Tropic Light wrote:
I  saw David Copperfield perform once,

I was there when he performed his suspended escape with a burning rope at Caesars Palace. The 3 minute illusion took 3 days to film over and over and over and over and over. He's the biggest perfectionist you'll ever meet. I had the opportunity to get a tour of his private museum of magic here in Vegas and it's amazing. I'd say, CONSERVATIVELY, it's worth $100 million+. He has Harry Houdini's entire workshop setup in there exactly how it was photographed at the turn of the century with every single piece in exactly the right place.

Dave has a VERY warped sense of humor...today his warehouse has his name on it but when he first bought the place here in Vegas, it was in a very desolate part of the city, so he thought he'd disguise it a bit so he had written on the side of the building, "Butchies Bras and Girdles". For years, nobody had a clue it was where he stored all his illusions and then word started spreading when people noticed his semi trucks parked out in front of it a lot.

GK photo wrote:
that dude was good, especially since p&t knew exactly what to look for. and yet, he still played them, because whilst looking for one angle, he tossed them another. kudos.

illusion magic is for kids, but sleight of hand stuff is a skill that not too many can pull off. especially to someone who knows what they are looking for.

i mentioned in another thread how i once dated a gal who was very good at such deception. she was a certified mechanic. we drank for free at many an establishment, due to her skills.

the guy was good, but his presentation skills are on a par with any number of cheese logs you'd see pitching their wares on shark tank.

and all those copperfield tv stunts were exactly that. just camera stunts. but i hear he is good at soh stuff, too. ricky jay was good, back in the day. per example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWvRorX0KhQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8IKh8YB9uQ

Ricky Jay was, and still is, really awesome. He performs around the country from time to time. His book Cards as Weapons is really cool. Aside from is awesome manipulation skills I think the banter he writes is even better. This is my favorite performance of his, for which I've seen him perform live twice...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgm4wZCACYg


But kid yourself not, what Copperfield does is nothing short of amazing. His attention to detail is incredible and he always surrounds himself by the best advisers and keeps his ego in check to the point where he always listens to the experts he surrounds himself with. I've had a passion for magic my entire life and I've always believed that when it comes to magic, there is David Copperfield, and then there is everybody else. Of course, there were MANY greats before him as well from Houdini to Blackstone (sr. not jr.), Henning, Chung Ling Soo, Dante, Thurston, and so many others.

Shot By Adam wrote:
But kid yourself not, what Copperfield does is nothing short of amazing. His attention to detail is incredible and he always surrounds himself by the best advisers and keeps his ego in check to the point where he always listens to the experts he surrounds himself with. I've had a passion for magic my entire life and I've always believed that when it comes to magic, there is David Copperfield, and then there is everybody else. Of course, there were MANY greats before him as well from Houdini to Blackstone (sr. not jr.), Henning, Chung Ling Soo, Dante, Thurston, and so many others.

i'll agree with you: ricky jay is amazing. but i will not fully go there with copperfield. he did "not" make the statue of liberty disappear. it was just camera (panning) tomfoolery. same with the aircraft carrier (or whatever it was). i'm sure that on stage (i've never seen him live), he performs great illusions, but resorting to that form of trickery was almost comical.

i play musical instruments, but i'd almost trade that ability, in order to be a mechanic. maybe not, since i  can enjoy the music by myself, but still, i do marvel at people who have the dexterity it takes to be able do solid card maneuvers.

even now, after that masked fool tried to give away all the trade secrets, it's still quite riveting to see a well thought out routine. they are all the same old tricks, but the best illusionists come up with new wrinkles.

but the soh stuff is where the envelope gets pushed (as evidenced in the op's link). even though those "in the know" should be able to see the moves, they sometimes don't.

Shot By Adam wrote:

Ricky Jay was, and still is, really awesome. He performs around the country from time to time. His book Cards as Weapons is really cool. Aside from is awesome manipulation skills I think the banter he writes is even better. This is my favorite performance of his, for which I've seen him perform live twice...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgm4wZCACYg


But kid yourself not, what Copperfield does is nothing short of amazing. His attention to detail is incredible and he always surrounds himself by the best advisers and keeps his ego in check to the point where he always listens to the experts he surrounds himself with. I've had a passion for magic my entire life and I've always believed that when it comes to magic, there is David Copperfield, and then there is everybody else. Of course, there were MANY greats before him as well from Houdini to Blackstone (sr. not jr.), Henning, Chung Ling Soo, Dante, Thurston, and so many others.

My wife and I were thoroughly disappointed the last time we saw Copperfield in Vegas. Many of his tricks were basically shown on tv of illusions he'd performed before. He's a fantastic story teller, don't get me wrong...but I've seen him numerous times over the years and the last two times I really wished I'd spent money elsewhere.

FlirtynFun Photography wrote:
My wife and I were thoroughly disappointed the last time we saw Copperfield in Vegas. Many of his tricks were basically shown on tv of illusions he'd performed before. He's a fantastic story teller, don't get me wrong...but I've seen him numerous times over the years and the last two times I really wished I'd spent money elsewhere.

