Nov
30
2015
By Travel Tunica on Monday November 30, 2015
With Homer and Marge characters handing out doughnuts – with sprinkles, of course – the crowds at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas just had to see what was going on. What it was, of course, was the debut of The Simpsons as a slot machine, a big attention-grabber from Scientific Games. Scientific Games has quickly become a major force in the casino world, having acquired slotmaking giants Bally Technologies and WMS Gaming as well as WMS’ sister company Williams Interactive and table games leader Shuffle Master. This was the first year all those companies were in the same…
With Homer and Marge characters handing out doughnuts – with sprinkles, of course – the crowds at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas just had to see what was going on. What it was, of course, was the debut of The Simpsons as a slot machine, a big attention-grabber…
Nov
17
2015
By Travel Tunica on Tuesday November 17, 2015
“Interactivity” has been a buzzword among slotmakers ever since they started putting bonus events on the games in the 1990s. At Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, International Gaming Technology showed it doesn’t just want you to be an active participant in the game, it wants to make you part of the game. For the TMZ video slot, IGT partnered with Warner Bros. to develop a game based on the entertainment news and celebrity gossip website and TV show. There’s a camera built into machine, and when you sit down, it takes your picture and voila! You’re part of the…
“Interactivity” has been a buzzword among slotmakers ever since they started putting bonus events on the games in the 1990s. At Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, International Gaming Technology showed it doesn’t just want you to be an active participant in the game, it wants to make you part…
Nov
12
2015
By Travel Tunica on Thursday November 12, 2015
Each fall at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, I take time away from the seminars and from tours of the major slot manufacturers’ booths to seek out new table games. This time around, a few new takes on blackjack stood out, variations that will be available to casinos in the coming year. Scientific Games, which acquire longtime table games leader Shuffle Master, was showing Zappit Blackjack. No doubt you’ve suffered through a blackjack session with stiff hand after stiff hand, been dealt yet another 15, and felt like you’d just like to zap it. That’s just what Zappit…
Each fall at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, I take time away from the seminars and from tours of the major slot manufacturers’ booths to seek out new table games. This time around, a few new takes on blackjack stood out, variations that will be available to casinos…
Nov
10
2015
By Travel Tunica on Tuesday November 10, 2015
I like to share readers’ stories of their best days in the casinos. Here’s one that wasn’t a huge win, but the price was right. A woman was out with her some friends, and each had $10 in free play to start the day. “We were trying to decide what to do with the free play, and one of the ladies said, ‘I’m just going to play for pennies.’ I took the machine next to her. It was Black Knight. It had 30 lines, and I was betting 60 cents a spin. “On my very first spin, I got the…
I like to share readers’ stories of their best days in the casinos. Here’s one that wasn’t a huge win, but the price was right. A woman was out with her some friends, and each had $10 in free play to start the day. “We were trying to decide what…
Nov
02
2015
By Travel Tunica on Monday November 2, 2015
One of the quirks of roulette games that have both 0 and 00 – the common arrangement in the United States – is that the five-number bet on 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 has a higher house edge than other wagers. If you make that five-number bet, the house edge is 7.89 percent. On everything else, it’s 5.26 percent. That prompted a reader to email, asking if there was something special about those numbers that caused the higher edge. There isn’t. They come up as often as any other numbers. It’s the payoff when you bet them all together…
One of the quirks of roulette games that have both 0 and 00 – the common arrangement in the United States – is that the five-number bet on 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 has a higher house edge than other wagers. If you make that five-number bet, the house…