The Blackjack is the most popular of the casino’s games that are played with playing-cards. The initial name of the game was “Twenty-one” (“21″), and it was first appeared in the French casinos around 1700 a.C. where it was called “vingt-et-un” that is “twenty-one”.

The name blackj ack came at the beginning of the 20th century, when in the game came the rule according to which every player who had a total of 21 points in his first two cards and these cards were Ace Club (A § ) and “Black” Jack (Blackjack), that is Jack Club (J § ) or Jack Stick (J ª) , then he would get paid his bet not 1 to 1 (1:1) but 3 to 2 (3:2). Ever since, it remained and was established for the game the name Blackjack with the difference that nowadays, by saying “hand” “blackjack”, we mean a total of 21 points that is formed with the two first cards, the one of which is Ace and the other any other Picture-card or Ten. Of course, as it is natural, the game wasn’t always played in the way it is played nowadays. Initially the casinos used for the game one pack of cards. In time, however, the casinos ascertained that the game Blackjack was damaging, since the experienced and skillful players had the capacity to which numbers handed out in the previous rounds and formed their bets with progressive fluctuations which had very small risk. Initially they bet restrainedly while afterwards they raised their bet since they knew more or less (or exactly) which cards were left, and were in the position to estimate the profit probabilities for them. Apart from the players’ mnemonic capability, it was evolved during the decade of the 50s a number of rules by a group of mathematicians which was named “Basic Strategy”, while in parallel, the card counting methods were also evolved with first teacher the mathematician Edward Thorp and his book “Beat the Dealer”. The application of the card counting techniques from the players, who were in the position to estimate the proportion of high in value cards in relation to the low in value cards that had remained in the playing-cards, finally gave an advantage to the players and a disadvantage to the casino. The casinos reacted with various defense measures and changes in the game’s terms, until the rules of the game were formed in the way they are valid today. At this point we have to point out that the game Blackjack isn’t played by the same rules in all the casinos. There are certain differences and declinations as far as the game’s transaction rules are concerned. In the followings we shall refer to the rules which are valid in most Greek Casinos.

The game Blackjack

The game’s goal

In the game Blackjack every player plays against the “banca” which is represented by the dealer. The player’s goal in the game Blackjack, is to aim at winning the dealer’s “hand” without exceeding the 21 marks. From now on, by the sense “hand” in the game Blackjack we shall mean the final total (sum) of marks that the cards of every player or of the dealer have in every round of a game.

So, goal in the game Blackjack is for the dealer’s hand to be beaten. In order for this to happen, either the player has to have a bigger “hand” than the dealer’s “hand” without the player’s “hand” exceeding the 21 marks, or, the dealer to exceed the 21 marks (“to be burned). * As it initially becomes realized and as it will become obvious in the followings, the player owes to administrate his “hand” properly in order to achieve his goal. Indeed, the Blackjack is the only one of all the casino’s “table” games where the player can, by participating actively, to determining , and up to a point, to modulate the result of the outcome of the game’s every round. So, we owe to point out from the beginning that the Blackjack is a complex game that calls for skilled handling, strategy application, initiative, optimum knowledge of the rules and very good memory.

As far as the transaction way of the game Blackjack is concerned, there are certain similarities to our familiar new-year games “Thirty-one” and “Twenty-one”, since all the players play against the “banca”. In the new-year games every player, when his turn comes and he wishes so, becomes “banca” (“mother”, “case”), and the rest of the players play against him. In the casinos there is a permanent “banca” which is represented by the dealer.

The table of the game Blackjack

The procedure of the bets’ placement

The table of the game Blackjack appears in the following draft 6-1.

Draft 6-1  . The table of the game Blackjack

Another form of the table of the game Blackjack is presented in the following draft.

Draft 6 - 2  .  Another table form of the game Blackjack .

As we easily ascertain from the drafts above, the Blackjack is played in semicircular table, the layout of which is covered by green or blue felt. The maximum number of sitting players in a Blackjack table is seven, because this is also the number of the rectangular boxes on the layout of the Blackjack’s table, in front of every player. These boxes are bets’ positions and the players can place on them their bets. However, the game’s regulations usually allow the placement of up to three bets from three different players on the same box. The over all height of these bets, isn’t usually allowed to exceed the maximum allowed limit of the specific table. In the past, the placement of up to three different bets on the same box is allowed only provided there have been placed bets on all the bets’ positions, that is on all the seven boxes. The above depend on the regulations which are valid every time and which are instituted by the casino for the game Blackjack. Anyway, in the Blackjack every player is in the position to bet on more than one bet positions, that is on more than one boxes, which means that he can play more than one “hands” in every round of the game if he wishes so, since it is allowed to bet on boxes (therefore for “hands”) of his playmates too. In the game Blackjack it is important how many in every round of the game are active (“open”), that is on how many there is a bet placed, and not the number of the players. That is, even only one player can place bets on all the seven boxes. Also, bets can placed on the boxes by players standing up, next to or behind the sitting players. In this case, however, first in the handling of the cards (of the “hand”) comes the sitting player to whom the specific box “belongs”. Of course, the two players who have a bet on a common box are allowed to communicate for the decision they shall take about the handling of their cards.

