Gambling

On the main strip of Las Vegas, anything goes. It is a city that never sleeps and never

blinks. Streets are always crowded and bustling. This is not where all the real action is taking

place. Inside the Bellagio hotel and casino, small fish are strewn in between several high-rollers

as they stroll through the casino to figure out their next plan on how to make some money. With the boom of poker and its television exposure, many people check their bankroll to make sure that they have enough cash to at least sit down and try to bust a professional. To the "professional" gambler, these people are "dead money" or money that essentially will be given to them more than won by them. Anyone can sit down with a pro at anytime, but most of the time, these people will leave with nothing more than an empty wallet and a long, sad story. This brings up the question: How much money does it take to lose before a person considers themselves to have a gambling addiction?

Las Vegas is the Mecca of the gaming industry. A person can pick from many different games to choose from. Most casinos offer blackjack, craps, roulette, poker, baccarat, slot machines, sports betting, and many other specialized digital games. Though these games aren't favorable to the player and can lead to making a player broke very quickly, it is tough to find a spot to sit at in many casinos because of the growth in popularity. Most of these games have a small amount of skill intertwined with an immense amount of luck. Many of these games have pay-odds that determine how much a person gets if they win compared to what the person has put up. Needless to say, people are very lenient when it comes to these odds. They don't recognize just how much of an advantage the house has. This is an equation for disaster. In roulette, the house has a 5.26% advantage over the player. In the game there are 36 numbers plus the 0 and 00. The odd of you winning is one in 38 or 1/38. If you win the casino pays you 35 for you dollars bet. You keep your original dollar, and are paid $35. The difference is two dollars (38 minus 36). Divide the $2 by 38 which is the true odds and you come up with the house edge of 5.26% (Brisman, 150). This advantage is much lower in games such as blackjack, which has a house advantage of about 2.32% (Brisman, 61). Being careless with money while in a casino is pretty foolish because the house already owns a substantial edge over the player. Poker is the only game that is not played against the house and a rake is taken to help the casino make the percentage off of the money on the table.

A major part of the income for a casino comes from the slot machines and electronic gambling games that are forever heard ringing throughout the casino. When walking through the front hallway of any brick and mortar casino, the constant jingling of electronic money surrounds the air. Hundreds of people are scattered all throughout the casino, blowing all their money on a game that they have no control over. With the new computers used in the machines, there are now 25 x 25 levels. That makes the odds of the jackpot at 1:15,625 (Brisman, 76). This basically makes catching the jackpot like finding a needle in a haystack. People truly just try to put their money in and see how lucky they can get. This is a perfect game for the casinos, as it is easy to play, convenient, and seems to be easy to win at. In poker and blackjack, a higher element of skill is tied into the big use of luck. Slots are not so easy to play.

The new biggest craze in the gambling world is No-Limit Texas Hold"em poker. This is the game that is shown all over the world on multiple channels. It's a game that takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. Every week, poker's newest millionaire can be seen toasting to his new riches. In the casinos, a different game is being played. Bellagio plays host to the biggest cash games in the world. The biggest game ever, played May 12 and May 13, 2004, was $100,000-$200,000 limit hold'em. That means that many pots are more than $1 million and heads-up play sometimes gets in as many as 75 hands per hour (Shulman, cardplayer.com). One person can lose or win over $10 million in a night. For many of us, this would cause us to practically jump off of a cliff, but for these players, it is just another session of poker, the way they make their living. The people who play these games are called professionals by many. But other people would consider these people to be sick and have a gambling problem. Poker was a game that used to have strict limits on its play, until it started to become recognized as a game of skill more than a game of luck. It still has an element of luck involved, but ultimately, the decision of how to play the cards lie directly with the players. Many people are playing this game, trying to hone their skills so they might have a chance one day to become the next poker millionaire. This is not always how it works.

A friend of mine tried to play the poker angle for awhile this summer. Let's call him Steve. Steve is a part-time recreational player with a knack for making big bucks on big gambles. He has already jumped into the world of sports-betting, covering spreads, and other small gambling games, such as blackjack, etc.. Steve started to learn to play poker online. He could play small home games with his buddies, but in those games, the buy-in was five dollars and the winner only took thirty dollars home. He had to find a newer, bigger way to make some cash. This is where the internet came into play. On the internet, anyone can sit down with another person, who may even be sitting on the other side of the world, and play for very high stakes. Steve bought in online for fifty dollars through his Visa card. He first started playing for nickels and dimes, but this was not where he wanted to be. He didn't play poker for the money or fun. He played for the rush and the high that playing high stakes poker comes with. This changed everything. Instantly, he quit the nickel/dime tables. He would put fifty dollars in and start playing for the whole amount right away. He lost the first few times, but after some experience, he finally started to win some money.

Before long, Steve had turned his fifty dollars into just over $4,000.