State calls Bloomy bluff, gloms OTB; Takeout up 1%

[philcski]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

I would have agreed with you if not for the Ellis Park experiment of last summer. A 4% Pick 4 takeout attracted just an extra $25-50K/day of action across an entire country of horse bettors. Woo Hoo. I have to assume that either (1) most bettors could not care less about takeout, or (2) [I'm still trying to think of another good explanation].

The explanations I've heard just don't cut it. "it would have been different if a 1st rate track had done it." Yeah, maybe, but it still should have been a pretty powerful incentive to bet Ellis. And did the handle at NYRA tracks jump significantly while they had the 14% WPS takeout? I don't know the answer to that, but I'm guessing "no".

I don't think people who would shun a 4% takeout in favor of a 25% takeout on the same kind of bet really do "understand takeout".

--Dunbar

That was a nearly 4-fold increase on average versus the previous years' pick 4 handle... I'd say that's progress!!!

Up against Saratoga/Del Mar, Ellis (while a very bettable product) is a tough sell.

[SniperSB23]

Originally Posted by philcski

That was a nearly 4-fold increase on average versus the previous years' pick 4 handle... I'd say that's progress!!!

Up against Saratoga/Del Mar, Ellis (while a very bettable product) is a tough sell.

Right, but a 4-fold progress on 4 percent takeout just equals 16 percent takeout. That isn't exactly bringing in the cash flow. I tried to play it as much as I could, even accidentally hitting it four times the one day but if it were not going head to head with Saratoga I would have played it a lot more with a lot deeper tickets.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by SniperSB23

Right, but a 4-fold progress on 4 percent takeout just equals 16 percent takeout. That isn't exactly bringing in the cash flow. I tried to play it as much as I could, even accidentally hitting it four times the one day but if it were not going head to head with Saratoga I would have played it a lot more with a lot deeper tickets.

A 4% takeout head to head with a 25% takeout? In any other game, the savvy players would flock to the 4% takeout. If a remote Nevada casino offers a better blackjack game than Wynn or Bellagio, the best blackjack players will head for the good game, no matter how much nicer the ambience is at Wynn. A few years ago I heard of an excellent blackjack game in Pahrump, about an hour from Las Vegas. I was there the next day and stayed 3 days until the rules were changed. Smart video poker players think nothing of going across country for a good promotion. Pinnacle became the leader in offshore betting by successfully offering a lower vig. Good sports bettors, blackjack players, video poker players and live poker players seem to understand the importance of takeout much more than horse bettors do.

I know that takeout (or vig) is not the only thing that determines which play is more profitable. But when you are comparing 4% to 25%, then takeout has to be overwhelmingly more important than any other factor.

Originally Posted by philcski

Up against Saratoga/Del Mar, Ellis (while a very bettable product) is a tough sell.

Phil, I have a lot of respect for both you and Sniper. But this should not have been a tough sell to savvy bettors like you two.

--Dunbar

[philcski]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

A 4% takeout head to head with a 25% takeout? In any other game, the savvy players would flock to the 4% takeout. If a remote Nevada casino offers a better blackjack game than Wynn or Bellagio, the best blackjack players will head for the good game, no matter how much nicer the ambience is at Wynn. A few years ago I heard of an excellent blackjack game in Pahrump, about an hour from Las Vegas. I was there the next day and stayed 3 days until the rules were changed. Smart video poker players think nothing of going across country for a good promotion. Pinnacle became the leader in offshore betting by successfully offering a lower vig. Good sports bettors, blackjack players, video poker players and live poker players seem to understand the importance of takeout much more than horse bettors do.

I know that takeout (or vig) is not the only thing that determines which play is more profitable. But when you are comparing 4% to 25%, then takeout has to be overwhelmingly more important than any other factor.



Phil, I have a lot of respect for both you and Sniper. But this should not have been a tough sell to savvy bettors like you two.

--Dunbar

It wasn't a tough sell... Sniper and I played it almost every weekend day. I'm talking about the average player who doesn't really understand the penalty of takeout.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

A 4% takeout head to head with a 25% takeout? In any other game, the savvy players would flock to the 4% takeout. If a remote Nevada casino offers a better blackjack game than Wynn or Bellagio, the best blackjack players will head for the good game, no matter how much nicer the ambience is at Wynn. A few years ago I heard of an excellent blackjack game in Pahrump, about an hour from Las Vegas. I was there the next day and stayed 3 days until the rules were changed. Smart video poker players think nothing of going across country for a good promotion. Pinnacle became the leader in offshore betting by successfully offering a lower vig. Good sports bettors, blackjack players, video poker players and live poker players seem to understand the importance of takeout much more than horse bettors do.

I know that takeout (or vig) is not the only thing that determines which play is more profitable. But when you are comparing 4% to 25%, then takeout has to be overwhelmingly more important than any other factor.



Phil, I have a lot of respect for both you and Sniper. But this should not have been a tough sell to savvy bettors like you two.

