Nevada Players Club Blog

What is your gambling-related superstition? “I will stand on my head to beat all deals”. That was a sales line that a man named Cal Worthington once used in his TV commercials to try to get you to come down to his lot and buy a car. I don’t know if he ever actually stood on his head for anyone. I doubt it. It was just something to say to get our attention. All he really had to do to beat any deal was sell a car for a penny less than the dealer across the street. That line might have worked better for him than the truly meaningless things some of us do to try to get a slot machine to pay off. I see people tapping screens, hitting them, rubbing them, blowing smoke on them, and more, in the hope of conjuring up a jackpot from an otherwise reluctant machine. Where in the world anyone gets the idea that might work is beyond me. An old friend, Neal, insisted that finding a craps table that offered a chance to play green dice at midnight would bring good luck. We never found any, but it w...

With apologies to Mannfred Mann. We’ve all been there - plugging away at our favorite slot machine for hours - without a whiff of a win - while all around us others are making plenty of noise racking up jackpots. The cacophony of winning slots in some casinos can be overwhelming at times. Clangs, beeps, bells, spinning wheels, singing choruses - for everyone else – while our machine just sits there, unresponsive to our every whispering wish that something – anything – would hit for us. How is it that everyone else is winning, except me? A reasonable question. The only worse thing is when almost nobody is winning anywhere in the casino. Do you even have a chance then? Fuhgeddaboudit. When it happens occasionally it’s no big deal. Wins and losses come in cycles. But when it’s a repeat occurrence -day after day, play after play – it’s worth sitting up and taking notice. Maybe they HAVE tightened the machines. It’s possible. The key is to be aware of it and plan your play accordingly. Thi...

I love table games – 3 Card Poker , Baccarat , Craps , Blackjack , Pai Gow , and Roulette - more than I do slots. I was raised by a dice rolling Father who sold his game systems and tutored players. While I know that long term you can never beat any casino game, I still love to play - sensibly. I know my limits, and I stick to them. Ideally, it takes a hefty starting bank to get into table games. There are exceptions. I’ve walked up to a table with $20 and left a half-hour later with a stack of cash. But that’s rare. By way of comparison, a player can make as much or more with 4 Card Keno as they do 3 Card Poker for a smaller initial investment. I really love 3 Card Poker, but at the $5 level, an ideal 3 Card win only pays $150 – 200. That’s for a 3-of-a-Kind or a straight flush. To win those “jackpots”, one needs to place a minimum $5 PAIR PLUS bet and the minimum ANTE bet. Most casinos have higher minimums, but you can find $5 tables at Silverton, South Point and elsewhere. S...