September 13, 2011 • 42 mins
Gambling predates the written word; dice made of bones have been discovered at prehistoric sites. Today, the concept of amassing a fortune in moments remains attractive. Join Josh and Chuck as they take a look at the games and the glitz of casinos.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
(00:20):
and this is the Stuff you Should Know the podcast. Yes,
it is Chuck Josh. Um. How's it going great? I'm
excited about this one. Really? How you know my favorite
casino or favorite Scores has everything? Casino? How we talked
about this? No way, is it really? I think I
used to say it was a close second to Good Fellas,
(00:42):
but I believe this is edge. I watched it again
the other day. Man, and I love Casino the movie.
It might edge Goodfellas out. I can't believe you're saying that.
But to each his own. We always say to me,
it's like flip a coin. That mean Streets and Good
Fellows just like either of those three, they're all different.
I've not seen Main Streets, should I? Yeah, that was
(01:05):
the first one he did with the Neros. Yeah, and
Harvey Catel. Yeah, alright, casinos casinos. Well, now we've already
talked about the movie. So are you still excited about
this one, okay, because your favorite part out UM I
read UM that casino winnings for June in Las in Vegas, Nevada,
(01:27):
or in Nevada as a whole are We're up sixteen
percent over last year, which is a good sign because
one of the things that UM are pretty much recession
proof are stocks in vice well vices basically like liquor
company stock, tobacco company stock, and gambling company stock. By
(01:51):
gambling company of course, I mean like a casino or
something like that. But with the recession of two thousand eight,
even those kind of stocks are taking a hit. It
was that my to a bath. So in the midst
of all this talk about like a double dip recession
and the downgrade UM by Moody's UM to double a
plus for government bonds, the fact that the the revenue
(02:15):
in Nevada for gambling is up six is a good sign. Conversely,
it's down like eight percent in Atlantic City. But that's
the Atlantic City I see has struggled on and off
over the years since like the beginning, right, I mean,
even Trump took a bath there, yeah, and figuratively yes,
So what I mean, You've been to plenty of casinos, right,
(02:39):
you spend most of your time there? Not true? But
I've been to Vegas a bunch. Just live in l A.
You go more than Oh yeah, i'll bet your average
Joe white because it's close. You can drive, work jobs there,
film jobs and stuff. I've been to Vegas a few times,
and I think those are the only casinos I've ever
been to. I hate We're ones in Vegas. I hate Vegas, now,
(03:02):
do you? Yeah? Man, I'm done. I like it. I
like it if you go into Vegas with like a
Vegas kind of mind set, Yeah, it's fun. I mean
I wouldn't ever spend like my yearly vacation there, right,
but I mean a few days in Vegas that's pretty cool.
I like it. I'm not a big gambler though, either,
so I don't go there, and like there's not a
(03:25):
chance that I'm going to come out of there, like
my life is ruined. See. I love to gamble, but
I don't do I do too, but I'm not a
big game Like I can walk away at any time. Yeah,
I just enjoy it, but I don't do it. So
it's weird to say that I love gambling. What's your
what's your game? Oh, you know black jack sports book.
I think I told you before on the show that
I usually go into the sports book and throw down
some bets, and depending how I do on those, I'll
(03:47):
gamble with that money. Gotcha at the table. Gotcha? It's fun. Okay,
I'm gonna have to try that next time because I
usually just walk up to the rue light table and go,
here's some money I lost, here's a little more. I've
never lost money faster in my life in at a
roulette table. Yeah, it's pretty fast. When it hits, it
is the thrilling it is. That's what they count on.
So um chuck. You know casinos, Well, gambling itself is
(04:13):
pretty ancient. The grabster who wrote this article and included
a Monty Python reference, did you catch it? I don't
know if I did. He mentions the Italian Inquisition. The
noble people expected the Italian Inquisition and we're never caught gambling. Um.
But there there's been uh dice found in prehistoric sites.
(04:38):
There's something called ostro Gali and their carved knuckle bones
that were that were the predecessors of dice. They look
kind like molars, yeah, a little bit. And then after
that we're actual primitive suxcited die dice. That's right. And
so we've been gambling. We've been shooting craps at least
for eons, both at the very least from millenn um.
(05:01):
But casinos or places where you go to gamble didn't
really come about until I think about the fifteenth or
sixteenth century, and Venice was actually the birthplace of the casino,
of the gambling hall. I love it. It's Italian, yeah,
it's uh. Initially there were these aristocrats in Italy would
(05:23):
have these private parties at places called and at the Ridotti.
It was a private club for rich folks, but it
was basically a gambling club because that's what went on there, right,
And this is where the the Monty Python reference comes in,
where that it was it was illegal. Yeah, you weren't
allowed to gamble, but the aristocrats knew when to expect
(05:46):
the Italian Inquisition and they didn't do a lot of
inquiring from what I understand to write, so um, but
it was known that like this is outlawed. But the um,
I guess the fathers of Venice figured out that the
people who were running the show there, we're making a
ton of cash right, Oh yeah, uh, and if they
(06:10):
set up their own ridotto, right, they could make their
make that cash themselves. So they did. They set up
what was called the Ridotto, and the capital r that
it was a four story gambling house where they took
all these different games and just put them under one roof.
It was a casino. It was the first casino. Yeah yeah.
(06:31):
And they they even did things like give you food
and beverages and keep you happy, and like you said,
ran a variety of games. And uh, the grabs are
points out. This is a big deal for a couple
of reasons. A. It's a government sanctioned gambling house the
first time, and it's open to the general public. You
can just go down to the ridotto throw down some cash.
(06:52):
You don't have to be an aristocrat or a noble person. Nope,
you just go ahead and lay your money down. That's right.
And that the word casino is obviously Italian, right, but
that that was different. So that was that Venice opened
the Rodotto. It didn't last forever, no no um. Eventually
they tied of a public moral opinion turned against it,
(07:13):
which happens a lot to gambling. Um. And the Rodotto
was shut down, So the the aristocrats went back to
it again and went and uh started gambling again at
what we're called casinos, which are small little clubs. Right, Yeah,
that's what it means. The casino is a small little club.
And then they added gambling to it, and then hence
(07:34):
the name that we know and love today, the casino. Yeah.
So the ridotto was broken up into smaller casinos and
they were uh pretty popular and flourished. Yeah. So, um,
that idea was exported from from Italy or there were
other places where it just kind of came up on
its own, but Italy, for the most part, is known
(07:55):
as the birthplace of the casino. France was big and
France is known as the birthplace. So most of the
casino games that we play today. Roulette means little wheel
in French. Uh, Bakara means Bert baker rat and um
and uh in burt backreck in French it means crystal.
That's not true. Uh and what else is there? Black
(08:15):
Jack means twenty one, I believe in French. Oh yeah, wow,
didn't know that. So basically, the French invented a lot
of games because they loved to gamble. They did and
so did the United States. Early on the eighteen hundreds
in the wild West, there were gambling riverboats on the Mississippi,
poker games and card games for money. And then uh,
(08:39):
kind of like with prohibition, the moral conservatism kind of
came on and uh stemmed the tide of gambling for
a while up until the Hoover Dam and Nevada kind
of really put it back on the map again. Yeah,
so legalized gambling. I'm there was a huge, huge anti
gambling wave in like nineteen by sically the first decade
(09:02):
and a half of the twentieth century, and it almost
wiped out horse racing entirely. Like they were like two
horse racing tracks at like in n in the US,
and it went down to like twenty five and like
like thirty years. Um, so that same wave basically broke
up all gambling until yeah, like you say, Nevada said,
(09:24):
you know what, we're gonna buck the trend because there's
not a lot going on here in Nevada. But we
do have a new dam. We're gonna call it Hoover
Dam eventually, but for now, let's call it Bowler Damn
got into coming and seeing it still do. Yeah, it's
I mean it is a marvel still to this day.
It's a marvel of engineering. It's it's uh, it's it's
the pinnacle of humans contempt for nature. You know, Oh,
(09:47):
you want to flow as a river, we tell you
when to flow. You're gonna generate power for us and
exactly so. Um. From the get go Boulder Damn. Now,
Hoover dam was a tourist attraction, and Nevada said, why
not get some money off of these pork pies from Iowa. Um,
while they come, let's let them gamble. And that what happened.
(10:10):
And gambling and casinos had already been started. Bugsy Segull
did not start that, but he and Mayer Landski, famous gangsters,
did have a large hand and expanding the casino scene
famously with the Flamingo Hotel and casino in And that
was a good movie too. That was a great movie. Uh.
And today I think this number is still right nineteen
(10:31):
at the largest hotels by room number are on the
Las Vegas trip, the largest in the world, largest in
the world. Yeah, I can believe that they're huge. And
that's just they're still gambling downtown too. They're a Fremont
if you really want the real Las Vegas. Yeah, so
that's how that's how it started. They were downtown gambling houses. Um.