I agree. His show at the MGM has never been that good. Back when he used to perform at Caesars his show was a LOT better because they were able to do much more with the showroom than they can where he's at now. I saw him about a year ago at the MGM and he just seemed tired of doing that show.

Years ago, the only time he would even do a show was to experiment with new illusions he was doing. So he used the live show as a means of perfecting the performance that he would later do on television. Sort of like using the live show to rehearse over and over again in front of an actual audience. It was pretty clever actually. Several of his television specials were put together that way, so by the time it came to do a major taping, he had every little detail perfected. Now it just seems as though he does the live show because he has nothing better to do. David's last major special he did with the Tornado of Fire was meant to compete against the growing popularity of David Blaine (Who I absolutely detest) and it never went over well as that style of magic just isn't right for David.

David's problem now is he's sitting on a mountain of money which he doesn't really spend on anything except buying magic collections for her personal museum. He hasn't done a network TV special in 14 years and there's nothing really to push him to do new things so he kind of just phones it in now. It's sad really. That's one of the main reasons Lance Burton got out of the business. He didn't have anything on TV going on, he had this big, gorgeous showroom with his name on it here in Vegas, but he wasn't doing anything new and he just stagnated. While I was never a big fan of Lance Burton's magic that much, I can't really say anything bad about the guy because he was such a nice person so in that respect, it's sad to see him out of the biz.

Shot By Adam wrote:

Now it just seems as though he does the live show because he has nothing better to do. David's last major special he did with the Tornado of Fire was meant to compete against the growing popularity of David Blaine (Who I absolutely detest) and it never went over well as that style of magic just isn't right for David.

Why do you detest David Blaine?

What Fun Productions wrote:
Why do you detest David Blaine?

I've met him several times. Let's just say that he's not a bad guy when he's not high on drugs. The problem is, he's high on drugs about 23 1/2 hours of his day. The guy can't string a coherent sentence together to save his life, he mumbles everything (most likely due to the drugs he's on at the time), and his magic is, at BEST, mediocre. He can't perform 90% of his repertoire in front of a live audience because most of his magic involves stooges to be his entire audience. He was just in the right place at the right time in the 90s and his grunge look and "street magic" was perfect for the 90s. The popularity of which everyone tried to copy for a decade so he definitely was an influential person in magic, but IMO, he's a no-talent hack. Penn & Teller hate the guy too, mostly because Blaine believes his own press, and refuses to call what he does "tricks". Blaine is nothing more than a legend in his own mind. Chris Angel isn't far behind.

GRMACK wrote:
I was just watching Ricky Jay's "52 Assistants"( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jljt5Ml28FU ).  Wow!  Talk about card handling/stacking extraordinaire!

Brother-in-law used to play 21 a lot in Vegas years ago when he was a CFO for a large jewelry chain.  Blew easy $6K in a weekend which made my sister mad as hell too.  He told me he thinks he got switched to a "card handler" for a dealer once during play as the guy always had one or two points ahead of him, much like what Rick Jay did in the 52 Assistants (~16 minutes in.).  Even coming off the electronic shuffler the dealer maintained his point or two lead which bothered him enough to keep him playing to see if it was real or not, but cost him the farm too.  He soon learned when they call in another dealer at a table, he quits playing, or tipped them enough to maybe stop it if they were able to control the play.

I remember having one of those trick decks where you could read the card off the back's design (I think it was the small diamond one where one diamond was printed odd at each end of the card?).  Was fun to play with though if no one else knew it was a marked deck.

Marked decks are fun. I used to make my own and I still have a few in my Man Cave for poker night when I want to fuck with people.

Here's a funny magic story for you... One of my best friends, Collin Foster, is a local magician here in Vegas. He's played everywhere around town and even the Castle a few times. He's a good guy. His card manipulation skills are top notch. He was performing at a casino once (I'm thinking it was the Railroad Pass, but I'd have to get that confirmed by him) and the owner of the property came to the show. After the show he invited Collin for dinner with a few other people as the guy loved to talk to magicians. Over dinner, they were talking about card prestidigitation, misdirection and such. Collin says to the guy in jest, "Well you know, I should probably head over to the 21 tables after dinner".

The owner looked right at him and said, "You're joking, right?" "What do you mean?" Collin replied, to which the owner said, VERY seriously, "There's no way in hell I can allow you on the tables. Not a chance. In fact, I can't allow you to play at any of my properties (the guy owned three different hotel/casinos at the time). With skills like yours there's no way I can trust you around a deck of cards...no way!"

Now, the reality is, there is no way a magician around a blackjack table can really manipulate the cards to a point of cheating. Yeah he can use a hold-out or some other system of switching cards, but it would be so difficult to do and the Eye In The Sky would catch all of that. The odds on a magician really being able to influence a 21 game is about zero. So Collin told me he went home and was sulking over this. Not because he was a gambler, which he isn't, but he just thought it weird that he would be banned from doing anything like that. Then, it hit him! Now, on all of his marketing materials, he prints, "Banned in three Las Vegas casinos!" LOL

Turning lemons into lemonade. You just gotta love it!

