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| What is the top Casino Table
Game? |
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| For many decades the main driver of revenue in large casinos around the world, and then those that have
grown up on the internet, has been slots. Now however the demographic make-up of the gambling population has changed significantly with younger generations
viewing slots as an older generation pastime and as such a bit of a taboo. The home of slots, Las Vegas, is seeing widespread re-design of its floor space with
1000s of slot machins being take away and replaced with newly invented table games like blackjack-switch. The meteoric rise of the chinese economy has fueled
this further with literally hundreds of online casinos catering to the market of
illicit Chinese gamblers who predominantly
want a real person dealing cards to them. |
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| Image by
AllClear55 from
Pixabay |
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The move towards more real games being dealt by real people is not only good for the casino player who wants to see
a bit more of the James Bond look in their casino, but it also employs a lot more staff. This definitely helps a traditionally troubled workforce get jobs but
also puts pressure on operators to find staff in a world where there is a global shortage. However as you move around the world from region to region there is
stark contrast between the games that are the punters favourite. The one thing they have in common is that the game play and results are not electronically
generated.
Blackjack
The world still sees the home of gambling as Las Vegas, this has not
been true for a long time but it has great visuals and Hollywood loves a back drop that is a spectacle and is free to shoot in because of the great publicity
and advertising that it brings. The king of table games in the Nevada capital has
always been blackjack. The rules are simple and the house edge against the player is moderate if you know how to play basic strategy and can even be turned in
the punter's favour with the aid of card counting techniques. It has even featured in movies like Rain Man (1988) staring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman as his
autistic brother who can outplay the dealer with his fantastic memory skills. The dominance of blackjack is replicated in all the casinos of North
America.
Roulette
Over in Europe the picture is very different from that in the new world.
Blackjack is of course played but it lacks the kind of community engagement that roulette has. In BJ your decisions can go against other players but in the
game of ball and wheel your play has absolutely no affect on the play of others. In this sense you can compete to beat the house and can even cheer for those
that win as you know it had no influence on your result. Just like blackjack, roulette has been part of the arsenal of professional players since casino began.
From biased wheel play to out and out cheating by slight-of-hand the green baize of this table game gets as much scrutiny from the eye in the sky, cameras, as
any other.
Baccarat
Across the globe in south east Asia things are again very different. The
great gambling meccas of Singapore and Macau have huge casinos that are dominated by the game of baccarat. Over games are dealt by the casino but over half of
all the floor space given over to this simple game of betting who will win, player or bank. This game, especially for Chinese players, is steeped in ritual.
What attracts players to this game is each one gets a turn at touching the cards, either dealing themselves from a shoe, or receiving cards to reveal to
themselves. A technique unique to baccarat involves the player slowly bending the side of each card to reveal the face down part to themselves, thus creating a
dramatic ritual for every single hand. This game too has been part of the casino professional's armoury with techniques from card marking with invisible dye to
peaking at the final cards in the deck so that prediction is 100% accurate. |
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| Image by
Aidan Howe from
Pixabay |
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Each smaller region of the world has games peculiar to themselves but all of their casinos feature the big three
mentioned above. We await the imminent arrival of casinos to Japan to see what this gambling intense nation brings to the party.
New games are being
invented all the time and trialled in casinos around the world. Its just a matter of time before something new takes the stage and challenges the others for
dominance. They have stood the test of time though and it will be no easy feat replacing any of them for dominance. |
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