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Question for the Gamblers!


bbryan5
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All gambling winnings by U.S. citizens, regardless of where they take place, are considered taxable income and legally must be reported as such to the Internal Revenue Service.

In the UK casinos, all gambling winnings are considered free of any and all taxes, no matter what your citizenship is. No-one will keep any records of who you are or what you won.

 

I guess any reporting to the IRS by US citizens is between you and your priest.

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In the UK casinos, all gambling winnings are considered free of any and all taxes, no matter what your citizenship is. No-one will keep any records of who you are or what you won.

 

 

 

I guess any reporting to the IRS by US citizens is between you and your priest.

 

 

 

In the US any slots or video poker win over $1,199,99 is reported to the IRS on a W2G and you receive a copy which you are required to claim as income. There are rules and limitations for writing off losses but best case is you might be able to use losses to offset what you won but no additional losses. And if you fail to report a single W2G you will hear from the IRS saying you under reported your income. No fun.

 

 

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The random number generator that controls the machine is not supposed to caer about your bet size.

 

If t does, the machine's ben goosed and you shouldn't play it anyway.

 

 

 

The reason to play max bet is because in machines that have a jackpot, usually max bet is required to qualify for the jackpot.

 

 

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  • 3 months later...
The random number generator that controls the machine is not supposed to caer about your bet size.

 

If t does, the machine's ben goosed and you shouldn't play it anyway.

 

 

 

The machine I was playing had a bonus that gave free spins. During the spins, every time a certain icon came up (it was a heart) it paid out a bonus amount. With max bet the bonus amount was $100, with min bet it was $20. I hit 10 hearts during the free spins. If I had played min bet I would have only won $200.

 

It had nothing to do with random generators or whats been goosed.

 

 

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I'm diamond player for total rewards. Mostly play at Ballys in AC. Play a lot of craps, 3 card, bj, etc.. Never a big slot player at all. Have hit a few 1200-1500 jackpots in AC on dollar machines, but nothing that great. On my ncl cruises I stick to the same games for the most part, and rarely, if ever, play slots on board. My question is, how do the ship machines pay out compared to land based casinos? I always feel the ship machines would be extremely tight. I'm seriously considering hitting the slots a lot more than normal on my upcoming Breakaway cruise, but I'm looking for feedback. I APPRECIATE IT!
Because they sail outside the USA and have no guide lines, the slots are tighter, but some people still win. We have found the best days for playing slots is the first day or so and the last. I don't know if there is any reason for this or just our luck.
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I can't speak to your information about all of the games but what you wrote about Blackjack is not true. In all of my NCL cruises:

- Only $6 BJ tables ($5 main bet, $1 side bet) pay 6:5 on Blackjack. $10+ pay standard 3:2. I usualyl sit at a $15 table and have always been paid 3:2.

- Double after split is definitely allowed, except when splitting Aces in which you only get one card (standard across most casinos, land or sea).

- I've doubled down with an 8 and have seen some do so on a 12 (ugh), so the 9/10/11 rule is not true either

 

You are correct. Only the $5.00 tables on NCL are 6:5. The $100.00 even had the dealer holding on soft 17 the last time I sailed with them. $25.00 and up was a shoe game also.

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New to NCL, primarily a VP player. We will be sailing on the Getaway soon and I was curious as to the variety of games, single line/multiple line, and the pay tables, can any experienced NCL cruiser fill me in?

 

They have both single and multi-game VP. Pay tables are generally several percentage points worse than what you'd find on land based casinos.

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The random number generator that controls the machine is not supposed to caer about your bet size.

If t does, the machine's ben goosed and you shouldn't play it anyway.

 

Playing max bet has nothing to do with the RNG. The reason you should always play Max Bet is because many machines (particularly progressives) do not award the Jackpot unless you are playing Max Bet. If you take a moment to read the game rules you'll find that out.

 

Therefore, it's always best to find a machine where you can afford to play max bet.

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We've sailed most lines. For some reason we think NCL was the worst as far as slot payouts, but that's expected for most lines vs land based casinos. We usually stick to table games. Just another entertainment venue while cruising so our expectation on winning it big is NIL. lol

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Might just be my imagination, but it sure seems like cruise ship casinos have more slot winners early in the cruise versus late. Anybody else notice the same thing?

 

This is one of the biggest urban myths about cruise casinos - that they deliberately increase the payback percentage (not the number of Jackpots awarded) early in the cruise, then lower it as the cruise goes on. Here's some facts about that:

 

1. On the older style reel machines, changing the payback percentage requires opening the machine and physically replacing a computer chip on the mother board in the machine. I know - I've owned one of those machines and I've changed the chips many times. This is a time consuming procedure and there's really no reason or time for the cruse staff to do this.

 

2. On the new, video screen machines, the game play is controlled by programming a computer (typically right at the machine). However, it *is* possible for this to be done at a central location, so that all the machines *could* be controlled (and therefore changed) from one day to the next or from one hour to the next. So now the question becomes: Do they do this?

 

All of my research leads me to believe that there is no real reason for the casino staff to do this. The skill of managing the machines in a casino lies in setting up a mix of machines with different payback percentages. This is done to insure that there is enough "action" on the floor to encourage play. Machines of the same type, in the same bank, may even have different payback percentages between them, but as long as some people are winning - even just the smaller amounts provided by the machines with higher payback percentages - they will keep playing. (by the way, when you see a bank of the same game machines advertised at a certain payout, that can mean that only ONE of the machines in the bank pays that percentage.)