Shot By Adam wrote:
Blaine is nothing more than a legend in his own mind. Chris Angel isn't far behind.

Personally, I also have a real problem with the Chris Angel approach.  I really believe in the "traditional" role in magic where the TV camera and the editing, etc, should be an "honest" audience member that captures and relays what a (real) audience sees.

[EDIT] To explain.  Hanging from wires outside on a 50 foot crane, that every one can plainly see, to film for TV your ability to magically "levitate and fly around rooftops", in my mind is NOT a magic trick. [/EDIT]

GRMACK wrote:
Brother-in-law used to play 21 a lot in Vegas years ago when he was a CFO for a large jewelry chain.  Blew easy $6K in a weekend which made my sister mad as hell too.  He told me he thinks he got switched to a "card handler" for a dealer once during play as the guy always had one or two points ahead of him, much like what Rick Jay did in the 52 Assistants (~16 minutes in.).  Even coming off the electronic shuffler the dealer maintained his point or two lead which bothered him enough to keep him playing to see if it was real or not, but cost him the farm too.  He soon learned when they call in another dealer at a table, he quits playing, or tipped them enough to maybe stop it if they were able to control the play.

they don't need "ringer" dealers in casinos. and the eits is watching dealers, just as closely as players...actually more so. if any casino got the rep as cheats, it would be a death sentence. people just can't believe it, when they get a bad beat; or just go straight to the "i got cheated" card.

your b-i-l was exhibiting the casino's greatest advantage; undisciplined players.

dealers work in shifts. there's no call to the bullpen. and this must have been a long time ago. i don't think there have been any single deck (non-shoe) dealers in vegas for years.

Shot By Adam wrote:
Marked decks are fun. I used to make my own and I still have a few in my Man Cave for poker night when I want to fuck with people.

hopefully as an exhibition. not when money is actually being wagered.

GK photo wrote:
they don't need "ringer" dealers in casinos. and the eits is watching dealers, just as closely as players...actually more so. if any casino got the rep as cheats, it would be a death sentence. people just can't believe it, when they get a bad beat; or just go straight to the "i got cheated" card.

People make claims about dealers cheating all the time but it's so close to impossible for a dealer to manipulate the cards in any way so it's a claim people make because they are losing. I grew up with blackjack. My father was a 21 dealer at Caesars Palace for 32 years before he retired in 2006. He's seen it all. He's working on writing a book about it right now. The Dealers Room at Caesars was my second home when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s. Magicians used to LOVE going in there...it was amazing how much blackjack dealers and magicians loved one another. Jimmy Grippo was a regular in the Dealers Room as he was also entertaining in their Bacchanal Room restaurant back then. He's the one who inspired me to learn to do card tricks when I was a kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJvzAe2i2U4

your b-i-l was exhibiting the casino's greatest advantage; undisciplined players.

Exactly. Most people don't realize that there are actually many blackjack tables in Las Vegas that offer up to a 103% payback. They are only available to very high limit players but the casinos "gamble", if you will, on the fact that most players never play to what is referred to as "optimal play". They play undisciplined and so they wind up losing anyway, in spite of the fact that they have a statistical advantage over the casino.

dealers work in shifts. there's no call to the bullpen. and this must have been a long time ago. i don't think there have been any single deck (non-shoe) dealers in vegas for years.

They are more common than you might think. Usually it's double-deck but there are still places that have single-deck games around town.

Shot By Adam wrote:
They are more common than you might think. Usually it's double-deck but there are still places that have single-deck games around town.

i thought there might be some double-deck hand dealer games, but i thought they had to be requested. that's why i specified single-deck in my post. and you're there. what places still have single-deck games? i'd imagine they'd be either downtown places, or high roller table games in the strip joints.

the casinos love the turnover of six deck shoes. ups their percentages. single deck slows that all down.

Shot By Adam wrote:
I grew up with blackjack. My father was a 21 dealer at Caesars Palace for 32 years before he retired in 2006. He's seen it all. He's working on writing a book about it right now.

pm me when it's done. i'd love to read it.

Bobby C wrote:
Derren Brown is good.
Derren Brown (born 27 February 1971) is a British illusionist, mentalist, trickster, hypnotist, painter, writer, and sceptic.

i'm officially adding that title to my resume.

LightDreams wrote:
There's a reason that both of them were frustrated / mad when he fooled them...

He did Penn and Teller's OWN trick that they'd done previously on the Today Show (precisely duplicated), right under their noses, with a different hidden method that completely fooled them.  That's why they were so stunned.   Not a bad tactic to get their votes!  Penn said later that he knew that they were being sent a message that basically said "now this is how you really do it".

I see that when they found out later how he did it they were far more impressed still.

Personally I find the back story more interesting than the trick itself!

