"Oh Boy!!! Rob's gonna talk about my favorite game, Let it Ride!!!"Okay, I am now on a mission to convince as many people as humanly possible to completely avoid the Let It Ride table game at their favorite casino. To summarize my stance on Let It Ride, do NOT PLAY IT! Let It Ride is probably the worst game in the casino to play, with the highest house edge of just about any table game. Play blackjack, play craps, play roulette, video poker or pai gow. Just don't, under any circumstances, play Let It Ride! All dealers HATE dealing it! It's an extremely slow game, which doesn't generate many tips. It has such a high house edge that its almost impossible to win, which means people won't tip. People who play it are the lowest of the morons who enter the casino and, I guess, are the people who can't figure the finer points of "hit" and "stay" in blackjack. So a slow game + high house edge + douchebag players = NO TIPS! If 7 people are playing at my table, 6 are losing their asses and the 7th probably hit something big at some point, but will probably lose it all back sooner or later anyway.
The one thing that I just can't figure out is why this horrible game is so damn popular!!!! During my shift last night, I was on the 3-card poker/let it ride/$10 blackjack string. I stood dead for most of my time on the 3-card table, I dealt to mainly ONE guy at the blackjack table, but the Let It Ride table was completely full of nitwits just slowly, and very annoyingly, grinding their money into oblivion.
"Hmmmmm, is that a Let it Ride table over there?"Before anyone tries to point out that the dealers aren't making many tips on this game because of their negative attitude, just stop and think how much you are willing to tip when you are losing your ass. Dealers know that losing players don't tip very often, and since nothing but losers play this game, the tips magically do not come in!
Before going any further, please think about the most popular side bet on the table which involves putting a dollar chip on the lighted area above the bets. At my casino, I hit a button that lights up the circles that have bets on them (and ALL of them ALWAYS have bets on them), and then I TAKE THE DOLLAR CHIPS AND LOCK THEM UP! What other game in the entire casino LOCKS UP YOUR MONEY BEFORE ANY DAMN CARDS ARE DEALT! The casino is basically saying, "hey dumbass, you just put a buck on a bet with a 23% house edge! We might as well take it right away, because you can pretty much kiss it goodbye anyway!"
If I had to pick the one main annoyance to this game, its the lack of "good hands" that can be dealt to the player to start the game. To win ANY money at all, you need at least a pair of tens at the end of the hand. But of course, every player expects at least a pair of tens on the initial deal (at least every other hand or so), and will begin to complain CONSTANTLY if a few hands go by without getting a monster dealt to them. "Come on Rob, you need to get me some good cards!" "Rob, you're not being very nice to me." "Geez Rob, you don't want me to be here very long do you!" "Son of a bitch these cards suck!"
Quick math! There are 22,100 possible variations of the three cards dealt to you. 20,492 of those variations do NOT include a high pair or three cards to a royal flush. Now knowing this, would you be surprised to be consistently getting s**t cards over and over again?
"Oh man! I just lost all my money at the Let it Ride table again. But that old, unshaven smelly guy next to me said he won 10 grand last year playing Let it Ride. So it must be true, and it'll happen to me too if I play long enough!"-The Let It Ride tables are ALWAYS full!
-The dollar side bet that "lights up" has a 23% house edge on it.
-A craps table could be sitting dead for half the night, the Let It Ride table will loaded up with simpletons (yes, I've hit the thesaurus at this point).
-Blackjack has an almost even house edge if played correctly.
-Let It Ride has a 3.5% overall house edge if played perfectly by its basic strategy (guess how many typical Let it Ride players play perfect basic strategy).
If you doubt any of this, please feel free to visit the following web sites and do some research of your own:
Wizard of Odds Let it Ride
Wizard of Odds Let it Ride appendix
13 comments:
Rob,
Come on, don't hold back....how do you really feel about Let It Ride?
BTW--I've played the game once and hated it.