--Dunbar

I see what you are saying but blackjack and poker are still the same game regardless of what casino they are played at. Ellis Park is a far different product than most are used to. If you dont play the track regularly then the takeout is not nearly as big of a draw. I dont think bigger players thought that it was worth their time to study Ellis for 1 pick 4 a day especially when the pools figured to be small as compared to the big tracks. I think that lower takeout is always better but it will take time for it to payoff, you cant expect it to jump overnight

[hockey2315]

Agree with Chuck. A more beatable version of blackjack still uses the same basic rules (I'm assuming by a better game of blackjack you mean the number of decks in a shoe or something), same cards, etc. . . Everyone who plays blackjack is familiar with those rules, those cards, and proper strategy. But not everyone is familiar with the Ellis product - even if they realize that playing there has its benefits from a takeout perspective they won't bet it with what is probably a worse opinion than at their regular track. . . Personally I'd rather bet at NY with a 15% win takeout because I at least have some opinion/familiarity with the horses and trainers there than a 5% takeout at somewhere like Presque Isle or Canterbury where I have less of a perceived edge. Even with the 10% head start at other tracks I'd be more likely to beat takeout at a track I would actually be able to handicap. . .

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by hockey2315

Agree with Chuck. A more beatable version of blackjack still uses the same basic rules (I'm assuming by a better game of blackjack you mean the number of decks in a shoe or something), same cards, etc. . . Everyone who plays blackjack is familiar with those rules, those cards, and proper strategy...

A blackjack game can be "better" for any of these reasons:

1. better rules (see response to CS).
2. better penetration (more cards dealt before shuffling)
3. clueless pit/surveilance personnel (can't identify card counters)
4. tolerant pit personnel (not overly worried about card counters)

--Dunbar

[hockey2315]

Thanks, Dunbar. I've always been interested in counting. . .

[ShadowRoll]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

A blackjack game can be "better" for any of these reasons:

1. better rules (see response to CS).
2. better penetration (more cards dealt before shuffling)
3. clueless pit/surveilance personnel (can't identify card counters)
4. tolerant pit personnel (not overly worried about card counters)

--Dunbar

When I was in college, I spent one summer "down the shore" (Atlantic City) with the intention of being a card counter. In preparation, I bought a decent book on the subject, taught myself how to count and practiced with fair regularity. Just before I moved down, they changed the game there rather significantly, increasing the number of decks in the shoe and changing some rules, the most significant of which was eliminating "early drop," without which the player lost a large edge he previously enjoyed. I decided that grinding out a profit under the rule renovations at my level of skill (or lack thereof) was so tough, that instead of card counting, my time was better spent working a crappy job during the day to get money and going to the bars in Margate at night to get drunk.

So, yeah, there are certainly ways for some games of blackjack to be "better" than others.

I did get pretty good at getting drunk, though.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

I see what you are saying but blackjack and poker are still the same game regardless of what casino they are played at. Ellis Park is a far different product than most are used to. If you dont play the track regularly then the takeout is not nearly as big of a draw. I dont think bigger players thought that it was worth their time to study Ellis for 1 pick 4 a day especially when the pools figured to be small as compared to the big tracks. I think that lower takeout is always better but it will take time for it to payoff, you cant expect it to jump overnight

That's a good response, CS, but it's not always true that blackjack is the same game regardless of the casino. I flew to Korea for a good game several years ago. They had a rule that if you made a 5-card hand, you could accept a half-win and be out of the hand. (a $100 bet would be paid $50 profit). That rule changes basic blackjack strategy substantially. It becomes correct to hit a 4-card 15 vs dealer 2, for example. And what do you think is the correct way to play a 5-card 19? Anyone going to play that game would have to learn the correct way to play with that rule, or he/she'd be giving up a lot of edge. I wasn't the only serious blackjack player to make that trip. I lasted 3 weeks until casino management decided that maybe I wasn't in Korea on Import/Export business after all.

I could give many other rules variations that require a fair amount of new study to capitalize on the rule (eg, multiple card surrender, over/under 13, double exposure), but I don't dispute that mastering a new track when you are highly proficient on another circuit would probably be harder than learning any of the blackjack strategy changes. Handicapping is way more complicated than learning how to play blackjack correctly. Still, in blackack, the difference between a great game and a typical game is an off-the-top edge of around 2%. For that kind of difference, serious blackjack players will flock to the game. With Ellis vs Saratoga, we're talking about a difference of 21%. And hardly anybody showed up.

A month ago, I put in about 20 hours of video poker practice time because of a Las Vegas promotion I heard about. The video poker game of choice at this casino was not one I knew how to play, but it never occured to me to think "I already know how to play Jacks-Or-Better, I'll just go play JOB somewhere else, even though my hourly expectation will be 1/10th of what I can get if I learn this new game. I learned it. And to further the analogy, the promotion was off-Strip. (It would make a better story if it was at the Ellis Island casino, but it wasn't.) There were so many sharp video poker players there (because sharp video poker players will swarm a game that turns a -0.3% edge into a +0.4% edge) that I had to set an alarm for 3am to get on one of the machines of choice.

But even if I concede that learning a new track is harder than learning a complicated video poker strategy, serious players should STILL have thrown some money at the Ellis Pick4. I made the point at the time that a dart thrower could fill out a $200 ticket every day based on his favorite numbers, and would be giving up just $8/day in expected loss. I don't think most horse players, even reasonably sophisticated ones, understand 'expected loss'. They look at a $200 ticket at a venue that they don't know anything about as $200 down the drain. I looked at it as an $8 investment in the future of the game. (My tickets actually averaged closer to $300, so a $12/day investment in the future of the game, in my case.) It was a lonely vision.

--Dunbar