From above, Penn explains the card trick variant the Kostya guy did to them that they origionally did on the morning show here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuKail7 … ture=cards

Evidently it's called a "RoadRunner Cull."  Kostya sells two DVD's for $85 that explains how to cull a deck of cards "smoothly" which is what fooled Penn and Teller.  Here: http://kostyakimlat.com/roadrunner-cull.html

He shows "Difficulty as 5 out of 5" so it must be pretty hard to manipulate the deck the way he does.  Looks like he is stacking the face-ups and face-downs right under Penn's eyes (Which is what annoyed Penn I guess?) and the final flop-shuffle is moving the lower half of face-ups underneath the upper level of face-downs which are in the flop to point them face up under the top cover card during the insertion fan.  Kostya's eyes are trained on the deck fan when both Teller and Penn are inserting their cards back into the deck so I'm guessing the up/down stacking is going on there while he is talking (distracting them).  Still has to position their two cards down though.

Knowing that P&T did the same trick prior, just that this guy was better at it and making Teller think it was a shaved/tapered deck during deliberations was genius!  Explains a lot of Penn's tirad about it and his "I knew..." and "smoothly" (things he didn't see and what the guy tricked them on) comments too.

GK photo wrote:
i thought there might be some double-deck hand dealer games, but i thought they had to be requested. that's why i specified single-deck in my post. and you're there. what places still have single-deck games? i'd imagine they'd be either downtown places, or high roller table games in the strip joints.

You're pretty much right. There are some places that will do it on request for high-limit games and the last time I saw it on a regular table was a few weeks ago at the El Cortez which is a Downtown property.

the casinos love the turnover of six deck shoes. ups their percentages. single deck slows that all down.

It also makes card counting virtually impossible too. Many places now are switching to eight deck shoes now also.

Bobby C wrote:
Derren Brown is good.
Derren Brown (born 27 February 1971) is a British illusionist, mentalist, trickster, hypnotist, painter, writer, and sceptic.

Derren is awesome. He does some VERY cool mentalist tricks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQXe1CokWqQ

GRMACK wrote:
Knowing that P&T did the same trick prior, just that this guy was better at it and making Teller think it was a shaved/tapered deck during deliberations was genius!  Explains a lot of Penn's tirad about it and his "I knew..." and "smoothly" (things he didn't see and what the guy tricked them on) comments too.

It's actually called a "Stripper Deck" and with one of those, the trick is actually quite simple to do if you have an intermediate amount of sleight-of-hand skill. There are two types of Stripper decks, one is a standard Stripper Deck and the other is a Belly Stripper, but the Belly variety are much less common because they are so much more difficult to make. I actually met my wife at a party where I got bored and started doing some card tricks with a Stripper deck and I wound up doing card tricks for her at the party, which is how we hit it off. I owe a lot to that deck.

Shot By Adam wrote:
.....

It also makes card counting virtually impossible too. Many places now are switching to eight deck shoes now also.

I bought the book in late 60's-70's by that physics guy who developed the card counting for blackjack.  Never tried it though as it was a headache to try and remember all that stuff.  Some kids from MIT formed some posse and did a lot of damage in their counting scheme.

I was reading about that Ida Summers woman who did her own slight of hand by holding back a casino card played on the blackjack table for a better hand later on, and even inserting her own stacked deck into their shoe.  Pretty gutsy.

There was a TV news show on the guy they tossed into prison who worked for the Nevada Gaming Commission and began teaching people how to beat the computerized slot machines as he found they weren't that all random.  He developed some system for those.  We were in Lake Tahoe once and some girls won on day two at a slot and the pit guy came over along with some tech geek who plugged in some laptop to that row of machines and the pit boss (?) gave the thumbs down and they shut that row off.  Must'a been a big payoff coming up or something is all we could figure out.  Dunno.

Does bother me that some machine payoffs are being reported as not paying up on big wins "Due to a computer software malfunction" and it seems backed up by the gaming commission too.  Cronyism between the casino and gaming commission maybe?  The should just pay the poor player off and claim the software malfunction with their insurance (Maybe they do both?), but it seems more common with that computer excuse.

GRMACK wrote:

I bought the book in late 60's-70's by that physics guy who developed the card counting for blackjack.  Never tried it though as it was a headache to try and remember all that stuff.  Some kids from MIT formed some posse and did a lot of damage in their counting scheme.

The book about the MIT kids was Bringing Down The House and it was later turned into a rather mediocre movie. The MIT kids weren't counting against a big shoe though...they went after smaller deck deals. Counting cards in a 6 or 8 deck shoe is virtually impossible because you have to remember, a dealer only uses half the shoe before a shuffle is done. When a deck is cut, the dealer uses two Card Cuts...one goes on the bottom of the deck so you can't see the bottom card and the other card is given to a player to cut the deck. When the deck is cut, the dealer cuts the deck and the Card Cut which was on the bottom is now in the middle of the deck. When the dealing goes down to the center Card Cut, that is when the dealer shuffles again. So on a 6 deck shoe, it's VERY difficult to count cards because there are too many variables at play to determine where the count is.

I was reading about that Ida Summers woman who did her own slight of hand by holding back a casino card played on the blackjack table for a better hand later on, and even inserting her own stacked deck into their shoe.  Pretty gutsy.

