Bellagio – The Fun Online Casino

With 42 crisp hundreds lining my pocket and child-like wonder pulsating, Vegas was summoning me from the bowels of hell. But first, I had to take a little detour by Morongo Casino for no particular reason other than recently reading up about Jackson's Seminole Wars and Cherokee policy; felt like the right thing to do.
I smoke a few bowls from my apple piece and do some Tai Chi in the parking structure to immerse into the zone. Within the zone, I am as objective as a poker player as I can comprehend; once the zone crumbles to ego, I am a PLO donk from the pit of eternal suffering and going all in on long shot stock options. It's a perplexing duality to rationalize and live with, though I wouldn't have it any other way. I lost a wee bit under 10k two weeks before with said degeneracy; regardless, there I was harnessing my Chi in the parking structure to redeem myself - maybe I should have been volunteering at a soup kitchen or raising malnourished kittens instead of this self centered quest, but the journey had already commenced..
The only game with an open seat is a 5/10 and I sit down with $666 for my own amusement. The villain of this hand had accidentally revealed his cards to my peaking eyes a few hands before where he floated 2x and bombed a paired board with nothing against a nit. Having known this, I flatted his 3b to 105 with my QQ's because his range is too wide to rip it and checked to him when the board came T95 rainbow, surprisingly he checks back. Turn is a 4 (bringing in clubs) and I lead for 60 to hopefully induce - he flats. River is an offsuit Ace and I check it, he insta rips all in for 550 effective. I ruminate on quantum theory and my mother's abuse, then make the crying call only due to the fact that I saw his donkalicous play before. Sure enough, he flops over 57h and the trip is off to a BANG. After playing tight for another hour and as the table slowly began to break, I walk out with nearly a grand more to my name.
I sat in my Volvo wagon with an American spirit fading to my finger tips and Bach's E Major Partita emitting from mere mm's of my phone's speakers, I realized I had completed the most objective objective of this trip.. The only reason I set off was because my cello "broke" the day before and the degen tingles were too convincing without a bow in hand, now I had more than enough in profit to get my baby tuned up. But who the fuck has the time to act upon their conscience, I'm tryin to GAMBOL! "Vegas, here I come darlin."
I stopped in Barstow to force myself to vomit and then gently placed a tab of LSD under my tongue in ode to Dr. Gonzo. I tried deciphering some meaning in the vast array of stars as I wandered the barren Mojave and after coming up short, I was back to flooring it on the 15. My optics were melting a tad and the road did permeate with my breath, but not an ounce of fear radiated within. I sang my favorite songs from "O Brother Where Art Thou" and didn't think about my ex at all with "You Are My Sunshine," baby steps. With the dusk hue fading as rays of light mustered over the horizon, our beloved capitalist wasteland was within eye shot. Before I could render the inclination of a responsible thought, I was in the Bellagio parking lot smoking weed with some drunk broad beggin for a few bucks to throw on slots - "Ganja is the only charity I provide hon."
After a few orbits at 5/10 with a far too many regs that I recognized and getting a walk with Aces, I stand up right there n then and get the hell out of that nit fest. My soul was aching for 4 cards and there's no forsaking such a ravenous urge, Aria was my destiny.
Due to the fact that live 1/2/5 PLO is actually abbreviated for BINGO, most of my play was incredibly standard and not worth typing out. There was only one hand for which wasn't a cognitive snap decision against a 10/20 pro for whom I had top set and let 3 potential straight combos get there from foolish slow play; after a minute of deciphering the hand and his perception of my image, I called his $400 river bet and got the good news. Aside from that single hand, any domesticated chimp could have been in my seat and it wouldn't have made a difference; the hands played themselves out. After 72 hours of continuous grinding and gettin lucky at 5/5/10, I reached the sacred $4,200 in profit and doubled my trip's first stop loss amount (which I had no intention of adhering to).
With 84 mildly crumpled hundreds in my pocket and that same child-like wonder pulsating; here I am wandering the strip looking for the stories in all these confused faces. But conceptualizing the seemingly infinite dimensionality within even the simplest of folk is futile when I am just as confused; I hope the find what they are looking for or find that the looking is the fun part, who the fuck knows. I appears as though the next leg of my journey is to visit my childhood home in southern Utah and commit Felony arson in spite of my mother - or I might just keep degening away. Only time will tell.
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Safe travels comrades.

Since the Diamond Casino update, I have seen a large number of 12-year-olds posting Blackjack memes on this sub. As a parent, this has me very worried.
On top of that, I have seen some of the most trustworthy GTA Youtubers giving flawed gambling advice, which can have damaging impact on their gullible audiences.
So that's why I decided to write this up, to educate everyone on the subject, so there will be no more misunderstandings.
(2020 Update down at the bottom.)
If you're one of those Youtubers that wants to use this information in a video, feel free to do so. The more people (especially kids) that become educated about gambling, the better.
But then also please go back and review your own work, and delete or edit the videos that are giving out the wrong advice, like where you're saying you have "a good strategy for making money with roulette", or some other nonsense that I've heard this week. Delete that please.
Before I get into the individual games, I need to discuss a few concepts first, that will make understanding the rest a lot easier.
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Expected return and variance
A game like Roulette or Slots has a fixed expected return on your bets. This is a percentage that you have no way of influencing. Say you are flipping a coin against a friend, and you both put up $1. The winner gets the pot. Since the odds are even at 50%, in the long run, you will expect to break even. Your expected return is 100% of your bet.
But imagine if you would play this coin flipping game in a casino against the house. On the "house rules" listed at the table they would probably say that you would only get 95 cents back for every win, while you are forfeiting a dollar on every loss. Would you still play?
Sounds stupid to do so, but still, everybody does it. Every bet they place on Roulette, every coin they put into a Slot machine, is based on the same concept.
Those few cents they take on every bet are their profit margin, and has paid for all the Vegas lights, the Mirage volcanoes, and the Bellagio fountains. Make no mistake - casino gambling games are not designed to make you lose, because sure, you can get lucky on a single night, but they are designed to make them win. That's the beauty of it. They can both exist at the same time.
Too many people that don't see how this works, are just destined for disaster. Just because you went on a lucky streak and won 8 games out of 10, does not mean that flipping coins is a profitable game, or that choosing tails is a winning strategy. Always be aware of the house edge, your true chances of winning, and just realize that you got lucky. There is no such thing as a strategy in flipping a coin that will give you a higher expected return, so it's just pure gambling, just like Slots and Roulette.
Most casino games are made in such a way, that your expected return is a little under 100%. This means that from every dollar bet at the tables, the casino expects to keep a few cents. For individual players, results may vary. Some will win, most will lose. But for the house, it doesn't matter. They take millions of bets each day, so for them, the expected average works out a lot sooner. In short: the house always wins.
When looking at the house edge, we're talking about the expected long-term result, based on the game's house rules. But for a player, it can take literally tens of thousands of hands or spins before you also reach this average number. Until that time, you can experience huge upswings and downswings, that are the result of nothing but short-term luck, which is called variance.
Some games and some bets have a much higher variance than others, which means your actual results will differ enormously from what you're expected to be at.
Take for example betting on red/black at the Roulette table. This is a low-variance proposition, because it has a high percentage chance of occurring, and a low payout.
Contrast this with betting single numbers in Roulette, which only win once every 38 spins on average. This bet has a much higher variance, meaning you can easily hit a dry spell, and not hit anything for 200 bets in a row, or you can see a single number hit three times in five consecutive spins. This is not a freak occurrence in high-variance bets.
Even though the expected return in both these bets is exactly the same, there's a huge difference in variance, causing massive differences in short-term results, which can go both ways. You need to be aware of this, before you decide what types of bets you are comfortable with placing.
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Gamblers' Fallacy
Another thing to realize, is that each individual game, hand, or spin, is completely independent from the one(s) before it, and after it.
Gamblers tend to believe, that the chance of a certain outcome is increased, based on previous results.
The most famous example comes from the Casino de Monte Carlo, where the Roulette wheel managed to land on black 26 times in a row. Gamblers lost many millions during that streak, all frantically betting on red, believing that the odds were in favor of the wheel coming out on red, after producing so many blacks. This is not true. Each round is completely independent, and the odds are exactly the same.
You will hear people say things like a Blackjack table being "hot" or "cold", which is completely superstitious, and should be ignored. The exception was when Blackjack was being dealt from a shoe. It made card counting possible. But with the introduction of shuffle machines, and continuous shuffling like is being used in GTA, this no longer exists.
This is also why "chasing your losses" is a very bad idea. After being on a losing streak for some time, many gamblers believe that now it's their turn to start winning. So they will often increase their bet size, believing that when their predicted winning streak comes around, they will win back their losses, and more.
The reality of it, more often than not, is that people will indeed start playing higher and higher limits, until they are completely broke. Nobody is ever "due for a win". There is never a guarantee that you're about to start winning. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true. You are, after all, in a casino.
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Betting systems
Some people like to think that they have a fool-proof betting system, like the Martingale system. Simply increase or even double your bet when you lose, and keep doing that until you win. In theory, this system will always win. So that's why table limits were introduced, and where the system fails.
If you start at the Roulette table, playing red/black, with a small 750 chip wager, and just double your bet every time you lose, you only have to lose 6 times in a row, before you will be betting the table limit of 48,000, just to get that 750 chip profit.
Sure, you can go on all evening without this happening, winning 750 chips each time, but this losing streak only has to happen once, and you're bust. Any betting system like this is ill-advised, because you are hugely increasing your so-called "risk of ruin", and that's what we were trying to avoid.
And even if your starting bet is only 100 chips, after only nine straight losses, and nine doubled bets, you are betting the table limit at 50,000 chips. If you lose that bet, you're 100,000 chips in the hole, with no way to recover that with your 100 chip base wager.
So don't believe anyone that says this is the perfect system to always win in the casino. Sooner or later they will understand why they were wrong, when they're asking you for a loan.
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Set your limits BEFORE you start playing
One final point before we get into the games, a general tip for people that head out to play: money management.
Just like in real life, before you go to the casino, decide on a maximum amount that you are WILLING TO LOSE.
Bet small enough, so that amount can last you through the entire evening, and you will not be tempted to run to the ATM to continue playing.
Considering GTA money, some people will be comfortable losing 1% of their GTA bank balance, some people will be comfortable with gambling away 5% of their total GTA savings. It's up to you what you can handle. Decide for yourself where it will start to hurt, and don't cross that line.
But whatever number you decide on, as soon as you lost that amount, get up and walk away. Don't chase your losses, stick to your limits, and accept that this has not been your day. There is always another game tomorrow. Always agree with yourself on a simple stop-loss rule, how much you would want to lose at most, and simply stop playing when you get there.
Same goes for winning. You can decide on a number, how much profit you would like to take away from the casino. You can go on a hot streak and be up half a million in a short period of time, but if you would continue to play longer, looking for more, chances are that you're going to lose it all back.
Most people are happy with doubling their daily casino budget, for example. Others are looking for 10 bets profit in Blackjack. Whatever you choose, when you hit that number, you can stop playing and bank your profits, or you can continue playing if you're still enjoying the games, but then only just play minimum bet sizes. Then you're just playing for fun, not for money. You've already made your profit, so simply keep it in your pocket, and don't risk losing it again.
Either way, decide on what your money management strategy will be, and STICK TO IT.
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Casino games in GTA Online
Now, I'm going to dive into the games that you can find at the Diamond casino, ordered from worst to best.
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6) Slots
Generally the rule is this: the less strategy a game has, the worse it is for the player. And with slots, this is definitely the case.
The only influence you have, is choosing what type of machine you're going to play. Basically, there are two types of slot machines:
-high frequency, low payout slots
-low frequency, high payout slots
In the first type, there is no huge (progressive) jackpot on offer, just your average selection of prizes that don't go up to crazy amounts.
This will result in a player having many more spins resulting in a win. The amounts that you win on the bigger prizes, will be smaller, but they do come around more often. This type of slot machine has a lower variance, which means that your money should last you longer, winning many smaller prizes along the way to keep you going.
The second type of slot machine lures you in with the temptation of a huge jackpot prize. Even though the long-term expected return on these machines is the same as the previous type, the prize distribution is hugely different. The large jackpot prize weighs heavily on the scale of expected return, but the chance of it hitting is extremely small. This results in a much higher variance on this type of machine. Usually your money will go down very fast, because the smaller prizes are less rewarding than on the other type of machine.
At the Diamond, the info screen says the player return at slots is set at 98.7%. This means that, on average, for every maximum bet of 2,500 chips, you expect to lose 32.5 chips.
This might not seem like a lot, but the danger of slots is that the game is extremely fast. You can spin about once every 6 seconds, which would result in an expected LOSS of about 20,000 chips per hour of playing.
But again, in this long-term expected number, the large jackpot awards are also factored in, and as long as you don't hit those big prizes, you'll see your money go down a lot faster.
In any case, thank heavens the max bet is only set at 2,500, or else we would see more players go bankrupt at alarming rates.
Optimal strategy for slots:
There is none. Because after betting, you have no more influence over the outcome. The only choices you have, is what type of machine you want to play at, and how much money you are going to risk. And those are all personal preference. As long as you stick to your loss limits, as discussed above, there's no harm in having a go every once in a while, hoping to get a lucky hit. Just realize that you don't have a high chance of scoring a big win, so as soon as you do, get up and walk away.
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5) Roulette
Roulette is also a game where you have no influence over the outcome. There is zero skill involved. You place your bet, and that's it.