(10:52):
And then they figured out that if they if you, uh,
you gotta break some egs to make an omelet. So
they spent some money to make tons of money tons yeah. Um.
And they also, in a very unusual kind of agreement,
these uh, these early strip makers uh said you know what,
we're all gonna go into this together. Sure, it's more competition,
(11:15):
but if we're concentrated, we make this a destination. Not
only is Nevada a destination for gambling, but this specific
spot in Nevada is the destination for gamblings and it
paid off like in aces. Hey. Yeah, and since we're
on gangsters, uh, the mafia had a lot to do
with the Las Vegas casino operation for a long time
(11:37):
until they eventually money kind of went out and real
estate developers had more money than the mob said, you
know what, we need to clean this up and make
it legit and buy you out, essentially, And because I
understand it, it's mafia doesn't have anything to do with
it these days because it's just too big of a risk. Yeah,
and their money is not needed for a while they're there.
(11:57):
They had the money, and they also had the willing
to One of the reasons the mob got into Vegas
was because the rest of the country saw Vegas as
since city. It's a it's a place of ill repute.
Gambling is is sinful, and we're morally opposed to it.
So I don't want my customers at my bank to
(12:18):
to withdraw their money something. They can invest in your casino.
But then Mayer Landski or um. So there's other ways
of getting money, right, he said, you know what, I've
got no problem with this. Here's some money. Uh, the teamsters, Uh,
we're heavily invested in in Vegas. But yeah, but then
Trump was like, I got way more money than you guys. Yeah,
(12:39):
and that's why. One reason Vegas was was sin city
for a long time, and you can still get into
some trouble there. But since the nineties it has become
a much more of a family destination. It's stilling to
swing back the other way a little more. I hear
they're trying to do that. Some casinos are opening up
with like rules against kids, and oh yeah, plenty of
(12:59):
them have. Yeah, it's like get your kid out of here.
This is a ca and with like nothing but kids,
Treasure Island, all those places. Yeah and so, and we
should say, chuck that we just gave like the history
of Vegas, and Vegas is obviously like the crown jewel
of the gambling world around the world. But there's also
(13:20):
other like just world class casinos like Monaco Monte Carlo,
a city in Monaco, um which is a principality built
exclusively on gambling money. Um. Yeah, there's Macau is off
the coast of Hong Kong. That's like gambling paradise. Now.
(13:43):
Um there's where else is there riverboat Indian reservations. Yeah,
so it's uh, we didn't mean to neglect to anybody,
I guess, that is what I'm saying. And the you
know that four story gambling house, the ridotto um that
has translated very very well. In Japan, they have things
that are called pachinko parlors, which are usually multi story
(14:07):
um outfits where you just is it all pachinko. The
first floor is usually all pachinko. And it's also like
you you you can go in there and play all
day and no one will know because you can't see
through the cigarette smoke in there. It is crazy, bet. Yeah,
they smoke a lot over there. So there's gambling all
over the world. Where aware of that? Yeah, I got
some stats, some gaming stats. Uh. In two thousand nine,
(14:30):
seventy of US adults placed a wager of some kind, uh,
to the tune of nine hundred billion dollars at casinos, racetracks, lottery,
and then like poker games and dog tracks and OTV
places and stuff like that. But um, I think of
that gross gaming revenue was eighty point five billion, and
(14:51):
about fifty seven billion of that was casino based, whether
land or riverboat casino knows. Thirty thirty billion, twenty six
of that was from tribal casinos and the other thirty
was from just standard casinos. That's definitely up from when
this article was written, because it was twenty two point
six two billion in two thousand five for Native American
(15:13):
casinos and thirty one point eight five billion for everything
else in the US. Yeah, that's significant. Yeah. Yeah, it's
forty one states. Forty one states have casinos or allow casinos.
George is not one of them. No, but George allows
gambling in the form of lottery. Yes, and every video poker. Yeah, everything,
(15:34):
But Hawaii and Utah allow some form of wagering, right,
I wonder what Hawaii steals. I don't know. Utah makes sense,
but yeah, totally, But I have no idea what Hawai's
Maybe they're just like, yeah, we don't need that. Yeah,
I'll find out. We're surfing eating spam, right exactly, it's
a spam cation. Sure. Uh So, Chuck, why is there
(15:55):
so much money in gambling if it's all games of chance? Yeah?
Why is there so much money in owning a casino?
You know why, Josh? Why? Because every single game a
casino offers has a statistical edge built in for the casino. Otherwise,
that's how they make their dough. That is, h's your
(16:16):
fact that these are not everyone. I didn't know that. Well.
It ranges from I think about the lowest you can
get as Baker raw at about one one point six percent,
that it can go as low as uh I think
point seven point six something is the casino advantage all
the way up to the sucker's bet of all time,
(16:37):
which is the slot machine, which gives a casino a
edge on average. And the reason it stops at is
because by law, most most states say, if you're gonna
have slots or video pok or whatever, since it's computer
operated randomly making a quotes, you have to set it
so that there's of the time they have a chance
(16:58):
of winning, the time you're playing that you have no
chance of winning. Yeah, and they'll they'll change the slot.
Some casinos will say, like our slots payout eight or
nine to try and get you in there. But that
is where the casino makes seventy of their revenue is
from from slots, nicol slots, quarter slots, whatever, whatever. Slots. Um,
(17:19):
there's uh are we talking about games? Yeah, let's get
into it. So, yeah, if you go to a casino,
there's obviously going to be slots in there, absolutely everywhere.
I've never been a big slot guy. It's just over
too fast. It's not too much to it. It is
a little boring. Um, I like black jack, black checks
a lot of fun. I played black check in Paris
(17:40):
in Vegas and it was like the middle of the
day and my brother in law and I were the
only ones at the table, and um, I was like
hit me, and the guy hit me, and I was
like hit me again, and the dealer went and just
shook his head. I've had them do that too, and
it was like you don't want to hit? Yeah, And
I'm sure the pit boss is like, you know, he's
(18:01):
got X number of times he can do that in
a day or whatever. But yeah, I thought it was
very nice. I ended up spending more money. I'm sure, Well,
that's exactly why you did it. They want to keep
your button that chair, and sometimes they might allow the
dealer to say, like, are you certain, sir, Wait a minute,
he didn't do it to be nice. He may have
been being nice. He was definitely being nice. But yes,
(18:23):
I'm sure constructed. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know
how it works on the inside, but yeah, I was
I was told I was told not to. He said
no when I told him, right, And uh yeah, I
came out a little bit on top. I think. So Blackjack, Josh,
you got about a two percent house edge. Not bad
as far as gambling goes. Um And if you play
by the statistical strategy that they say you should play by,
(18:45):
there are rules like if you follow this, then chances
are you could win some money. But people, what happens
is you get caught up. You like hit when you shouldn't.
You lay down more money to try and make up
for what you've lost, and that's when they take you.
Or you can count cards, and you can count cards,
which is legal. If you go to m I T.
They'll teach you to count cards, right Andy, that movie
(19:07):
was about, Yeah, the M I T. Black Jack Team, Um,
the movie twenty one. If you count cards then and
they figure out that you're counting cards, are gone. Like,
I don't think they can break your hand, but you're
out of the casino for sure. They can do a
lot of things up until that point to make it harder.
But I think if they they verify that and they
know that you're counting cards, I think they can't ask
(19:28):
you to leave, even though it is not against the law. No,
but a casino has rules against the exactly. Yeah, all right,
so that's blackjack. I gotta get come closer to twenty
one without going over Oh yeah did we say that? Yeah?
And we we're not gonna there's we're not gonna break
down each of these games. So specifically, these could have
their own podcast. Exactly. They won't, but they could. So
(19:50):
that's that's that. Slots, by the way, they are spam slots.
H Yeah, that's cool. That's what we need, is that
we need a stuff. You should know, slot machine. Well,
they're all kinds of crazy themes. But then realized how
much we would have arrived if we had our own
slot machines. We go broke playing them. I bet we
could make that happen. I don't know about that. No, okay,
(20:13):
so you got boogie Nights, Oh yeah, just all sorts
of crazy themes. And recently it was in the news
because they're Happy Days machines, and everyone but Fonzi and
Ritchie sued because they're like, dude, we're not getting seeing
any money from these slot machines that all my friends
are telling me that our faces are on. That's what
Happy Days sued for. I thought it was like DVDs. No, no, no,
(20:34):
it's all sorts of back payment that they they're not getting.
But the slots is what tipped off the mom. Like
someone called he was like, oh, so you want a
slot machine. She's like really, So she banded together with
Potsy and uh yeah, everybody except Fonzi and um and
Richie Richie because they still have money. Um wow, that's
an awful thing to say. They imagine that they didn't.
