Monday, March 02, 2009

New-fangled casinos

Have you been to a casino lately? I visited one several weeks ago for the first time in fifteen or twenty years.  They've made some substantial changes over the years.  I wasn't ever very fond of casinos, so I'm not the best judge, but these changes didn't seem like an improvement to me:
  • the slot machines no longer have handles to pull; instead, you push a button and the results are a digital display (i.e. there's nothing mechanical that spins around before stopping);
  • the slot machines don't take coins or coin-like tokens; you swipe a paper card (mag stripe); I don't know what happens if you win, but obviously, no outpouring of coins;
  • the roulette "wheel" doesn't turn; instead, lights just move around the wheel and come to a stop.
How is a gambler (excuse me, "gamer") supposed to have any confidence that the games are legit? Outcomes are obviously digitally determined and odds can be affected with a couple key strokes.  
There is still plenty of SMOKING.  So we didn't stay long enough to check out blackjack and craps tables.  I wonder if they still have humans dealing paper cards/rolling dice.

1 comment:

Scooter said...

Been a long time for me...about 10 years. It was a bachelor party in LV.

The slots were all electronic but still had levers on the side for those of the old school who wanted to pull the lever instead of pushing the button.