, though there is a minimum theoretical payback percentage of 80% according to Indiana State Gaming Commission (note: Theoretical is not equal to actual). Yes, some games are programmed to "hit" more than others, but that's only a theoretical percentage that changes, forcing a hit frequency is illegal according to the state. 2) No, but technically the theoretical percentage changes when you have networked progressive machines, but I will expand on this later when I get home. 3) See answer 1. 4) Some machines have bonus games where you can set the theoretical percentage, some are just included with the game's overall percentage. This will also be covered more in depth later. 5) No, slot machines are all based off math. I hate sounding like a broken record, but I will expand on this as well when I get back home. Please, ask me literally anything. I've seen / heard some crazy stories at the small casino I worked at. This is a call to any math gurus out there: Some of the math will be pretty involved here, and while I can explain the most of it that I'll be discussing, I wouldn't mind some helping explaining some of it to others who might not understand my interpretations. Edit: Here is my verification: http://imgur.com/TbB3T So here comes the technical part of this and it might get a bit lengthy. Definitions: Theoretical Percentage: A theoretical value of how much the machine should pay out. This is usually referred to as the "PAR". Actual PAR: How much the machine actually has paid out. Note: this can not be forced, according to the Indiana State Gaming Regulation (and none that I have heard of, but I'm not a law book either). Coin In: How much money has been bet, this was derived from old "coin" machines when you still had to put coins into a slot machine. This is not the same as "Bill In" which referrs to the amount in dollars that has been put into the slot machine. A quick explanation: You can put in a $20 bill, and as long as you keep winning money back, you can keep betting more money, that eventually totals over $20. This amount of money is the Coin In. Physical Reel Stops: Each symbol on the reel is a "stop." Typically due to size ratios most physical reels have 22 symbols (regardless of the width of the reel). If I'm wrong on that number, I apologize, but it's what I seemed to notice (though I might have been inadvertently looking at the same manufacturer). Virtual Reel Stops: A set of virtual stops that correlate to each physical stop. Say you have this order on a reel: Cherry, 7, diamond, blank, bar. A virtual reel might have 7 cherries in a row, then 2 7's, then 18 diamonds, 12 blanks and 5 bars. So my best way to describe that is imagine a really big physical real with those symbols in that order. Total Combinations: How many possible combinations can be formed from the virtual reel strips., this is the product of the amount of virtual stops on each reel. If the reel 1 = 30 stops, reel 2 = 54 stops, and reel 3 = 79 stops, then total combinations = 30 x 54 x 79. I've seen some slot machines with total combinations of over 10 million, and only one of those combinations is the "jackpot." Progressive Machine: The type of slot machine where the jackpot keeps growing (or progressing :P) PAR sheet: Paytable and Reels. This is a sheet with a table of information about the specific game on the slot machine. Typical information includes Theoretical PAR, hit frequency, total combinations, Physical Reel Stops, Virtual Reel Stops, etc. Think of a slot machine with a crazy high amount of sides on a die. You can calculate your odds based off how many sides there are total (let's say to keep it simple 100 sides), compared to the total amount of money you could win back from all those sides. If the sides paid a sum of $97.00, and you paid $1 for each roll, you'd get a 97% theoretical payback. If that was a bit much, try this: Let's play a game. You give me a dollar, I flip a quarter. If it lands on heads I give your dollar back to you; however, if it lands on tails, I get to keep the dollar. I would expect to land on heads 50% of the time, and tails the other 50%. If we played this game 10 times, you would get $5 in return. This has a 50% theoretical payback. As you may know, you could very well land on heads all ten times in a row and get 100% payback, or land on tails and get 0% payback. Multiply that on a much larger scale. Every press of the spin button is just like a new roll on a die (as in: the past roll does not affect the previous roll). So wait, since these are virtual reels then how do we know what the symbols correlate to? This answer is quite easy: The spin button tells the computer inside the slot machine that a new spin is happening. The computer picks a random number, that random number is what "combination." This combination is then correlated from virtual reels to physical reels, and the computer (via optical sensors) tell the reels where to stop. The display then shows the player how much money (if any) that virtual combination won, but if you look at the reels, it would still be 2 cherries, or 3 bars, or whatever the winning combination might be. I apologize if I was a little vague with that, let me know and I will do my best to explain in better terms. Bonus games: Some of these have their own PAR to be set to, some are just factored into the game's PAR that you set the machine to. Generally bonus games are a cheap way of making the player feel like they won anymore than they would have if they would have kept playing the slot machine regularly. Progressive machines: These machine will add x% theoretical payout to the overall PAR of the machine, since the "$150,000 jackpot" will add to the overall payout of the machine (albeit only once in a very long while, mathematically anyhow). When you tell the Gaming Jurisdiction the Theoretical PAR of a slot machine, you need to tell them the Game's Theo PAR, the Progressive PAR, and a sum of the two. The Indiana State Gaming Commission requires the minimum Theoretical PAR to be at 80%, and no greater than 100%. I am available to answer questions, I will check on this periodically throughout the evening / tomorrow.