In traditional French roulette, a table has only the single-zero, but of course, for American casinos that wasn't enough of a house edge, so they simply doubled their profits by adding a second zero. The house edge was increased from 1/37 to 1/19, which is huge.
This makes playing on a double-zero roulette table by definition a sucker's play.
The payouts scale evenly, which means that a bet on a single number, and a bet on half of the numbers, and everything in between, yields the same expected return. The only difference, again, being the variance that you are willing to subject yourself to.
The player return for double-zero Roulette for all bets is 94.74%.
Except for the 5-number bet, which can only be made by placing a bet on the two top rows that contain 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3. The expected return on this bet is lower: 92.1%. This is because it only pays out 6-1. Why? Well, the number 36 isn't divisible by 5, so the greedy people that came up with double-zero Roulette had to round it off someway, and as expected, it wasn't going to be in the players' favor.Just remember that that 5-number bet is the worst bet at the table, and should be avoided. All other possible bets have the same expected return.
So it really doesn't matter how you spread your bets, if you bet only one chip, or if you litter the entire table with a bucketload of chips. Each chip you put out there, has the same expected return, so there is no strategy that will improve your long-term results.
Assuming that you're betting the maximum table amount of 50,000 chips, you will be looking at an expected loss of about 2,630 chips per spin. Considering that a round takes about 45 seconds to complete, your expected LOSS at the GTA Roulette tables will be around 200,000 chips per hour of playing.
Optimal strategy for double-zero roulette:
Stay away. Stay far away.
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4) Three Card Poker
With Three Card Poker, we come across the first game where there is actually some strategy involved. You get to look at your cards, and then decide if you want to fold, and surrender your ante, or double your bet.
Additionally, you can choose to place a side bet on "Pair Plus", which offers progressive payouts.
There are some websites out there that ran all the numbers with computer simulations, and even though I would like to quote the source here, these websites are understandably littered to the max with online casino ads, so that's why I have decided against doing that.
Optimal strategy for Three Card Poker:
For this game you only have to remember one strategy rule: Always bet on any high card queen-six-four or better, and fold any high card queen-six-three or lower. That's it. Just don't forget to double check if you're not folding a straight or a flush, and you'll be fine.
This strategy will result in an expected return of 96.63%.
The Pair Plus sidebet, with the payout table that is used at the Diamond casino, gives you an expected return of 97.68%, which is actually a bit better than the main ante bet.
So by playing both wagers, you're reducing your expected losses per bet, but since you're betting more, you're also increasing your expected loss per hour.
My advice would obviously be to not play this game at all, but if you do, put as much of your bet as possible on the Pair Plus, while making our Ante bet as small as you can.
To be able to compare it to the other games at the Diamond, let's stay on that 50,000 maximum wager, meaning making your ante bet 35,000, and your pair plus bet 15,000, if the table would allow it.
This results in an expected loss of about 1,525 chips per hand, and with a round taking about 45 seconds, this adds up to an expected LOSS of around 120,000 chips per hour of playing. In comparison, if you would only play the ante bet for 50,000 per hand, you expect to lose 1,685 chips per hand, which means an expected LOSS of about 135,000 chips per hour. So the more out of that 50,000 wager you can put on the "Pair Plus" sidebet, the better.
Even though it may be fun to try out this game for a bit, since there's only one simple strategy rule to follow, you'll soon find yourself robotically grinding down your bankroll until it has vaporized. You're not missing out on anything if you skip these tables, there is no real challenge.
Just like with Roulette and Slots, if you want to try it out nonetheless, you can just bet the minimum amounts and only play for fun, so it won't matter if you win or lose.
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3) Blackjack
Blackjack is the most complicated game by far. Simply because the player has to make a series of decisions, which will largely decide the outcome. Luckily, there is such a thing as an optimal strategy, which will be outlined below.
However, the strategy is also dependent on the house rules. These not only affect your expected return, but in some places also your decisions.
Here are the house rules at the Diamond casino:
-The game uses 4 standard decks, and a continuous shuffle.
-Blackjack pays 3 to 2, dealer checks for early blackjack.
-No insurance offered, no surrender.
-Dealer stands on soft 17.
-Double down on any two cards.
-Player can split only once, but doubling after split is allowed.
-Seven-Card Charlie.
Under these rules, and following the "basic strategy" chart, your expected return at Blackjack is a shade under 99.6%, which is extremely good for a casino game, that's why Blackjack should be your table game of choice.
But it comes at a price: you are going to have to memorize the relatively complicated strategy chart, or at least stick it to your monitor until you have it in your head. But in case you ever stumble into a real-life casino, you won't regret having this table memorized, so I would definitely advise you to work on that.
The strategy chart might look complicated at first, but you will be able to notice certain patterns. Your decisions are mainly based on the dealer's upcard, which is basically divided into a weak card (2 to 6), and a strong card (7 to ace).
When a dealer shows a strong card, you will be hitting more often with the risk of going bust, but when a dealer shows a weak card, you're not taking that risk, and you will be standing more, but also doubling and splitting more. You want to increase your bets when the odds are in your favor, and get out cheap when they're not.
But it also helps to take some time to think about why a certain advice is given. For example, why does it say that you always have to split two eights, even against an ace. Well, that's because two eights equals 16, which is the worst total you can have. It's better to split them up, and give yourself a chance of finding a 17, 18 or 19 with the next card. Once you see the logic in that, you'll have one less thing to memorize.
The playing advice in the basic strategy chart is a result of computer simulations that ran all possible outcomes against each other, and produced the most profitable decision for each situation. So you can't go wrong following it.
Optimal strategy for Blackjack with Seven-Card Charlie
The added house rule of Seven-Card Charlie, adds a small advantage for the player, and it does influence a few strategy decisions. For example, you might have a 14 with 6 cards, against the dealer's 5 upcard.
Normally this would be an automatic stand, but if you're only one card away from the Seven-Card Charlie, meaning an instant win for the player, regardless of the dealer's hand, it turns it into a hit.
Here's the most optimal strategy chart to follow for the Diamond Casino house rules: https://prnt.sc/olct6g
You'll see that two fives are missing from the chart, and that's because you never split them. You treat them as a regular 10. You also never split tens. Just stand on 20.
If you follow this strategy religiously, even with a maximum wager of 50,000 chips, you only expect to lose about 215 chips per hand, and with rounds taking about 30 seconds, that amounts to an expected LOSS of 26,000 chips per hour, which is only half a bet. A small price to pay for an hour of entertainment.
But since the expected return is so extremely close to 100%, you will see more positive short-term results than with other games. But obviously it can also swing the other way. Again, this is supposed to be the game where your money lasts you the longest, but always set your loss and win limits before you sit down. That rule simply always applies.
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Still, even with optimal strategies applied, all these games are expected to lose you money in the long run. So betting any kind of large amounts is not advised. If you simply want to enjoy playing these games, there's nothing wrong with betting a minimal amount. Playing these games for a longer period of time will already cost you money anyway, since your daily property fees will still be charged while you're playing in the GTA casino. As long as you can play for fun, there's nothing wrong, but when you see yourself betting insane chunks of your entire bank balance to try to recoup some unfortunate losses, you're doing it wrong.
As the commercials in Britain all correctly say: when the fun stops, stop.
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2) Virtual Horse Racing
Now onto the good stuff. I ran some numbers, and I believe Rockstar has made a mistake with the horse racing game. Because as it stands, and if I read the numbers correctly, this game is actually profitable for the player. You can actually make money with this, at least, until Rockstar figures out their mistake and patches it.
If anyone wants to jump into the math and double check this to make sure, please do so. I will add any corrections to this post. This is one of those "to good to be true" things, so I keep thinking that I might have overlooked something. So please verify it if you can.
The setup is this. There is a pool of 100 horses, each with their own attached payout. These are divided into 3 groups, ranked by their odds. From each group, 2 horses are randomly selected to provide a pool of six runners for you to bet on.
Now it's not an actual race you're looking at. You are looking at a raffle. This is important to realize.
Each horse gets awarded a certain number of raffle tickets. The favorites get awarded more tickets than the underdogs, and therefore, have a higher chance of winning.
If this distribution works like it does in the real-life casinos, then the raffle tickets are awarded according to the betting odds.
Example 1: imagine a race with 3 runners, all have 2/1 odds, representing a 33.3% chance of winning. (Because 2/1 means 2 AGAINST 1, so 3 total.) In this case, each horse gets one third of the raffle tickets, giving them an equal chance to win.
Example 2: imagine a race with 3 runners, one has 1/1 odds (or EVENS), representing a 50% chance of winning, and the other two horses are marked up as 3/1, with a 25% chance of winning. The favorite gets half the tickets, the other two get a quarter of the tickets each.
A ticket is drawn, and you'll have a winner.
It doesn't matter in this game which horse you bet on, because the expected return is always the same: 100% or break-even, for the above examples.
Now, what happens if the percentages don't exactly add up to 100%?
They must add up to 100%, because there will always be a winner. And only one winner.
So when this is the case, the actual winning chances of the horses are adjusted to meet the 100% requirement, using their payout odds to determine the scale.
So, if the represented percentages add up to more than 100%, the actual winning chances of the runners will be DECREASED, resulting in all bets becoming losing propositions for the players.
Example: In a 6-horse race, all runners are listed at 4/1, representing a 20% chance. Only with six runners that amounts to 120%. So all chances are scaled down by 1/6th, to end up at 100%.
This means your horse's chances are reduced from 20% to 16.67%, turning it into a losing bet: 5 times you will lose your bet, and 1 time you will win, but only get 4 bets back in this instance, instead of 5. A losing bet in the long run.
This is the type of odds that you find in regular casinos, with fields as large as 15 runners to bet on, where the assumed winning chances always add up to more than 100%, therefore are decreased for all runners, resulting in a house edge.
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But in GTA Online's Inside Track, there are other scenarios, because of the small field, and the way that they are put together.
In some cases, the represented percentages when added up, are LESS than 100%, meaning that the actual winning chances of all runners, are INCREASED.
This creates profitable bets for the players, because in the long run, you're expecting to win more money than you lose. This is a gambler's dream, pure and simple.
So, according to the in-game information, the three groups of horses are divided as follows:
-Favorites: EVENS to 5-1
-Outsiders: 6-1 to 15-1
-Underdogs: 16-1 to 30-1
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Let's take the two most extreme examples to show what's happening.
The worst possible field to bet on: two runners at EVENS, two runners at 6-1, and two runners at 16-1.
EVENS represents a 50% chance, 6-1 is 14.29%, and 16-1 is 5.88%. Add those up and you land on a total of 140.34%.
This means that the actual winning chances of the horses are decreased by 28.75% (to get that 140% down to 100%), which makes betting on this field extremely unwise.
A horse at EVENS will only come in as a winner 35.63% of the time, instead of 50%,
a horse at 6-1 will only win 10.18% of the time,
and an underdog at 16-1 will only win 4.19% of the time.
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The expected return on a bet on any of the horses in this field is only 71.26%, so a maximum bet of 10,000 chips on any of these horses holds an expected LOSS of 2,875 chips.
These returns are the same, because the winning chances are scaled equally, according to the payout numbers. So it really doesn't matter which horse you bet on, in the long run, you expect the same results.
But as explained before, it does influence variance, and therefore your short-term result, which can swing both ways.
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But now, the best possible field to bet on: two runners at 5-1, two runners at 15-1, and two runners at 30-1.
Odds at 5-1 represents a winning chance of 16.67%, 15-1 odds means 6.25% chance, and 30-1 odds means a 3.23% chance of winning. Add these six horses together, and you only get 52.285%.
This means that, to get from 52% to 100%, the actual winning chances of these horses will be almost doubled! Multiplied by 1.91 to be exact.
So the 5-1 favorites will now win 31.88% of the time, instead of 16.67%,
the 15-1 runners will win 11.95% of the time,
and the underdogs at 30-1 odds will still win 6.17% of the time.
When betting on this field, the expected return on your bet is 191.25%!
This means that a max bet of 10,000 chips will result in an expected PROFIT of 9,125 chips.
This is printing money, if there ever was such a thing.
Optimal strategy for Virtual Horse racing
So all you have to do, is only bet high on the games where you have an expected positive return, and bet the absolute minimum on the games where your expected return is negative. Or back out of the racing game to refresh the field.
If you don't have a way to quickly add up all the percentages, and until somebody shows up here with a neatly formatted table, just use a few general rules of thumb:
-Always bet the maximum on a race with favorites at 2/1 and 3/1 or higher in it.
-Simply skip all races with two favorites at EVENS in it, and at EVENS and 2/1. Or bet the minimum, if you can't skip or refresh the field.
-To decide if you should play races with other favorite combinations EVENS and 3/1, EVENS and 4/1, EVENS and 5/1, or two favorites at 2/1, the payouts on the other four runners determine whether or not it's profitable to play them. The results of betting on these fields vary from an expected 1,330 chip loss (worst-case) to an expected 1,680 chip win (best-case), with a max bet of 10,000 chips.
But if you're not looking for another strategy chart, you might just want to skip these borderline cases, and just cherry pick the best ones, which are easy to recognize, and with which you can never go wrong.
It's difficult to put a number on an expected win-rate, because it all depends on which fields you get presented with, but it's not unreasonable to state that you can maintain a steady win-rate of around 200,000 chips per hour, with about 50 seconds per race.
Remember, you're not trying to win every race. You're trying to win the most money per hour. So don't sweat it when you bet on a 4/1 favorite, and lose a couple of races in a row. It will still be more profitable in the long run. You have the math on your side.
