This article was originally published in February 2001 Casino Player.
In 1999, Shirley and I entered a lot of invitational slot tournaments at the Rio Suites Casino Hotel in Las Vegas. On the last night of each tournament there was a drawing for a 7-day ocean cruise to Mexico. And on one such occasion, Shirley’s name was called. Muy bueno!
I had never been on a cruise before (except for the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland, but I don’t think that counts). Shirley had been on a 3-day Mississippi river, but that was hardly comparable either. So the last week in September 2000, we set sail for Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas.
About the cruise itself I will say little, except we had a very nice time, don’t think about dieting while you are on a cruise, and Shirley is tough to beat at ping pong when she gets an 18-0 head start. There were, however, numerous gambling opportunities, and that’s what I want to talk about.
Generally speaking, the gambling opportunities ranged from awful to terrible. And some were worse than that! Surprisingly, however, there were takers for every gambling opportunity presented.
They had a slot tournament where 120 people entered for $10, and the only prize was $250. (You could have entered for $20, in which case you would win $500.) Think about this. The casino (i.e. cruise ship) collects $1,200 and pays back $250. For every dollar collected, the casino keeps 79 cents and pays back 21 cents. Why anybody would play under these conditions is beyond me, but they did.
The casino itself offered most casino games. I checked out video poker first. For those of you who have heard that 9/6 Jacks or Better is the game to look for, they actually have it here. Except this game only returns even money for two pair. This minor change reduces the return on this game to 86.7%. If you can play perfectly. Which is impossible. Because anybody who could play close to perfectly would know enough to run, not walk, to the nearest exit of the casino. They did have a few games in the 94%-95% range, but most were around 90%.
The slot machines were impossible to evaluate for sure. A machine returning 70% looks the same as one returning 98%. I suspect these machines averaged around 80%. But that’s only an estimate. They could actually return much less!
The craps table had standard rules. If you wanted to play the pass line with double odds you could get your expected loss down to about a half percent. This was the best bet on the boat. But there were no extras. No free rooms or meals or other amenities that we are used to in Vegas and other gambling locations. You didn’t even receive free cocktails!
Blackjack had reasonable rules, but the bet spread allowed (i.e the ratio between the maximum bet and the minimum bet) was too narrow to allow even the best card counter to have an advantage. And they had their own version of “Fun 21” with absolutely fabulous rules until you notice that they took out all of the queens from the deck!
Then they had bingo. They sold cards for $5 or three for $10. There would be one winner for $500. And they must have sold $2,500 worth of cards for the $500 they gave away. This is an awful gamble. Our dinner companions told us that they bought the three cards for $10 because it represented a more intelligent gamble than one card for $5. Oh really? The cards are worth about $1 each. So you have the choice of throwing $4 overboard when you buy one card or $7 overboard when you buy three cards. Using the word “intelligent” to describe either action is far-fetched, but to my mind throwing away $7 is worse than throwing away $4.
They had lottery style scratchers. Pay a buck for a chance to win $1,000. And people were buying them! And they had a raffle at the end of the cruise. People had an entire week to figure out how much of a rip-off this gambling on a cruise ship really was, but the prize (a 7-day cruise anywhere the cruise line goes) was so attractive that people lined up to participate. I guess people wanted to win the cruise so they could gamble some more!
So why was gambling so bad there? Two reasons. The first is that once the ship is at sea, there is absolutely no competition. If you really wanted to gamble, you had to do it under these horrendous conditions. For me this didn’t present any problem at all. There were no gambling conditions where I had the advantage, so I didn’t gamble. Period. I live in Las Vegas and could easily take a 1-week breather from gambling. But for people for whom this was their only vacation of the year, and they really enjoy gambling, then they were going to partake.
The second reason that gambling was so house-advantage is that there are no regulatory agencies to set rules. I am not talking about cheating. The machines on this ship were IGT and Bally and I fully believe they paid off honestly. At an extremely low percentage, but honestly. But in some states there are rules that machines must pay off a minimum amount. That amount may be 85% or so, but these machines would not meet that minimum. For bingo, perhaps the state rules that at least 80% be returned to the players. Here the number was about 20%.
We spoke to several of the players. We wanted to know why on earth they would gamble under such awful conditions. The answers ranged from “the casino always wins anyway so what does it matter?” to “I’m here for fun and this is fun!” to “I never understood the mathematics of odds anyway.” One man had an interesting answer. He and his wife were cruising with their two pre-teen children. In Las Vegas, you need to keep a close eye on the children. On a ship, however, where can they go? As long as the kids agreed to stay together, then they could roam all over the ship, have a good time safely. And Mom and Dad could enjoy some time gambling without worrying about the children.
There are many cruise lines and each one has its own rules for gambling. Certainly the gambling conditions Shirley and I found would not apply everywhere. Concluding that you can never find a good gambling value on an ocean cruise is certainly unfair. But the general rule that a lack of gambling competition is generally bad for the player is a fair conclusion.
Bob Dancer is America's best-known video poker writer and teacher. He has a variety of "how to play better video poker" products, including the software "Video Poker for Winners," Winner's Guides, strategy cards, his autobiography Million Dollar Video Poker, and his two novels, including Sex, Lies, and Video Poker. Dancer's products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com or by telephone at 1-800-244-2224 M-F 9-5 Pacific Time.