Questions and Answers:
Have you ever seen people putting things in the slot machines other than coins? I can imagine some drunk bastards trying to stuff in buttons or something. These days coin slot machines aren't near as common. I have seen plenty of people put coins into the card readers though, that you use for your player cards. I've also seen cardboard inserted into the bill validator (the machine that accepts your dollar bills), plastic, cigarette box wrappers, chewing gum, you name it. Cleaning trash out of card readers and Bill Validators was a real PITA. What is the most extreme reaction you have ever witnessed by someone winning/losing? I don't know, really. You generally see excited screams/crying/jumping for winning, and often will see people screaming (angrily) at slot machines when losing, sometimes they punch them, etc. Just think of your typical extremes of excitement and anger, and you have that answer. Highest amount you have seen someone win/lose? The most I have witnessed that was paid out correctly was only around $150,000. Shelbyville, Indiana is a little city, better referred to as a "podunk town," so they didn't have crazy million dollar jackpots or anything that I can recall (this was 2 years ago so memory might be a little fuzzy here). Do you gamble? Which machine game is your favorite i.e. video poker, games like Jackpot Party, the 777 machines, etc. I don't gamble often, and if I do it is small amounts ($20-$40). I understand the math well enough to know that if I win I just got lucky. Video Poker is actually unique because the rules state how many decks are used and what hands win what amount, thus you can calculate your percentage on the fly. I generally play slot machines randomly though, a few spins on the higher denominations (as the general rule of thumb is that a higher denom will be set to a higher Theoretical PAR), and if I win some I cash out. I will generally try to win $40-$50 and buy pizza for the group I'm with, because they generally gamble all the money they brought away. How long have you had this job? I had that job for 2 years. What is the craziest thing you have ever seen in your casino? Crazy? Probably some of the people and their rituals. Funny? Probably the guy in a motorized wheelchair who backed away from his machine, hit a chair, then flipped the scooter over and fell out. Awesome? Probably the 3 way make out session from girls in the club the casino used to have; or this one girl liked to not wear any underwear and come in wearing a skirt, then anytime a guy walked buy she would uncross her legs then recross them (so if she's sitting right over left, uncross and go left over right). Have you ever witnessed someone cheating (I'm guessing slots are pretty impossible to cheat on, but just curious). I've witness people try to fake ticket validation (when you cash out of a slot machine you get a dollar bill sized ticket that can be redeemed for cash). I caught that pretty easily though and he got arrested. I have run extensive testing on various machines in the casino (such as the electronic blackjack table) due to such allegations of inaccuracy, but I can assure you, the electronic tables Indiana Live had were pretty legit (this is not advertising, I hated working at that place). Have you run across any Japanese machines made by Sammy or Aruze/Universal? If so, what are your opinions and insights? I have not. I will say that IGT has some really awesome machines though. I read that the machines with the best payouts are either in elevated areas or near main lobbies, or any place with a lot of traffic. The idea behind this was that the casino wants you to see people winning. Conversely, the machines near the table games were said to have lower payouts since the casino doesn't want the table players to complain about too much noise. Do you know if there is any truth to this? Typically at the casino I worked at all of the main lobby areas, entrances, etc. all had a typically lower payout than the same slot machine of the same game. The logic was something to do with when people first get into the casino they don't care about the payout, it's more about the fact they get to play. The machines around the electronic tables that casino had (they were not allowed to have real cards/chips/games due to Indiana Gaming Regulations for Racing Casinos - "Racinos") were at a significantly lower percentage, but this was not due to noise. The idea behind this was that when people stand in line waiting on a spot for the table to open up, they'll drop a $20 or more into the available machines around the tables. This was the case for all the popular machines as well (such as Wheel of Fortune, Jaws, Wizard of Oz, etc). Have you or your peers ever encountered or discovered an exploit within a slot machine that allowed for cash to be withdrawed without playing fair or anything of the sort?\Not quite what you are thinking of, no, however there are some instances I can tell you about of incorrect payouts, etc. 1) A progressive jackpot for $100,000+ was hit one night. A Slot Attendant (the supposed-to-be-friendly customer service people that walk around and pay people their money) was getting ready to fill out his Hand Pay slip (if you win $1200+ then you must be paid by the cashier as $1200 is the tax limit in the state of Indiana) and noticed that the combination on the reels was not a winning combination, however, the machine had said he won. I was called to the machine to investigate this issue, upon doing a reel test (where you tell it which symbols to line up and it lines them up as they should be) I noticed that one of the reels was incorrect. The reel strip had been moved by a few symbols away from the "home position." This is generally due to people not putting them on right from the start of the slot machine's life, or an error while cleaning the strips (they do get dust on them after so long, so part of the Preventive Maintenance process was cleaning these with a damp rag). When setting up a slot machine for the first time it must pass rigorous testing from the Gaming Commission, and the test apparently passed then. We checked the log inside the machine and noticed just a couple weeks prior the slot machine had been PM'ed. Needless to say, the customer got paid out anyway. 2) One time a progress for $93,000 hit, pretty much same events as the previous story of how I get called to the machine. Upon reviewing the settings, I see that a second level progressive (which is usually MUCH lower than the highest level progressive) was set to the same amount as the top level, but for a much easier combination (by comparison to the jackpot winning combination) was set to hit it. I found this while the VP of Slots was down investing the issue as well. We again went through the log and found which supervisor and technician had worked on the machine and both of them had actually previously been fired to this event happening. This customer also got paid out without any further issues (though the VP was quite upset that we had to pay the customer $93,000 due to this size of an error). The best part about that error: The casino should have been fined for that, since the machine's PAR was actually a higher percentage than the state was aware, since the game was configured incorrectly. This slipped through the testing process because hitting the 2nd level jackpot award isn't exactly frequent (it had been nearly a year since the machine was setup that way). 