To reduce negative variance, always bet on the favorite, when betting on profitable fields. We're not gambling anymore, we're grinding out a steady profit. We want to keep the swings to a minimum.
I contacted Rockstar support to verify if this is indeed how it works, but the only reply I got after 6 weeks is that they were "looking into it".
User u/Garsant made a useful Excel-worksheet, available for you to download, where you can quickly type in the payouts on the horses, to see if it produces a profitable bet or not. You can find it in his post here: https://www.reddit.com/gtaonline/comments/ekp8na/gta_online_inside_track_odd_calculato
​
1) Wheel of Fortune
The number one profitable casino game in GTA Online is obviously the Wheel of Fortune, because it costs you nothing to play.
Unfortunately, you only get one free spin per day, but it holds great value, so make sure you do it.
With a chance to win a super car, vehicle discounts, expensive mystery prizes (which also can be vehicles), and a lot of cash and chips, the expected return on a single spin is around $100,000 in value.
So don't forget your daily spin, it's definitely worth your time.
​
2020 Update:
As of the Diamond Casino Heist update, the Inside Track horse racing is confirmed to still be as profitable as outlined above.The only thing that seems to be changed, is that you can't refresh the field anymore by backing out of the screen. This does affect your hourly rate in a negative way, but does not change the fact that this game has a huge positive expected return, and should be your go-to when you're trying to take money from the house, without having Lester's nagging voice in your ear. That should also be worth something.
​
And with that, I conclude my 5,000 word essay on gambling in GTA. Questions, comments, feel free to add your input to this guide.
​
Cliffs:
-Gambling games should only be played for fun, not for big money. You should expect to lose in the long run. The house always wins.
-A casino game doesn't have a memory, and betting systems don't work.
-Set your limits before you start, how much you are willing to lose or win, and then walk away when you get there.
-Don't play slots, roulette, or three card poker.
-Only play blackjack following a basic strategy chart (https://prnt.sc/olct6g).
-Inside Track betting can be played profitably, if you only bet on fields WITHOUT a heavy favorite.
-Wheel of Fortune is always your best bet, because it's a free bet.

those don't have any concept what they are approximately to walk into. Down right here to have a great time, they discern 'why not supply poker a try?' in any case, how special can it be from the house sport they have played their whole lives?"
메이저 토토사이트
For most people, our first poker enjoy was nowhere near a casino. Both we learned from friends or own family contributors in domestic games, or we plugged into the online poker craze. Nonetheless, the idea of playing poker in an real brick and mortar (b&m) on line casino, with all of the attendant points of interest and sounds, is very tempting for most. So what do you need to recognize while moving your home or on line abilties to casino play? There are numerous differences among on line and b&m play, but two factors you can without delay want to take into account are tells and casino kind.
1. Tells
The principle issue the general public have when shifting from online to b&m play regards tells. A tell is a physical movement a player plays which can supply combatants a clue to his hand, inclusive of placing a hand to the face while bluffing.
On line, on account that your fighters can not see you, bodily tells are not really problem (there are online tells, however that is past the scope of this newsletter). In reality, one famous poker room has an advertising campaign where they invite those gamers who've a "bad poker face" to sign up for, for the reason that nobody can see your face on-line. Inside the film "rounders," quoted at the start of this newsletter, the villain is undone by using the way wherein he handles an oreo cookie depending on whether or now not he has a huge hand.
In fact, tells are not often this extreme. Maximum of the time when you play in a casino, in particular a "tourist" on line casino (see following), your warring parties are a whole lot more worried with what they're conserving than what you are.
Even when an opponent scrutinizes you, staring you down at the same time as thinking of a call, they are commonly simply considering how lots they like their own hand. Actual inform-spotting calls for long, cautious remark of a player's inclinations; you are now not possibly to give a great deal away on an man or woman hand.
Experts like to present the affect that they can just appearance right into your soul and recognise what you are retaining, however there may be loads extra to it than that. If you're really concerned you could buy a pair of reflective sunglasses to put on so no person can see your eyes. You can additionally usually wait a predetermined quantity of time (5 or ten seconds) earlier than acting whether your hand is powerful or now not so robust and choose a predetermined spot on the desk to stare at even as looking forward to a person to respond for your action.
2. Kinds of online casino
All casinos are not created same. Ten years in the past, before the explosion in poker popularity, maximum casinos did no longer have a poker room at all, or at pleasant, a small phase of the blackjack floor partitioned away in which or 3 $1 to $2 restriction games would possibly take location.
Manifestly, matters are one of a kind now, however there are nonetheless incredibly unique forms of casinos wherein one may play poker. The first is a card membership. Those are maximum normally observed in locations like california, wherein poker as a recreation of talent is legal, but a few other playing games aren't. Even though they have multiplied to different video games, those clubs are on the whole designed to play poker.
As such, you are probably to locate the most skilled poker gamers right here, despite the fact that no longer necessarily the most powerful and they have their share of vacationers as nicely. The more not unusual sort of casino is a las vegas style casino. These casinos have made fortunes on blackjack, slot machines and roulette and did no longer certainly awareness on poker inside the beyond as it is not a big cash maker for the on line casino.
In contrast to the alternative video games, that are towards the residence (the on line casino) and are based in order that the residence usually wins in the long run, poker is a recreation wherein the on line casino handiest makes cash through taking a percentage of every pot (referred to as "the rake," normally no more than $four a pot) for themselves. Despite the fact that now rare, some casinos take "time" rather than a rake, which means every 1/2 hour a representative of the casino comes round and collects a predetermined amount of money from every player in the game.
Of those las vegas style casinos, you may find what i consider as poker casinos vs. Tourist casinos. A poker casino is one that has constantly had poker as a part of its draw. Those consist of the bellagio and the mirage in las vegas and the taj mahal and borgata in atlantic town. A tourist casino is one of the aforementioned casinos that did now not have poker in any respect until the recent increase made it worthwhile as a draw to get gamers into their casino. Of path each of those kinds of casinos cater to travelers, but the poker casinos are where you are much more likely to locate specialists. Which of those types is extra for your taste is for the person to determine.
The maximum important issue to bear in mind is that whether it's online or inside the casino, poker is poker. Play a clever recreation and you have to rake within the chips, whether or not they're digital or product of clay.

This is not mine, the creator of this is u/enderpiet
​
Since the Diamond Casino update, I have seen a large number of 12-year-olds posting Blackjack memes on this sub. As a parent, this has me very worried.
On top of that, I have seen some of the most trustworthy GTA Youtubers giving flawed gambling advice, which can have damaging impact on their gullible audiences.
So that's why I decided to write this up, to educate everyone on the subject, so there will be no more misunderstandings.
(2020 Update down at the bottom.)
If you're one of those Youtubers that wants to use this information in a video, feel free to do so. The more people (especially kids) that become educated about gambling, the better.
But then also please go back and review your own work, and delete or edit the videos that are giving out the wrong advice, like where you're saying you have "a good strategy for making money with roulette", or some other nonsense that I've heard this week. Delete that please.
Before I get into the individual games, I need to discuss a few concepts first, that will make understanding the rest a lot easier.
Expected return and variance
A game like Roulette or Slots has a fixed expected return on your bets. This is a percentage that you have no way of influencing. Say you are flipping a coin against a friend, and you both put up $1. The winner gets the pot. Since the odds are even at 50%, in the long run, you will expect to break even. Your expected return is 100% of your bet.
But imagine if you would play this coin flipping game in a casino against the house. On the "house rules" listed at the table they would probably say that you would only get 95 cents back for every win, while you are forfeiting a dollar on every loss. Would you still play?
Sounds stupid to do so, but still, everybody does it. Every bet they place on Roulette, every coin they put into a Slot machine, is based on the same concept.
Those few cents they take on every bet are their profit margin, and has paid for all the Vegas lights, the Mirage volcanoes, and the Bellagio fountains. Make no mistake - casino gambling games are not designed to make you lose, because sure, you can get lucky on a single night, but they are designed to make them win. That's the beauty of it. They can both exist at the same time.
Too many people that don't see how this works, are just destined for disaster. Just because you went on a lucky streak and won 8 games out of 10, does not mean that flipping coins is a profitable game, or that choosing tails is a winning strategy. Always be aware of the house edge, your true chances of winning, and just realize that you got lucky. There is no such thing as a strategy in flipping a coin that will give you a higher expected return, so it's just pure gambling, just like Slots and Roulette.
Most casino games are made in such a way, that your expected return is a little under 100%. This means that from every dollar bet at the tables, the casino expects to keep a few cents. For individual players, results may vary. Some will win, most will lose. But for the house, it doesn't matter. They take millions of bets each day, so for them, the expected average works out a lot sooner. In short: the house always wins.
When looking at the house edge, we're talking about the expected long-term result, based on the game's house rules. But for a player, it can take literally tens of thousands of hands or spins before you also reach this average number. Until that time, you can experience huge upswings and downswings, that are the result of nothing but short-term luck, which is called variance.
Some games and some bets have a much higher variance than others, which means your actual results will differ enormously from what you're expected to be at.
Take for example betting on red/black at the Roulette table. This is a low-variance proposition, because it has a high percentage chance of occurring, and a low payout.
Contrast this with betting single numbers in Roulette, which only win once every 38 spins on average. This bet has a much higher variance, meaning you can easily hit a dry spell, and not hit anything for 200 bets in a row, or you can see a single number hit three times in five consecutive spins. This is not a freak occurrence in high-variance bets.
Even though the expected return in both these bets is exactly the same, there's a huge difference in variance, causing massive differences in short-term results, which can go both ways. You need to be aware of this, before you decide what types of bets you are comfortable with placing.
Gamblers' Fallacy
Another thing to realize, is that each individual game, hand, or spin, is completely independent from the one(s) before it, and after it.
Gamblers tend to believe, that the chance of a certain outcome is increased, based on previous results.
The most famous example comes from the Casino de Monte Carlo, where the Roulette wheel managed to land on black 26 times in a row. Gamblers lost many millions during that streak, all frantically betting on red, believing that the odds were in favor of the wheel coming out on red, after producing so many blacks. This is not true. Each round is completely independent, and the odds are exactly the same.
You will hear people say things like a Blackjack table being "hot" or "cold", which is completely superstitious, and should be ignored. The exception was when Blackjack was being dealt from a shoe. It made card counting possible. But with the introduction of shuffle machines, and continuous shuffling like is being used in GTA, this no longer exists.
This is also why "chasing your losses" is a very bad idea. After being on a losing streak for some time, many gamblers believe that now it's their turn to start winning. So they will often increase their bet size, believing that when their predicted winning streak comes around, they will win back their losses, and more.
The reality of it, more often than not, is that people will indeed start playing higher and higher limits, until they are completely broke. Nobody is ever "due for a win". There is never a guarantee that you're about to start winning. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true. You are, after all, in a casino.
Betting systems
Some people like to think that they have a fool-proof betting system, like the Martingale system. Simply increase or even double your bet when you lose, and keep doing that until you win. In theory, this system will always win. So that's why table limits were introduced, and where the system fails.
If you start at the Roulette table, playing red/black, with a small 750 chip wager, and just double your bet every time you lose, you only have to lose 6 times in a row, before you will be betting the table limit of 48,000, just to get that 750 chip profit.
Sure, you can go on all evening without this happening, winning 750 chips each time, but this losing streak only has to happen once, and you're bust. Any betting system like this is ill-advised, because you are hugely increasing your so-called "risk of ruin", and that's what we were trying to avoid.
And even if your starting bet is only 100 chips, after only nine straight losses, and nine doubled bets, you are betting the table limit at 50,000 chips. If you lose that bet, you're 100,000 chips in the hole, with no way to recover that with your 100 chip base wager.
So don't believe anyone that says this is the perfect system to always win in the casino. Sooner or later they will understand why they were wrong, when they're asking you for a loan.
Set your limits BEFORE you start playing
One final point before we get into the games, a general tip for people that head out to play: money management.
Just like in real life, before you go to the casino, decide on a maximum amount that you are WILLING TO LOSE.
Bet small enough, so that amount can last you through the entire evening, and you will not be tempted to run to the ATM to continue playing.
Considering GTA money, some people will be comfortable losing 1% of their GTA bank balance, some people will be comfortable with gambling away 5% of their total GTA savings. It's up to you what you can handle. Decide for yourself where it will start to hurt, and don't cross that line.
But whatever number you decide on, as soon as you lost that amount, get up and walk away. Don't chase your losses, stick to your limits, and accept that this has not been your day. There is always another game tomorrow. Always agree with yourself on a simple stop-loss rule, how much you would want to lose at most, and simply stop playing when you get there.
Same goes for winning. You can decide on a number, how much profit you would like to take away from the casino. You can go on a hot streak and be up half a million in a short period of time, but if you would continue to play longer, looking for more, chances are that you're going to lose it all back.
Most people are happy with doubling their daily casino budget, for example. Others are looking for 10 bets profit in Blackjack. Whatever you choose, when you hit that number, you can stop playing and bank your profits, or you can continue playing if you're still enjoying the games, but then only just play minimum bet sizes. Then you're just playing for fun, not for money. You've already made your profit, so simply keep it in your pocket, and don't risk losing it again.
Either way, decide on what your money management strategy will be, and STICK TO IT.
Casino games in GTA Online
Now, I'm going to dive into the games that you can find at the Diamond casino, ordered from worst to best.
6) Slots
Generally the rule is this: the less strategy a game has, the worse it is for the player. And with slots, this is definitely the case.
