Dear Mark,
On a regular basis you
refer to casino entertainment as gambling. The industry refers to it as
gaming. Who's right? Steven S.
Depends on the prejudiced authority.My
bias, Steven, is that of an irreverent syndicated gambling columnist and
player advocate-hence, it's gambling. My dear friends who still work in
the gambling industry in upper-management have an intoxicated partiality
toward gaming.
But this juicy morsel crossed my desk
compliments of Bob G., a reader of the Traverse City Record-Eagle
. Bob sent me an Associated Press article written about the literary
folks at Lake Superior State University. The school has an annual list
of misused, overused and useless words and phrases it wants to banish
from the English language. Lake Superior releases this list each Jan. 1
after gathering thousands of submissions nominated from academia,
business, journalism, politics, the military and sports. On their 22nd
annual list is gaming. Comments: Gaming. Used to seduce people
into thinking they're not really gambling.
Dear Mark,
As a
stockbroker I should know better. That is, when to get out of a bad
trade, or in the case of gambling, bet. But when it comes to casino
gambling, I tend to stay far too long for my own good. This tends to
lead to losses much greater than if I left earlier with a small gain.
How common an occurrence is this in a casino? Jeff G.
Jeff, you play in the world casino, Wall
Street; doesn't your industry have an aphorism, "Be a bull or a bear,
but never a hog?" Like many, many other players, Jeff, you exhibit signs
of poor money management. And money management, my friend, is really
nothing more than character management. To truly become a winning player
you have to first know when to get up and walk.
Dear Mark,
What does the term
"horn" bet mean in craps? Clayburn P.
A "horn" bet is a one-roll
proposition wager which is a combination of any craps (2, 3, 12) and a
bet on the 11. It pays off according to the individual payoff for each
number, less the three chips that were lost. Do I recommend said wager?
NO. Craps offers two kinds of one-roll bets-hopeless and wretched.
Although proposition bets have seemingly lofty payoffs, the house edge
is way to high too waste your hard-earned money on them.
Dear Mark,
Recently in Puerto Rico,
a player at the baccarat table kept calling out "monkey" as the player
who was dealing out the cards was about to draw one from the shoe. What
did this mean? Pat Z.
In gamb-lingo, I've heard the term monkey
used two ways. 1. A sucker. 2. A face card.
My guess is that our
articulated friend was hoping the next card out of the shoe would be a
face card so his hand would win out. Example: Our wishful bettor has
wagered the "bank" hand and is sitting pretty with a two-card 7. The
"player" hand total is a 3, subsequently needing a hit. A "monkey" would
not improve the "player" hand as face cards and 10s have zero card value
in baccarat. The "bank" hand would prevail.
Dear Mark,
What is the worst bet to
make on a crap game? Kevin K.
The worst wager on a crap game, or any
table game for that matter, is the "any seven" bet on the dice table.
This one-roll proposition bet has a house edge of 16.7%.