3) One way of tampering that I was actually mentioning in my OP (where a guy ended up arrested) was photocopying his higher value tickets (say redeemable for $300+) and then cutting the barcode off and taping it onto a $20 ticket. He then runs this ticket through a slot machine. The machine only reads a barcode, so it was not aware it had been cut and pasted. This genius then decides to take his $300 ticket to the cashier and say "hey this machine won't give me my money for my $300 ticket." I happened to be the tech to receive the call to go open a cash box (which also required a security officer, a Slot Manager, and Bank Manager) to investigate this dispute (I hated doing cash box runs unless they were really heated disputes because you basically stand around with your thumb up your ass; but the heated ones are always fun to watch the Gaming Agents put the unruly guests in their place). Needless to say, I laughed out loud when we pulled the ticket with the cut and pasted barcode out in front of the dude's face (they had previously pulled surveillance footage to see this same guy cashing in the false ticket in a slot machine). They hit him with a few charges. Can you help explain the mentality behind someone wanting to bet against a computer designed to take your money? I just don't understand the appeal. If I'm gonna gamble why not have fun and play some table games, at least light your money on fire in an exciting way. I truly cannot answer that question. I think it's the excitement that you have a chance to win that much money, and some people convince themselves that they will win it. There are a lot of idiot "Professional Gamblers" out there with outrageous claims. Which vendor do you hate the most? Ballys, IGT, Williams, Rocket, MGAM, Western Money? Or, all of the above? Wow, out of the list you gave me that's hard to answer. I honestly enjoy the IGT and Bally product. I feel that I knew IGT the best, I got very into learning the various AVP platforms they had (Advanced Video Platform, not Alien Vs Predator). I liked learning the older stuff too (the S2000 which had big ol' EEPROMs). Bally seemed to be the easiest to work on universally, but that's only because most of the machines were newer, so it's like working on IGT AVP and up machines. The IGT S2000's became pretty easy after awhile, but they took some getting used to. Williams actually used to be with Bally so a lot of their software was very similar, but the layout of the Williams machines just peeved me; for example, to change the "backplane" or "bulkhead" (or 30 other names for this part) in a WMS Bluebird or Bluebird 2 you have to remove a fair amount of components that are in the way. It's just bad design. It was this way for an IGT S2000, but that machine is also really old (whereas a BBU is only a few years old, maybe up to 5 or 6 years old now). The over all slot manufacturer I disliked the most: Aristocrat. The machines were so inconsistent with operations, the RAM Clear (the equivalent of a reformat) was a PITA until you got the hang of it, and so many themes were developed without proper testing and would be revoked and/or updated like crazy. The over all company I disliked most due to their technicians: ShuffleMaster. The technicians I interfaced with there knew about as much as my grandmother who doesn't own a computer. Funny story about good ol' ShuffleMaster: Vendor Tech comes in to work on the table. This table has a server and the rest of the stations are clients (pretty simple, right?). As he's working on the server, all the clients pop up a "Not Registered" to the LCD screens of where you put your player reward cards. I inform him that he must have set something wrong otherwise that wouldn't happen (This error means 1 of 4 things set in the options does not match what the main casino's Slot Accounting System's database for that slot machine). He kept assuring me he was reading the instructions and setting them line for line. I end up looking at these instructions and replied "Chris, you're on the wrong page." He threw his arms up telling me to do his job and stormed off to the soda fountain. I despised this guy, and the other 3 dimwits they would send if he couldn't come were just as bad. I feel no remorse for somebody in a technical field who cannot even follow simple directions. To be fair: I really didn't like most of the technicians I worked with, including Vendor techs. For awhile, we had a bally technician that was quite knowledgeable. I wouldn't call him smart, but he could give me knowledge which would usually end up helping me out. All of the IGT guys except one guy that I got to talk to one time were no better than the ShuffleMaster tech I mentioned. The aristocrat tech actually knew the procedures he was to know, and I suppose he wasn't too bad at troubleshooting, but when it came time to feed knowledge he was horrible at it (so I feel that he was only "good" at his job due to time spent in it, not actual comprehensive ability). The one Konami tech I got to talk to seemed to know what he was talking about, but that was also a one time thing. I just got annoyed pretty quick at the amount of vendor techs I interfaced with that just had no clue what they were doing, but that's going to be prevalent in any industry, not just the casino. How does the computer equalize the odds? The cold hard truth: it doesn't, and that's why I said to look for a machine that's been paying out over 100% for over a month with thousands of games played for the duration(s) you are checking (that means for whatever reason that game has some sort of error, most cases it would be a set-able jackpot amount (progressive) since games won't just error like that). The best way to explain how this happens: Think of flipping a coin again. I don't know the exact probability here, but there's a good chance that if we flipped the coin 1,000,000 times that we could see it land on heads 10 times in a row. Now, normally if I were to say "I'll flip this coin 10 times, and it will land on heads everytime" most people would say "No, but the probability is 50/50, so that's not right!" The thing to understand here is: The smaller the sample size, the harder it is to produce consistent results. I don't argue that it might take some time to flip a quarter 10 times, log the results, flip 10 more, log results, etc and have one of those "sessions" be all 10 heads (whereas a sample size of 1,000 flips it might show 10 consecutive heads fairly quick). Anyhow: If you get 100% heads the first 10 flips, then an exact alternating heads/tails the next 999,990 times, the truth is that you'd be awfully close to 50/50 (49.995%/50.005% to be more precise). That is "how slot machines equalize their odds." They don't ever really pay out more the next spin to compensate for losing money from a previous spin. The best way to truly understand slot machines is to understand probabilities. I'll re-explain my explanation in the OP a bit: We have a 6 sided die. If you land on one, three, or 5 I'll give you $1. if you land on 4 or 5 I'll give you $0, if you land on 6 I'll give you $3.50. This is a total of $5.50. If you were to pay a dollar to roll the die, out of the total combinations (6) you have a possiblity to win (at most) $5.50. If you take (5.5/6) x 100 you will see this is a total of 91.6 repeating percent. We could roll the die 6 times and you might have $0, or you might get $21 ($3.5x6). If we played this game 1 million times though, the probability won't be 91.6666666667 percent but it will be really close. The slot machines have to past a test of 10,000,000 spins and be within an acceptable threshold of the PAR. I believe the threshold for Indiana is 0.05%; I know this is the case for telling the State's slot machine inventory system (that's not an accurate phrase but the best I could come up with), but not sure if that's the threshold for doing the testing.