The only influence you have, is choosing what type of machine you're going to play. Basically, there are two types of slot machines:
-high frequency, low payout slots
-low frequency, high payout slots
In the first type, there is no huge (progressive) jackpot on offer, just your average selection of prizes that don't go up to crazy amounts.
This will result in a player having many more spins resulting in a win. The amounts that you win on the bigger prizes, will be smaller, but they do come around more often. This type of slot machine has a lower variance, which means that your money should last you longer, winning many smaller prizes along the way to keep you going.
The second type of slot machine lures you in with the temptation of a huge jackpot prize. Even though the long-term expected return on these machines is the same as the previous type, the prize distribution is hugely different. The large jackpot prize weighs heavily on the scale of expected return, but the chance of it hitting is extremely small. This results in a much higher variance on this type of machine. Usually your money will go down very fast, because the smaller prizes are less rewarding than on the other type of machine.
At the Diamond, the info screen says the player return at slots is set at 98.7%. This means that, on average, for every maximum bet of 2,500 chips, you expect to lose 32.5 chips.
This might not seem like a lot, but the danger of slots is that the game is extremely fast. You can spin about once every 6 seconds, which would result in an expected LOSS of about 20,000 chips per hour of playing.
But again, in this long-term expected number, the large jackpot awards are also factored in, and as long as you don't hit those big prizes, you'll see your money go down a lot faster.
In any case, thank heavens the max bet is only set at 2,500, or else we would see more players go bankrupt at alarming rates.
Optimal strategy for slots:
There is none. Because after betting, you have no more influence over the outcome. The only choices you have, is what type of machine you want to play at, and how much money you are going to risk. And those are all personal preference. As long as you stick to your loss limits, as discussed above, there's no harm in having a go every once in a while, hoping to get a lucky hit. Just realize that you don't have a high chance of scoring a big win, so as soon as you do, get up and walk away.
5) Roulette
Roulette is also a game where you have no influence over the outcome. There is zero skill involved. You place your bet, and that's it.
In traditional French roulette, a table has only the single-zero, but of course, for American casinos that wasn't enough of a house edge, so they simply doubled their profits by adding a second zero. The house edge was increased from 1/37 to 1/19, which is huge.
This makes playing on a double-zero roulette table by definition a sucker's play.
The payouts scale evenly, which means that a bet on a single number, and a bet on half of the numbers, and everything in between, yields the same expected return. The only difference, again, being the variance that you are willing to subject yourself to.
The player return for double-zero Roulette for all bets is 94.74%.
Except for the 5-number bet, which can only be made by placing a bet on the two top rows that contain 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3. The expected return on this bet is lower: 92.1%. This is because it only pays out 6-1. Why? Well, the number 36 isn't divisible by 5, so the greedy people that came up with double-zero Roulette had to round it off someway, and as expected, it wasn't going to be in the players' favor.Just remember that that 5-number bet is the worst bet at the table, and should be avoided. All other possible bets have the same expected return.
So it really doesn't matter how you spread your bets, if you bet only one chip, or if you litter the entire table with a bucketload of chips. Each chip you put out there, has the same expected return, so there is no strategy that will improve your long-term results.
Assuming that you're betting the maximum table amount of 50,000 chips, you will be looking at an expected loss of about 2,630 chips per spin. Considering that a round takes about 45 seconds to complete, your expected LOSS at the GTA Roulette tables will be around 200,000 chips per hour of playing.
Optimal strategy for double-zero roulette:
Stay away. Stay far away.
4) Three Card Poker
With Three Card Poker, we come across the first game where there is actually some strategy involved. You get to look at your cards, and then decide if you want to fold, and surrender your ante, or double your bet.
Additionally, you can choose to place a side bet on "Pair Plus", which offers progressive payouts.
There are some websites out there that ran all the numbers with computer simulations, and even though I would like to quote the source here, these websites are understandably littered to the max with online casino ads, so that's why I have decided against doing that.
Optimal strategy for Three Card Poker:
For this game you only have to remember one strategy rule: Always bet on any high card queen-six-four or better, and fold any high card queen-six-three or lower. That's it. Just don't forget to double check if you're not folding a straight or a flush, and you'll be fine.
This strategy will result in an expected return of 96.63%.
The Pair Plus sidebet, with the payout table that is used at the Diamond casino, gives you an expected return of 97.68%, which is actually a bit better than the main ante bet.
So by playing both wagers, you're reducing your expected losses per bet, but since you're betting more, you're also increasing your expected loss per hour.
My advice would obviously be to not play this game at all, but if you do, put as much of your bet as possible on the Pair Plus, while making our Ante bet as small as you can.
To be able to compare it to the other games at the Diamond, let's stay on that 50,000 maximum wager, meaning making your ante bet 35,000, and your pair plus bet 15,000, if the table would allow it.
This results in an expected loss of about 1,525 chips per hand, and with a round taking about 45 seconds, this adds up to an expected LOSS of around 120,000 chips per hour of playing. In comparison, if you would only play the ante bet for 50,000 per hand, you expect to lose 1,685 chips per hand, which means an expected LOSS of about 135,000 chips per hour. So the more out of that 50,000 wager you can put on the "Pair Plus" sidebet, the better.
Even though it may be fun to try out this game for a bit, since there's only one simple strategy rule to follow, you'll soon find yourself robotically grinding down your bankroll until it has vaporized. You're not missing out on anything if you skip these tables, there is no real challenge.
Just like with Roulette and Slots, if you want to try it out nonetheless, you can just bet the minimum amounts and only play for fun, so it won't matter if you win or lose.
3) Blackjack
Blackjack is the most complicated game by far. Simply because the player has to make a series of decisions, which will largely decide the outcome. Luckily, there is such a thing as an optimal strategy, which will be outlined below.
However, the strategy is also dependent on the house rules. These not only affect your expected return, but in some places also your decisions.
Here are the house rules at the Diamond casino:
-The game uses 4 standard decks, and a continuous shuffle.
-Blackjack pays 3 to 2, dealer checks for early blackjack.
-No insurance offered, no surrender.
-Dealer stands on soft 17.
-Double down on any two cards.
-Player can split only once, but doubling after split is allowed.
-Seven-Card Charlie.
Under these rules, and following the "basic strategy" chart, your expected return at Blackjack is a shade under 99.6%, which is extremely good for a casino game, that's why Blackjack should be your table game of choice.
But it comes at a price: you are going to have to memorize the relatively complicated strategy chart, or at least stick it to your monitor until you have it in your head. But in case you ever stumble into a real-life casino, you won't regret having this table memorized, so I would definitely advise you to work on that.
The strategy chart might look complicated at first, but you will be able to notice certain patterns. Your decisions are mainly based on the dealer's upcard, which is basically divided into a weak card (2 to 6), and a strong card (7 to ace).
When a dealer shows a strong card, you will be hitting more often with the risk of going bust, but when a dealer shows a weak card, you're not taking that risk, and you will be standing more, but also doubling and splitting more. You want to increase your bets when the odds are in your favor, and get out cheap when they're not.
But it also helps to take some time to think about why a certain advice is given. For example, why does it say that you always have to split two eights, even against an ace. Well, that's because two eights equals 16, which is the worst total you can have. It's better to split them up, and give yourself a chance of finding a 17, 18 or 19 with the next card. Once you see the logic in that, you'll have one less thing to memorize.
The playing advice in the basic strategy chart is a result of computer simulations that ran all possible outcomes against each other, and produced the most profitable decision for each situation. So you can't go wrong following it.
Optimal strategy for Blackjack with Seven-Card Charlie
The added house rule of Seven-Card Charlie, adds a small advantage for the player, and it does influence a few strategy decisions. For example, you might have a 14 with 6 cards, against the dealer's 5 upcard.
Normally this would be an automatic stand, but if you're only one card away from the Seven-Card Charlie, meaning an instant win for the player, regardless of the dealer's hand, it turns it into a hit.
Here's the most optimal strategy chart to follow for the Diamond Casino house rules:https://prnt.sc/olct6g
You'll see that two fives are missing from the chart, and that's because you never split them. You treat them as a regular 10. You also never split tens. Just stand on 20.
If you follow this strategy religiously, even with a maximum wager of 50,000 chips, you only expect to lose about 215 chips per hand, and with rounds taking about 30 seconds, that amounts to an expected LOSS of 26,000 chips per hour, which is only half a bet. A small price to pay for an hour of entertainment.
But since the expected return is so extremely close to 100%, you will see more positive short-term results than with other games. But obviously it can also swing the other way. Again, this is supposed to be the game where your money lasts you the longest, but always set your loss and win limits before you sit down. That rule simply always applies.
Still, even with optimal strategies applied, all these games are expected to lose you money in the long run. So betting any kind of large amounts is not advised. If you simply want to enjoy playing these games, there's nothing wrong with betting a minimal amount. Playing these games for a longer period of time will already cost you money anyway, since your daily property fees will still be charged while you're playing in the GTA casino. As long as you can play for fun, there's nothing wrong, but when you see yourself betting insane chunks of your entire bank balance to try to recoup some unfortunate losses, you're doing it wrong.
As the commercials in Britain all correctly say: when the fun stops, stop.
2) Virtual Horse Racing
Now onto the good stuff. I ran some numbers, and I believe Rockstar has made a mistake with the horse racing game. Because as it stands, and if I read the numbers correctly, this game is actually profitable for the player. You can actually make money with this, at least, until Rockstar figures out their mistake and patches it.
If anyone wants to jump into the math and double check this to make sure, please do so. I will add any corrections to this post. This is one of those "to good to be true" things, so I keep thinking that I might have overlooked something. So please verify it if you can.
The setup is this. There is a pool of 100 horses, each with their own attached payout. These are divided into 3 groups, ranked by their odds. From each group, 2 horses are randomly selected to provide a pool of six runners for you to bet on.
Now it's not an actual race you're looking at. You are looking at a raffle. This is important to realize.
Each horse gets awarded a certain number of raffle tickets. The favorites get awarded more tickets than the underdogs, and therefore, have a higher chance of winning.
If this distribution works like it does in the real-life casinos, then the raffle tickets are awarded according to the betting odds.
Example 1: imagine a race with 3 runners, all have 2/1 odds, representing a 33.3% chance of winning. (Because 2/1 means 2 AGAINST 1, so 3 total.) In this case, each horse gets one third of the raffle tickets, giving them an equal chance to win.
Example 2: imagine a race with 3 runners, one has 1/1 odds (or EVENS), representing a 50% chance of winning, and the other two horses are marked up as 3/1, with a 25% chance of winning. The favorite gets half the tickets, the other two get a quarter of the tickets each.
A ticket is drawn, and you'll have a winner.
It doesn't matter in this game which horse you bet on, because the expected return is always the same: 100% or break-even, for the above examples.
Now, what happens if the percentages don't exactly add up to 100%?
They must add up to 100%, because there will always be a winner. And only one winner.
So when this is the case, the actual winning chances of the horses are adjusted to meet the 100% requirement, using their payout odds to determine the scale.
So, if the represented percentages add up to more than 100%, the actual winning chances of the runners will be DECREASED, resulting in all bets becoming losing propositions for the players.
Example: In a 6-horse race, all runners are listed at 4/1, representing a 20% chance. Only with six runners that amounts to 120%. So all chances are scaled down by 1/6th, to end up at 100%.
This means your horse's chances are reduced from 20% to 16.67%, turning it into a losing bet: 5 times you will lose your bet, and 1 time you will win, but only get 4 bets back in this instance, instead of 5. A losing bet in the long run.
This is the type of odds that you find in regular casinos, with fields as large as 15 runners to bet on, where the assumed winning chances always add up to more than 100%, therefore are decreased for all runners, resulting in a house edge.
But in GTA Online's Inside Track, there are other scenarios, because of the small field, and the way that they are put together.
In some cases, the represented percentages when added up, are LESS than 100%, meaning that the actual winning chances of all runners, are INCREASED.
This creates profitable bets for the players, because in the long run, you're expecting to win more money than you lose. This is a gambler's dream, pure and simple.
So, according to the in-game information, the three groups of horses are divided as follows:
-Favorites: EVENS to 5-1
-Outsiders: 6-1 to 15-1
-Underdogs: 16-1 to 30-1
Let's take the two most extreme examples to show what's happening.
The worst possible field to bet on: two runners at EVENS, two runners at 6-1, and two runners at 16-1.
EVENS represents a 50% chance, 6-1 is 14.29%, and 16-1 is 5.88%. Add those up and you land on a total of 140.34%.
This means that the actual winning chances of the horses are decreased by 28.75% (to get that 140% down to 100%), which makes betting on this field extremely unwise.
A horse at EVENS will only come in as a winner 35.63% of the time, instead of 50%,
a horse at 6-1 will only win 10.18% of the time,
and an underdog at 16-1 will only win 4.19% of the time.
The expected return on a bet on any of the horses in this field is only 71.26%, so a maximum bet of 10,000 chips on any of these horses holds an expected LOSS of 2,875 chips.
These returns are the same, because the winning chances are scaled equally, according to the payout numbers. So it really doesn't matter which horse you bet on, in the long run, you expect the same results.
But as explained before, it does influence variance, and therefore your short-term result, which can swing both ways.
But now, the best possible field to bet on: two runners at 5-1, two runners at 15-1, and two runners at 30-1.
Odds at 5-1 represents a winning chance of 16.67%, 15-1 odds means 6.25% chance, and 30-1 odds means a 3.23% chance of winning. Add these six horses together, and you only get 52.285%.
