I agree change is inevitable


But a total shift in 15 years? That is absolutely doubtful in my view.

It depends on how immersive they can make the experience. The tech exists. But you are talking about changing the entire casino experience. That does not happen fast.

Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Super Glue works.

Well, this is a little far afield for the Gambling Spot, but since I mentioned it in one of my posts I will make a brief comment (brief by my standards).

The financial markets, stocks, commodities, currencies and the like are moved by large financial interests, (the professional trading syndicates and large institutional traders like banks, Goldman Sachs and so on), at appropriate times. These large interests leave telltale signs when they are taking positions so the key is to position alongside them and take advantage of their activity. They are considered the smart money, move millions of dollars in and out of the markets and trade against a very large number of average traders and half-smarts who basically are the dumb money.

The dumb money makes profits during very large trends but subsequently loses it all then some at important turning points i.e., when the markets have major corrections up or down, at the top of bull markets when they revert to bear markets or when they are shaken out with heavy losses at the bottom of a bear market. The reason is the dumb money trades based upon lagging technical indicators, late fundamental information, hyped up news events and most importantly has a crowd mentality, following the popular opinion of the many which is always wrong at important market turning points.

It takes many years to master the ability to trade this way but in some ways it is similar to professional gambling in which a relatively small number of professionals make their money by beating a large number of non- professionals. However, it is more sophisticated, less of a gamble, certainly more profitable for those that can master the techniques to profit from this activity and a much bigger game so to speak. More importantly, some doofus who does everything wrong playing his hand, can't draw out on you on the river.

Always been interested, fascinated, by bankers etcetera. They never cease to amaze me. Take for example this game: Manufacturers make products, now the big boys guess what the carbon output would be if you burned them products. They put those invisible guesses in an imaginary sack and trade them. They call this game of utter nonsense, carbon trading and they make billions. Good game eh?

Cag thanks for sharing. Your analysis seems to be spot on. I was thinking of the time Chase manipulated the silver. I was also thinking of the quote I read somewhere whether it was at the card table or the markete manipulation is more profitable than speculation.

Recently went to look a over a new Holland America Cruise Ship when it was docked in Amsterdam.

The 'Casino'(?) was completely touchscreen, electronic monstrosities.

According to the (surprisingly honest) girl/rep showing us around, people hardly now use it.

Not sure if the younger set would find it more enticing but for now, it's older folk (with disposable income) taking most cruises. If owners think that they'll be seduced by electronic gadgets, their marketing guys truly are living in cloud cuckoo land.

@Merc Man: What games were offered. Was it only slots machines, were ther electronic table games...what was offered?

I have seen small casinos that only offer slot machines. They get business but slots are of little interest to me. I also think that at this point in time, electronic table games are in their infancy and much more development needs to be done to make them enticing and exciting enough for most people. But they will evolved in my opinion over the years.

I have seen electronic poker tables but not in action. They are certainly not the same as having a live poker dealer and handling chips and cards. Certainly more needs to be done in that area and I think eventually will be. This is all somewhat primitive at this point in time.

@Merc Man: Adding to my query immediately above, how big was this casino? Was it a large size casino or just basically a hole in the wall. Reason I ask is perhaps this casino was not active enough to support having live dealers and instead of closing its doors, decided to go "electronic." It may have been strictly an economic decision and they may have had no choice.

The casino operators are businessman and concerned mainly with the bottom line. Is it possible to make more money with less players, but with greatly reduced costs as opposed to having more players with higher operational expenses and less or no profit?

I don't know the answer in this particular case but having owned three business in my lifetime, many factors are involved in the operation of a profitable business, factors that my not be readily apparent to a layman or outsider upon casual observation.

He said it was on a cruise ship. Not so much a casino in your traditional sense at all.

Thanks Danny. I read the original post too quickly and thought that the ship had docked and the passengers visited a local casino and is often the case.

My mistake regarding the specifics of the original post by Merc Man, but the concept behind the post in my opinion are still valid regarding income vs. expenses.

It had 5 or 6 tables - playing state of the art touch screen junk across Blackjack, Poker and Roulette. This was supplemented with around 60 Pokies....so not exactly a small area.

My main interest was simply because this was the only place inside the ship where you could smoke.

I can see you had an important reason for vising that casino operation, i.e. to smoke. I assume you were looking to smoke a cigarette or cigar and not go up in smoke personally.

No personal criticism of anyone on this BB, but my biggest complaint against gambling dens in Vegas and elsewhere is they allow people to smoke. Ugh! One of my most joyous days was when all the poker rooms in Vegas went from smoking to non-smoking games. Many said it would seriously cut down on the attendance in these rooms but since they all went to non-smoking and there were no smoking card rooms left, all the smokers continued to play and the attendance did not decrease one iota.

Think of all the lives that were saved by that one action, both for non-smokers who did not have to suck up all that vile smelling and disgusting second hand smoke as well as possibly slightly increasing the life-span of those that smoked, even though it was against their own self-destructive irrational tendencies.

It would be nice if smoking were eliminated from casinos but don't see that happening in the near future. Some casinos have non-smoking areas but still the stench pervades when one leaves those select locations. Eventually all smoking will be eliminated from casinos, either because of economic pressure against the casino operators or because of government mandates.

Until then, for those who continue to smoke, stay away from flammable areas lest you may go up in flames and then you will really and truly end up "smoking."

Some of the newer air exchangers have made it better than it was. I'm not a fan of smoking in casinos. The reason that the power room thing didn't hurt was it became fairly universal so no choice exists. If you want to play that is the conditions take it or leave it. If casinos all did the same thing with the entirety of the casino it would have the same result.

Plus numbers were already on the way down significantly in poker rooms anyhow. I don't know if that had anything to do with the timing though.

Casino operators would prefer not to offer poker if they had a choice, but it is still popular enough where it is necessary for many operations. It simply is not as profitable for the casinos as the other games they offer. However, since one still sees poker and various major tournaments on TV, they have to set aside some areas of the casino for that activity.

In the smaller limit games, the players are fooling themselves if they think they can play well enough to overcome the rake. In the bigger no-limit games, good players can hold their own or excel, but the prospect of ruin is ever present. Except for those who have made it financially and get endorsements or have other economic interests, many good players go broke from time to time. That is the nature of the beast which is why a few who learn to trade and become are very good at this activity prefer to play the financial markets or of necessity simply become good cheaters.

The problem with cheating, aside from the moral considerations, is for those who do serious cheating for worthwhile money on a continual basis is they will get caught from time to time no matter how good they are or get so much heat they will have to find different pastures to play in. That is the nature of that beast.

Tell you what. I'll never smoke when I'm next in the USA......on the proviso that the USA bans all vehicles (the fumes of which kill 200,000 people every year plus account for around 33,000 road deaths).

And if you ever elect a human-being to run your Country, instead of a comic retard that has washed his hands with the need for climate change, I may even pack up smoking completely.

Deal?

Oh lord.

@Merc Man: Relax old boy. Have a cigarette or two or three and inhale deeply, very deeply. It will make you feel much better.

As such an environmentally conscious person, do you travel to the US by sailing ship and rent a horse and buggy when you get here?

Now that would be real dedication...

I swim.

Now that is impressive.

You have just been awarded a life-sized photograph of Donald Trump shaking hands with Al Gore at Trump Tower.

Sigh...it doesn't get any better than that.

I love how political nonsense invades EVERYWHERE.