My initial thought was to make this out of base metals/alloys (copper, pewter, brass) for monetary reasons, but if someone wants to pay to use copper,silver, and gold, I'm all for it. Anyways, I'm having a stack of pewter coin blanks sent so I can sell pewter versions of my silver coins on sites like eBay to help pay for a new rolling mill. Then I started thinking.... What if I made a sufficient number of base metal coins (say 150x each of coppepewtebrass) and sold them with a deck of medieval type cards (pic below) as a sort of handmade medieval poker set? I think it would be cool as hell to use handmade coins instead of cheap plastic chips. 3 different colors for 3 different denominations. I'd really have to crunch numbers but considering the labor involved in making 450 to 500 handmade coins, I'd expect the cost to be somewhere in the neighborhood of about a half oz of .999 gold. Would anyone be interested in such a novelty? http://imgur.com/PWm6dFF
So, yeah, I like to collect worthless stuff. That cookie game? I had quadrillions, left the computer running for days, went to forums to learn how to best utilize GrandMas. When I was a little kid I used to collect stamps, and coins, and little toy soldiers, Hot Wheels cars, etc. Mostly cheap and worthless stuff, but it was the accumulated hoard that mattered, lol. Karma? You can't even imagine the ways I've whored for Karma (not on this account, obvs.) Anyway, in the past it's been difficult to get past seven days. Or even four. I wouldn't show up here for weeks, then I'd log in to give quitting another shot. And get depressed when I see how many weeks I could've been porn-free if I'd "tried" a little harder. So I had an insight: Why not use that stupid accumulation addiction of mine to get the better of the porn addiction? I think that the accumulation addiction may be stronger. So... anyway, that's the method that is working for me now. Poker chips. I'm accumulating poker chips. Cheap plastic ones and nice heavy clay ones. Plus a gorgeous gold and hand-painted one that will represent one year. The cheap plastic ones represent hours (I know, but I have to go hour by hour to defeat the urge... I look at the clock and say "17 more minutes and I get another red chip!" or whatever color is next. Other times I totally forget the passage of time, look at the clock and be delightfully surprised that I can "collect" four hours worth of chips. So this is the way I set it up: White chips = one hour Red chips = two hours (trade in two white chips) Blue chips = eight hours (trade in four red chips) Now, the better part (for an accumulation junkie like me) The "nice & heavy" chips are printed with denominations. The $1 clay chips = One day (trade in three blue chips) The $5 clay chips = Five days (trade in five $1 chips) The $25 clay chips = 25 days (trade in five $5 chips) The $100 clay chips = 100 days (trade in four $25 chips) The gold "custom" chip = 365 days (trade in three $100s, two $25s, three $5s) And the $365 coin I may "trade in" and buy something nice, and start the count over. Or I may get another nice "custom" chip, and keep accumulating days/dollars. Two days ago, the urge was rising. So I traded my few higher "worth" chips for stacks and stacks of white chips - when my accumulation addict saw how many chips I'd accumulated, the urge went away... because my accumulation addict wanted to collect another hour chip (and not lose it's current hoard) more than my porn addict wanted to PMO. Once the urge went away I traded back for my higher denominations so I could carry them around in my pocket without my pants looking like they were full of squirrels. And so it goes. Porn addiction is a tricky bastard, but I'm learning to get tricky too. *edits as I notice really awful typos and 'gremmer'.
I sat in the same spot every night, smoked the same amount of cigarettes, drank the same spiced rum (mixed with coke of course) and watched the same people every night. All evidence pointed towards me being a complete drone of a human being. The same bar, same smokey atmosphere every night, with the same dull company. I lost my job not to long ago, and moved into a poorly renovated apartment above this bar on the cheap. It was cozy enough for a single bachelor in the dumps, living off a withdraw of his 401k, and failing as a writer. I can’t even remember how I ended up here, in this state, this place or even in these fair clothes. I know between the creaky floors of my apartment, the noise from the bar and my roommate Roger the Rat, sleep was rare. My only relief was also the thorn in my side, the bar. The dimly lit, smoke filled, noisy bar. It had high ceilings and an antiquated look and feel, with a bartender who lived by the mantra of not getting to know people because they come and go (how does a bartender get tips like this!?). For all its flaws, this bar was popular, and people just kept coming in, however this bar always had room, an extra stool, or chair for whoever needed it. I often tried to start friendly banter with Grey (the bartender who refuses to give his name), about storing the extra chairs and tables under the bar next to Jack and Jim. I’d always get the same half smile and eye roll before he moved on to paying customers. Also included in this fabulous vacation spot was an exclusive gambling section, complete with poker and blackjack. You could never get in, because again, it was exclusive and even if you could the black and white chips they play with shimmer like diamonds, which means you probably can’t afford it. I’m a psychologist, and tend to over analyze my own emotions and feelings and spend most of my time analyzing people in my surroundings. As you can tell the bar serves two meanings, to help me drink away my problems and to entertain my mind (and the characters I see usually do provide immense entertainment). It was tonight in the funhouse however, that I began to take notice of one particular person. Tall, denim jeans, and a black tank top, blonde hair, and an attitude. This person was different than the rest or to me a person who analyzed people, an anomaly among the experiment that was my distant psychoanalysis. Maybe it was the long chain leading from the wallet to the belt buckle, or the tattoos, but this person caught my eye. You see, by the smile on the face, the movement, and mannerisms I had observed in just this short period of time, you could see the amount of care she had (Which was none). She’d flail her arms to the music, and get people involved in her own happiness, smiling and dancing letting the music guide her every step. She’d grab random strangers for a hug and dance, just for the fun of it. I was fascinated, and maybe it was only because the dull personalities in which I was surrounded everyday, regardless this was something new, and exciting. “You can’t tie her down, you couldn’t even have a conversation with her you twit” I said to myself. While it does seem like I was doubting myself, it was my knowledge of the human psyche that brought me down to earth. People like to call them free spirits, and I’ve been told I’m an old soul, so I doubt that would mix well. I admit, even for a man as intelligent as myself, with years of experience I couldn’t fully know who she was without talking to her. “Just talk to her” the thought sent a quiver down my spine, and my heart fluttered out of nerves. (I should have stopped here and went home, who is nervous around someone they are attracted to, you should be calm right?) Grey slid a shot of spiced rum my way, he knew me alright, whether he liked it or not. I slammed it and stood up, valiant and ready to charge ahead. It was bad timing really, getting up so quickly, without taking in my surroundings. Chaos erupted