This means that, to get from 52% to 100%, the actual winning chances of these horses will be almost doubled! Multiplied by 1.91 to be exact.
So the 5-1 favorites will now win 31.88% of the time, instead of 16.67%,
the 15-1 runners will win 11.95% of the time,
and the underdogs at 30-1 odds will still win 6.17% of the time.
When betting on this field, the expected return on your bet is 191.25%!
This means that a max bet of 10,000 chips will result in an expected PROFIT of 9,125 chips.
This is printing money, if there ever was such a thing.
Optimal strategy for Virtual Horse racing
So all you have to do, is only bet high on the games where you have an expected positive return, and bet the absolute minimum on the games where your expected return is negative. Or back out of the racing game to refresh the field.
If you don't have a way to quickly add up all the percentages, and until somebody shows up here with a neatly formatted table, just use a few general rules of thumb:
-Always bet the maximum on a race with favorites at 2/1 and 3/1 or higher in it.
-Simply skip all races with two favorites at EVENS in it, and at EVENS and 2/1. Or bet the minimum, if you can't skip or refresh the field.
-To decide if you should play races with other favorite combinations EVENS and 3/1, EVENS and 4/1, EVENS and 5/1, or two favorites at 2/1, the payouts on the other four runners determine whether or not it's profitable to play them. The results of betting on these fields vary from an expected 1,330 chip loss (worst-case) to an expected 1,680 chip win (best-case), with a max bet of 10,000 chips.
But if you're not looking for another strategy chart, you might just want to skip these borderline cases, and just cherry pick the best ones, which are easy to recognize, and with which you can never go wrong.
It's difficult to put a number on an expected win-rate, because it all depends on which fields you get presented with, but it's not unreasonable to state that you can maintain a steady win-rate of around 200,000 chips per hour, with about 50 seconds per race.
Remember, you're not trying to win every race. You're trying to win the most money per hour. So don't sweat it when you bet on a 4/1 favorite, and lose a couple of races in a row. It will still be more profitable in the long run. You have the math on your side.
To reduce negative variance, always bet on the favorite, when betting on profitable fields. We're not gambling anymore, we're grinding out a steady profit. We want to keep the swings to a minimum.
I contacted Rockstar support to verify if this is indeed how it works, but the only reply I got after 6 weeks is that they were "looking into it".
User u/Garsant made a useful Excel-worksheet, available for you to download, where you can quickly type in the payouts on the horses, to see if it produces a profitable bet or not. You can find it in his post here: https://www.reddit.com/gtaonline/comments/ekp8na/gta_online_inside_track_odd_calculato
1) Wheel of Fortune
The number one profitable casino game in GTA Online is obviously the Wheel of Fortune, because it costs you nothing to play.
Unfortunately, you only get one free spin per day, but it holds great value, so make sure you do it.
With a chance to win a super car, vehicle discounts, expensive mystery prizes (which also can be vehicles), and a lot of cash and chips, the expected return on a single spin is around $100,000 in value.
So don't forget your daily spin, it's definitely worth your time.
2020 Update:
As of the Diamond Casino Heist update, the Inside Track horse racing is confirmed to still be as profitable as outlined above.The only thing that seems to be changed, is that you can't refresh the field anymore by backing out of the screen. This does affect your hourly rate in a negative way, but does not change the fact that this game has a huge positive expected return, and should be your go-to when you're trying to take money from the house, without having Lester's nagging voice in your ear. That should also be worth something.
And with that, I conclude my 5,000 word essay on gambling in GTA. Questions, comments, feel free to add your input to this guide.
Cliffs:
-Gambling games should only be played for fun, not for big money. You should expect to lose in the long run. The house always wins.
-A casino game doesn't have a memory, and betting systems don't work.
-Set your limits before you start, how much you are willing to lose or win, and then walk away when you get there.
-Don't play slots, roulette, or three card poker.
-Only play blackjack following a basic strategy chart (https://prnt.sc/olct6g).
-Inside Track betting can be played profitably, if you only bet on fields WITHOUT a heavy favorite.
-Wheel of Fortune is always your best bet, because it's a free bet.

Part 8 (has access to parts 1-7 in it)
For some reason it would not post the last day or so.
It is early 2017. I have been carrying on my usual playing 10-20 hours a week to survive. Still lethargic is best term I suppose. I just dont get excited to play anymore. I consider getting a job to remind me how shitty working is so it gives me a kick in the teeth to play poker. Then it dawns on me, I hate playing poker now.
Poker has been tainted. Everything bad that happened to me I can associate with poker. The rise and fall was poker (the fall part). The oxycontin started as a performance enhancer to log more hours. Everything I consider to be wrong in my life I trace back to poker essentially, even if just a butterfly affect reason that had I done something else I wouldnt be here.
Hating poker is not the greatest realization considering its my only means to income outside of grunt labor. I seek a job in a couple places to no avail which was fine, I didnt wanna do that either.
Several months earlier I had started playing on SWC (bitcoin site) and became familiarized with bitcoin. Thought nothing of it, it was just the currency I was winning or losing. I dont read a thing about it, I learn nothing of it. I wasnt playing a ton or even big stakes, my intention for playing online was to just stay sharp in case it ever comes back full fledge. I have 5-6 btc on this site at the most (2-3k) and I flush it playing plo and big o not thinking much of it.
Back to 2017. Its March/April~ of 2017. I am playing cards one night dicking around probably had a couple drinks and was needling the usuals etc. A guy I do not know is in the game. Looks Russian. I bet he interfered in our election... fucking commies. I dont remember how I got to talking to him but crypto had been brought up. I talk about SWC. Tell him I had a few btc but not anymore. The only other thing I remember well from the conversation was bitching about going from an iphone4 (yes I had an iphone4 from 2010-17, the same one. It barely worked. Many oxycontins snorted off the back of that phone, texts dating back to when I got it in 2010) to the 6 or 7 or wtfever I have now, which is bigger and its harder to text and drive. He just responds by saying “first world problems are the worst”. Amen brother, those Africans and Venezuelans have no clue of our struggle.
I end up talking to him a bit and it turns out he mines crypto. Has a website that sells mining equipment. He has a hell of a back story too. I tell him I am interested in mining. I have about 20k to my name at this time and I realized recently that I dont like playing poker so why not? He eventually tells me not to do it. Regardless we become friends and he is ultimately the most important friend I have ever made. I have made more positive strides mentally since meeting him (mostly work ethic, realizations, reality checks and aspirations) As silly as it sounds, when he told me “first world problems are the worst” it stuck with me. He was saying it as a joke but jokes are funniest when true. He is genuinely the smartest guy I have ever associated with also. If you run into him at a poker table youd think he was a high functioning autist. Then you talk to him and go “ohhh hes just one of those Einstein type geniuses”. His hair is usually a mess, he cuts his own hair for or has his girlfriend do it. He wears cheap clothing usually since it all covers your ass or nipples I suppose. He virtually never instigates conversation with people he doesnt know. He is really deliberate with his actions. Talks really calmly and knows exactly what he is saying. He is just on the same level at all times it seems.
Meeting him has definitely changed my life for the better. We become friends pretty quickly. I know I went on a downer after meeting him because I couldnt afford to buy mining stuff and remember wanting to (again, he told me not to do it eventually anyways).
Which will lead me to another good friend to have. Between 2015 and this point in 2017 I have shot myself in the foot not logging hours a couple times. A friend has bailed me out with a loan or short term stake a few times. He is a well off restaurant owner who loves poker more than just about anything not related to him. Every time I see him we talk about hands he played and he just eats it up, has photographic memory and never butchers a hand history which is nice. He is as good hearted of a guy as I have ever met. (Sorry if this is getting long winded giving praise to people close to me, I intend on sharing with a few people and would like them to know what they mean to me as corny as that is because I suck at doing it in real life. Plus it is kinda gay to get mushy sounding in real life, but I digress. Theyve heard virtually none of the content of this whole thread either, a ton of this stuff I have never shared) In fact he is too kind hearted. He has helped people who wouldnt piss on him if he was on fire, and people have burned him on many occasions. My only complaint about this person is he never kicked my ass and told me to log more hours or fuck off. I needed it. If I just logged hours I wouldnt need the help. Its as simple as that. I have no leaks other than the unwillingness to play (leaks as in drugs/pit games/strippers/wtf ever else) and it has hindered me immensely over the these last couple years. (Ok I do have one embarrassing leak that has been fixed for a year and change, mobile games... I have spent like 30,000$ on mobile games between late 2016 and late 2018, Lords Mobile specifically clocked me for 20k. This definitely hindered my ability to build a roll and got me into a few jams. When youre not logging hours playing youre sitting around gaming and these games arent cheap obviously)
It is around May now and my friend who messes with crypto tells me that Bitcoin is going to 10,000$. Its like 800$ at the time iirc. I own a couple from Ignition cashouts. I kind of trust him. I cant argue him on it as I have literally no mental fortitude on the subject, but I essentially shrug it off. I start watching the price on poloniex and am watching prices jump like crazy. Light bulb in head! I can buy the dips sell the peaks and have more BTC! Lets load the 2.5btc I have onto poloniex! Sell peak but it keeps climbing... “FUCK! gotta get it back before it goes to 10k! Whew. Still have 2.45 BTC. FUCK! Its dropping! Get it out before it goes to zero!”
Yea I turned that 2.5 BTC into .4 BTC. No joke. I think I ended up throwing it onto SWC and losing it once it was almost gone. I honestly forget. I had nothing when it finally hit 20k other than some shit alts worth about 800$ at most (worth 35$ now but they still reside in my locked poloniex account, maybe I will give poloniex my ID if they ever become worth more than 1k)
So I am now annoyed I didnt turn every free dollar I had into BTC. I didnt trust the guy enough and to be fair I would have been using the money I play with. Had I met the guy a year earlier (know what I know of him now) I would probably have just locked it all up and sat around waiting.
I never really get my act together in 2017. I continuously log just enough hours to get by. I just dont care. I just want a way out of this. I catch myself saying “I hate playing poker” and sometime around the end of 17 or early 2018 I start trying to censor myself and quit saying that. Saying it will only make it fester deeper. I have to retrain myself to love poker. I remember the days of playing 18-24 hours straight because I love playing. I love watching for everything I can find to get an edge. I love a situation to present itself where I can step out of line. But now I just sit down and count the minutes before I can tell myself “way to go! You put in an 8 hour shift lets pack it in!” I leave good games often times. I celebrate when games break. This is where I am mentally while I play. I cant break out of it.
Late in 2017 a close friend of mine passes away. Will call him J. He was the guy who gave me a place to stay after the shutdown in Joplin. I was still doing oxy and he never once touched the stuff knowing what has happened to me. He doesnt judge me, he is somewhat of an enabler I suppose. He just drinks does shitty coke sometimes and has a script of adderol and xanax. Literally never once does he do any with me (ive warned him xanax and opiates will kill you if you mix, which is likely part of the reason he never did it) He was a marginal poker player (relative to modern game, he was just good enough to beat the rake live but he had too many pit leaks) and took great pride in being my friend (I was the slayer in the area for years leading up to this, anyone considered the best in their area can relate, you just have the respect of the local poker community). One of my earlier live poker memories involved him. I am like 18 or 19 playing a 1-2 game at a small casino and he was there with a friend. They were the good players in the game at the time. They were having a few drinks eating nice food and laughing having a good time. I remember thinking that I want this lifestyle. Care free gambling fast paced lifestyle. I had told him this story years later and he just ate it up, constantly tried to get me to rebound, but as I have stated many many times in the last few of these I have basically waved my white flag and accepted the result of my fall.
Anyhow after living with him we always talk every few months at minimal and have something to eat when we see each other at the casino. He was somewhat disingenuous sounding he was so nice and honestly it got to a point it started rubbing me the wrong way. I still talk to him of course but less frequently. In December of 2017 I get a phone call from my friend who owns the restaurant and he is distraught. He has been at the hospital and J has passed away. The back story on this is he had gotten a phone call from old friend who was getting out of prison in Arizona with no where to go (a female). J being as nice a guy as he is drives the 20+ hours to get her and gives her a place to stay. Well shes a junky and actually convinces J to do opiates/heroin. He overdoses and dies. I hadnt talked to him in a few months. I regret it. Had I known I would have beaten him senseless and got him to quit before things actually get bad.
Going to his funeral hit me up side the head too. The way I started feeling he was disingenuous just got destroyed. I cant fathom as many people showing up to my funeral with as nice of things to say. I wrote something to say but opt out after a few people say everything I had written (except better). I regret not saying them anyways. I think I still have what I wrote tucked away with the card and his money clip that made its way to me. I stumbled across his casino players card in a box one day and it resides in my wallet ever since. This was the first close friend that has passed away in my life, knock on wood. It woke me up a bit and caused a lot of self reflection because I felt I had let him down. I lived a few miles from him and didnt drop in to see him, didnt stay in contact as well as I should have. All because I felt he was disingenuously nice when he was actually just nice, which is actually because I am a cynical hermit who hates social life these days. That was the real reason I didnt stay closer. Him being too nice was just my excuse to blow him off essentially.
Only other thing I can add is that chick he helped out didnt even go to his funeral and on top of that had tried to take his truck and clean his house out. Junkies are the worst. I was a junky but I proudly say I never robbed anyone or cost anyone anything other than emotional distress, which isnt much of a brag obviously.