On the Blackjack table, apart from the seven bet positions which are printed on the felt of the table’s layout, there are also printed the bet positions “Over-13″, “Under-13″ as well as the following phrases: “Blackjack Pays 3 to 2″, “Dealer Must draw to 16 And Stand On All 17″, “Insurance Pays 2 to 1″. The sense of each phrase is related to the regulations of the game Blackjack, and will be explained during the analysis of the transaction procedure of the game.

On the Blackjack’s table and in front of the dealer, who stands in the middle of the back side of the table, lays the “banca”, that is a box that contains the chips (chip tray). ** Also, on the right of the dealer there is the slot in which the dealer places the banknotes that are given to him by the players in order to take chips (money drop slot). A little more on the right there is a special position (discard tray) where the “used” cards are placed, that is the cards that have appeared (played) in a previous round. On the left of the dealer there is the “shoe”, a wooden or plastic case in which are placed, after being mixed, the six or eight packs of cards in which is (usually) played the game Blackjack. From the “shoe” the dealer draws and gives out the cards. The “shoe” appears in the following draft 6-3.

Draft 6-3  .  The shoe or sabot.

Moreover, on the Blackjack table there is an indicating sign which informs the player for the minimum and maximum bet limits that are valid for the specific table. The minimum limit may differ from table to table and, for example, be 1.000 or 2.000 or 5.000 Drs. The counterpart maximum limit is usually 50 times higher (50 times more) than the minimum limit. So, in our example, the counterpart maximum limit shall be 50.000, 100.000, 250.000 Drs. The form of the sign that informs the players for the height of the minimum and the maximum allowed bet limit is as follows:

Panel 6-1  Indicating bet limit sign for the Blackjack game.

Finally, on the Blackjack table we can discern the box’s rift where the dealer places the tips of the players, as well as a money counter that the players give in order to take chips.

All the bets in Blackjack are placed against the “banca”, which is permanently represented by the dealer. The dealer exchanges the players’ money into chips, gives out the cards, gathers the losing bets and pays the winning bets. The dealers change places with each other in regular time periods.

Introduction

Especially beloved by the casino visitors are the games of the slot machines. The first reel slot machines (from now on simply slot machines), that is the cylinder machines of one arm bandit type, were made in Eastern Coast of the USA However, they weren’t accepted widely, until they were transferred in San Fransisco around the end of the previous century. In the bars of Barbary Coast and the Tenderloin territory the clients won cigars for free or free drink playing a “nickel” coin of 5 cents in the “primitive” slot machines which used as profitable signs deck cards. Very few of the clients were in the position to understand the mathematical logic of which the cylinders of these devices were governed, so the slot machines’ owners made huge profits.

The name “one arm bandit” or “one-handed” which is used even nowadays, came up because of the lever that is placed at the left side of the machine, which has the shape of an arm and is used in order to give movement to the machine.

Plenty of slot machines’ manufacturers existed during that period and each one believed that he had made the most modern slot machine with the rotational cylinders and the direct cash payouts.

The German immigrant engineer Charles Fey however, with the slot machine “Liberty Bell” in 1895 is considered the precursor and the manufacturer of the modern slot machines. The design of the three cylinders was copied by many other manufacturers and in 1905 thousands of slot machines were in all the stores in the USA.

The “Liberty Bell” machines consist of three rotational cylinders. Every cylinder worked independently from every other while the one stopped after the other. Every cylinder had ten different symbols such as spades, hearts, diamonds, or “stops”, as well as a bell. So, the possible different combinations that could be done were 1.000 (10 x 10 x 10 = 1.000). The player in order to win a certain amount of money had to achieve on the straight line one and only combination, the one of the three symbols-”Liberty Bells”. That is the probability for a player to win was only 1 in 1000 while the payment efficiency to the player was 10 nickels. Nevertheless, because the allurement for a direct and on the spot money profit seemed attractive, these machines were a great success in their time.

The San Fransisco earthquake in 1906, ruined almost all the factories that manufactured slot machines. The manufacturers returned more powerful, but in 1909 all the slot machines were considered illegal both in San Fransisco and in California and Nevada. So, The manufacturers prevariated the machines as “gum” machines which, instead of money, gave out packages of gum in the jackpots. For the machines better “camouflage”, the symbols of the decks were replaced by symbols-fruits (lemons, oranges, peaches, cherries etc.) and tags with “gums” which evolved in “bar” in the nowadays machines. From 1918 up to 1934 the machines had once more an anodic course. Up to the 60′s decade though, and with very few exceptions, they met an important fall.