in the bar shortly before hand, and I was so focused on this one person I failed to take it in. While the mood in the bar was almost always matching the dreary weather outside, it was now a thunderstorm of epic proportions, with people thrashing about in every which way. Ironically Grey was as chill as a cucumber as if he was used to it, which didn’t make any sense to me. I started to make my way through this mosh pit of people throwing each other around, to the one person that I deemed worthy of speaking words to. I had to pass by several tables and the poker table to reach her, two poker players remained and the game looking intense, down to the last hand. One of the players, a man in a dark suit, clearly skilled slid his hand forward, revealing his cards, the other player a younger man, almost to young to playing just stared at the pot at hand, and slid one black chip forward, while holding on to one of his white chips (I could not make out the denominations of each chip, I’m assuming the white chips are far more valuable as there as less of them). I returned focus back on to her, I couldn’t even label her, or come up with a nickname for her. As I approached her, full of courage and a confidence rating that’d put Casanova to shame, I noticed a man place his arm around her, and pull her closer. The music started to get louder as my focus on her began to fade, what a shame, didn't have a chance from the start. I started to wonder why I hadn't noticed her companion right from the start. As my eyes left her and drifted towards the floor, the man in black at the poker table waded through the chaos that was the bar floor with a black silk bag, of what I’m assuming was chips. “Lucky guy” I said to myself before I noticed her being ushered away, forcefully towards the back of the bar. She was struggling, and me as a somewhat intoxicated individual thought I’d intervene. I tried to get to her but every time I got close a bar patron would find a way to get shoved into my path, and the girl that I watched hug people and laugh and smile a beautiful smile was being taken away. She was being dragged, tooth and nail towards the basement door, surely bad things would happen to her, so I’d have to stop it, I kept repeating to myself. Why is it, that everyone wants to be a knight (or a dame, deep down everyone is seeking to save someone.) Waste of time for the most part, regardless I watched the man open the door and midget toss her right into the doorway. My heart sank, at the very least she’d be a cripple, I’d take care of her regardless, right after I kick this man down stairs. I reached the door to late, as he closed it behind him. I grabbed the knob and immediately started jerking at the door, wouldn’t budge. “Probably help if you turned it”, well this is embarrassing, as I turned the knob, the weight of the door became all to real. The doors weight was unreal, It took most of my body weight to get it to move. Probably a fire door, with an iron core or something, that is a thing right? Well as I struggled to open it I started to notice something odd, a brick wall. This was no time for hallucinations I thought to myself, I began to walk right through the wall, or rather into it, smashing my face against hard brick. I shook my head in disbelief and started looking for a switch or a loose brick to unhide a passageway. No luck, I closed the door (Struggled mind you, this door took my entire body weight to move a slight amount), I stopped to breathe and glanced up, the basement sign taunting me with its dimly lit flashing orange light. I once again opened the door, and to no avail, still bricks. Its as if someone took a door frame and bolted it to the wall “Fuck” I said to myself, I used to eat soap as a kid for saying that, but in this moment, I’m sure my mother wouldn’t fucking mind. I realized at this point, an elaborate trick had been played, and I was going to bed, waiting for laughter to erupt from the peanut gallery. I dragged myself, sadly back towards the main bar, the chaos finally dying down, and lit a cigarette, and taking in a lungful of smoke and absorbed my surroundings. The young man was still at the poker table, but he was just staring at me. Weird kid, staring at me, is this what I looked like when I was staring at her? I shrugged my shoulders and started walking towards the stairs to my apartment above the bar, when the kid grabbed my arm and handed me a white chip. It had weight, this chip had value inside and out, it glittered, and the warmth of the kids body heat from clinging on to it made it feel as if it was powerful. Yet, I hesitated, I tried placing back in the kids hand only for him to jerk back “..The only one I could save..keep it, don’t let it go to waste” he said before turning back and walking away to leave. I’d lost the girl but this chip could be worth something, it had to have diamonds in it, or something worth of value. I made my way towards the stairs and as I began to climb them the alcohol kicked in and the weight of the world hit my shoulders. I collapsed under it, I imagine it was because my nerves had held off the effects of the rum. Passing out drunk on the stairs of a bar with a chip worth who knows how much...smooth. It turned out OK I guess, I was alive, everything was blurry when I woke up, a white figure was standing next to me, and everything was bright. Heaven, that is where I’m at, I kept saying to myself, I’m being judged and can’t even defend myself. What a shame, I’m boned, clients used to come to me with “issues” and I’d charge them an arm and a leg for basically venting. Only a few clients really needed the help, and even then, half of them were beyond my scope of support. My vision began to clear a little and I could make out the figure of a doctor, thank god. I wasn’t dead, I kept hearing a beeping sounds, must be the equipment in my room. Concussion? I couldn’t even talk, to much alcohol, or pain, or shock from waking up to the light god (it was that bright ok). More than one doctor stood around me, all looking exhausted, and scared, and relieved at the same time. What in the actual fuck is going on, did my brains end up outside of my noodle? Not a second later one of the beeps turned into a flat line, loud, and painful to my sensitive ears. Every doctor standing around me left, was I not worth saving I thought to myself, that they just ran out of my room. It wasn’t soon after I realized my ignorance, probably not my beep, I couldn’t hear anything either, it was as blurry as my vision. I did manage to make one a few things, and that was “Blue” and “Time”, I hate not knowing my surroundings. Minutes later maybe (At this point passage of time is hard to judge), my hearing began to finally work, in a way that made sense. I heard the doctor mention the word Tornado and Drive In, and head trauma. There was a curtain next to me and a nurse jerked it back glanced down at me and turned around “We have another survivor…he pulled through” and she walked away, revealing the patient next to me, behind the curtain, blonde hair, blue jeans and black tank top. That’s all I seen before they zipped up the bag she was in and rolled her off like a piece of meat.
I have been getting into poker for the last year, and have gotten some friends to play live a couple times a month. We've been stuck with cheap plastic chips so far, and I want to invest in some decent chips. I like the design of these chips, but don't know what denominations to get. For a 500 chip set: How many different types of chips should I get? How many of each kind should I get? Possibly the same as question 1, if the lowest chip value is x, what should the highest chip be to utilize most of the chips in a game? Thanks for the help everyone!!