2018 starts and I have been decreasing my methadone every week for about 3-4 months now. I am on a low dose. Makes sleeping at night hard (get restless legs and sneezy). So I am having a few drinks any time I am at the casino playing (still just two days a week for the most part) to help get through those late night sessions when its worn off and I feel crummy. I get down to 15mg then 10mg and in March of 2018 I get asked if I wanna work for a week with my crypto friend. His friend is setting up a farm with 500 miners and needs help. I agree. The pay is in excess of the work (in my opinion) at 3k and I have no expenses, but I dont argue obviously. Before we leave town I have to pick up my week of methadone (at 4mg now) and so I do that. I never take any of them, I have the box still. Never opened it. They remain at my apartment as a reminder, the box carrying the 6 doses and a stack of receipts for every 75$ week that I kept in the box, several years worth, at least 9-10k worth of receipts, and that shits CHEAP compared to oxy. So I am finally off of opiates. I take kratom still but its essentially non addictive in comparison. Ill cede that I am reliant on kratom but if it disappeared tomorrow I wouldnt panic, I would be fine.
So I fly to Denver with my friend and meet his friends half brother who was instructed to rent a box truck and the three of us were to drive from Denver to Washington carrying like half a million dollars worth of hardware. Its early March, the roads arent exactly great. Half brother of his friend rents a truck with no middle seat though. Its absolutely miserable. Whoever sat middle was sitting like a fem boy legs closed and knees up high from the drive shaft hump. It was un fucking real how uncomfortable the middle was. So like I stated the roads were not great, we drove on ice for 5-6 hours straight (while my crypto friend did about 30 minutes of it before I decided I value my life and banned him from driving, he was literally doing over 70 on this ice sheet when I checked the gauge. I forget what he said, I will fail to make it sound as good but he said that he is protected and can not die, if we wreck he wont get hurt because of some universe stipulation that protects him. He said we would get hurt but he wouldnt. *** Ok here is what he said.
“quantum immortality. if i die in this universe, my conciousness will shift to others where i am still alive”
He just couldnt assure us ours would.
I end up driving like 18 of the 24 (one shot) hours it took as letting crypto friend drive was out. We make it set up a farm over a couple days then we go to Vegas. Not only do we go to Vegas but we fly a private jet. Not only do we take a private jet but his buddy has all four of us our own room at the Bellagio for 5-6 days. I remember having a 4500$ win at Bellagios 500$ cap 2-5 game... ran pretty salty. I only remember one hand worth bringing up, but I closed action and called 400$ pre with 67o with 3 others all in. Just flop 77X and send me the money. (Was drinking, gamble gamble). I cold called that also, some fish had opened massive and a 300$ stack just ripped a 400$ stack rejammed and I had called out of bb knowing fish will call off his 400~. This is actually a leak I have in poker. I will go over it because it has history.
Dating back to online my biggest leak was playing vs short stacks. Everyones biggest leak obv (6m setting). There were a few min buyers on Carbon and I got to the point I put them in pre every time they opened my bb from button, so long as they opened 75%+ from button or close to it. This has carried with me live, if I can gamble 3-4 ways (4 specifically) I will basically do it any time its 100bb~ or less with about 40% of hands if I can close action safely. I am a bit of a degenerate in this sense. I will flip for 1k if I have 10k to my name. It mostly came as a way to loosen up tables (the flipping blind preflop) at my local casino with players who give action. I am pretty snug in general but I cant refuse a flip when it presents itself and I cant refuse a fun gamble with short stacks.
I spend the month in Vegas during WSOP and run absurdly bad. Lose every big pot I play it seems. Switch to PLO the last half of the month and go a week straight without tripling my buy in up at any point. Just insane. Looking back I play rather poorly in PLO. I have been spoiled with my PLO games back home (which have been dead for about a year) and could get away with playing 50% of hands and no one ever bet big draws or anything not the nuts basically. I didnt adjust at all is what the issue was. Was just a frustrating month.
So I return and take a stake from a friend. I barely play still. Same ole same ole.
The last thing I will cover for this section is an incident late in 2018. One of the girls who is the floor at my local casino takes kratom also, we talk about it a fair amount. She has some 10mg percocets (mini oxycontins essentially) she gives me two of them. I havent had one in several years. I have been off methadone for 6-8 months at the time. I am eager to feel what I felt all those years ago, having no tolerance. So I take them home even though I know I shouldnt.
I get home and take both of them. What transpires is almost depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I realized that I have no desire for these. It affirms that all the money I flushed wasnt about the high, it was about the not withdrawing. I basically stated this in an earlier post but this is the event that I learned this from. I dont even enjoy it. I just sink knowing that I gave my life away for these. I have never recovered thanks to pain killers. Never once after 2011 have I ever looked in the mirror and said “finally, I have finally recovered what I fucked off”.
I am going to finish this thread off on the next post most likely. It will likely be long and take me a while to compose as it will cover my current year, and put a bow on it. The story basically climaxes a couple posts back, these surely have slowly lost their luster but I will finish them anyways. Nothing exciting about hearing about a guy who can beat games but wont sit in the chair to do it. Its a bit more upbeat in 2019 though andd I feel my future is bright and redemption nears though. I dont think I would have written these if not for a change of mentality recently, so look forward to a positive summary next post.

Previous Post: https://www.reddit.com/pokecomments/bg7xox/inside_boston_underground_poker_part_4_bubbles_in/
So there I was, walking to the Wynn craps table with about $38k in cash in my pocket. I was up $30k for the day in poker, but as always, I had to push my luck.
There's a table off to the side with only one player at it, while the rest of the tables are pretty packed. I prefer a relatively empty table, so I head over there. The guy at the table has weirdly colored chips in front of him, and I realize he's some mega-whale with over a million in chips in his rail. I walk up to the table and he stays sitting, staring into his rail of chips. The table is $100 minimum which is why no one else was there, and I buy in for $10k.
The guy is just starting a new roll, so I put $600 each 6 and 8 and $250 on the 5 and 9, and he instantly 7s out. I'm down $1700 already in about 3 minutes, shit.
I throw $100 on the line, throw a 6 on the come out and put $600 on the 8, $250 each 5 and 9 again. The other guy started the roll with $12k each 6 and 8, $10k each 5 and 9 and $5k each 4 and 10, plus $1000 each on the hardways. I end up going on an insane roll. I'm throwing hard 6s and 8s like crazy, the guy has pressed up to $5k each on the hard ways and $30k each 6 and 8, and I just keep rolling them. I'm pressing my bets as well, and I'm up like $20k plus I have my bets up to $1000 each 5 and 9 and $3000 each 6 and 8, and I'm still going. At one point I bounce one of the dice off the table, and the other guy turns his bets off, and I roll back to back hard 6s, so he missed out on $160,000 from those rolls, it was pretty sick.
I think in total I made something like $35k off of my roll, and the other guy made over a million. The sickest part was that he barely even looked up from his chips, and he never said a word to me or tipped the dealers at all. He went to the bathroom at one point and I made a comment to the dealers, and they said he was still down overall on the day... What a sicko.
I played for a bit longer and ended up with $90k in my pocket, a profit of over $52k in a couple of hours of craps. I went into the Wynn with $8k in the morning and was leaving with $90k about 12 hours later. It was absolutely insane. I walked outside to wait for my car at the valet, and I had stuffed all 9 of the $10k "straps" into the pockets of my jeans. My jeans were busting with all of the cash, and these old people who were waiting at the valet noticed it and were staring so hard, it was hilarious.
Between my cash, bank accounts and investments, I had about $350k to my name at that moment, less than 3 years after moving to Boston with a roll of around $1500. As you can imagine, I felt absolutely on top of the world. All kinds of thoughts ran through my head. Should I go buy a Porsche in cash? Should I listen to my mom and go to school in Santa Barbara, and use my money on a down payment on a house there?
What was certain was the first thing I should have done was taken a bunch of that cash to the bank and gotten it out of my degenerate hands. Instead I drove to the Bellagio, got a room, got some room service, and went to bed. I woke up in the morning and had lost the $90k at the craps table before lunch.
Now you might be thinking that this was the start of my spiral down, that I went and cashed out my investments, got it all in cash, and blew it all at the Bellagio craps tables, but that would have been too simple. Instead I went back to grinding $10/20nl like nothing had happened. I had lost 2 buyins, oh well.
I took a few more shots at juicy $25/50nl games that summer, and like the lucky asshole I was, I never had a losing session in the 5 I played of that game. The other 4 were all at Bellagio, and usually only ran because a couple of specific businessmen wanted to play. They were bad, the games were great, I was still on top of the world in terms of poker.
One session in particular stood out. I sat down with $10k and was on a roll again, running it up to over $20k within a couple of hours. I had maybe $24k in front of me and was the big stack at the table, it was early and there hadn't been too many rebuys yet, and in walks Viffer (David Peat). Viffer was apparently down a few buyins in Bobby's Room and only had enough for our game, so he sat in with $50k. Being the biggest stack at the table besides him, as well as a 21 year old dressed like a complete douche, Viffer instantly focused on me. He was sitting all the way across the table from me (I was in seat 3, he was in seat 8), but as he sat down he called across the table to me, "hey kid, ever lost a $50,000 pot before?". "Not yet, but I look forward to it!", I retorted. Not my greatest comeback ever, but oh well.
I continue working up a stack without playing any big pots with him, and I'm at close to $30k and Viffer is still around $50k when a big pot happens. Since it was a $25/50nl game with $100 dead on the button, a typical raise was $300-350. In this hand, UTG raised to $350, Viffer called from the CO or HJ, the button called, the SB called, and I woke up with KK in the BB. There's over $1500 in the pot already, so I make it $1500 total and everyone calls. There's over $7500 in the pot preflop. The flop comes KTx rainbow, and I'm trying to figure out how long I should wait before checking, and if I should ham it up, when instead the SB open jams for around $8000. I have nearly $20k behind, and I wasn't sure what to do. UTG had about $12k, Viffer had me covered, and the button had under $10k, so raising vs flatting only really mattered significantly vs Viffer. I decided he didn't have much that could have hit this flop strongly, I wasn't getting paid unless he had KT or obviously TT or bottom set, and I didn't want to let him have pot odds with QJ, so I just jammed. UTG snap folded and Viffer stared me down for a minute before folding, and the button folded as well. We didn't flip our cards up, and the turn came an A and Viffer cursed to himself. He admitted later to having AT. River came a blank and the SB flipped up QJo to ship the pot with his straight. Bye bye $24k pot.
I shake it off, I still have around $20k in front of me, and I run it up a bit once again, sitting with around $25k when I get into a big pot once again. This time I raise to $300 with J9s from the CO and one of the donkey businessmen that the games run because of reraised from the blinds up to $900. I called the $600 more, he had around $13k in his stack to start. The flop comes QJ9 and I'm loving life again. He could have QQ, but JJ is unlikely since I have one, and I had only seen him 3 bet once in around 4 hours. Great chance he had an overpair. He instantly bet out $1500 into the $2000 or so pot, and I reraised to $4000, he went all in pretty quickly, and after a little bit of thought I made the call and he proudly flipped up KK. He had a decent number of outs with his gutshot, another K or a Q giving him the pot, but instead the board ran out 5, 5 to give him higher 2 pair in a different way. Bye bye $26k pot.
Those were 2 of the biggest pots I had ever played where it actually went to showdown and I hadn't gone all in with 100% to win. I had around 62% equity with the J9 and 74% with the KK, so it was a less than 10% chance for me to lose both. I ended up leaving the table up $7k, which was awesome after having lost my only 2 all ins for the night, but I was feeling negative, and of course went to the craps table. I lost my $7k profit and went home even for the day.
Another of the biggest pots I ever played was actually at $10/20nl at the Wynn vs another pro who liked to try to make huge bluffs sometimes and had a habit of overthinking stuff in my opinion. I was sitting with over $15k from $8k in buyins, and was having a pretty great session overall, and the other pro had around $10k. I don't remember the action nearly as well in this hand as the others, but I had KTss in a 3bet multiway pot to the flop, and it came KT7 with 2 hearts. Someone bet, the other pro raised, I 3bet, the original better flatted, the other pro 4bet for like 40% of his stack, I shoved, the original raiser folded after tanking, and the pro went into the tank hard. Now this was a guy whose game I respected. He was facing a bet of another $5500 to win a pot of about $23000. When he went into the tank, I figured he had a non-nut flush draw and was trying to figure out if I had some pair and higher flush draw combos or nut flush draws in my range where he'd be way behind. He tanked for nearly 5 minutes and eventually called, the board ran out A, 5 and he said "you've probably got me". I turned over my KT and he goes "oh holy shit I figured you had a set!" and turn over A5hh. I'm not sure why he tanked so long getting over 3:1 with a nut flush draw, even if he put me on only sets, he still had the odds to call, and I'm playing QJhh and 98hh the same way, hands he is ahead of. I didn't mind losing 2 pair vs flush draw as much as I minded that he had me convinced I was good with his tank, and then even more when he said "you've probably got me". I had to leave the game because I was close to tilt after that one.
The WSOP ended and the games dried up a bit. There were still $10/20nl games going at Bellagio usually, but with more grinders and fewer donks per table. Throughout the post- WSOP summer, many of my friends came out to party, and I spent a lot of time with Ashley, growing closer with her. At the end of the summer I decided not to stay in Vegas full time, moving to Berkeley, California, near my hometown and where several of my friends went to university. I played some of the juicy $5/10nl and $10/20nl games in the Bay Area with a medium amount of success, and partied a bunch with friends in frats at Cal. I made lots of trips out to Vegas, usually just for degenerate gambling and not a ton of poker. I had taken some losses in the market, but was still sitting with around $300k between cash, accounts and investments. When Bank of America dipped in November, I bought some for under $12. I still had Jetblue stock which wasn't doing great, and a handful of other stocks which were all struggling in the bear market, but I was convinced it would turn around.