(20:57):
When I read that, I didn't know that it was
slot machines that tipped them off. But I thought, I
hope Ron Howard like paid for their legal team. Yeah.
I think they just settled recently. Actually. Um. Roulette of
course one of my favorites. Yeah. If you want to
see your money disappear before your very eyes, go play
some roulette. Yeah. So there's a thirty six spaces on
a little wheel, numbers uh one through No, I'm sorry,
(21:21):
there's thirty eight spaces numbers one through thirty six with
a zero and a double zero, right, very very simply put.
The dealer spins the wheel up black and red. Two. Yeah,
well you can. You can bet on all sorts of things.
There's the table where you bet on you can bet
on it being landing on a black or red color.
You can bet on the specific number and the color,
(21:43):
just the number one that I'm gonna bet on twenty two,
and it comes up and it pays off and well yeah, um,
and depending if you think it pays two to one,
if you um, if you correctly bet on red or black,
and then it just gets more from there. But the
dealer spins a wheel and then the ball is dropped
in and it spins around and bounces and then whatever
(22:04):
number color lands on. If you bet on that, baby,
you are rolling in it. But I think the roulette,
I think the reason I like it it's just so
it's such an elegant game. There's a wheel that spins
and then you feel like you're in Monte Carlo very much. So. Yeah,
I think that's why I like The house edges between
(22:25):
five and seven um, even though it varies because there's
so many different bets and payouts. Craps. Craps I know
almost nothing about. It's the most fun game in Vegas
or at a casino. In my opinion, it's the most
social game. You hear a lot of people having a
lot of fun and chances arts coming from the crap section. Yeah,
because you're involved, you're throwing the dice. That has a
(22:46):
lot to do with it. And my advice if you
want to play craps, it's really complicated with all the bets,
but make it really easy and pick out, like, learn
two or three little simple bets that you can make
and just stick to those. Okay, that's good advice. That's
my advice. Unless you're really good and you know all
that stuff, then just go wild if you if you
(23:08):
know all that stuff, probably not gonna take our advice
on crafs. Keino Josh is a big rip off. Well,
it's like inside the the the casino, there was a
scandal um some guy from Vegas who worked at the
Nevada Gaming Commission. Um, they use random number generators to
to just run the Keyno games. It's all computer operated.
(23:30):
The thing is is there's no such thing as randomness
with a computer, like it just doesn't exist. It's a computer, right,
it's a program. So if this guy figured out um,
basically the pattern that comes up there the underlying pat
to all of it. And he and a buddy went
to Atlantic City and he stayed up in the room
and watched the Keyno um play out basically on the
(23:54):
on their TV. And he um called down to the
guy and told him what to bat based on what
number who are about to come up? And this guy
one so much that the security followed him up to
was to the room and found the guy there, found
out he was from Vegas and we're like, why did
you come to Atlantic City to play Keynoe? And that
was that. That was in an article in Harper's. You
(24:15):
know what happened to him? He got busted. I'm sure
any longer. Yeah, I don't know if Atlantic City has
that kind of pull. In Vegas though, where they can,
you know, rub you out. They don't dig a hole
in the desert there, They just do the old submit
shoes in the ocean. Yeah, with the fishes toss you
off the boardwalk. Yeah, but then you have to pay
(24:35):
for the guy you just killed, to the to the
people in Vegas. Right, Yeah, you got Backara what you've
talked about. And if you've never played it, it it seems complicated,
but it's really not. The object is to get close
to nine instead of twenty one, but you only get
two or three cards, and the total if it's more
(24:56):
than ten, you refer to the right hand number. So
if you get a nine in a six, your hand
isn't fifteen, Your hand is five. If you get a
nine in six, your hand isn't fifteen, it's five. Where
come from the one five? It's the digit on the
right hand side. If your hand totals thirteen, your hand
(25:17):
is really a three six. There's no five in there,
no nine in a six, total fifteen oh, I got you.
So you added up and then take the right hand
digit of the double digit, yes, and your object. Yes,
it's I mean it's not easy, but it's sort of
easy that I've never played, because, as is pointed out
in the article, like it's usually away from the rest
(25:39):
of the casino and yeah, it's like you have to
be wearing a tuck to get into the Baker Ross
typically known as a big money game because the guys
because you know why, it's because it's got the best
or the least amount of statistical advantage. So if you've
got a lot of money, you're probably smarter to be
playing back. Yeah, and because of that loads statistical advantage. Um,
a lot of times Cassine know say hey, thanks for playing,
(26:01):
you owe us three percent of everything you just want. Yeah,
I think background is one of those that takes it
off the top, right, is that right? I think so
I would imagine pokers like that as well. It's called
a rake and poker. Yeah. They essentially just you're what
you're doing in poker is they're hosting the game essentially
in supplying you with a dealer for a fee. Right,
So there sometimes you're charged, Um, the rake will be
(26:24):
based on how long you spend in there or how
much you win that kind of thing. Yeah, but poker's poker,
that's right, right. And then there's video poker, which is
pretty close to slots that has some laws that say
you have to pay out x percentage of time, that
kind of thing. Another sucker game if you ask me. Yeah,
they have those all over the place here in Atlanta,
(26:46):
like in gas stations and stuff. Oh and interestingly, slots
and video poker aren't monitored. They're just set up and
you just go play. They don't have like cameras above
each one like they do all the other games. Yeah, well,
they don't have people watching the slots area. They're self
managed essentially, So Chuck, let's talk about the casino experience,
(27:08):
shall we. Well, they get you in there, they load
up on liquor while you're playing for free, which helps.
They give you food comps sometimes, like hey, sir, would
you like to buffet tickets here? And would I? They
they won't show you too, They won't show any clocks.
You won't find any big clocks or windows. And casinos
(27:30):
to this day they the whole thing is designed to
to basically, um I guess simulate eternal twilight early evening. Yeah,
the nights, just the lights are and that is the
weird thing when you you can't tell and people gamble
at all hours. That's why I was surprised. Like, you'll
go down at four in the morning and you can't
tell the difference between that and noon. Sometimes a little creepy. Yeah,
(27:54):
it is very creepy. They do not pumping oxygen, No,
they don't. Apparently that would be extremely illegal, which makes
sense the felony. It's basically drugging people. But the whole
premise of that was that you basically gave people a
rush or it kept them awake so they would stay
and not get tired. Uh. Contrary to that, Um, Like
you said, people will often be comped food, drinks, rooms
(28:19):
kind of drunk. You might spend a little more. But yes,
if you are, if you're lucky enough to be camped
the room, UM, and you're a slot person, you're probably
a member of the slot club, which you need to
join when you um. When you check in, it usually
doesn't cost anything. But basically you have a card that
tracks your play. UM. And you don't want to be
(28:39):
bashful about this. You don't want them to notice you.
You wanna if you if you're looking to get camped,
you go ahead and let them know you're you're here
to play. Yeah, and if you want to get camped
and you're not a slat person, you can just ask.
If you have a lot of money you want to
spend and you're like, this is what I'm gonna start
doing this. You tell them you go to someone and
say hey, and to get my play rated. H And
(29:02):
they will basically just put you on a list and say, okay,
we'll start tracking and seeing what kind of money you're losing.
But as the Grabsher points out, it is a sucker
bet to spend more than you normally would or just
to get camps, because you're going to spend more money
in losses than you would just haven't gotten the room
(29:25):
or gotten the buffet. Yeah, and Vegas is still cheaper,
maybe than some places, but it's not like the old
days where it was like a hotel room is twenty bucks,
in the buffet is five. Like it's it's a a
vacation destination. Now they get you with the room charges
now to or the shows. The shows kids, Uh, they
(29:47):
got stuff for the whole family now to keep everyone
busy while mom and dad are giving away their money
college fund, said Chuck. UM security is kind of an issue, right, Yeah,
there's the ubiquitous I in the sky, which apparently they
don't necessarily have. Over the slot areas, every other table's
got a camera watching it, and the whole the whole
(30:09):
process of UM security is ground up right the front.
The first defense in UM I guess against cheating or
fraud or theft is the dealer him or herself because
they're really paying attention to the game, and they're going
to see clear as day if you're palming cards or
(30:30):
um counting cards, whatever you're doing. They're trained to look
out for that stuff, right, and they know this game
is literally their job to play this game every day
for hours on end UM, so they know if something's
weird about it, right. And then above them, you've got
table managers and pit bosses watching out over an area, right,
(30:51):
And they're not just watching customers, they're watching the dealers
and the managers. Everybody's watching everybody else. Yeah, that's a
great part because you know they break down the security. Sorry,
I had a moment there that when he bust the
country bumpkin who's not who's got taken on the slots
(31:12):
and that his country bumpkin uncle try to get him
like reinstated, and de Niro's like, I can't do it.
It's like you sure, you want to think about this,
and he had that great line He's like, what you
people don't ever realize is that you're all just guests here.
