Sahara Hotel & Casino brings back $1 blackjack

[silverbow]

GamingToday.com

The Sahara Hotel & Casino has announced it has brought back Las Vegas’
most popular casino promotion of years past – $1 minimum blackjack.
But this time the bargain isn’t coming alone: Dollar Days at the Sahara
include four fantastic offers including $1 beers (available at all casino bars
24/7), $1 shots (in a free souvenir glass), $1 hotdogs and of course $1 blackjack.

One dollar minimum blackjack hasn’t seen the Las Vegas Strip in the last
five years, and the last time it was here, it was featured at the Sahara.

"Our repeat gamblers and even first timers would still come in bright
eyed looking for the $1 tables they either once played at or had heard
about," says Bill Tremper, vice president of marketing and sales at the
Sahara. "The Sahara was ‘famous’ for its cheap blackjack, and it’s
exciting to bring back the energy and spirit that surrounds those tables
that light up the entire casino."
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[zombie]

[silverbow]

Lower blackjack minimum may not be deal for players

Liz Benston / Las Vegas Sun

What might seem like a bargain often comes with rules that increase
the house’s edge

You’ve seen bargain-basement hotel rates and coupons for meals, show
tickets and retail purchases — even volume discounts on bottle service in
nightclubs and lounges.

But what are Strip casinos doing with their main attraction in the
economic downturn?

Gambling games, priced in terms of how much players will lose over time,
aren’t like products on a supermarket shelf. Or are they?

In fact, several Strip casinos have lowered table minimums on games in
an apparent attempt to attract more customers during tough economic
times. For example, Wynn Las Vegas offers some $25 double deck
blackjack games on weekdays, down from a $50 per hand minimum. On
the other end of the spectrum, and for a vastly different clientele, the
Sahara is offering $1 blackjack.

Players view the moves as a retreat from the high minimums of years
past, during the tourism boom. At the time, table minimums at many Strip
properties rose sky-high, along with hotel room rates, mixed drink prices
and restaurant checks.

Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor newsletter, says many
major casinos are lowering minimums to lure players. Curtis calls it a
rare sign of player-friendliness by casinos loath to offer games that don’t
make enough money to justify free drinks for gamblers and staff salaries.

High minimums “never made a lot of sense,” Curtis says, because they
cause gamblers to burn through their bankrolls more quickly and leave.

Strip casinos in the downturn have become aggressive pitchmen for non
gambling discounts, plastering the Internet with offers for tourists as well
as locals. Not so for gambling games.

Casinos — mindful of the competition, which can quickly adopt similar
games or rules, unlike, say, shows, restaurants or other major
attractions — are especially sensitive to details of their games.

For example, Curtis says the lower minimums have been reported
everywhere, including at Harrah’s and MGM Mirage casinos.

But when Harrah’s Entertainment Western Region President Tom Jenkin is
asked about any changes in limits, he says his company’s seven Las
Vegas casinos “have not nor are we planning to lower table game limits.”

Caesars Palace, for example, which raised limits last year, offers “a wide
range of betting limits, including the highest available in the city,” Jenkin adds.

So maybe when Jenkin says Harrah’s has not lowered game limits, he
means it hasn’t lowered its maximums as opposed to the minimums.

And MGM Mirage spokeswoman Yvette Monet avoids using the
word “lower” in her answer. “We adjust our table game limits based on
daily visitor volume,” she says.

Another aspect of the games also comes into play — the rules. The more
favorable the odds of a particular table game, the higher the minimum
bet requirement — a strategy that limits the number of players who can
take their shot against the casino. Lower limits almost always mean worse
rules for players, says Al Rogers of Pi Yee Press, which publishes
blackjack rules and odds by property in its Current Blackjack News newsletter.

Players may think they’re getting a better deal with a lower-minimum
game when the opposite is typically true, he warns.

Rather than tempting players by reducing their house edge, Strip casinos,
Rogers says, have continued a trend that began before the recession, to
lower the odds for blackjack and related games by worsening rules.

Blackjack wagers on the Strip fell by nearly $1 billion for the 12 months
ended April 30 after peaking the previous year, according to the Gaming
Control Board. Strip casinos kept 10.9 percent of those wagers, a fraction
of a percentage point less than in the previous period.

Rogers contends that casinos have sacrificed profit in their attempts to
thwart card-counters, a small segment of players relative to the masses
who are also turned off by games in which the odds are more favorable
to the house.

For example, many Strip casinos offer games paying 6-to-5 for
blackjacks instead of the customary 3-to-2 and those where dealers
hit “soft” 17s, meaning they must draw another card on hands containing
an ace valued at 11, giving the house a chance to improve a relatively
weak hand. Both strategies increase the house edge.

“They know they’re offering a worse product. Their own math will tell
them that. But lower minimums make it look like the customer is getting a
better value,” Rogers said.

Curtis is more accepting of cheap games with unfavorable rules, even the
Sahara’s $1 blackjack, which pays only even money on minimum-bet blackjacks.

“It’s only a dollar,” Curtis said. “Players like the idea that they can retreat
back to that point if they want. And it gets people in the door.”


In response to the recession, some casinos have lowered minimum bets for blackjack. But the cheaper
games can have rules that boost the house edge, such as a 6-to-5 payout for blackjacks instead of the
traditional 3-to-2. The change means a blackjack with a $10 bet wins only $12 instead of $15.
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[sblacke]

For $20 bucks, I'll sit down to practice and have a drink or 3. It's like 6:5, which I won't play unless it's Boobjack.

If you offer me the right enticements, I'll do, er, play anything.
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It's 5 o'clock somewhere.