My host at the Bellagio was always inviting me to special events, and 2 stood out. A $1 million freeroll heads up blackjack tournament was the first. It was 128 players, so nearly $10k in value. If you won your first 3 rounds, you were in the money and guaranteed $50k. After dominating my first 2 opponents who knew very little about blackjack tournament strategy, I was feeling confident. Blackjack tournament strategy is very different than normal blackjack strategy since your objective is to beat your opponent, not the dealer, and there are weird rules like blackjack paying 2 to 1. There are a set number of hands you play, and whomever has the most money after those hands wins. My first opponent went broke, so I automatically won that. My 2nd opponent just bet small every time, and didn't compensate when I took a lead, so on the final hand he didn't even give himself a chance to win with his bet.
My third opponent was semi competent, he at least knew basic blackjack strategy, but his betting was wrong and he still played as if he was trying to win chips from the dealer, not merely outplay me. I managed to make it so that on the 25th and final hand of our game, if both me and my opponent won the hand, I won, if both me and my opponent lost the hand, I won. Outside of making it impossible for them to win at all, which is very hard with correct strategy, this is about all you can ask of in a blackjack tournament. Me and my opponent both received face cards first, a great sign for me. For my 2nd card I received another face card, great news, until my opponent was dealt an A and got paid 2 to 1. My only chance was to split my face cards and try my luck to still end up on top, but it didn't work out and my opponent was the winner.
A few months later I was invited to a free $1 million poker tournament. This was it, my ultimate chance. It was 100 invited players only and based on pit and slot play, not anything to do with poker. It was going to be me vs a bunch of degens without any poker skill! The time for the big tournament came, and there was a twist. There were actually 110 players, 10 of whom were MGM executives and had cash bounties on their heads between $1000-$10k depending on their level at the company. They couldn't cash the tournament, they were just there to have fun and add a wrinkle to the game.
I easily navigated the field to start, although someone else at my table got the $2k bounty for knocking out our MGM employee. As the tournament progressed, it became clear the structure wasn't great, especially with so many inexperienced players taking a long time to make decisions. We were down to about 14 players including 2 executives left. Once only 10 real players were left, all of the executives remaining would be removed and their bounties would be put into the regular prize pool. Top 10 got paid, so there were essentially 12 left plus 2 fake players. I don't remember the action too well for this hand either, but I believe I was about 30 bbs deep to start the hand and raised with AJ from the button and got called by both blinds. The big blind was a $5000 bounty and she only had about 5bbs left after the call. The flop came KJ4 and they both checked, and I bet the 5bbs that the bounty had left. They both called. Turn came a T and after the other guy checked, and I thought I had him beat, so I went all in for the remaining 20 or so bbs. The SB tanked and was talking about how he really wanted the bounty. He ended up calling, he had about 1bb behind, and we all showed our hands. The SB had T9 with no flush draw, and the bounty had QJ, so I was 81% to scoop the hand, and only 11% to bust. River T and I'm done. The worst part was that the guy who stacked me with T9, having called with just a gutshot on the flop, managed to lose all of his chips on the bubble and go out in 11th place. He got his $5k cash bounty though...
The stock market continued to crash, and I went harder and harder in on the stocks I thought would bounce back, still investing on margin. Eventually I lost it all in February/March of 2009 when Bank of America stock dropped to $3. I had bought in more at $7, then even more at $5, and when the margin call came in I lost nearly $200k just on that one stock. My average buy price was a mere $6 since I had bought in huge at $5. If I had been able to pay the margin call and hang on, by August of 2009 my 50k+ shares would have netted me a profit of over half a million dollars. Instead I was completely broke. My losses in the market for 2008 and 2009 were nearly $400,000, and I later found out my casino pit game losses were nearly $200,000. If I had been patient, diversified, not on margin, and kept out of the pit, I would have been a 22 year old millionaire. Instead I was busto.
I continued on in poker for several years after that, but unfortunately my persona of trying to seem like a rich kid wasting daddy's money had left me without many poker friends, and without many people who respected my game enough to stake me. I ended up turning to online SNGs and being moderate successful, but still lazy and not putting in the hours I should have. Ashley and I tried to make it work, but she wanted me to move out to Vegas for good, and I was afraid being in Vegas would end in disaster for me as I'd continue to waste a huge amount of money on gambling, money I no longer had. My high school sweetheart came back into my life at that point as well, and I pushed Ashley aside for nostalgia, ignoring the reasons the high school gf and I had broken up several times in the past. In the end, I wanted to be more serious than she did, and I haven't spoken to the high school ex in 10 years. Ashley moved on quickly as she always did, and already had a serious boyfriend by the time I came around and realized I wanted to be with her. She ended up becoming a stripper in Vegas, and the last time I saw her she was a bit of a mess. She moved out of Las Vegas these days and I think she's doing better, but we don't keep in close touch.
By Black Friday I had joined a good staking group and was successful at online SNGs, making a nice hourly, coaching other players, and generally doing well at poker, although in my personal life I was a mess after losing both girls I loved in close succession. After Black Friday I made several stupid mistakes, alienating my backers and many in the poker community. I paid everyone back in the end, but I knew I needed to get out of poker. I went back to college, met my wife and we've been together for nearly 7 years now. I now work as a financial adviser.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed my crazy life journey! Some other crazy stuff happened along the way that I might throw together at some point, but those are more Vegas party stories than much to do with poker.

Thought this could be handy to some people heading out there, especially at this time of year. I'm a BE micro stakes donk who plays online for fun with some casino experience in London, UK, decided to head out to Vegas to see the sights and blow some money on live poker for the experience. Spent some time googling before going because there are so many rooms that it can be tricky choosing one to play at, here's my take on it. I went for 10 days and got back yesterday, only playing 1/2 and a few donkaments.
Some tips before going - most of the rooms are pretty similar in terms of quality, mostly tourists/old men with one or two decent young players. Each room will run different promos of some kind or another, I would recommend downloading the 'Bravo Poker Live' app and spending 15 minutes or so having a flick through the poker rooms - you can star the ones you are interested in plus keep an eye out for other games you might want to play (few rooms ran 1/1 PLO for example). It also shows live wait list and how many tables are running that I found to be pretty accurate. The app also details all of the promotions that the poker rooms run, for example how much you get paid for a royal etc. Also make sure you sign up for the reward cards, it's free to do, takes a few minutes and pretty much everywhere will give you $2 an hour towards food. Also - all drinks are free everywhere, including alcohol! You just need to tip the cocktail waitresses.
Ballys
I really liked it here and turned up one morning before going Grand Canyon and it had the most insane game I've ever seen - they run a (n optional) $20 straddle from any position and some guy and his friend were doing it for like an hour straight. Good cocktail service and friendly dealers, normally was at least two tables going during the day, definitely the softest games around without a notable absence of pros/crushers, I think this is because they don't do promos. They do, however, give you a free buffet when you play for fours hours or more which was awesome and I took advantage of a lot of times before eating and going elsewhere.
MGM
I liked this place because of the promo it ran - if you hit a full house you get a ticket into a raffle (they just put all the tickets into a box) and draw a ticket once an hour, if your ticket gets pulled you win $200 in cash. I was lucky enough to win it once. They also have a good full house promo thing where they put particular full houses up on the wall (for example 555TT and JJJ99) and you win a certain amount if you hit them (it was $1500 the last day I played). Pretty active room with a lot of tourists (especially crazy on Saturday night after some MMA fight or something happened in the hotel) but I did notice a lot of the same guys sipping water playing through the early hours feeding on the fish. Overall though a decent room plus you get $2 an hour in comps for food that you can use at Starbucks as well as other places in the casino. Side note - I've never seen so many insanely hot women in one place. The poker room is just off from a nightclub and you get a steady stream of some of the world's most beautiful women stumbling out wearing next to nothing on weekend evenings. Someone at our table actually paid a guy $20 at the table next to us to move so he had a better view!
Planet Hollywood
The atmosphere in here is unlike anywhere else, tunes are pumping with 10/10 birds dancing next to naked on the Blackjack tables opposite, was like playing in the middle of a nightclub. There isn't really a room as such, it's just a load of tables in the centre of the casino. Was one of the busier places, often 10+ tables running in evenings. This is the kind of place that attracts guys buying in for the maximum wearing jewel encrusted watches on both wrists and showing their buddies sitting behind them their cards before shoving on a bluff. The music brings a very noticeable tempo to the game, people play and bet insanely quickly and nearly everyone was drinking booze in the evenings, not really the place for old man nits. A guy hit a royal when I was there and got $500. Alas, the atmosphere got to me and I ended up getting pissed as a fart and dropping a lot so be careful if you get caught up in atmospheres, great action room though, probably my favourite 'unique' experience.
Excalibur
Cool room that did cheap tourneys ($45) a few times a day that turn into 5BB shove fest after an hour or so. Easy room with a lot of drunk tourists, I actually regret not coming back here and checking it out more. They do a thing where if your aces get cracked you get a free spin on a 'wheel of fortune' type thing - most of the prizes are $25 but you have the chance to win a few hundred. Seemed easy level of play with little or no pros/regs
Mandalay Bay
Only played here for a few hours, nice room next to a huge sportsbook but the tournament structure was horrible - I stupidly registered 30 minutes late and got like 10BB if that. Cash was full of people playing at the hotel and limping every hand but I only played a few hours on like a Wednesday morning so not sure what it's like in the evenings.
Flamingo
Action! Didn't play much but seemingly everyone drinks and the games are fast and loose, definitely worth checking this place out. They run 1/1 PLO too but I couldn't get a game going when I was there
Caesars Palace
I turned up here at like 5am one morning and gave it a go, left after 30 minutes. Table was full of absolute beasts with $1k + stacks, extremely noticeable step up in quality compared to other rooms and not just marginal either, I was well out of my depth. It was a really nice room to play in and the casino was cool, I was going to give it another go but didn't get around to it, I assumed there must be a lot of fish if this many reg pros were playing.
Bellagio
Really nice room and probably the most elegant casino in Vegas, twice tried getting in a game here but the waitlist was like an hour long both times (38 people!) so gave it a miss. Twice I showed up and gawped at Doyle Brunson like a tourist, also saw Negreanu as well. Looked like a lot of big pros really do play here, they have a large selection of games including mixed and high stakes. Kinda regret not sticking around and playing here just in the hopes of getting a table change somewhere near Bobby's room so I could lean over and watch those guys for an hour or so, I suspect I'm not the only one thinking like that. FYI 1/3 is the minimum game here.
Golden Nugget
This is downtown so about a 30 minutes bus ride from the strip depending on traffic. Quite a lot of tables in a tight room and it's the only poker room on Downtown (I think? Binions only had tourneys running IIRC) so you get a lot of drunk tourists wandering in off of the Freemont street show. I actually had my best session here after shoving the turn with a J on a 9TQK board and getting called by two people without a straight, this should tell you everything you need to know about the calibre of play.
Well hopefully this gives people an idea of what they're heading into, happy to answer other Vegas specific questions if anyone has any, I hardly slept and smashed the shit out of the city for a week so feel I picked up quite a bit about how it works now. Overall the games are very easy compared to your average 1/2 in London for example. Best week of my life, fuck coming home :(

My 3 friends and I just got back from our 4 day trip to Vegas. We are all enrolled in college and turned 21 just this year. Due to our college student status, we are not rich. That being said, we all work year-round as well as go to school and wanted to visit Vegas. This is a summary of how 4 college kids did Vegas on a relatively low budget.
For starters, the 4 of us own and operate a small business for side income. Through a business partner, we were able to get a discounted room at any MGM resort. We chose to stay at the Bellagio in a room with 2 queen beds for around $225 a night. I am not sure what this room would normally cost, but I am positive there are many ways to get discounted hotel rooms in Vegas. We flew out of Cleveland to Vegas on a direct flight. Obviously, prices for this vary depending on where you fly out of and what dates you are flying. Our tickets cost around $300 per ticket round trip.
Upon arrival, we ate at a Quiznos in the airport because we were hungry from the 4-hour flight. We also bought 2 handles of Alcohol and a bottle of champagne at the airport liquor store so we could pregame in our hotel room before going out on the town. We decided to get them at the airport for convenience sake, but the prices were similar to typical liquor store prices on the bottles that we bought (about $5 more). We arrived at the Bellagio late the first night and we were pretty tired. We decided to go to the dispensaries so we had some greens for the trip. We first went to Planet 13 which advertises itself as “The only dispensary worth visiting”. It was very cool but very overpriced. We then went to Reef, which is across the street and this had a smaller selection but way better prices. We bought a couple of items and smoked one of them on our walk back to the Bellagio.
Side Note: None of us had been to Vegas before and we were not aware of how long it takes to walk down the streets. Only crossing roads on bridges and having to walk through casinos and stores to get where you’re going adds a lot of extra time than we were used to.
That being said, I don’t recommend walking 1.5 miles in Vegas lol. We were pretty high and had insanely dry mouths at this point so we stopped at CVS across the street from the Bellagio and bought some water. We went to our room and went to bed for the night.