And he's right because he eventually left the The guy
who got taken on the slots, his name was he
(31:33):
used to host like a d movie. Yeah, and Billy
Bob something. Yeah, he was awesome. Yeah, I can't remember.
He was great though. He was pretty funny dude. Um,
I don't know what happened to him. He's around him, sure, okay, um.
And then above that you have security who are monitoring
everything on TV, right, lots and lots of TVs, lots
(31:57):
and lots of cameras, and they can train in each
one to look at whatever they want, Like it's not
just the tables, all the ins and outs, the exits,
the bathroom, not in the bathrooms, but these are all
heavily policed by cameras, and uh, I don't know. I
could see them monitoring the bathroom. I could see that too, actually,
And in Ocean's eleven, if you remember one of the
(32:19):
little tricks they used to get the cameras out of
the way, it was Casey affleck In in uh, James
CON's kid, what's his name? James CON's kid. They got
in the argument and and he'd let go of the balloons,
and the balloons covered the camera was long enough to
to get whatever they needed to get done done. That
was a great movie too. The first one was really good,
(32:40):
I think, and not the original, I mean the first
Soderberg Okay, the original was awesome. Yeah, yeah, I can
watch that like all day every day. I like that.
I like the Redo as well, though I thought it
was glib. I really Matt was glib. I thought the
whole thing was glue. Um. So chuck. If you're a
(33:01):
chump like me and you walk around casinos with like
your your your money in your hands, right, just kind
of smiling at people, like where do I put this?
How do you stay on? Security's good sign? Well, if
you're the casino expert, here's a few tips. You don't
want to touch any of the gaming equipment, like don't
grab the roulette wheel and say this feels need o,
don't They say not to use two hands to do anything, right,
(33:24):
like always kind of keep one hand off off the stuff,
and it doesn't hurt to keep the other hand in
sight the hand you're not using. Don't on the table.
It don't go up to a craps table with like
one hand in your pocket and then like lower the
dice below the table and then blow on them and
then throw them. And also don't ever ever tickle the dealer.
(33:44):
They don't like that. Yes, you're not supposed to. You
can't hand your money to a dealer. Always your money
on the table, on the table, and don't expect them
to cash anything out. They'll give you chips, but when
you want your chips to turn back into money, yea,
the dealer's not going to help you, which we should mention.
The reason they use chips is a to keep track
of things easier and b because you feel a lot
(34:05):
better losing a hundred dollar chips the chip than you
do a hundred dollar bill. It's it's just like a
debit card. Like there's so many things that you normally
just wouldn't buy if you had to shell out cash
for it, but you totally get because it's debit card.
You can watch people play, but just watch. Don't go
up to people at the table and start talking to them.
(34:26):
Don't tickle other players. Don't tickle players. Don't touch your chips.
A few place to bet. It's final once you put
it down. Don't reach across the table and knock over
everyone else's chips. Ask for some help, and uh, don't
like put your drink on the table. Although I've done that.
People do that. They say not to do that, but
I've done that. I don't think it's the end of
(34:48):
the world. Agreed, Especially black check. There's no other place
to put it. Usually there might be like a little
thing right here. Like a lot of times, it's just
what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Exactly?
Um So, Chuck, we talked about riverboat gambling in Native
American casinos, and both of those are fairly recent in origin,
(35:10):
really about the early nine nineties, late eighties, right, So
a Native American casinos, their existence can be traced back
to one guy. He was the head of the the
Cabazon tribe from California, and his name is Arthur James Wellness,
and basically he figured out a loophole in the way
(35:31):
that Native American territory is treated. It is technically sovereign ground, right,
but criminal law extends into the sovereign area. So if
you murder somebody, that you committed a crime and the
federal government has jurisdiction to investigate that crime. But if
(35:52):
something is legal in that state where that territory is,
then by extension, there's no crime that can possibly be
committed if that is carried out within the Native American territory,
it becomes a matter of civil law. Civil law doesn't
extend in the Native American territory, right, Yes, So basically
they said, hey, if you can allow gambling in California
(36:14):
and arcis are reservations in California, and if it's just
a lottery, yeah, then we can do that here however
we want, because it's a civil matter exactly. And as
an aside related to that, if you fall and break
your leg and a Native American casino, you're not gonna
be able to to sue anybody. No, no, no redress
for that, no redress. And riverboats, Josh, how that usually
(36:36):
works is you go on a cruise quote unquote two
hour cruise but it's not so much a cruise because
you don't go anywhere. The boat just stays there and
that's just your allotted time two And it is specific
and you can't just say can I stay a little longer? No,
They're probably like no, but you can leave and then
come back. Yeah. And and a lot of times they'll
(36:57):
have a lost limit too, they'll be like, you can't
lose over five. But apparently much the same way with
the government in venice Um, state legislatures have been like, well,
you know, we really come to depend on this riverboat
gambling tax money, so you know what, go crazy, go nuts,
stay on as long as you want to lose as
(37:18):
much as you like. We are rolling in it because
of you. So chuck, um, I guess if a casino
comes to your town, anybody who's ever seen that Simpsons
episode knows that it's a boon for the community, right,
big business, dude. Everyone's happy, everyone's making tons of money,
everybody's got jobs, money for free. Yeah, exactly. No. So
studies show that there's actually a negative economic impact on
(37:44):
um a local community by a casino. And it's pretty
simple why most casinos play is carried out by locals
who come into the casino and lose their money, not
necessarily by tourists who wouldn't have come there otherwise and
are having an economic impact. That definitely accounts for a
(38:04):
substantial portion. But when you take it all into account,
the local economy actually loses money when a casino comes
to town. That's right, Josh. At least several studies have shown.
And we'll get into gambling maybe on a different show,
but we should point out that, uh, the dark side
of casinos is about of their profits are generated from
(38:27):
the five percent of addicted gamblers. Yes, the profits are
coming from people out gambling problems, right, and probably most
of those people live like down the street. Yeah, maybe
work at casinos. Yeah, we should do one on gambling that.
There's so much more there. I don't want to breeze
over that. So that's it for casinos. Though, if you
(38:49):
want to know how craps works, we have a how
craps works article. We have articles on most of the
games that we talked about in here. Um, you can
type any of those up or you can find links
to them within the casino article. You can just type
casino c A S I N oh, yeah, which means
social club. It's a casine though. Um in the handy
(39:10):
search bar how stuff works dot com, which means it's
time for a listener mail. Wh what what happened to you? You? Yeah,
because we gotta we got a little plug for audio book.
We gotta insert here. Yes, we have two audio books now,
but the most recent one is the one that we're plugging. Yes, okay,
So it is the super Stuff Guide to Happiness and
(39:32):
it features us and Josh's niece and interview subjects and
different music and sound design. And it's about an hour
in seventeen minutes and agreed, even though it won't necessarily
make you happy, right, well, how how are people going
to buy this and go to iTunes and buy it
(39:53):
for three in the US? And it could be a
little more if you're in Australia. Sorry, I'm told but
they they said, I actually told them out in three
bucks and they say, we're going to take you up
on it. Yeah, I saw that you need to be careful.
Same things like that. So yeah, help support us. Bite
on iTunes makes us look good. We don't get any
of it, no, that's true, but it does make us
(40:14):
look good, that's right. Yeah, yeah, and it makes us
feel good too, that's true. Yeah. So now it's time
for listener mouth Josh. This one I'm gonna call kind
of gross but funny. Just listen to Can You Sweat Colors? Guys?
It brought to mind a heroin question that my friends
and I have been grappling with for years. Sit down
and prepare yourself for this. Are you ready? Would you
(40:39):
rather sweat ranch dressing or always smell like Chinese food?
And here the clarifications. You would only sweat the ranch
dressing in times that would normally cause you to sweat.
The ranch dressing is consumable. The Chinese food smell is
the general smell of a small Chinese food takeout. Join
(41:01):
No amount of washing will make you not smell like
Chinese food, nor will perfumes and colognes abolish the smell.
It will simply compliment it. Let me know, guys, ps
follow me on Twitter. It would make me feel special
that it is clay c l A Y capital g
N on Twitter this his name is Clayton N. So Clayton.
(41:24):
My answer is I would rather smell like Chinese food
because I'm such a heavy sweater. The ranch thing would
just be infinitely more embarrassing. I wish you'd sweat ranch
and you could always explain away the Chinese food saying gosh, sorry, man,
I just want to catch Chinese food, but you can't
explain ranch. Sweat neither, Kim medical science. What's your answer
(41:47):
is neither? Although my friend Eddie loves rance dressing so
much he might elect for that. He would just sweat
over his pizza. If you have a question for us
unanswerable or otherwise us, and you want to tweet it
to us, We're always on Twitter. It's s y s
K podcast. Tweet to that. You can go like us
on Facebook. Stuff you should Know. That's Facebook dot com,
(42:09):
slash stuff you should Know, and you can always send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works
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Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow,
(42:33):
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
(00:20):
and this is the Stuff you Should Know the podcast. Yes,
it is Chuck Josh. Um. How's it going great? I'm
excited about this one. Really? How you know my favorite
casino or favorite Scores has everything? Casino? How we talked
about this? No way, is it really? I think I
used to say it was a close second to Good Fellas,
(00:42):
but I believe this is edge. I watched it again
the other day. Man, and I love Casino the movie.
