Thursday May 12, 2005

Saddenz

A recent article in the May 12, 2005 Tahoe Daily Tribune made me fear the worse about the long term fate of anything other then slot machines in casinos. The title of the article is "Nevada casinos win record $1 billion in March".

The win was the amount left in Nevada casino coffers after gamblers wagered a record $13.4 billion during March, including $13.3 billion on slots and the rest on table games.

The article didn't appear on their website when I looked and contains some claims that are not consistent with the above quote.

The $1.03 billion statewide win during March included $719.6 million from slot machines and $301 million from table games. Poker accounted for the balance.

Looking at a little more credible source, the Las Vegas Review Journal, we find the equivalent article.

Slot machine win statewide of $719.6 million on $11.3 billion wagered was an all-time record, Streshley said, adding that March is traditionally a strong month for slot machine play.

Still a pretty sick number. Its pretty hard for me to imagine how its worth 11.3 billion to sit in front of a machine and pull a handle with the hope you get a good random number the next time¹. Some part of the 11.3 billion includes video poker play which I can vaguely understand.

I use to wonder why casinos spent so little money promoting new pit games. With the poker craze going on wouldn't it be interesting to hook some more of that money by the house? Well, the answer is probably that the cost of gaining that extra income doesn't make it viable.

¹ Not to be harsh, but that takes less thought then it took when the editor managed not to notice that the numbers in the article didn't make sense. ( May 12 2005, 01:55:02 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

steady as she goes

Another weight watchers weigh in and another 2.4lbs for a total of 20.2lbs lost. This is about the rate I've been able to hold down to 220lbs in the past. Weight watchers claims for my sex/age/height I should be able to make it down well under 200lbs. I havn't been there since college! My body is long for my height causing me to be heavy for my height (I've tended to beat the carny weight guessers since I was a youth). OTOH I wouldn't mind losing as much as I can. I'm think that once I get down under my initial goal (weight watchers sets a 10% weight loss as your first goal) of 25lbs I'll probably aim to get under 215lbs and see how things go. Summer is coming which is an easier time for me to lose weight as I hike a lot more then I do in the winter.

We had a nice post meeting meal at a new Mexican restaurant named Mazatlan. My wife is in New Orleans this week with her friend so I hung out with the girls. My wife and I had been there once before and had split opinions. My meal was fine but my wife thought her carnitas was marginal. This time nobody had any complaints. ( May 12 2005, 08:05:49 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]