I can take any constructive criticism and learn from it, hit me hard
I sat in the same spot every night, smoked the same amount of cigarettes, drank the same spiced rum (mixed with coke of course) and watched the same people every night. All evidence pointed towards me being a complete drone of a human being. The same bar, same smokey atmosphere every night, with the same dull company. I lost my job not to long ago, and moved into a poorly renovated apartment above this bar on the cheap. It was cozy enough for a single bachelor in the dumps, living off a withdraw of his 401k, and failing as a writer. I can’t even remember how I ended up here, in this state, this place or even in these fair clothes. I know between the creaky floors of my apartment, the noise from the bar and my roommate Roger the Rat, sleep was rare. My only relief was also the thorn in my side, the bar. The dimly lit, smoke filled, noisy bar. It had high ceilings and an antiquated look and feel, with a bartender who lived by the mantra of not getting to know people because they come and go (how does a bartender get tips like this!?). For all its flaws, this bar was popular, and people just kept coming in, however this bar always had room, an extra stool, or chair for whoever needed it. I often tried to start friendly banter with Grey (the bartender who refuses to give his name), about storing the extra chairs and tables under the bar next to Jack and Jim. I’d always get the same half smile and eye roll before he moved on to paying customers. Also included in this fabulous vacation spot was an exclusive gambling section, complete with poker and blackjack. You could never get in, because again, it was exclusive and even if you could the black and white chips they play with shimmer like diamonds, which means you probably can’t afford it. I’m a psychologist, and tend to over analyze my own emotions and feelings and spend most of my time analyzing people in my surroundings. As you can tell the bar serves two meanings, to help me drink away my problems and to entertain my mind (and the characters I see usually do provide immense entertainment). It was tonight in the funhouse however, that I began to take notice of one particular person. Tall, denim jeans, and a black tank top, blonde hair, and an attitude. This person was different than the rest or to me a person who analyzed people, an anomaly among the experiment that was my distant psychoanalysis. Maybe it was the long chain leading from the wallet to the belt buckle, or the tattoos, but this person caught my eye. You see, by the smile on the face, the movement, and mannerisms I had observed in just this short period of time, you could see the amount of care she had (Which was none). She’d flail her arms to the music, and get people involved in her own happiness, smiling and dancing letting the music guide her every step. She’d grab random strangers for a hug and dance, just for the fun of it. I was fascinated, and maybe it was only because the dull personalities in which I was surrounded everyday, regardless this was something new, and exciting. “You can’t tie her down, you couldn’t even have a conversation with her you twit” I said to myself. While it does seem like I was doubting myself, it was my knowledge of the human psyche that brought me down to earth. People like to call them free spirits, and I’ve been told I’m an old soul, so I doubt that would mix well. I admit, even for a man as intelligent as myself, with years of experience I couldn’t fully know who she was without talking to her. “Just talk to her” the thought sent a quiver down my spine, and my heart fluttered out of nerves. (I should have stopped here and went home, who is nervous around someone they are attracted to, you should be calm right?) Grey slid a shot of spiced rum my way, he knew me alright, whether he liked it or not. I slammed it and stood up, valiant and ready to charge ahead. It was bad timing really, getting up so quickly, without taking in my surroundings. Chaos erupted in the bar shortly before hand, and I was so focused on this one person I failed to take it in. While the mood in the bar was almost always matching the dreary weather outside, it was now a thunderstorm of epic proportions, with people thrashing about in every which way. Ironically Grey was as chill as a cucumber as if he was used to it, which didn’t make any sense to me. I started to make my way through this mosh pit of people throwing each other around, to the one person that I deemed worthy of speaking words to. I had to pass by several tables and the poker table to reach her, two poker players remained and the game looking intense, down to the last hand. One of the players, a man in a dark suit, clearly skilled slid his hand forward, revealing his cards, the other player a younger man, almost to young to playing just stared at the pot at hand, and slid one black chip forward, while holding on to one of his white chips (I could not make out the denominations of each chip, I’m assuming the white chips are far more valuable as there as less of them). I returned focus back on to her, I couldn’t even label her, or come up with a nickname for her. As I approached her, full of courage and a confidence rating that’d put Casanova to shame, I noticed a man place his arm around her, and pull her closer. The music started to get louder as my focus on her began to fade, what a shame, didn't have a chance from the start. I started to wonder why I hadn't noticed her companion right from the start. As my eyes left her and drifted towards the floor, the man in black at the poker table waded through the chaos that was the bar floor with a black silk bag, of what I’m assuming was chips. “Lucky guy” I said to myself before I noticed her being ushered away, forcefully towards the back of the bar. She was struggling, and me as a somewhat intoxicated individual thought I’d intervene. I tried to get to her but every time I got close a bar patron would find a way to get shoved into my path, and the girl that I watched hug people and laugh and smile a beautiful smile was being taken away. She was being dragged, tooth and nail towards the basement door, surely bad things would happen to her, so I’d have to stop it, I kept repeating to myself. Why is it, that everyone wants to be a knight (or a dame, deep down everyone is seeking to save someone.) Waste of time for the most part, regardless I watched the man open the door and midget toss her right into the doorway. My heart sank, at the very least she’d be a cripple, I’d take care of her regardless, right after I kick this man down stairs. I reached the door to late, as he closed it behind him. I grabbed the knob and immediately started jerking at the door, wouldn’t budge. “Probably help if you turned it”, well this is embarrassing, as I turned the knob, the weight of the door became all to real. The doors weight was unreal, It took most of my body weight to get it to move. Probably a fire door, with an iron core or something, that is a thing right? Well as I struggled to open it I started to notice something odd, a brick wall. This was no time for hallucinations I thought to myself, I began to walk right through the wall, or rather into it, smashing my face against hard brick. I shook my head in disbelief and started looking for a switch or a loose brick to unhide a passageway. No luck, I closed the door (Struggled mind you, this door took my entire body weight to move a slight amount), I stopped to breathe and glanced up, the basement sign taunting me with its dimly lit flashing orange light. I once again opened the door, and to no avail, still bricks. Its as if someone took a door frame and bolted it to the wall “Fuck” I said to myself, I used to eat soap as a kid for saying that, but in this moment, I’m sure my mother wouldn’t fucking mind. I realized at this point, an elaborate trick had been played, and I was going to bed, waiting for laughter to erupt from the peanut gallery. I dragged myself, sadly back towards the main bar, the chaos finally dying down, and lit a cigarette, and taking in a lungful of smoke and absorbed my surroundings. The young man was