It might edge Goodfellas out. I can't believe you're saying that.
But to each his own. We always say to me,
it's like flip a coin. That mean Streets and Good
Fellows just like either of those three, they're all different.
I've not seen Main Streets, should I? Yeah, that was
(01:05):
the first one he did with the Neros. Yeah, and
Harvey Catel. Yeah, alright, casinos casinos. Well, now we've already
talked about the movie. So are you still excited about
this one, okay, because your favorite part out UM I
read UM that casino winnings for June in Las in Vegas, Nevada,
(01:27):
or in Nevada as a whole are We're up sixteen
percent over last year, which is a good sign because
one of the things that UM are pretty much recession
proof are stocks in vice well vices basically like liquor
company stock, tobacco company stock, and gambling company stock. By
(01:51):
gambling company of course, I mean like a casino or
something like that. But with the recession of two thousand eight,
even those kind of stocks are taking a hit. It
was that my to a bath. So in the midst
of all this talk about like a double dip recession
and the downgrade UM by Moody's UM to double a
plus for government bonds, the fact that the the revenue
(02:15):
in Nevada for gambling is up six is a good sign. Conversely,
it's down like eight percent in Atlantic City. But that's
the Atlantic City I see has struggled on and off
over the years since like the beginning, right, I mean,
even Trump took a bath there, yeah, and figuratively yes,
So what I mean, You've been to plenty of casinos, right,
(02:39):
you spend most of your time there? Not true? But
I've been to Vegas a bunch. Just live in l A.
You go more than Oh yeah, i'll bet your average
Joe white because it's close. You can drive, work jobs there,
film jobs and stuff. I've been to Vegas a few times,
and I think those are the only casinos I've ever
been to. I hate We're ones in Vegas. I hate Vegas, now,
(03:02):
do you? Yeah? Man, I'm done. I like it. I
like it if you go into Vegas with like a
Vegas kind of mind set, Yeah, it's fun. I mean
I wouldn't ever spend like my yearly vacation there, right,
but I mean a few days in Vegas that's pretty cool.
I like it. I'm not a big gambler though, either,
so I don't go there, and like there's not a
(03:25):
chance that I'm going to come out of there, like
my life is ruined. See. I love to gamble, but
I don't do I do too, but I'm not a
big game Like I can walk away at any time. Yeah,
I just enjoy it, but I don't do it. So
it's weird to say that I love gambling. What's your
what's your game? Oh, you know black jack sports book.
I think I told you before on the show that
I usually go into the sports book and throw down
some bets, and depending how I do on those, I'll
(03:47):
gamble with that money. Gotcha at the table. Gotcha? It's fun. Okay,
I'm gonna have to try that next time because I
usually just walk up to the rue light table and go,
here's some money I lost, here's a little more. I've
never lost money faster in my life in at a
roulette table. Yeah, it's pretty fast. When it hits, it
is the thrilling it is. That's what they count on.
So um chuck. You know casinos, Well, gambling itself is
(04:13):
pretty ancient. The grabster who wrote this article and included
a Monty Python reference, did you catch it? I don't
know if I did. He mentions the Italian Inquisition. The
noble people expected the Italian Inquisition and we're never caught gambling. Um.
But there there's been uh dice found in prehistoric sites.
(04:38):
There's something called ostro Gali and their carved knuckle bones
that were that were the predecessors of dice. They look
kind like molars, yeah, a little bit. And then after
that we're actual primitive suxcited die dice. That's right. And
so we've been gambling. We've been shooting craps at least
for eons, both at the very least from millenn um.
(05:01):
But casinos or places where you go to gamble didn't
really come about until I think about the fifteenth or
sixteenth century, and Venice was actually the birthplace of the casino,
of the gambling hall. I love it. It's Italian, yeah,
it's uh. Initially there were these aristocrats in Italy would
(05:23):
have these private parties at places called and at the Ridotti.
It was a private club for rich folks, but it
was basically a gambling club because that's what went on there, right,
And this is where the the Monty Python reference comes in,
where that it was it was illegal. Yeah, you weren't
allowed to gamble, but the aristocrats knew when to expect
(05:46):
the Italian Inquisition and they didn't do a lot of
inquiring from what I understand to write, so um, but
it was known that like this is outlawed. But the um,
I guess the fathers of Venice figured out that the
people who were running the show there, we're making a
ton of cash right, Oh yeah, uh, and if they
(06:10):
set up their own ridotto, right, they could make their
make that cash themselves. So they did. They set up
what was called the Ridotto, and the capital r that
it was a four story gambling house where they took
all these different games and just put them under one roof.
It was a casino. It was the first casino. Yeah yeah.
(06:31):
And they they even did things like give you food
and beverages and keep you happy, and like you said,
ran a variety of games. And uh, the grabs are
points out. This is a big deal for a couple
of reasons. A. It's a government sanctioned gambling house the
first time, and it's open to the general public. You
can just go down to the ridotto throw down some cash.
(06:52):
You don't have to be an aristocrat or a noble person. Nope,
you just go ahead and lay your money down. That's right.
And that the word casino is obviously Italian, right, but
that that was different. So that was that Venice opened
the Rodotto. It didn't last forever, no no um. Eventually
they tied of a public moral opinion turned against it,
(07:13):
which happens a lot to gambling. Um. And the Rodotto
was shut down, So the the aristocrats went back to
it again and went and uh started gambling again at
what we're called casinos, which are small little clubs. Right, Yeah,
that's what it means. The casino is a small little club.
And then they added gambling to it, and then hence
(07:34):
the name that we know and love today, the casino. Yeah.
So the ridotto was broken up into smaller casinos and
they were uh pretty popular and flourished. Yeah. So, um,
that idea was exported from from Italy or there were
other places where it just kind of came up on
its own, but Italy, for the most part, is known
(07:55):
as the birthplace of the casino. France was big and
France is known as the birthplace. So most of the
casino games that we play today. Roulette means little wheel
in French. Uh, Bakara means Bert baker rat and um
and uh in burt backreck in French it means crystal.
That's not true. Uh and what else is there? Black
(08:15):
Jack means twenty one, I believe in French. Oh yeah, wow,
didn't know that. So basically, the French invented a lot
of games because they loved to gamble. They did and
so did the United States. Early on the eighteen hundreds
in the wild West, there were gambling riverboats on the Mississippi,
poker games and card games for money. And then uh,
(08:39):
kind of like with prohibition, the moral conservatism kind of
came on and uh stemmed the tide of gambling for
a while up until the Hoover Dam and Nevada kind
of really put it back on the map again. Yeah,
so legalized gambling. I'm there was a huge, huge anti
gambling wave in like nineteen by sically the first decade
(09:02):
and a half of the twentieth century, and it almost
wiped out horse racing entirely. Like they were like two
horse racing tracks at like in n in the US,
and it went down to like twenty five and like
like thirty years. Um, so that same wave basically broke
up all gambling until yeah, like you say, Nevada said,
(09:24):
you know what, we're gonna buck the trend because there's
not a lot going on here in Nevada. But we
do have a new dam. We're gonna call it Hoover
Dam eventually, but for now, let's call it Bowler Damn
got into coming and seeing it still do. Yeah, it's
I mean it is a marvel still to this day.
It's a marvel of engineering. It's it's uh, it's it's
the pinnacle of humans contempt for nature. You know, Oh,
(09:47):
you want to flow as a river, we tell you
when to flow. You're gonna generate power for us and
exactly so. Um. From the get go Boulder Damn. Now,
Hoover dam was a tourist attraction, and Nevada said, why
not get some money off of these pork pies from Iowa. Um,
while they come, let's let them gamble. And that what happened.
(10:10):
And gambling and casinos had already been started. Bugsy Segull
did not start that, but he and Mayer Landski, famous gangsters,
did have a large hand and expanding the casino scene
famously with the Flamingo Hotel and casino in And that
was a good movie too. That was a great movie. Uh.
And today I think this number is still right nineteen
(10:31):
at the largest hotels by room number are on the
Las Vegas trip, the largest in the world, largest in
the world. Yeah, I can believe that they're huge. And
that's just they're still gambling downtown too. They're a Fremont
if you really want the real Las Vegas. Yeah, so
that's how that's how it started. They were downtown gambling houses. Um.