They have countermeasures for all that stuff now. It's why they rotate cards out every so many hours. Also, all decks used in a casino are either destroyed on site or are sold in the gift shop but those usually have a hole punched in them to prevent cheating. Being able to get ahold of a deck that is the right color or pattern for that night is EXTREMELY rare...almost impossible. Trust me, casinos track all of that stuff. Most people have no idea how much of these things are tracked to an unbelievable detail. If you start playing on a level where you have lavender casino chips ($500 denomination) the casino will actually keep track of how many are in your possession. If you try to walk into a casino with a stack of them and they don't have you on record for having them, casinos can actually deny you the payout unless you have a way of proving how you got them. There have been many high-profile lawsuits over this throughout the years and usually casinos come out on the winning side.

There was a TV news show on the guy they tossed into prison who worked for the Nevada Gaming Commission and began teaching people how to beat the computerized slot machines as he found they weren't that all random.  He developed some system for those.

I used to do some marketing work years ago for a major slot machine company so I wound up learning all the intricate details on how slot machines work. There really is no "system" for beating them. Many people would like to think there is, but there isn't. The RNGs (Random Number Generators) really are quite good and there is no actual way to predict the outcome of the draw...there really isn't. I have several friends who are programmers, IT guys, game developers for Bally and IGT and they all tell me that usually at their monthly staff meetings, someone will go out, buy all the latest "How to beat the slot machine" books and throw them on the conference table so everyone can have a laugh at how full of shit they are.

We were in Lake Tahoe once and some girls won on day two at a slot and the pit guy came over along with some tech geek who plugged in some laptop to that row of machines and the pit boss (?) gave the thumbs down and they shut that row off.  Must'a been a big payoff coming up or something is all we could figure out.  Dunno.

It could have been a million things. They could have been checking to see which chips they had in the game and decided they wanted to swap them out or something. There is no way for the casino to know when a game is going to pay out. They really don't work that way. If you knew how complicated it was to get the gaming chips that determine payout  approved by the NGCB (Nevada Gaming Control Board) or any other jurisdiction for that matter, you'd understand. They put a massive amount of testing into these games to make sure that players aren't cheated.

Cronyism between the casino and gaming commission maybe?

The gaming commissions are actually quite adversarial to the casinos. They are there to not only protect the casinos from cheating players but more importantly to make sure the players aren't being cheated by the casinos. But the casino doesn't really have any say in any of this anyway. They don't own the slots to begin with, they lease them. Casinos haven't owned slot machines for over 20 years. The games are owned by the manufacturers, who take a small percentage of the drop rather than sell them to the casinos. This way there is a LOT more money in it for the slot manufacturers and they always have an incentive to keep creating new games so that players will keep coming back go the casinos to try the latest and greatest. When they develop a slot machine, they make a few different payout options that all need individual approvals by the gaming commission and the casinos get to choose which version they want.

The should just pay the poor player off and claim the software malfunction with their insurance (Maybe they do both?), but it seems more common with that computer excuse.

It's pretty rare when a game malfunctions these days as most slots are all video slots. Years ago, when they were electro-mechanical, they had errors all the time because of a hardware issue with a stepper motor or locked hopper dispensing coins, etc. Those days are pretty much over now.

Shot By Adam wrote:
The book about the MIT kids was Bringing Down The House and it was later turned into a rather mediocre movie. The MIT kids weren't counting against a big shoe though...they went after smaller deck deals. Counting cards in a 6 or 8 deck shoe is virtually impossible because you have to remember, a dealer only uses half the shoe before a shuffle is done. When a deck is cut, the dealer uses two Card Cuts...one goes on the bottom of the deck so you can't see the bottom card and the other card is given to a player to cut the deck. When the deck is cut, the dealer cuts the deck and the Card Cut which was on the bottom is now in the middle of the deck. When the dealing goes down to the center Card Cut, that is when the dealer shuffles again. So on a 6 deck shoe, it's VERY difficult to count cards because there are too many variables at play to determine where the count is.

exactly. anyone who claims they count cards in a six (or eight, i guess now) shoe is lying through their teeth. especially when considering all the cards that never come into play (post cut card). too many intangibles.

and didn't they used to chop off (thatch) one of the ends of the decks they retired to the gift shops? and you used to be able to buy a good set of perfects (dice) at casino gift shops. once they had been played for so many hours, they would take them out of circulation. or if the slightest bit of paint (only visible with a jeweler's loupe) flaked off, they'd move them to the gift shop. i think they stamped them though. i can't remember. i used to buy a few sets for home games.

you can still periodically see a box man at a craps table take out a micrometer, and measure the dice. they're pretty anal about that stuff. if one die reads .7499, it's off the table.

that's why the post earlier about the guy who thought he was cheated was funny. if any casino got caught cheating, or even came close to be accused of such shenanigans, they'd lose multi-millions, to possible long-term billions. nobody gets watched more in a casino than the employees.

and remember this. casino dealers are usually low wage earners, whom rely on tips for a good chunk of their total earnings. yes, they are encouraged to persuade you to make some dumb bets (especially at a craps table), but it would never benefit them to cheat you. it's all about time on the tables. if you are there longer, the better chance they have at eeking out a few tips.

if i play at a casino, it's always craps. it always bugs me to see tables that have the same players for hours, and hardly anyone ever tosses out a bet for the dealers. i always toss a five out on a come out, on box cars. sometimes it hits, most times it doesn't. either way, i am treated like royalty by the dealers. which, by my standards means, they make sure they listen to me (i'm a wrong way bettor, so i'm always going against the tide). they make sure the cocktail waitresses take my order, and they know not to try to entice me into bets i would never make. considering the way i play, i am always at one end, or the other, at the table. if i start somewhere in the middle, they tell the person in the one or twelve spot to switch with me, since it makes it easier for all.