Jay from Ohio
I'z gotta learn my self that game so I can play it at Robs table when I'm next in town...
I've always wondered why its full as well...
Mike (nhe)
>LIR has a 3.5% overall house edge
Thats not so bad is it? Go much beyond 3.5 and its just a gift to the casino. Sure craps and blackjack are better but at the craps table wouldn't you limit yourself to bets with a 3.0% house edge or less.
>how many typical LIR players play perfect basic strategy
If you can get more of them to play basic strategy, your tips will increase. Just how far will the casino let you go to educate the players?
Fleastiff,
In games such as blackjack, the casino has no problem at all with dealers telling the players "what the book" says to do. In other words, we can tell them basic strategy. But to be completely honest, I'm not quite sure what the basic strategy is for LIR. I do know that 3.5% IS a very bad house edge when you can just walk to the blackjack table next to it and get almost even money on your gambling dollar.
That's really not the point though. The 3.5% OVERALL house edge only pertains to the first three basic bets. That does NOT take into account the 3-card poker side bet AND the horrible dollar side bet. So if I did know LIR basic strategy and wanted to teach it to the players, the very first thing I would HAVE to tell them is to ONLY bet the 3 basic bets, NOT the side bets at all! So as you could guess, I think the casino would have a big problem with me giving out that advice.
Then again, given the mentality of typical LIR players, I believe my advice would fall on completely deaf ears.
What's the minimum on you LIR game? What nights do you deal it? I smell road trip!! I fell for you brother, hang in there, we all had to "put in our time" on games like LIR when we were breaking in. I find the night goes by faster if you fire the cheques back at them with your middle finger each time they scratch their bet.
on my last trip to vegas I hit 4 of a kind twice in the same day....and neither time was I playing the $1 bonus bet, or the 3 card bet. During this time, I saw a lady hit 4 deuces while starting with trip deuces playing the 3 card bonus and the "light up" bonus. funny enough, I was killing on LIR the night before i hit these 2 4 of a kind bets.....i was starting with a pair of 10s or better almost every hand. must have been a great string of luck.
>given the mentality of LIR players my advice would fall on deaf ears.
That is probably the main problem. Even if the casino didn't care what you told them and you had the time for extended lessons, the players sometimes really WANT to give their money away by bucking an absurdly high house edge.
And its not ever going to help some guy with a free drink in his hand to tell him "the book says you should own this LIR game or else walk away from it and go to the 21 table". His choice is between dumb and sober or dumb and drunk.
I always wondered what happened to the Red Dog players. It seems they found a new game.
What is your opinion of "The Big Wheel?" Should I play that before or after LIR?
Salty,
If you have time and a ton of expendable cash, you can parlay a session on LIR AND the Big Wheel with Casino War, thus completing the trifecta of casino suck!
>3.5% is a very bad house edge when the BJ table
>next to it gives almost even money on your gambling dollar.
Atleast that involves a transition from LIR to Blackjack. What about people who play at a double zero wheel when a single zero wheel is also quite nearby. Same game. Different odds. A few steps away!
Or 6:5 Blackjack rather than 3:2?
When foolish people enter a casino they do not become wise; they just become foolish people with free drinks in their hands.
Consider perhaps Spanish21:
My understanding is that by using a "Spanish deck of cards" (four 10s missing) the edge is shiften markedly toward the house but a myriad of rules and options if known to the player and played without fault reduce the house edge to almost infitessimal. Ofcourse, one might ask who knows all the various options to begin with much less will remember them perfectly when there is music, half-naked ladies and alcohol? So that infitessimal house edge is really a theoretical one and I would have no idea what a real world house edge would be.
>we can tell them basic strategy
Casinos seem to differ markedly.
Once, feeling somewhat unlucky in a particular casino in Biloxi and being very must constrained by lack of a rental car and inability to deal with the intense heat and humidity, I sought information about any shuttle transportation only to be told flat out "we aren't going to help you get to a different casino".
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