(10:52):
And then they figured out that if they if you, uh,
you gotta break some egs to make an omelet. So
they spent some money to make tons of money tons yeah. Um.
And they also, in a very unusual kind of agreement,
these uh, these early strip makers uh said you know what,
we're all gonna go into this together. Sure, it's more competition,
(11:15):
but if we're concentrated, we make this a destination. Not
only is Nevada a destination for gambling, but this specific
spot in Nevada is the destination for gamblings and it
paid off like in aces. Hey. Yeah, and since we're
on gangsters, uh, the mafia had a lot to do
with the Las Vegas casino operation for a long time
(11:37):
until they eventually money kind of went out and real
estate developers had more money than the mob said, you
know what, we need to clean this up and make
it legit and buy you out, essentially, And because I
understand it, it's mafia doesn't have anything to do with
it these days because it's just too big of a risk. Yeah,
and their money is not needed for a while they're there.
(11:57):
They had the money, and they also had the willing
to One of the reasons the mob got into Vegas
was because the rest of the country saw Vegas as
since city. It's a it's a place of ill repute.
Gambling is is sinful, and we're morally opposed to it.
So I don't want my customers at my bank to
(12:18):
to withdraw their money something. They can invest in your casino.
But then Mayer Landski or um. So there's other ways
of getting money, right, he said, you know what, I've
got no problem with this. Here's some money. Uh, the teamsters, Uh,
we're heavily invested in in Vegas. But yeah, but then
Trump was like, I got way more money than you guys. Yeah,
(12:39):
and that's why. One reason Vegas was was sin city
for a long time, and you can still get into
some trouble there. But since the nineties it has become
a much more of a family destination. It's stilling to
swing back the other way a little more. I hear
they're trying to do that. Some casinos are opening up
with like rules against kids, and oh yeah, plenty of
(12:59):
them have. Yeah, it's like get your kid out of here.
This is a ca and with like nothing but kids,
Treasure Island, all those places. Yeah and so, and we
should say, chuck that we just gave like the history
of Vegas, and Vegas is obviously like the crown jewel
of the gambling world around the world. But there's also
(13:20):
other like just world class casinos like Monaco Monte Carlo,
a city in Monaco, um which is a principality built
exclusively on gambling money. Um. Yeah, there's Macau is off
the coast of Hong Kong. That's like gambling paradise. Now.
(13:43):
Um there's where else is there riverboat Indian reservations. Yeah,
so it's uh, we didn't mean to neglect to anybody,
I guess, that is what I'm saying. And the you
know that four story gambling house, the ridotto um that
has translated very very well. In Japan, they have things
that are called pachinko parlors, which are usually multi story
(14:07):
um outfits where you just is it all pachinko. The
first floor is usually all pachinko. And it's also like
you you you can go in there and play all
day and no one will know because you can't see
through the cigarette smoke in there. It is crazy, bet. Yeah,
they smoke a lot over there. So there's gambling all
over the world. Where aware of that? Yeah, I got
some stats, some gaming stats. Uh. In two thousand nine,
(14:30):
seventy of US adults placed a wager of some kind, uh,
to the tune of nine hundred billion dollars at casinos, racetracks, lottery,
and then like poker games and dog tracks and OTV
places and stuff like that. But um, I think of
that gross gaming revenue was eighty point five billion, and
(14:51):
about fifty seven billion of that was casino based, whether
land or riverboat casino knows. Thirty thirty billion, twenty six
of that was from tribal casinos and the other thirty
was from just standard casinos. That's definitely up from when
this article was written, because it was twenty two point
six two billion in two thousand five for Native American
(15:13):
casinos and thirty one point eight five billion for everything
else in the US. Yeah, that's significant. Yeah. Yeah, it's
forty one states. Forty one states have casinos or allow casinos.
George is not one of them. No, but George allows
gambling in the form of lottery. Yes, and every video poker. Yeah, everything,
(15:34):
But Hawaii and Utah allow some form of wagering, right,
I wonder what Hawaii steals. I don't know. Utah makes sense,
but yeah, totally, But I have no idea what Hawai's
Maybe they're just like, yeah, we don't need that. Yeah,
I'll find out. We're surfing eating spam, right exactly, it's
a spam cation. Sure. Uh So, Chuck, why is there
(15:55):
so much money in gambling if it's all games of chance? Yeah?
Why is there so much money in owning a casino?
You know why, Josh? Why? Because every single game a
casino offers has a statistical edge built in for the casino. Otherwise,
that's how they make their dough. That is, h's your
(16:16):
fact that these are not everyone. I didn't know that. Well.
It ranges from I think about the lowest you can
get as Baker raw at about one one point six percent,
that it can go as low as uh I think
point seven point six something is the casino advantage all
the way up to the sucker's bet of all time,
(16:37):
which is the slot machine, which gives a casino a
edge on average. And the reason it stops at is
because by law, most most states say, if you're gonna
have slots or video pok or whatever, since it's computer
operated randomly making a quotes, you have to set it
so that there's of the time they have a chance
(16:58):
of winning, the time you're playing that you have no
chance of winning. Yeah, and they'll they'll change the slot.
Some casinos will say, like our slots payout eight or
nine to try and get you in there. But that
is where the casino makes seventy of their revenue is
from from slots, nicol slots, quarter slots, whatever, whatever. Slots. Um,
(17:19):
there's uh are we talking about games? Yeah, let's get
into it. So, yeah, if you go to a casino,
there's obviously going to be slots in there, absolutely everywhere.
I've never been a big slot guy. It's just over
too fast. It's not too much to it. It is
a little boring. Um, I like black jack, black checks
a lot of fun. I played black check in Paris
(17:40):
in Vegas and it was like the middle of the
day and my brother in law and I were the
only ones at the table, and um, I was like
hit me, and the guy hit me, and I was
like hit me again, and the dealer went and just
shook his head. I've had them do that too, and
it was like you don't want to hit? Yeah, And
I'm sure the pit boss is like, you know, he's
(18:01):
got X number of times he can do that in
a day or whatever. But yeah, I thought it was
very nice. I ended up spending more money. I'm sure, Well,
that's exactly why you did it. They want to keep
your button that chair, and sometimes they might allow the
dealer to say, like, are you certain, sir, Wait a minute,
he didn't do it to be nice. He may have
been being nice. He was definitely being nice. But yes,
(18:23):
I'm sure constructed. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know
how it works on the inside, but yeah, I was
I was told I was told not to. He said
no when I told him, right, And uh yeah, I
came out a little bit on top. I think. So Blackjack, Josh,
you got about a two percent house edge. Not bad
as far as gambling goes. Um And if you play
by the statistical strategy that they say you should play by,
(18:45):
there are rules like if you follow this, then chances
are you could win some money. But people, what happens
is you get caught up. You like hit when you shouldn't.
You lay down more money to try and make up
for what you've lost, and that's when they take you.
Or you can count cards, and you can count cards,
which is legal. If you go to m I T.
They'll teach you to count cards, right Andy, that movie
(19:07):
was about, Yeah, the M I T. Black Jack Team, Um,
the movie twenty one. If you count cards then and
they figure out that you're counting cards, are gone. Like,
I don't think they can break your hand, but you're
out of the casino for sure. They can do a
lot of things up until that point to make it harder.
But I think if they they verify that and they
know that you're counting cards, I think they can't ask
(19:28):
you to leave, even though it is not against the law. No,
but a casino has rules against the exactly. Yeah, all right,
so that's blackjack. I gotta get come closer to twenty
one without going over Oh yeah did we say that? Yeah?
And we we're not gonna there's we're not gonna break
down each of these games. So specifically, these could have
their own podcast. Exactly. They won't, but they could. So
(19:50):
that's that's that. Slots, by the way, they are spam slots.
H Yeah, that's cool. That's what we need, is that
we need a stuff. You should know, slot machine. Well,
they're all kinds of crazy themes. But then realized how
much we would have arrived if we had our own
slot machines. We go broke playing them. I bet we
could make that happen. I don't know about that. No, okay,
(20:13):
so you got boogie Nights, Oh yeah, just all sorts
of crazy themes. And recently it was in the news
because they're Happy Days machines, and everyone but Fonzi and
Ritchie sued because they're like, dude, we're not getting seeing
any money from these slot machines that all my friends
are telling me that our faces are on. That's what
Happy Days sued for. I thought it was like DVDs. No, no, no,
(20:34):
it's all sorts of back payment that they they're not getting.
But the slots is what tipped off the mom. Like
someone called he was like, oh, so you want a
slot machine. She's like really, So she banded together with
Potsy and uh yeah, everybody except Fonzi and um and
Richie Richie because they still have money. Um wow, that's
an awful thing to say. They imagine that they didn't.
(20:57):
When I read that, I didn't know that it was
slot machines that tipped them off. But I thought, I
hope Ron Howard like paid for their legal team. Yeah.