The next day we woke up and ventured to In n Out for some cheap burgers and fries. From there, we Ubered to Old Vegas because we were told that is where the cheap table minimums are. We visited almost all of the casinos on that street and got players cards at each of them. Some players cards allowed us to play free slots or match table bets. Our favorite on this strip was the casino called Plaza. We ate a lot of Chinese food for only $7 at one of the casinos on this strip but I do not remember the name. That night we had tickets to the Diplo concert at XS nightclub in the Wynn. We got some Taco Bell, pregamed in our room and Ubered to the club. 3 of us entered the club and my other buddy forgot his ID at the Bellagio. In a dumbass attempt, he tried to hop the rope but was quickly stopped and kicked out of the club. The rest of us were allowed to enter, but we decided against it because we wanted to all party together. $45 down the drain there. When we got back to the Bellagio we played a little bit of blackjack but at $15 a hand, we didn't stay long. We went up to the room in a drunken stupor, smoked a little bit in the stairwell then went to bed.
The next day, we started out with some Eggslut where I ate the best egg sandwich of my life for $9. We hung out at the Bellagio pool for a couple of hours where we drank and relaxed. After this, we Ubered to the Hooters casino to eat dinner and gamble some more. The dinner costed a bit more than what it would at a typical Hooters but we really wanted some wings and beer. Also, I want to mention that the girls at this Hooters were better than any I had ever been to before. We got a players card at hooters and I got a couple of match bets from it. We played on the $5 blackjack tables and we all walked away with at least $60 more than we started with. Another thing I thought was cool was that the dealers were Hooters girls so the experience was great all around.
We then hit up a lot of casinos on the strip. Our favorite was Luxor where we had a fantastic blackjack dealer and all of us won money again. A couple of days before the trip I found out about the MyVegas app and built up enough points for $25 match play at Luxor. I sat at the table with $40 and walked away with $220 so you could say that was a good day. We walked the rest of the casinos and played a couple of hands at all of them. I thought it was fun to get rewards cards at each casino and get free stuff. We ended the night drunk and with more money than we started with so we were all happy.
Our last day we had to check out of the Bellagio by 11 AM. Our flight wasn’t till 9 PM so we had a lot of time to waste. We put our bags in the bag storage at the Bellagio which is “free” with tip. After this, we went to Eggslut again because we liked it so much and it was next door at the Cosmopolitan. We went to Fashion Show Mall where we bought a couple of items and checked it out. This mall was one of the coolest I had been to because of all the stores I had never seen before. We went to an NBA summer league game that we were able to get into for free with the help of our business partner mentioned earlier. After this, we ate at Tacos El Gordo after being referred to it about 10 times during the trip. We finished our trip playing some $10 blackjack at the Flamingo before grabbing our bags and heading to the airport.
In the end, I spent about $1000 on the trip. But, thanks to winning money I only spent about $700 on the trip by the end. I think as a college kid, we were still able to do a lot of things in vegas and not spend too much money. I definitely want to go back when I have more money, but thanks to having a good knowledge of blackjack I was able to save $300 on the trip. I hope if you are a college kid with money questions about vegas this helped answer some of them.

First of all, all credit to nostradanymous, for putting together this video
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/DU7RpJH02nk
And his thread on /conspiracy: https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/8h38xt/las_vegas_shooting_body_cams_synched_with_police/
I don't what people to think I'm taking any credit for this person's outstanding work.
I was watching and listening to the video and couldn't help make some notes about what was going on. Please comment, tell me where I'm wrong, or add anything else you think is suspicious about what was happening on that night.
I really didn't find anything too interesting before they arrive at Mandalay Bay (I might be wrong, please point out what I missed!), so we'll start here. IMPORTANT NOTE: the time markers are for this video only, and would not be accurate for the individual cam videos.
@19.57, they say they already have a 4 man team upstairs and he says something about “another team” coming to them. Soon after that they say they have conformation of at least two shooters.
@25:30 Can someone explain to me why they went up to the 29th floor first, to clear it, before going up to the 32nd?
@27:52 “Get off the fucking radio with that shit.” What is the officer referring to here?
@32:50 someone asks, “How many strike teams do we have at the Mandalay Bay?” That’s a great question, anyone know how many strike teams were there?
@34.55 more confirmation that there is already a strike team on the 32nd floor.
@36:10 interesting talk about a white male in fatigues and carrying a black bag going into a motorhome at the Motel 6, people were saying he came from the area of the shooting.
Also, at some point before (I forgot to mark it, sorry!) they were talking about a black SUV speeding away from the scene, I seem to remember that being important.
@36:40 a civilian stole a patrol car. And then @37:35 “I’m being overtaken by citizens trying to take patrol cars!” You forget how absolutely insane that night was…..
@39:20 Sgt. Bitsko confirming there is a team already on the 32nd floor, he says he doesn’t want a “blue on blue”, which I’m assuming is Metro firing on Metro.
@40:20 confirmation they have casualties at two scenes, Ali Baba & Giles (which is on the east side of the Route 91 concert grounds) and inside the Mandalay Bay
@43:00 call for more units at Reno and Tropicana, they might have “a possible”. Another possible shooter, I’m guessing?
@43:15 got a five man team going to floor 2. I didn’t notice if they said what for, though
@43:40 subject on the helipad
@44:25 shots fired?
@45:00 two officers arrive to investigate that target RV mentioned at 36:10
@45:30 AAAAAAND they’re finally on the 32nd floor.
@45:50 The team is met by a heavily kitted out SWAT officer who was already on the 32nd floor, and who immediately takes everyone back down to the 31st floor. They are being told that they going to the other stairwell to go up and arrive closer to Paddocks suite.
@47:00 more confirmation that Ali Baba & Giles and inside the Mandalay Bay are the two shooting locations.
@49:14 loud noise? Nobody flinches so it’s probably nothing
@49:55 more loud noises, these come immediately after someone says, “Hit it with your fucking baton.” Hit what, though?
@52:30 Bathroom break! But K9 officer David Newton still washes his hands. Remember, kids, even in an active shooter situation, personal hygiene is always a top priority!
@55:00 back on the 32nd floor.
I’m going to pause here to mention that, according to the official Metro Oct 1st report
https://www.lvmpd.com/en-us/Documents/1_October_FIT_Report_01-18-2018_Footnoted.pdf
On page 12: “From approximately 2205 to 2216 hours, Paddock committed a mass shooting that left 58 people dead and over 700 hundred injured.”
Paddock only fired for 11 minutes, ending at 22:16. These guys are only now getting to the 32nd floor
On page 13: “Engineer Schuck stated over his radio, “Shannon, call the police. Someone’s firing a rifle on the 32nd floor down the hallway.” So, both Jesus Campos (who had already, supposedly, taken a bullet from Paddock) and Stephen Schuck has identified the 32nd floor as the location of the shooter.
I guess what I’m saying is that there was well over an hour from the time Paddock stopped shooting to when the officers with the body cams came onto his floor.
ON page 14: “Approximately 2241 hours A Strike Team which included K9 Sergeant Bitsko, K9 Officer Newton, SWAT Officer Hancock and Detective Walford ascended the stairs from the 30th floor. The Strike Team made entry and cleared the 31st floor. Approximately 2256 hours The Strike Team reentered the stairwell from the 31st floor and walked up to the 32nd floor”
Now, remember, @19.57, they said they already have a 4 man team upstairs and he says something about “another team” coming to them. That, plus Bitsko and Newton were met by another SWAT officer already on the 32nd floor before they even arrived.
According to the official Metro Oct 1st report: "Approximately 2257 hours K9 Sergeant Bitsko and SWAT Officer Hancock manually breached the door barricaded with the “L” bracket."
I might be wrong about this, but at round the @55:00-56:00 mark you should be seeing the officers dealing with the L bracket, but I’m not seeing anything. Again, might be wrong, but it sure looks like it was dealt with earlier.
@57:13 is that the door to Paddock’s suite? Does it look like 200 rounds have been fired through it?
@58:00 radio says they have a possible suspect at Circus Circus and Industrial, that’s at the far north end of the Strip, a few miles from the Mandalay Bay.
@1:00.05 possible shots fired at New York New York @1:01:32, shooter at the front desk at NYNY
@1:02:12 reports of a black Audi with “wires hanging out” at the Luxor valet, just next door.
@1:02:22 false alarm at the NYNY?
@1:03:00 there are officers already in the hallway, strike team is trying to contact them so they are not caught in the crossfire.
@1:03:32 Yup, that $2.00 L bracket looks like it’s already been dealt with.
@1:07:12 reports of two shots fired inside casino floor at NYNY, several subjects down at NYNY and Zumanity
@1:08:00 looks like they’ve placed the explosive charge on the door of Paddock’s suite
@1:09:05 talking about the possibility of NYNY being a diversion. Earlier, someone had said they where there and it looked “pretty calm”. So, maybe it’s nothing.
@1:09:28 now reports of active shooter at Tropicana, which is just kitty-corner from NYNY, and all within view of Mandalay Bay
@1:09:37 that’s the best view of Paddock’s door I’ve seen, looks like maybe two dozen bullet holes at most
@1:09:53 multiple calls about multiple shooters at multiple locations. Dispatcher suggests they may not be diversions. Let’s listen to those 911 calls now……oh wait, we can’t because LV Metro hasn’t released any yet!
@1:10:16 radio from outside Tropicana, they aren’t hearing any gunshots. Also, looks like we lost David Newton’s body cam, looks like it fell down the stairwell?
@1:11:15 “BREACH, BREACH, BREACH”. We’re finally a go for getting into the Suite.
According to the official LV Metro Oct 1st report, he Strike Team conducted an explosive breach into room 32-135 and made entry at approx 23:20. Remember, Paddock stopped shooting at 22:17, more than an hour earlier.
@1:13:07 enter stage right, where did these officers come from?
@1:13:16 partial view down the hallway, looks pretty nice.
@1:13:41 finally in Paddock’s suite itself. Multiple officers have entered the suite before Sgt Bisko.
@1:14:00 “BREACH, BREACH, BREACH” I’m assuming that that’s for the entrance to Paddock’s 2nd suite
@1:14:55 reports of two shots fired in the park area of NYNY, and one at Aria, which is City Center, a little further north on the Strip. And, @1:15:58 they’re sending two teams to Excalibur, which is right between Luxor and NYNY
@1:16:27 another breach, this time within the suite, I’m assuming it’s this, according to the LV Metro report: “Approximately 2326 hours The Strike Team made a second explosive breach from inside of room 32-135 into room 32-134 through the connecting doors. Immediately after the explosive breach an LVMPD SWAT Officer negligently fired a three round burst from his rifle. The rounds fired from the SWAT officer’s rifle struck a chair, an entertainment centecabinet and a wall.”
@1:18:02 officer reporting that they have made contact with people inside the Tropicana, and there were no shots fired.
@1:18:15, now everyone is coming out of Paddock’s suite. I’ve mostly seen Bitsko’s chin and the ceiling from his body camera, I don’t think I saw the floor once. And @1:18:19 more hallway, looks fine.
@1:19:00 they are reporting one suspect down in room 135 @ Mandalay Bay
Quick question: are there still guests in the other suites on that floor? Were they evacuated? If so, by whom?
@1:19:54 STILL getting reports of shots fired at the Tropicana, but someone immediately comes on and says they are at the Tropicana (see @1:18:02) and there are no shots fired. So, who knows, eh? Also, no shots fired at Aria.
@1:20:16 command to start “rechecks” all the way down the hall. I’m assuming that they are rechecking the rooms to make sure they are empty? If so, who evacuated people in the first place? Why didn’t anyone staying on that floor go on the Ellen show? Just thinking out loud here.
@1:20:25 security at NYNY are saying no shots fired in the casino
@1:22:00 still talking about the black Audi with the wires hanging out of it at Luxor. They’ve got area locked down.
@1:22:40 now getting reports of shots fired at Ceasers and the Belliago. This is interesting because the reports are making a direct path from the Mandalay Bay northwards up the Strip.
@1:23:38 Bitsko wandered back into the suite after loitering in the hallways for a bit, now getting a better view of the room, and the guns.
@1:24:58 reports of a man with a gun at the Paris. Note, that is directly across the street from the Bellagio!
In the suite they are talking about windows not being broken, and I’ve seen people comment on that, but listening to it in context, it sounds like a nothingburger, they are just trying to identify what windows are broken and which aren’t. But, again, that’s just me. Come to your own conclusions, and let me know if I’m wrong!
@1:25:33 “Let’s get some units to Flamingo and the Boulevard to stop this guy going north anymore.”
@1:25:51 talking about Paddock, “This guy’s been 419 for a minute”. Meaning he’s been dead for a while. LV Metro code for dead body is 419 But, he committed suicide because he thought SWAT was going to breach is room, and the jig was up, right? Right?
@1:27:33 talking about the gas mask they found.
@1:28:22 reports of 434’s at Paris, that’s illegal shooting (I should have downloaded that Metro code sheet at the start), and they’ve got “people running everywhere.” But, when pressed, they aren’t hearing shots right that moment.
@1:30:33 the footage is clearly edited, there is an obvious cut there. I wonder how many more of those I’ve missed.
@1:31:28 strike team arrives at Paris
@1:31:43 more of a walk around in the suite
@1:32:35 strike team at Paris, no gunshots, but every one is leaving
@1:33:19 mention of a players card found with the name of Mary Lou Danly, Paddock’s girlfriend
@1:34:09 not over the radio, but someone with Bitsko’s earshot said there was a man with a rifle at Bellagio. Again, that’s right across the street from Paris, where people are running from.
@1:35:09 Sgt. Bitsko’s footage ends
And that's where I've ended, too. It's all very, very odd, don't you think?
Edit #1: fixed some formatting issues.