What you need to knoiw about Vegas:

As we are all too painfully aware, the recent trend toward bad playing conditions in L.V. has become a money tsunami.

The following illustrates why the Evil Empire's bean counters are expecting huge bonuses. Their bottom-line has grown remarkably; demonstrating that there is no downside to assuming that ploppies will always throw their money away on bad games, while the card Counters will learn how to play poker or find greener pastures!

Read this twice if you can stomach it. I do not recall where I found this. I hope that it wasn't posted here.
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Nevada set another record in gross gambling win in 2006: $12.6 billion, up 8.3% compared with the $11.6 billion won by casinos in 2005.
During 2006, nine of the 12 months reported a gaming win of more than $1 billion statewide, including an all-time one-month record of $1.141 billion in January.
The total handle (amount wagered) statewide in 2006 was $170 billion. Of the total, $138 billion was bet on slot machines, up 3.8% from 2005, and $32 billion was bet on table games and in race and sports books (up 9.8%). The slot win of $8.3 billion amounts to a 6% hold, while the tables and books win of $4.3 billion equals a 13.4% hold.
Nevada gamblers risked $11.2 billion at the blackjack tables in 2006, a 6.1% increase in the 2005 handle. Of that, the casinos won $1.38 billion, a big jump of 11.1% over 2005. The 2006 casino hold on blackjack amounted to 12.3%. It was the biggest handle and hold of any table game.
Baccarat had a big 2006, with $7.6 billion wagered, a year-to-year increase of 28.3%. The casinos won $835.8 million (up 25.6%), for a hold of 11%.
The whole of Clark County won $10.6 billion in 2006, a 9.5% increase over 2005. The County accounted for 84.3% of the statewide gambling revenues; compare that to 74.8% in 1990.
On the Las Vegas Strip, the win was $6.68 billion in 2006, up 10.9% from 2005. That's 53% of the state's total win. (In 1990, the Strip accounted for 47.3%.) Downtown won $634.4 million, down 3.6%. The Boulder Strip won $929.7 million, up 4.6%.

Works the same everywhere it seems.

crumby games, ploppies fill 'em up. all-time high profits/hold. what's the incentive to offer a real SD (3:2) game? S17? Have to hope the ploppies go broke I guess. :)

high gas prices. we pretty much have to pay since we have to get back and forth to work.

record profits everywhere...

Thay are going to lose the real gamblers. The first time a real gambler walks into Caesars and sees the new H17 D10 shoes, Caesars and possibly Vegas has lost that customer forever.

If all Vegas wants is conventioneers and once a year vacation ploppies, that is what they'll be stuck with. Remember 80% of the gaming business comes from 20% of the customers (high rollers). Piss them off and all you're left with are $5 per hand idiots.

there is a point called "big fish in a small pond vs a small fish in a big pond."

Everywhere I go, I see "ploppies" plunking down their bets, over and over, misplaying hands, betting big in negative counts, playing hunches rather than B/S, etc. While their bets are "low-roller" level, there are a _bunch_ of 'em. And 5% times average_bet times number_of_ploppies turns into a big number.

So I wonder if they are happy with that situation and are willing to risk losing the "educated" players as long as they can fill the tables with ploppies, who are sucking down the alcohol, enjoying the glitz and glamour, and donating steadily to the bottom line?

Assuming the 80-20 split you mentioned, they might be taking a chance on losing the 80% unless they can increase the 20% from the ploppies by offering more tables for more ploppies.

but based on past observation, my initial impression is that they seem to not care. They worry more about game protection (not stealing but AP-type protection) than about attracting players, because somehow they are being convinced that the APs are taking 'em to the cleaners. They put up signs like "single-deck blackjack is back, and it pays a whopping 6:5 payoff when you get a 2-card 21" and other such nonsense. I couldn't believe that when I first saw it. I pointed it out to a non-counting friend and he said "hey, let's go try that." I asked "so you think 6:5 is a better payout than 3:2?" and he said "sure. 6 is bigger than 3. Then I figured out that maybe they had something there. :)

The other thing is how quickly things change. I've been to Tunica and found good games, gone back 2 months later and found those games were lousy (but there were good games elsewhere). I'm not sure whether they are changing just to change things, or whether they are reacting to some sort of "threat" they have imagined (or actually been hit with in the case of hole-carding or whatever).

Hello SSR, long time no chat. :)

>> Remember 80% of the gaming business comes from 20% of the customers (high rollers).

Even though I don't frequent the high-roller rooms my impression is those 20% of the customers are still being catered to with much better games than I see on the floor.

> my initial impression is that they seem to not care.

They care, dont ever forget it. We may not agree on their business plan and model, but they do what they do because they care .. to make as much money as possible at the end of the day.

However, the "they care" has to be given context. "They care that they win as much money as possible from us (the players)" would be supportable. But I think they are willing to take as little risk as possible (offer H17 games, poor split/double rules, no surrender, poor snapper payouts in SD, poor penetration to make sure those damned counters can't slip in and rob us).

As far as high-limit games, I believe you are right there. I also do not play in 'em (unless I am at a real sawdust joint where hi-limit means $25 mins. :) ) but I have looked on several times and the games are usually better (S17 for example, but better split/double options as well). But something tells me that they still look at the overall equation:

profit = big_edge * lotta_ploppies + smaller_edge * few_whales

and figure out that "lotta_ploppies" is _way_ larger than "few_whales" and that doing whatever possible to rip off the larger group, even at the expense of possibly losing a "whale" that prefers to just walk in and play on the main floor, is something they would choose to do.

Yes they will cater with private games to skim off that real cream-of-the-crop group of high-rollers that won't play on the main floor anyway, so those are safe no matter what mayhem they bestow on the main floor.