I think they just settled recently. Actually. Um. Roulette of
course one of my favorites. Yeah. If you want to
see your money disappear before your very eyes, go play
some roulette. Yeah. So there's a thirty six spaces on
a little wheel, numbers uh one through No, I'm sorry,
(21:21):
there's thirty eight spaces numbers one through thirty six with
a zero and a double zero, right, very very simply put.
The dealer spins the wheel up black and red. Two. Yeah,
well you can. You can bet on all sorts of things.
There's the table where you bet on you can bet
on it being landing on a black or red color.
You can bet on the specific number and the color,
(21:43):
just the number one that I'm gonna bet on twenty two,
and it comes up and it pays off and well yeah, um,
and depending if you think it pays two to one,
if you um, if you correctly bet on red or black,
and then it just gets more from there. But the
dealer spins a wheel and then the ball is dropped
in and it spins around and bounces and then whatever
(22:04):
number color lands on. If you bet on that, baby,
you are rolling in it. But I think the roulette,
I think the reason I like it it's just so
it's such an elegant game. There's a wheel that spins
and then you feel like you're in Monte Carlo very much. So. Yeah,
I think that's why I like The house edges between
(22:25):
five and seven um, even though it varies because there's
so many different bets and payouts. Craps. Craps I know
almost nothing about. It's the most fun game in Vegas
or at a casino. In my opinion, it's the most
social game. You hear a lot of people having a
lot of fun and chances arts coming from the crap section. Yeah,
because you're involved, you're throwing the dice. That has a
(22:46):
lot to do with it. And my advice if you
want to play craps, it's really complicated with all the bets,
but make it really easy and pick out, like, learn
two or three little simple bets that you can make
and just stick to those. Okay, that's good advice. That's
my advice. Unless you're really good and you know all
that stuff, then just go wild if you if you
(23:08):
know all that stuff, probably not gonna take our advice
on crafs. Keino Josh is a big rip off. Well,
it's like inside the the the casino, there was a
scandal um some guy from Vegas who worked at the
Nevada Gaming Commission. Um, they use random number generators to
to just run the Keyno games. It's all computer operated.
(23:30):
The thing is is there's no such thing as randomness
with a computer, like it just doesn't exist. It's a computer, right,
it's a program. So if this guy figured out um,
basically the pattern that comes up there the underlying pat
to all of it. And he and a buddy went
to Atlantic City and he stayed up in the room
and watched the Keyno um play out basically on the
(23:54):
on their TV. And he um called down to the
guy and told him what to bat based on what
number who are about to come up? And this guy
one so much that the security followed him up to
was to the room and found the guy there, found
out he was from Vegas and we're like, why did
you come to Atlantic City to play Keynoe? And that
was that. That was in an article in Harper's. You
(24:15):
know what happened to him? He got busted. I'm sure
any longer. Yeah, I don't know if Atlantic City has
that kind of pull. In Vegas though, where they can,
you know, rub you out. They don't dig a hole
in the desert there, They just do the old submit
shoes in the ocean. Yeah, with the fishes toss you
off the boardwalk. Yeah, but then you have to pay
(24:35):
for the guy you just killed, to the to the
people in Vegas. Right, Yeah, you got Backara what you've
talked about. And if you've never played it, it it seems complicated,
but it's really not. The object is to get close
to nine instead of twenty one, but you only get
two or three cards, and the total if it's more
(24:56):
than ten, you refer to the right hand number. So
if you get a nine in a six, your hand
isn't fifteen, Your hand is five. If you get a
nine in six, your hand isn't fifteen, it's five. Where
come from the one five? It's the digit on the
right hand side. If your hand totals thirteen, your hand
(25:17):
is really a three six. There's no five in there,
no nine in a six, total fifteen oh, I got you.
So you added up and then take the right hand
digit of the double digit, yes, and your object. Yes,
it's I mean it's not easy, but it's sort of
easy that I've never played, because, as is pointed out
in the article, like it's usually away from the rest
(25:39):
of the casino and yeah, it's like you have to
be wearing a tuck to get into the Baker Ross
typically known as a big money game because the guys
because you know why, it's because it's got the best
or the least amount of statistical advantage. So if you've
got a lot of money, you're probably smarter to be
playing back. Yeah, and because of that loads statistical advantage. Um,
a lot of times Cassine know say hey, thanks for playing,
(26:01):
you owe us three percent of everything you just want. Yeah,
I think background is one of those that takes it
off the top, right, is that right? I think so
I would imagine pokers like that as well. It's called
a rake and poker. Yeah. They essentially just you're what
you're doing in poker is they're hosting the game essentially
in supplying you with a dealer for a fee. Right,
So there sometimes you're charged, Um, the rake will be
(26:24):
based on how long you spend in there or how
much you win that kind of thing. Yeah, but poker's poker,
that's right, right. And then there's video poker, which is
pretty close to slots that has some laws that say
you have to pay out x percentage of time, that
kind of thing. Another sucker game if you ask me. Yeah,
they have those all over the place here in Atlanta,
(26:46):
like in gas stations and stuff. Oh and interestingly, slots
and video poker aren't monitored. They're just set up and
you just go play. They don't have like cameras above
each one like they do all the other games. Yeah, well,
they don't have people watching the slots area. They're self
managed essentially, So Chuck, let's talk about the casino experience,
(27:08):
shall we. Well, they get you in there, they load
up on liquor while you're playing for free, which helps.
They give you food comps sometimes, like hey, sir, would
you like to buffet tickets here? And would I? They
they won't show you too, They won't show any clocks.
You won't find any big clocks or windows. And casinos
(27:30):
to this day they the whole thing is designed to
to basically, um I guess simulate eternal twilight early evening. Yeah,
the nights, just the lights are and that is the
weird thing when you you can't tell and people gamble
at all hours. That's why I was surprised. Like, you'll
go down at four in the morning and you can't
tell the difference between that and noon. Sometimes a little creepy. Yeah,
(27:54):
it is very creepy. They do not pumping oxygen, No,
they don't. Apparently that would be extremely illegal, which makes
sense the felony. It's basically drugging people. But the whole
premise of that was that you basically gave people a
rush or it kept them awake so they would stay
and not get tired. Uh. Contrary to that, Um, Like
you said, people will often be comped food, drinks, rooms
(28:19):
kind of drunk. You might spend a little more. But yes,
if you are, if you're lucky enough to be camped
the room, UM, and you're a slot person, you're probably
a member of the slot club, which you need to
join when you um. When you check in, it usually
doesn't cost anything. But basically you have a card that
tracks your play. UM. And you don't want to be
(28:39):
bashful about this. You don't want them to notice you.
You wanna if you if you're looking to get camped,
you go ahead and let them know you're you're here
to play. Yeah, and if you want to get camped
and you're not a slat person, you can just ask.
If you have a lot of money you want to
spend and you're like, this is what I'm gonna start
doing this. You tell them you go to someone and
say hey, and to get my play rated. H And
(29:02):
they will basically just put you on a list and say, okay,
we'll start tracking and seeing what kind of money you're losing.
But as the Grabsher points out, it is a sucker
bet to spend more than you normally would or just
to get camps, because you're going to spend more money
in losses than you would just haven't gotten the room
(29:25):
or gotten the buffet. Yeah, and Vegas is still cheaper,
maybe than some places, but it's not like the old
days where it was like a hotel room is twenty bucks,
in the buffet is five. Like it's it's a a
vacation destination. Now they get you with the room charges
now to or the shows. The shows kids, Uh, they
(29:47):
got stuff for the whole family now to keep everyone
busy while mom and dad are giving away their money
college fund, said Chuck. UM security is kind of an issue, right, Yeah,
there's the ubiquitous I in the sky, which apparently they
don't necessarily have. Over the slot areas, every other table's
got a camera watching it, and the whole the whole
(30:09):
process of UM security is ground up right the front.
The first defense in UM I guess against cheating or
fraud or theft is the dealer him or herself because
they're really paying attention to the game, and they're going
to see clear as day if you're palming cards or
(30:30):
um counting cards, whatever you're doing. They're trained to look
out for that stuff, right, and they know this game
is literally their job to play this game every day
for hours on end UM, so they know if something's
weird about it, right. And then above them, you've got
table managers and pit bosses watching out over an area, right,
(30:51):
And they're not just watching customers, they're watching the dealers
and the managers. Everybody's watching everybody else. Yeah, that's a
great part because you know they break down the security. Sorry,
I had a moment there that when he bust the
country bumpkin who's not who's got taken on the slots
(31:12):
and that his country bumpkin uncle try to get him
like reinstated, and de Niro's like, I can't do it.
It's like you sure, you want to think about this,
and he had that great line He's like, what you
people don't ever realize is that you're all just guests here.