SayCheeZ!  wrote:
It should be noted that the slot machines ARE random. and there's absolutely NOTHING that says that the jackpot will occur once every 17,526 pulls, but there's NOTHING that says it won't hit after just 3 pulls.... that's why it's called 'gambling!'

when i try to teach people the game of craps, they always fall for voodoo, or some form (yawn) of hedge betting 'schemes', that will pay them out in some short order flash of skill. i have friends who swear they will never lay against a nine, as if that number is out to get them. i try to explain to them that dice have no memory, nor is there any cosmic force conspiring to keep them from getting two bucks back on their three bucks wager, but they'll have none of it. they think they know better.

i thoroughly believe that humans are incapable of understanding probabilities, and how they work. i've always wanted to sit down with an actuary and pick their brain. and i mean a good one. i'll bet none of them gamble.

SayCheeZ!  wrote:
A few quick notes about some of the stuff here:

I personally like good magic.  I also have an extremely hard time enjoying magic shows because I'm often easily able to figure out how the illusion is done, even if I haven't seen it before.  Remember, 'misdirection' is the key to a successful trick.  If you're not watching what the magician is trying to make you watch, you'll see how it's done.

That's actually the thing that got me into magic at a young age. When I was in grade-school I was always fascinated with magic. When I was 14 years old I went to go see Lance Burton perform at the Hacienda hotel and we were seated right in the front row on stage-left, as far to the side as you could get. Because of this, I was able to see EVERYTHING Lance was doing...how he pulled the Fantasio candles from his tuxedo coat tails, how he pulled the doves out of his jacket for his dove act, EVERYTHING. When you perform on stage, a magician needs to be aware of his sight-lines to prevent this from happening and they never should have had these seats where they were, because I saw everything. And what I didn't see, I figured out. I figured out the hollow stairway in his hanging illusion, the works. At that point I became obsessed with magic and got every single book I could find on the topic at my local library and bookstore. My wife still laughs to this day that all the bookshelves in my office are half filled with photography books and half filled with books on magic.

His choreographer / director of 11 years, the late Joanie Spina also became one of our clients after she stopped working with David and ventured out on her own. She had lots of stories that were what I think of as 'amazing', but she took with a grain of salt.  She was also an animal activist and fell in love with my pet pig.

Joanie was an absolutely awesome person. I met her many times and she just couldn't win the fight against her cancer...it was sad. Joanie was never a particularly talented magician herself and she tried for years to get her career going in that area without any success. However, working for Copperfield, that woman was a genius. She choreographed I think eight of his TV specials. Her phrase she used to say about her relationship with David was, "David doesn't blink his eyes unless I tell him to blink." He's never been bashful in saying that much of his success he owed to her on-stage direction. The other crucial member of Copperfield's team was a guy named Tim White, who used to design most of David's illusions. Tim and Joanie were the fifth and sixth Beatles, so to speak. Kevin James built some pretty cool illusions for Copperfield too, including his Snowstorm illusion. I've got some really funny stories about Kevin too I'll post some time. He was one of the first people to "educate" me about how rigged Americas Got Talent really was. Jonathan Pendragon and Kevin Barnes, two other magicians, also confirmed all of that for me.

For a few decades an informal group of magicians would congregate at the Hotel Continental (which became Terribles Casino and now the Silver 7's).  The group was comprised of everyone from the top names in magic (ie: Sigfried and Roy) to guys that perform at kids parties and everyone in between.  They sat around and talked shop, and would perform illusions for each other.

While that 'club' is now long gone, magician Jeff McBride has taken over where the group left off.  On the third Thursday of every month he puts on a show featuring whatever magicians happen to be in Las Vegas at the time, so it's really a different show every month.  There's a good chance of seeing famous magicians and celebrities in the audience.  The show isn't really advertised other than a blurb in the calendar section of the LV Weekly.  There's actually three different shows each night.  The first in the main room, the second being close up magic in another room, and the third show back in the main room again.  The show also features other performers such as dancers, comedians, painters, and other types of entertainment.  More info at http://vegaswonderground.com/

Well, there's a bit more to it than that. The club is actually run by a guy named Gary Darwin. They have been meeting over at the Boomers bar for YEARS after the Continental/Terribles location dried up. Jeff ran the club with Gary and eventually split off to do his thing with the vegas wonderground. Here is info on the club meetings:

http://www.boomerslv.com/event/189381

The club is mostly now just a bunch of half-rate has-beens or people that never had enough talent to really get a serious show together, that just sit around and whine about how tough it is to be a magician. The Burt Wonderstone movie even made fun of them (A movie that isn't so funny really but if you are a magician, especially in Vegas, it's BRILLIANT as there is so much truth in the small stories in that movie, you just have to love it).

