Vegas: Gambling 101 - Part II

First time? Start here. Read "The Primer" and follow the link at the end. Chronological order makes more sense for the stories.

When winning, there's no funner game than craps. There's no game that pits the collective of gamblers against the house better than craps. Whenever you walk into a casino and there's noise being made, its at a craps table. You don't hear it like that anywhere else on the floor. When a table is hot, the energy is incredible. The problem is that its not a sure fire game. Shocking I know but truth be told.. Vegas wasn't built off of donations from winners.

Before getting into the craps story I'd like to knock out a tale regarding 3 Card Poker. Now I haven't played this one at Vegas before. Its pretty fun. Low odds, high payout. My friend and another fellow Angry Timer, Bonky, followed me to watch me lose my ass playing this table game. He's never seen the game before so I am explaining to him how it all works, the different bets, how you get paid and how you are playing with the 3 cards dealt you and only those 3. I win my first hand and the pit boss calls for a new deck. Great..

Using the time effectively I continue to try and explain the game to Bonky. I am not sure if he's getting it cuz I don't think I was doing a good job. Not the biggest deal, the new cards are good to go and being dealt. I lose a couple hands telling him the way of the game further. Bonky then glances at the odds on the table and questions, "Hmm, wonder what a straight flush looks like in 3 card."

I flip over my hand and tell him, "Just like that." The bad news is that I didn't have a crazy bet out. Just a triple bet of tenners on the ante, the paid plus and the play bets. Either way it was over $250 so I just walked away to grab some el lunche. I hope the next time Bonky watches me gamble on Megabucks he says, "I wonder what winning the jackpot looks like."

Wow, this is going to be a long post. I think its gonna have to be a three parter. Sorry guys but I don't want to short change the happenings that Saturday morning so you're gonna get the set up to the craps table and you're gonna have to deal with it. Here's how the lead up started tho.

I head up to go grab a sangwich from Quizno's with Gatsu and deBACLe. Without boring you of tales of double scoop frozen yogurt desserts, all you need know is that Daku comes up to the dining area and informs me that a $5 craps table just opened up. This is huge cuz playing $10 craps on my budget or anyone's budget that isn't in the multiple thousands is an expensive venture. With the thought of $5 craps on a Saturday afternoon in my head I charge up to the room and head back down to the floor with Gatsu.

On our way up to the room we run into the lucky roulette guesser from the night before, Setty. He's in. On the way back down from the room our floor stops on the 16th floor. In steps another one of us, Memn. I tell him $5 craps table. He says he's never played before. That doesn't stop him with a bit of coercion on my part. By the time we make it to the table the line up is as follows: Myself, my brother, Memn, RaeRae, Equis and Babs, Setty and Daku with Gatsu and Beardbar waiting in the wings. It shaped up to be strong showing. The stars definitely aligned themselves this day but I cannot help but compare it to the year prior.

The prior year was a pathetic display. We were about 10 deep coming out of a brunch buffet and decided that hitting the craps table would result in an easy victory. Damn were we mistaken. I can only speak for myself but I know I lost $250 in about an hour last year. On a $5 table that really means that the only thing happening was the table being set up for a run and being knocked down. That's pretty much how I remember it. The truly sad thing is that we played the "Don't Pass Line" about 20% of the time to keep ourselves afloat.. to no avail. We were scattered and decimated. However this year would be different. This year vengeance was on the agenda. Come back tomorrow for the long and drawn out writings of Vegas: Gambling 101 - Part III.