And he's right because he eventually left the The guy
who got taken on the slots, his name was he
(31:33):
used to host like a d movie. Yeah, and Billy
Bob something. Yeah, he was awesome. Yeah, I can't remember.
He was great though. He was pretty funny dude. Um,
I don't know what happened to him. He's around him, sure, okay, um.
And then above that you have security who are monitoring
everything on TV, right, lots and lots of TVs, lots
(31:57):
and lots of cameras, and they can train in each
one to look at whatever they want, Like it's not
just the tables, all the ins and outs, the exits,
the bathroom, not in the bathrooms, but these are all
heavily policed by cameras, and uh, I don't know. I
could see them monitoring the bathroom. I could see that too, actually,
And in Ocean's eleven, if you remember one of the
(32:19):
little tricks they used to get the cameras out of
the way, it was Casey affleck In in uh, James
CON's kid, what's his name? James CON's kid. They got
in the argument and and he'd let go of the balloons,
and the balloons covered the camera was long enough to
to get whatever they needed to get done done. That
was a great movie too. The first one was really good,
(32:40):
I think, and not the original, I mean the first
Soderberg Okay, the original was awesome. Yeah, yeah, I can
watch that like all day every day. I like that.
I like the Redo as well, though I thought it
was glib. I really Matt was glib. I thought the
whole thing was glue. Um. So chuck. If you're a
(33:01):
chump like me and you walk around casinos with like
your your your money in your hands, right, just kind
of smiling at people, like where do I put this?
How do you stay on? Security's good sign? Well, if
you're the casino expert, here's a few tips. You don't
want to touch any of the gaming equipment, like don't
grab the roulette wheel and say this feels need o,
don't They say not to use two hands to do anything, right,
(33:24):
like always kind of keep one hand off off the stuff,
and it doesn't hurt to keep the other hand in
sight the hand you're not using. Don't on the table.
It don't go up to a craps table with like
one hand in your pocket and then like lower the
dice below the table and then blow on them and
then throw them. And also don't ever ever tickle the dealer.
(33:44):
They don't like that. Yes, you're not supposed to. You
can't hand your money to a dealer. Always your money
on the table, on the table, and don't expect them
to cash anything out. They'll give you chips, but when
you want your chips to turn back into money, yea,
the dealer's not going to help you, which we should mention.
The reason they use chips is a to keep track
of things easier and b because you feel a lot
(34:05):
better losing a hundred dollar chips the chip than you
do a hundred dollar bill. It's it's just like a
debit card. Like there's so many things that you normally
just wouldn't buy if you had to shell out cash
for it, but you totally get because it's debit card.
You can watch people play, but just watch. Don't go
up to people at the table and start talking to them.
(34:26):
Don't tickle other players. Don't tickle players. Don't touch your chips.
A few place to bet. It's final once you put
it down. Don't reach across the table and knock over
everyone else's chips. Ask for some help, and uh, don't
like put your drink on the table. Although I've done that.
People do that. They say not to do that, but
I've done that. I don't think it's the end of
(34:48):
the world. Agreed, Especially black check. There's no other place
to put it. Usually there might be like a little
thing right here. Like a lot of times, it's just
what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Exactly?
Um So, Chuck, we talked about riverboat gambling in Native
American casinos, and both of those are fairly recent in origin,
(35:10):
really about the early nine nineties, late eighties, right, So
a Native American casinos, their existence can be traced back
to one guy. He was the head of the the
Cabazon tribe from California, and his name is Arthur James Wellness,
and basically he figured out a loophole in the way
(35:31):
that Native American territory is treated. It is technically sovereign ground, right,
but criminal law extends into the sovereign area. So if
you murder somebody, that you committed a crime and the
federal government has jurisdiction to investigate that crime. But if
(35:52):
something is legal in that state where that territory is,
then by extension, there's no crime that can possibly be
committed if that is carried out within the Native American territory,
it becomes a matter of civil law. Civil law doesn't
extend in the Native American territory, right, Yes, So basically
they said, hey, if you can allow gambling in California
(36:14):
and arcis are reservations in California, and if it's just
a lottery, yeah, then we can do that here however
we want, because it's a civil matter exactly. And as
an aside related to that, if you fall and break
your leg and a Native American casino, you're not gonna
be able to to sue anybody. No, no, no redress
for that, no redress. And riverboats, Josh, how that usually
(36:36):
works is you go on a cruise quote unquote two
hour cruise but it's not so much a cruise because
you don't go anywhere. The boat just stays there and
that's just your allotted time two And it is specific
and you can't just say can I stay a little longer? No,
They're probably like no, but you can leave and then
come back. Yeah. And and a lot of times they'll
(36:57):
have a lost limit too, they'll be like, you can't
lose over five. But apparently much the same way with
the government in venice Um, state legislatures have been like, well,
you know, we really come to depend on this riverboat
gambling tax money, so you know what, go crazy, go nuts,
stay on as long as you want to lose as
(37:18):
much as you like. We are rolling in it because
of you. So chuck, um, I guess if a casino
comes to your town, anybody who's ever seen that Simpsons
episode knows that it's a boon for the community, right,
big business, dude. Everyone's happy, everyone's making tons of money,
everybody's got jobs, money for free. Yeah, exactly. No. So
studies show that there's actually a negative economic impact on
(37:44):
um a local community by a casino. And it's pretty
simple why most casinos play is carried out by locals
who come into the casino and lose their money, not
necessarily by tourists who wouldn't have come there otherwise and
are having an economic impact. That definitely accounts for a
(38:04):
substantial portion. But when you take it all into account,
the local economy actually loses money when a casino comes
to town. That's right, Josh. At least several studies have shown.
And we'll get into gambling maybe on a different show,
but we should point out that, uh, the dark side
of casinos is about of their profits are generated from
(38:27):
the five percent of addicted gamblers. Yes, the profits are
coming from people out gambling problems, right, and probably most
of those people live like down the street. Yeah, maybe
work at casinos. Yeah, we should do one on gambling that.
There's so much more there. I don't want to breeze
over that. So that's it for casinos. Though, if you
(38:49):
want to know how craps works, we have a how
craps works article. We have articles on most of the
games that we talked about in here. Um, you can
type any of those up or you can find links
to them within the casino article. You can just type
casino c A S I N oh, yeah, which means
social club. It's a casine though. Um in the handy
(39:10):
search bar how stuff works dot com, which means it's
time for a listener mail. Wh what what happened to you? You? Yeah,
because we gotta we got a little plug for audio book.
We gotta insert here. Yes, we have two audio books now,
but the most recent one is the one that we're plugging. Yes, okay,
So it is the super Stuff Guide to Happiness and
(39:32):
it features us and Josh's niece and interview subjects and
different music and sound design. And it's about an hour
in seventeen minutes and agreed, even though it won't necessarily
make you happy, right, well, how how are people going
to buy this and go to iTunes and buy it
(39:53):
for three in the US? And it could be a
little more if you're in Australia. Sorry, I'm told but
they they said, I actually told them out in three
bucks and they say, we're going to take you up
on it. Yeah, I saw that you need to be careful.
Same things like that. So yeah, help support us. Bite
on iTunes makes us look good. We don't get any
of it, no, that's true, but it does make us
(40:14):
look good, that's right. Yeah, yeah, and it makes us
feel good too, that's true. Yeah. So now it's time
for listener mouth Josh. This one I'm gonna call kind
of gross but funny. Just listen to Can You Sweat Colors? Guys?
It brought to mind a heroin question that my friends
and I have been grappling with for years. Sit down
and prepare yourself for this. Are you ready? Would you
(40:39):
rather sweat ranch dressing or always smell like Chinese food?
And here the clarifications. You would only sweat the ranch
dressing in times that would normally cause you to sweat.
The ranch dressing is consumable. The Chinese food smell is
the general smell of a small Chinese food takeout. Join
(41:01):
No amount of washing will make you not smell like
Chinese food, nor will perfumes and colognes abolish the smell.
It will simply compliment it. Let me know, guys, ps
follow me on Twitter. It would make me feel special
that it is clay c l A Y capital g
N on Twitter this his name is Clayton N. So Clayton.
(41:24):
My answer is I would rather smell like Chinese food
because I'm such a heavy sweater. The ranch thing would
just be infinitely more embarrassing. I wish you'd sweat ranch
and you could always explain away the Chinese food saying gosh, sorry, man,
I just want to catch Chinese food, but you can't
explain ranch. Sweat neither, Kim medical science. What's your answer
(41:47):
is neither? Although my friend Eddie loves rance dressing so
much he might elect for that. He would just sweat
over his pizza. If you have a question for us
unanswerable or otherwise us, and you want to tweet it
to us, We're always on Twitter. It's s y s
K podcast. Tweet to that. You can go like us
on Facebook. Stuff you should Know. That's Facebook dot com,
(42:09):
slash stuff you should Know, and you can always send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works
dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow,
(42:33):
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