In order for a slot machine to be legal in NV, it really has to be as random as possible.  There's really no magic to how a slot machine operates. Most people are totally confounded as to how they work and generate profits thinking that the machines are programmed to win or lose at certain times and that someone comes around and 'tightens' the machine after a big win and 'loosens' it after it's recouped money from a previous win.  Nothing is further from the truth.

Think of a slot machine as 3 roulette wheels in a row.  For ease of discussion now think of it as a single roulette wheel. 
The American roulette wheel has 38 numbers on it. (1-36, 0, 00).  If you place a $1 bet on a single number and it wins you receive $35 back.  Statistically a person has a one out of 38 chance of winning $35.  That $3 difference is the casinos profit.

Same with the slot machine.  If there's a 1 out of 1200 chance that a particular machine hits a jackpot, the machine might have a $1000.payout.  The $200 difference is the casino profit.

Well, not really. That's sort of how the very old mechanical games worked. For modern slot machines though, they don't work that way at all. Allow me to explain Slot 101.

For the last 20 years or so, about 90% of all slot machines worked off of what is referred to as the "Telnaes Patent". WMS Gaming has their own system but it doesn't work quite as good and they don't license it. The Telnaes Patent though is the single biggest innovation to gaming since the playing card was invented. The Telnaes Patent was originally owned by Anchor Gaming, who was bought-out in 2001 by IGT, for reasons I'll explain later. Here is how it works:

Let's start off with a simple, non-video slot. The kind most people think about with the three spinning reels.

You have 3 reels:

Reel 1
Reel 2
Reel 3

Each "Physical Reel" (an actual technical term in the industry) are reels that you see in the game. They have 22 different stops on them. A "Stop" can be anything you want it to be. A "BAR", a cherry, a "7", whatever. Blank spaces also count as a "stop". On a typical 22 stop reel, you would have 11 blank spots and 11 symbols. Every one of the symbols gave you a different payout possibility so:

BAR BAR BAR

Would give you a different payout than

7 7 7

Which would give you a different payout than:

BAR DOUBLE-BAR TRIPLE-BAR

And so forth. Every game had one symbol that would trigger the Jackpot. So;

JACKPOT JACKPOT JACKPOT

Would trigger that. Figuring that there is only one Jackpot symbol on each reel, if you run the numbers, you have a 1 in 22 chance of landing on a Jackpot symbol with each reel spin. So to hit a jackpot, your odds on doing so are 22 to the 3rd power (22 Cubed).

22 X 22 X 22 = 10,648

So on the surface, your odds on hitting a jackpot are 1 in 10,648 games. Now, we all know that jackpots hit a LOT less than that, so here is how it works under the hood.

The computer of a slot machine doesn't spin a reel with 22 stops on it, it spins a MUCH larger wheel that is called a "Virtual Wheel". Each Physical Reel is assigned to a "Virtual Reel" inside the mind of the computer of the slot machine. The RNG (Random Number Generator) doesn't draw from a pool of 22 stops, it draws from a MUCH bigger pool. $.25 games typically used to use a VIRTUAL wheel of 128 stops, not 22. I'm sure I'm losing some people, so let me explain:

Imagine that the first symbol on the reel strip is a "BAR" symbol. In the mind of the computer, "STOP 1" is allocated a set of number on the 128 stop "Virtual Wheel". That might be stops 1-10. So when the computer spins the Virtual wheel, with 128 stops in it, and it lands on 4, that 4 is assigned to Stop 1 on the Physical reel...the reel you're looking at, and it makes the game stop on "BAR". This is how slot designers are able to adjust the odds because they can adjust the probability of where the game stops on the virtual wheel. You add more stops to the lower payouts and you create a very loose game that never pays big. Adjust the stops to the higher payouts and you hit less frequently but when you do, it's for a higher payout. All the major slot companies employ at least one full-time mathematician who's only job is to tinker with these number to see how much money they can take from the player but not make the player so mad that they dump all their money in 5 minutes and leave. There is a HUGE amount of finesse in tinkering with these numbers to make a game fun.

Of course, all the blank spaces also are allocated numbers on the virtual wheel too, but more importantly, so is the Jackpot symbol. So where "BAR" may have 15 spots on the virtual wheel (out of 128), a "7" may have 11 spots, the Jackpot symbol only has 1 stop. SO, if you want to calculate the odds on your average quarter game, it's really quite simple:

128 X 128 X 128 = 2,097,152

So your odds on hitting a jackpot on about 95% of all quarter slot machines is about 2 million to 1 and that was for about a $4,000 payout.

Now, obviously some games have much higher jackpots. You have progressives, slots where if you hit a jackpot you win a car, etc. The way they adjust the odds on the slot machine is to just make the virtual wheel larger. The physical reels never change, but the VIRTUAL wheel does. Megabucks, one of the multi-million dollar progressive games that is networked between most major casinos in Nevada, has a jackpot that I believe starts at $9 million. So there is no way that with 2 million to 1 odds, they are going to give you that kind of money. So they make the virtual wheel larger.