Two important incidents happened in the 60′s and 70′s that formed a different aspect so much for the slot machines players as for the administrative personnel of the casinos which, up to that time, maintained a very small number of slot machines for simple entertainment of some players.

The electric engineered machines were designed and developed by the manufacturing pinball machine company Bally Manufacturing that allowed much higher payment efficiencies than the mechanical machines. The Bally machines had a large hopper that could store almost 2.500 coins. Moreover they could accept more than one coin, which allowed the players to place up to 5 coins in every draw of the handle.

When the casinos were legalized in Atlantic City, the slot machines became the game that most of the players preferred. Audio effects, special lighting, music and more often payments attracted more and more players in the slot machines. The players could select among three-cylinder, four-cylinder and five-cylinder machines.

In 1979 was published the first official article that concerned the slot machines.

In 1980, the same company Bally manufactured a system with which a group of machines could connect to each other so that a player playing in the connected machines and forming an appropriate combination and under the precondition he had thrown the proper number of coins, had the possibility to claim and acquire an important amount of money (jackpot).

Nowadays there are tens of Slot machine manufacturers all over the world (USA, Europe, Australia, Japan etc.), which try all continually to make more and more attractive machines, with great programming possibilities using the last word of technology. So, nowadays, we discern machines of touch screens and multi touch screens where the player simply by touching the screen, chooses the game he wishes and then he handles its functions either right away through the screen, touching the choices that are provided to him, or through keys that are in front of the machine, while more and more new types of machines appear.

So, though till the 60′s the administrative personnel of the casinos simply maintained the machines in order to occupy the wives of the players who bet important amounts on the casino’s tables, nowadays with the computers’ evolution that have become an integral part of our everyday life and with the video games attracting more and more persons, the slot machines are one of the most popular games but also the center of the casino’s profits. Indicatingly we mention that in the USA, more than 2/3 of the casino profits come from the slot machines. Besides, the profits coming from the slot machines are “guaranteed” for the casino, since they appear no risk.

The casino, opposite to the rest of the games it provides, is in the position to estimate the income by the slot machines since the machines are nothing more than programmed devices. The profit can be programmed and defined by the use of an accidental numbers generator which defines how much money that was played will be returned as profit to the players. The same generator which provides to the casino this guaranteed profit, also gives to the players the possibility to acquire and win a very large amount (depending on how every machine is adjusted and programmed) from the money that has been played.

Function way of the one armed bandit machines

A slot machine is presented in the following draft:

Draft 9-1  . Reel Slot Machine

The “one arm” type machines have a screen (video screen),inside which rotate three or more cylinders. Every cylinder has on it various symbols, shapes, images, numbers etc. depending on every machines type. The cylinders are usually mechanical rotating cylinders in most machines, but there are also machines where the cylinders aren’t real but electronic mappings.

The game’s aim is for the player to achieve in the same straight line of the screen certain appropriate combinations. The profitable combinations are written on a drawing that is on the machine. The game starts as follows:

The player exchanges money and is supplied with special coins which every machine is capable to accept. On every machine there is distinctly declared the minimum value of the coins which it accepts. This can also be realized by the color of the lamp that is over every machine.

The minimum value that the various machines that we meet usually have in Greek casinos is 25 Drs. – 50 Drs. – 100 Drs. – 250 Drs. – 1.000 Drs. without this meaning that there are no machines where the minimum value can be less or more than the above. The player, throws in the slot or else coin socket, one or more coins.

Every coin represents or, more correctly, “is credited”, for one game. The player can choose to play one or more games every time, up to the maximum number of games allowed by every machine (max credits). The initiation of the cylinders is done in two ways:

The first way is for the player to draw upwards the handle that is on the left of the machine. This handle, as we mentioned before, reminds an arm shape and because of its existence these machines were called “one-armed” or “one-handed”. The handle is maintained mainly for traditional reasons, in order to remind the past of the machines’ manufacture. However, it is also functional, since when the player pulls it, the rotation of the cylinders begins.

The second way is for the player to push the button ” Spin Reels ” that is on the front side of the machine next to the slot where the coins are placed. After a very short period, the cylinders. The one after the other (from the left to the right) stop, and on the screen appear certain symbols (numbers, shapes, representations etc.).

If these symbols’ combination in a pay line of the screen (or in the pay lines and in the diagonal lines, depending on the type of the machine) is one of the profitable ones, then the player has won an amount counterpart to the combination he established. The hierarchy of the profitable combinations, is written on a special panel (pay table) that is over or below the machine’s screen.