 

Because the casino managers know the payback percentages of each machine, they can closely predict their daily revenue from each machine, and their overall take. Once they have a good mix on the floor, they simply sit back and let the math of the house edge make their money. And they will make money, otherwise they wouldn't be in the business.

 

All of this is completely separate from the issue of jackpots. A jackpot can happen on each and every spin of a machine, and each spin is a separate, random event that has nothing to do with the spin before or the spin after. So you're just as likely to hit several jackpots in a row, or not hit anything for days or months. The idea that machines are "hot" or "cold" is human nature..we aren't equipped to understand completely random systems, so our brains try to impose some kind of pattern on the randomness. There is none. It's completely and totally random.

 

This last is confirmed by our experience as long time, seasoned gamblers both on cruise ships and on land. The experience is identical. We've had cruises where we cleaned up and did very well, and cruises where we did nothing but loose. And I've sat in cruise casinos on the first night of a cruise where there was almost no action, and in others on first nights where there were hand pays happening everywhere. I've also sat in cruise casinos in the middle of the cruise, and at the end of the cruise, with hand pays going on everywhere. It is completely random.

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I'm diamond player for total rewards. Mostly play at Ballys in AC. Play a lot of craps, 3 card, bj, etc.. Never a big slot player at all. Have hit a few 1200-1500 jackpots in AC on dollar machines, but nothing that great. On my ncl cruises I stick to the same games for the most part, and rarely, if ever, play slots on board. My question is, how do the ship machines pay out compared to land based casinos? I always feel the ship machines would be extremely tight. I'm seriously considering hitting the slots a lot more than normal on my upcoming Breakaway cruise, but I'm looking for feedback. I APPRECIATE IT!

 

Shipboard casinos generally set their machines to lower payback percentages than land based casinos. After all, they are the only game in town, right? None the less, they can't afford to set them extremely lower..they still need enough action on the floor to keep the interest up and generate enough excitement to draw in the casual gambler.

 

DW and I play slots exclusively, and are Diamond with TR and high level CAS. Overall, we know we don't do as well on the ships as on land, but we do well enough to have fun, and that's the point.

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V-Tech makes some good points.

Something I would add:

 

Suppose it's a 10-day cruise.

Suppose there is a big win on Day 1 or 2, AND a big win on Day 8 or 9.

Every pax aboard who is interested (and many who aren't) hears about the big early win.

The late win, not so much. Some pax have busted out so are no longer in the Casino. Others are packing/dealing with Guest Services/having that last special meal the night before Disembark. So news of the late win doesn't get to as many people.

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Real gamblers always win. Just make sure you sit at 3rd base at BJ, 1st base at Carny games, 12 or 6 oclock at craps, play 25 at roulette, and sit at the slot machine to the left of someone playing. Follow these rules!!!!!!!!

 

I find it mind boggling that Las Vegas can offer all of those free drinks and cheap hotel rooms with everyone staying there and coming home even or winning a little :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

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Playing max bet has nothing to do with the RNG. The reason you should always play Max Bet is because many machines (particularly progressives) do not award the Jackpot unless you are playing Max Bet. If you take a moment to read the game rules you'll find that out.

 

Therefore, it's always best to find a machine where you can afford to play max bet.

 

Your reasoning, and ill-fated logic is literally why casinos exist in the first place, please stop recommending this gambling approach. No educated gambler would ever recommend someone to actually invest their bankroll into a slot machine for anything other than entertainment.

 

Firm logic for anyone who actually wants to gamble and not just feed money to a machine.

 

1. Casinos are mostly made up of slot machines because they are they are the most profitable.

 

2. Every player, regardless of the game is subject risk of ruin (RoR), which is driven by short term variance of the game and exposure to bankroll when a given game has a negative Expected Value (EV). Slot machines have both the highest Variance and Exposure to Bankroll due to the number of exposures per hour, we can hit that button really fast. To advise a player always play max bets, sometimes as high as 10x the minimum bet is to give their bankroll that much MORE exposer to the most disadvantaged game in the whole casino.

 

3. As bad as slot machines are for a player's bankroll already; playing max bets solely to hit the jackpot, which it the least likely outcome of any given spin, puts the player at an even faster RoR given the extremely high variance of the game. To advise people to exponentially increase their bets sounds like the work of the casino themselves.

 

Bottom line is casinos are made by players who consistently expose their bankroll to negative Expected Value (EV) games like slot machines who also have the higher rates of decisions per hour. We should be advising players who want to WIN to chose higher EV games that have lower amounts of decision per hour, and lower variance like Craps.

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Earlier in this thread - over a year ago - someone said the NCL craps tables are 345 odds. Anyone know if that's still the case, specifically the Jewel? Because one thing that bugs the hell out of me on RCCL is the single odds limitation. If NCL allows 345 that'll get me on the table a bit more.

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Earlier in this thread - over a year ago - someone said the NCL craps tables are 345 odds. Anyone know if that's still the case, specifically the Jewel? Because one thing that bugs the hell out of me on RCCL is the single odds limitation. If NCL allows 345 that'll get me on the table a bit more.

 

The Escape was going by this on the 4/7 sailing...I know I played double odds the entire time.....

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Earlier in this thread - over a year ago - someone said the NCL craps tables are 345 odds. Anyone know if that's still the case, specifically the Jewel? Because one thing that bugs the hell out of me on RCCL is the single odds limitation. If NCL allows 345 that'll get me on the table a bit more.

 

On our BA cruise in January they had a $5 and $10 table both were 345 odds behind the line.

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  • 2 months later...

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