Megabucks works off a virtual wheel not of 128 stops, but of 548 stops, with the "Jackpot" symbol being just one of those. So, the exact odds on winning Megabucks is:

548 X 548 X 548 = 164,566,592

So to win Megabucks, your odds are about 165 million to 1.

Of course, there are ways they can screw with you on games too. With the advent of Secondary Games (slots with a trigger symbol that activates a second game, like a wheel spin like on the Wheel of Fortune games) or WILD symbols and such, they can have those symbols hit more frequently on one reel than on others, giving you the illusion that you "just missed it!" making players want to keep chasing a winning combination. This is the main reason why video slots became more popular. Not just because they are more fun and interractive for the player, but the slot companies LOVE it because they can tinker with the odds in much greater detail with 5 reels instead of 3.

This gets back to the Telnaes Patent. Anchor Gaming owned this patent and licensed it out to other gaming companies to use in exchange for a very hefty fee. While Anchor owned a few casinos and had some assets, they were generally a billion dollar company who's only main income source was that single patent. When IGT created Wheel of Fortune, the most successful game in the history of slots, they had to do a 50/50 split on profits with Anchor on anything that game created. By providing just one licensing signature, it made Anchor BILLIONS. At the height of its popularity, there were over 15,000 Wheel of Fortune slots on casino floors around the world. Casinos couldn't get enough of them as people would wait in line to play them. IGT's demands on the casinos was unusually high too. A typical percentage a slot company would take from the drop was in the 8-10% range. IGT demanded 15% of the drop and casinos begrudgingly paid it because the game made them so damn much money.

To put this in perspective, in the years leading up to the Anchor buyout, the 50% split that IGT had to give up to use the Telnaes Patent was to the tune of $500 million PER YEAR to Anchor Gaming. So figure 15% of the drop on that game was about $1 billion per year, all from one type of slot machine.

IGT got tired of cutting these massive checks so a buyout happened and now IGT owns the patent. Now you know everything there is to know about slot machines.

There IS a way to get the odds of winning in the players favor, however the new breed of slot machines makes it extremely difficult to figure out.

Not really. It's not rocket science though. Video slots are designed to payout better when you play the game "fully loaded" which means you play max bet on all lines. When you max bet on all lines, additional symbols, such as WILD options open up, so if the max bet on a game is 250 pennies and you drop down to 200 on your bet, you just  massively dropped your odds down on most machines. Part of the psychology of the games is making players almost not play max bet much of the time because then it sways the advantage in a huge way to the casino's favor. It's complicated, but the bottom line is, if you want the best possible odds on a slot, play it fully loaded each spin.

When slot machines were electro-mechanical (meaning a mechanical device would stop the reels from spinning, and the place iheystopped is what determined the win or lose)  you could quickly and easily look at a slot machine and determine the number of stops on the reels.

While true, it's really not relevant as the physical stops don't matter. It's the Virtual Stops that do, and  you can't see those, as I explained above.

It should be noted that the slot machines ARE random. and there's absolutely NOTHING that says that the jackpot will occur once every 17,526 pulls, but there's NOTHING that says it won't hit after just 3 pulls.... that's why it's called 'gambling!'

Exactly correct! That is the PROBABILITY of the game though, and most people confuse that with POSSIBILITY. Slot companies, as do the gaming control boards, go off of PROBABILITY though. Odds are calculated based on 1 million handle pulls of a slot.

Shot By Adam wrote:
....He was one of the first people to "educate" me about how rigged Americas Got Talent really was....

I've been to a few AGT tapings and saw some things that were questionable, too.  It also seems that a performer will get no airtime (even when voted through) unless they have a sob story to go along with it.  The sob story also seems to affect the voters as this years first half of the semi-finals indicate.  The acts that are on par with Cirque or Blue Man Group are voted off while mediocre performers with a sob story remain.  I'm sorry, I don't care if Benton Blount is unemployed and has a baby on the way, he's an OK singer but there's nowhere near the talent, creativity and general awesomeness of Siro-A. 

Shot By Adam wrote:
Well, not really. That's sort of how the very old mechanical games worked. For modern slot machines though, they don't work that way at all....

...The computer of a slot machine doesn't spin a reel with 22 stops on it, it spins a MUCH larger wheel that is called a "Virtual Wheel". ...

That's why I explained that there USED to be a way to easily figure out the odds of a progressive and how to profit from it, and I clearly mentioned that the machines were electro-mechanical (which are rarely seen anymore, there's a few on the second floor of the D, though).  At the time that I worked in the casino industry (slot tech and then slot manager) virtual slots were illegal, although computerized slots that controlled where the reels stopped were legal. The difference being that the computer controlled slot had to have the same amount of 'stops' as the reel did.  Virtual slots have many more 'stops' than the reel displays.

The easiest way to identify if a slot machine is mechanical or computerized (therefore most likely to be a virtual reel machine) is if it has a button on it to spin the reels.  It may or may not also have a handle to give the impression of being a mechanical slot, but the handle just trips a switch that doesn't do anything different than the button does.