The player who won has two choices. Either by pressing the ” Cashout ” button, to “shoot”, that is to let the coins he won to fall in the “basin” that lies at the bottom of the machine, or to ” Credit ” the profitable coins in in games. The player, any time he wishes so, has the possibility to take the coins or call a qualified clerk to delete for him from the machine the credit games and exploit his counterpart profit in money.

This is, in general lines and in simple words, the operation way of these machines. As it appears by the operation way of the machines that we described, the player, opposite to the video poker that we’ll describe in a following unit, has in effect no choice possibility. From the moment he draws the handle or presses the ” Spin Reels ” button, he simply waits for a combination to appear on the screen which will be either profitable or not, and that is defined by the way every machine is programmed. Exceptions are certain types of “one-armed” machines which provide the possibility to the player to be able to stop the rotation of one or two of the three cylinders pressing instantly the ” Hold ” button. Of course, the player isn’t in the position to define which will be the symbol achieved by the cylinder the moment he stops it.
The usual “one-armed” type machines have three cylinders. The number of symbols that every cylinder has differs, but usually it isn’t less that ten and more than twenty five.

The profit percentages that will be attributed to the players are defined by the program manufacturer of every specific machine, but can also be adjusted. The usual adjustment scale is to be attributed to the player 87-98% of the incomes.

The “one-armed” type machines appear in several versions but their function way in most of them is similar. Their efficiency depends mainly on the value of the coins they accept as well as on the number of games that the player plays every time.

Example of slot machine function

Even though the symbols of the slot machines as we mentioned before, vary (from fruits to playing-cards), however all the slot machines operate in the same way.

In the following example we cite the panel of the payments efficiency of the slot machine with the name “Gold Pirates” as an indicating example of the operation way of the slot machines.

Initially the player chooses his bet (stake) by throwing in the slot the counterpart coins. The amount he shall win in every profitable combination depends on the height of his bet.

The buttons that are used for the game are the followings.

The diagram of the profitable combinations and the payment efficiencies for the specific machine are as follows:

Punto Banco Pro Series
Extremely popular in Latin countries, Punto Banco™ Pro Series is similar to Baccarat and features up to a nine to one payout for tie best and a maximum bet per hand of €10 000. Played with six regular card decks, Punto Banco has some simple basic rules, such as each player does not receive any more than three cards; when Banco (bank) and Punto (player) hands are equal, the dealer declares a “stand-off”; and face cards and tens have a value of zero, while aces count as one and the other cards are taken at face value. Finally, if a player has a hand with a value exceeding nine, this amount is changed by subtracting ten from the total amount of cards in the hand The object of Punto Banco is to place a bet on the hand which a player thinks totals or is closest to nine.
A few terms regularly used when playing Punto Banco are the “shoe”, which is the box holding the cards to be used during the game as well as the round of consecutive hands that are dealt from a full box of cards until all the cards have been used. Another Punto Banco word is “natural”, which refers to the total of eight or nine, considered to be “naturally” strong in this game. The “cut card” is a colored plastic card, usually red, that is placed at the bottom of the pack before that pack is put into a “shoe”. This allows the dealer to know when the shoe is about to run out of cards. Additionally, when someone playing Punto Banco has a total of three but draws a seven, this results in a total amount of zero due to the fact that counts of ten are not recognized in this card game. As a result, this kind of hand is considered to be the worst possible hand someone could have.

French Roulette

This classic French Roulette table game produced by Net Entertainment provides convenient yet advanced auto-play features and a more minimalist design that enhances playing for both the beginner and professional. As a direct response to the overwhelming success of the Advanced Roulette game, French Roulette was once only available to play in Monte Carlo or the country of France itself. But now the internet and Net Entertainment allows you to play this exciting game in the comfort of your home.

One of the first things you will notice about French Roulette is the fact that some of the numbers on the table are red. This doesn’t mean anything and is just something unique to a French Roulette table. However, numbers are still alternatively black and red, just as they are on all versions of the roulette wheel. Players can also place even-money bets on either black or red while playing French roulette. A different rule included in French roulette is referred to as “La Partage”, which means that if a player makes an even money bet and the ball happens to land in the zero slot, this player will end up losing only half of his or her bet.

French roulette is similar to standard roulette games when it comes to being able to place different bets, such as corner bets, straight bets and split bets. This game also has a special bets group players have termed the “call bets”. Call bets deal with seemingly odd groupings of numbers, but there is logic to this type of betting which is based on how the numbers on a French roulette wheel are positioned. Playing French roulette online makes call bets easy because of the convenience of having a “call bet” button to click in order to see the call bet menu.