still at the poker table, but he was just staring at me. Weird kid, staring at me, is this what I looked like when I was staring at her? I shrugged my shoulders and started walking towards the stairs to my apartment above the bar, when the kid grabbed my arm and handed me a white chip. It had weight, this chip had value inside and out, it glittered, and the warmth of the kids body heat from clinging on to it made it feel as if it was powerful. Yet, I hesitated, I tried placing back in the kids hand only for him to jerk back “..The only one I could save..keep it, don’t let it go to waste” he said before turning back and walking away to leave. I’d lost the girl but this chip could be worth something, it had to have diamonds in it, or something worth of value. I made my way towards the stairs and as I began to climb them the alcohol kicked in and the weight of the world hit my shoulders. I collapsed under it, I imagine it was because my nerves had held off the effects of the rum. Passing out drunk on the stairs of a bar with a chip worth who knows how much...smooth. It turned out OK I guess, I was alive, everything was blurry when I woke up, a white figure was standing next to me, and everything was bright. Heaven, that is where I’m at, I kept saying to myself, I’m being judged and can’t even defend myself. What a shame, I’m boned, clients used to come to me with “issues” and I’d charge them an arm and a leg for basically venting. Only a few clients really needed the help, and even then, half of them were beyond my scope of support. My vision began to clear a little and I could make out the figure of a doctor, thank god. I wasn’t dead, I kept hearing a beeping sounds, must be the equipment in my room. Concussion? I couldn’t even talk, to much alcohol, or pain, or shock from waking up to the light god (it was that bright ok). More than one doctor stood around me, all looking exhausted, and scared, and relieved at the same time. What in the actual fuck is going on, did my brains end up outside of my noodle? Not a second later one of the beeps turned into a flat line, loud, and painful to my sensitive ears. Every doctor standing around me left, was I not worth saving I thought to myself, that they just ran out of my room. It wasn’t soon after I realized my ignorance, probably not my beep, I couldn’t hear anything either, it was as blurry as my vision. I did manage to make one a few things, and that was “Blue” and “Time”, I hate not knowing my surroundings. Minutes later maybe (At this point passage of time is hard to judge), my hearing began to finally work, in a way that made sense. I heard the doctor mention the word Tornado and Drive In, and head trauma. There was a curtain next to me and a nurse jerked it back glanced down at me and turned around “We have another survivor…he pulled through” and she walked away, revealing the patient next to me, behind the curtain, blonde hair, blue jeans and black tank top. That’s all I seen before they zipped up the bag she was in and rolled her off like a piece of meat.
[Table] IAmA Casino Pit Boss with years of experience in Table Games and Casino Ops and would love to answer questions you may have about the business!
Verified?(This bot cannot verify AMAs just yet) Date: 2014-04-08 Link to submission (Has self-text)
I saw a guy lose $1,000,000 once, I actually was dealing when he lost about $200,000 of that in about 15 minutes. It made me sick, but he didn't seem to mind much. Later he attempted to sue the casino because "clearly his drinks were spiked," but he later recanted that.
How to get comps: Play for a long time and/or have a strong average bet. Buying in for large amounts and then not playing won't get you comps. Alternatively, be a fun person and the supervisor will probably hook you up because we appreciate the fun (not drunk) people.
Those two words likely don't go together. Trust me, we deal with SO many people every night that if you're drunk we are probably throwing you in with the others no matter what.
Counting cards is not cheating at all. You're not doing anything but keeping a running total in your head and basing your play off of that. That being said, casinos are private businesses and can refuse service to anyone for any reason. Yes, people have been caught counting cards. The majority of them aren't that good at it, to be honest, and so we let them think they're getting one over on us (and still lose.) If someone wins "too much" or does too well, they will be approached by senior management and told that they can still play but can no longer play blackjack.
Generally I'm looking to see if they deviate from a reasonable basic strategy and have an abnormal success rate on hands where they make questionable plays. At that point I'll run a count as they play and see if they are changing their strategy and/or betting patterns when the count is in their favor.
Honestly these days it's all computerized. Your play (on your players card) determines the comps you get. If it's your first time or your birthday (or you've played and/or lost a lot) you'll get more than you "should."
Some casinos (ours included) don't use the electronic betting recognition sofware. If you don't see the dealer pressing a little button before each hand, here's my advice - bet big right at the beginning. A lot of supervisors will put in your average bet when you first sit down and they swipe your players card and then won't adjust your average bet unless you made big changes throughout playing.
My favorite person in the world is my lovely girlfriend, who asked me to do this and also supports me in literally every aspect of my life. She's an incredible person, I'll tell you that much!
We've permanently evicted people for threatening physical violence on other players and/or employees, getting into fights, things like that. A man peed under a blackjack table once; he was evicted and arrested!
Good lord, don't do this. Best-case scenario you get away with it, worst-case scenario you're arrested. You could also get thrown out if they don't want to deal with the cops or it wasn't that large of an amount. But seriously, just bet the don't from the start. You make your money off of the odds anyway.
Cheating is less common than you may think these days. The technology we employ is really advanced, as most places have upgraded their surveillance tech. We can see a lot now. The best ways that people cheat now aren't by physically manipulating things, but by "taking shots." Little things, things like making a hand signal that could be interpreted as a hit or a stand and then raising a fuss if it doesn't go your way. Most casinos will just give you the money if it's not too much instead of fully investigate it.
Some casinos use RFID (they'll have a more plastic feel to them.) Honestly, even high-value casinos' chips are subject to counterfeiting. I've seen stickers replaced, I've even seen people paint lower-denomination chips to look like higher-denomination chips.
The best odds of all the table games is betting the Don't Pass with max odds behind it. Second-best is the Pass Line with max odds behind it. Those odds are true odds, the casino has ZERO house edge.
I HATE auto-shufflers. No, they have no way of knowing how many people are playing at the table or which cards go to the dealer. It's legitimately random, moreso than some dealers who have specific shuffles.
Honestly, I'm probably not looking unless you're winning a large amount or you're making really large swings in your bets. I won't let you know if I suspect you, I'll have already called surveillance and they'll be running down (counting along) on the next shoe to see what you're doing. If you see security or people in suits near your table, just color up and leave. They won't do anything to you, but they're preparing to talk to you about what they've found and might back you off.
Most states will publish the odds for slot machines. Honestly most machines at reputable places (as in not bars) will have a return rate of 95-98%. That's a lower house edge than carnival games or even roulette.
The best perk? Honestly, that it pays well and I don't actually have to DO too much, haha.
I'm fine with people making "dumb" moves. Generally the dealer will say "Are you suuure?" if someone is about to split up their 20 or something like that. Other players do get mad when someone does something, but we protect our players. If someone wants to make a nonstandard or risky move, they have every right to. I personally wouldn't let a player berate another player, and it has nothing to do with the casino's interests.
Facial recognition software has always been pretty strong going back for quite a while now. There aren't really too many ways it's used other than for people who have cheated or who have overall suspicious behavior. That's the only reason we'd want to run the software on someone.
The only time players will get mad is if you're right on top of them. Stand back, see if you can get a pamphlet on the rules of the game you're watching, or just ask the dealers or supervisors! Honestly, they want you to play - not because they want to take your money, but because it's fun to teach and show someone. As for "easy" games, roulette is pretty easy to learn, dice is the most fun but can be overwhelming, carnival games (Three Card Poker, Mississippi Stud) are very easy since they're all poker-based.
We're not allowed to tell someone that we think they have a problem, but we can respond if they tell us they do. We have paperwork on it, we're trained to spot it (chasing losses, claiming to bet money they can't afford, etc) and we also have a hotline they can call. Additionally, players can fill out self-exclusion paperwork banning themselves from the casino if they feel they can't gamble responsibly. If they come back while banned, they can and will be arrested for trespassing.
Table Games pays VERY well compared to other departments. Your housekeeping and security is probably making $10-$12/hr (more than they would at non-casino businesses, but still) and your slot techs are probably making $14 or so an hour. Dealers with the toke rate start above $20/hr, and as you go up (supervisors don't make tips where I work and at most places, although some places give supervisors a cut of it) you make more. Especially for the amount of work I do, I get paid well.
You wouldn't get in trouble at all. Just turn away from the table. Although for comedy purposes, the waitress could come back and say "7&7?" as she brought the drink really loudly, then the table sevens out and blames her.
Before I started working at my current place I heard a story that happened there where the dealer was using their back foot to stop the Big Six wheel (never play Big Six; happy it's gone) early which meant that the people playing knew where it would stop. He was physically handcuffed at the table and arrested. DON'T CHEAT.
You can just push a chip forward and say "For you." They'll thank you and drop it! -Not really, no. Play what you want! Stay away from unruly people in general, wherever they may be. Enjoy yourself!
Years ago a guy was playing blackjack. He lost, left, and then came back with five crumpled up $1 bills so that he could make a $5 bet. He lost, was gone for another hour, and then came back and did it again.
I'm okay with people who come every day, some people enjoy it. But I hate to see people play with money they shouldn't bet with.
It's a lot less stressful than you're worried about. Go in, talk to people, enjoy yourself. It's seriously not that big of a deal, just enjoy your first time! Bring an amount you're okay with losing. Don't bring your ATM card in. Don't chase losses (I know I just lost my last bet but I know I can win the next one!)
It's in your head. The day of, they probably kept tabs on you because you happened to be in an off-limits area with a money transfer. Now, they wouldn't remember or care.
It depends on the casino. Most places I've worked bring in 60-90% of their floor revenue from slots (10-40$ from tables.) Smaller places pull in six-figures per day easily, even on slower days.
It's not part of the dealers' jobs to berate someone that's winning. The only things that should bother a good dice dealer are when people are throwing in tons of late bets or are being rude. If you're winning, good for you! Keep winning! Sounds like they were just being jerks.
It's me, I'm the pit boss. I've come across a couple. The most recent one is a lady that our surveillance ran a report on and concluded that she's definitely counting. She's not that good at it, though, so we let her go because even though she bets big she doesn't actually win. We have the camera on her every time she plays, though.
Mississippi Stud, by far. It used to be Three Card, but it's all about Mississippi Stud now. Total tables at our place is ~40 or so. We haven't had too many new games, lately it's just been adding bonus bets to existing games (three card bonus bets on pretty much all of our carnival games now.)
Most casinos have a tip policy. I can't accept chips or money at all (dealers can accept chips, obviously.) We can't accept non-monetary gifts with a value of over $50 as well.
As a dealer, I've been tipped in orange ($1,000) chips before by high-limit players.
It's hard to say. The amount of people cheating with old methods (counting cards, etc) has declined. The amount of people taking shots (pretending they didn't want that hit, things like that) has increased, but it's harder to prove.
There really aren't ways to maximize it. Increasing your hands per hour won't matter to the computer system, you'd honestly be better off betting more at a slower table because then it shows a higher average bet over a longer period of time.
You apply when a job is available and when a casino is starting/advertising a "dealer school." Some places will offer the training which is usually free, but you're not technically hired until after the class.
Great question! Everyone has to get a responsible alcohol server card, even people that don't serve drinks. It's a basic class that goes over how to spot intoxication, drinks per hour, things like that. People who can serve drinks also have to have a bar card. Where I work, dealers and supervisors can't cut people off. The Pit calls a Beverage Supervisor who makes that call.
It's an interesting question. Some places in the US don't serve free drinks. Everywhere is different. I don't foresee it actually taking, it's a pretty big part of "the experience."
All carnival games are the same. Let It Ride is reverse Mississippi Stud, all the other games like Three Card and Flop are just variants of poker. Live poker is a little different, you can read and learn about it! There's always blackjack, which is simple and fun.
16 tables per supervisor? Different casinos have different terminology, ours has a floor per 4-6 tables and then a pit that oversees it all. 16 seems crazy to me.
Interesting. We have about 40 tables total across multiple pits, but only one pit manager who oversees it all and runs the pencil/rosteroadmap. 1-3 floors per pit, depending on the size (4-6 tables per floor)
Personally, I'd like the tip instead of the bet. One of the places I worked at trained the dealers to always take it instead of betting it. Those bets have house odds; give me the money!
TV shows are dumb. We have cameras everywhere that can zoom in pretty well (no ENHANCE! ENHANCE!) Huge places in Vegas probably do have very sophisticated technology, we're smaller and so we have tons of cameras, security, electronic locks and vaults, things like that.
Last updated: 2014-04-13 00:47 UTC This post was generated by a robot! Send all complaints to epsy.
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