What is the most money you have won at a Casino?

[Not-Dave]

Yes the casino...I like the food, the free beer and if I win a bit of money thats a bonus.Most ive picked up is $4000..Dats enuff to put a smile on my face...and drink more beer.How about you guys? any big wins?

[Sgt. Dick]

40 bucks on slots    I had won more, but I left being up 40.

[adz1La]

bout 100 bucks on a penny slot machine...(lost a lot a good bit of it after !)

[Whirlingdervish]

I've broken even most of the time, and probably the best time I left with 400 bucks more than I showed up with.

Goin to Laughlin in 3 weeks, so hopefully I can revise this later.

[ex]

Always lost money in a casino.  That includes the nation's biggest casino, the Lottery system.  Always lost a ton to that casino.   

Best case scenario I think I was up by $20 on slots.  The problem with casinos is the amount of money you put in, always ends up being more than the amount you get back out.  Like it or not, the house always wins overall.   

[|iR|Focalor]

The problem with casinos is the amount of money you put in, always ends up being more than the amount you get back out.  Like it or not, the house always wins overall.   

That is usually true. Usually the odds are ALWAYS in favor of the house, but there are games that offer odds which are little more even. What I've always heard is that blackjack offers the most favorable odds to the player, but I've never had such luck. Maybe I just suck at blackjack and need to learn how to count cards. However, that is a BIG no no, and I wouldn't recommend anyone attempting it. For starters, it's better to pick a table where they use only one or two decks, it makes it easier to count. But at the same time, if the house starts losing more consistently at those tables, the pit bosses and eye in the sky start watching you very closely. Unless you're really good at hiding it, they're gonna be able to tell what you're doing.

Roulette is probably the 2nd best chance at winning big in a casino. You can bet a large amount all on black/red or even/odd with a 1 to 1 payout and about a 48% chance of winning. There is also the ability to employ the totally legal and permissible strategy of doubling losing bets. You start with a large purse. You start out betting maybe 5% of it on a 1 to 1 bet. If that bet loses, you double the amount and bet it again. If you lose again, double it again and bet the same thing. You continue doing this until it hits. By doing this, when it DOES finally hit, you win back all your money, plus you make the amount of money that you would have if you won the first bet. Then you go back to your original wager and start over. Doing this gives you the best chance of always leaving with more than you started with. ALTHOUGH... it is entirely possible that you could keep doubling your bet each time you lose and eventually run out of money when you continue to come up a loser. Sooner or later, it will happen. The trick is not to get greedy and not to start out by making a bet that you can't possibly double 8 to 10 times in a row.

You can also employ this strategy when betting at the craps table. Field bets (2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12) usually pay out 1 to 1, and I think most casinos double wagers that roll a 2 and triple wagers that come up a 12. For example, you bet $20 on the field, you roll a 2, you get $60 back (your 20 plus 40). If you roll a 12, you get $80 back (your $20 plus $60). Obviously you have a pretty good chance of coming out a winner doing this. You have 7 numbers that are winners and 4 that are losers.

[Whirlingdervish]

I tend to play about 12-13 bucks worth of solid numbers at roulette and I change them as I see fit every couple of spins.

I don't make a killing, but I can play for hours like that and win often enough to keep tipping the waitresses as they bring me comped drinks. If it's a good night and a full table I can stay at it for hours on a hundred bucks and walk away with chips in my pocket.

[QwazyWabbit]

Actually, the best odds in the house is craps, where the house has zero advantage on some bets and only about 1.4% on average on pass/don't pass. You can reduce the house advantage but never eliminate it because you can't bet odds (0% advantage) without a pass/don't pass bet just to play the game but the Odds bet can pay as high as 2:1 on a point of 4 or 10. As in all casino games, the longer you play, the better for the house.

Best win: $240
Worst loss: $400

[|iR|Focalor]

the longer you play, the better for the house.

Correctomundo!

The big casino hotels know this, which is why they comp rooms to people who win big. They know that if you are staying there, chances are you will play the next day as well, giving them a chance to make their money back. They know the average person will get it into their head that if they won once, they can probably win twice. WRONG. Know when to walk away. The odds are always in their favor, meaning it's even harder to walk away a winner two days in a row. And on that second day when you start losing your winnings, they know most people will panic and make poor decisions in order to win back what they had. But more often than not, they end up losing everything they won the previous day AND THEN SOME. This is also why they comp you free alcohol. You start playing smart and winning, so they funnel liquor into your ass, and then you get drunk, and then you make decisions to bet more than you would if you were sober and thinking clearly, or you make poor betting decisions period, and THEY win your money.

Very few people walk away from casinos up more than had coming in. It ain't cheap to run those places. They use everything in the place to play a psychological mindfuck on you. The flashy decor, the bright lights, the free drinks and free rooms, they do all that to make you feel like you're special, like you're a winner and you can't lose. They want you believing that so that you'll spend all your money without hesitation.

[QwazyWabbit]

According to Wikipedia the expected value on any bet is a loss of 5.3 cents for every dollar played. A perfect example of the take your winnings and run philosophy. The payoff on red or black is 1:1 but the odds are 1.111:1 against you. The zeros are the house advantage. The house has a 5.26% advantage, which is pretty high. Single numbers pay off 35:1 but the odds against winning are 37:1. I've never played roulette for money but I've watched it many times. The action is interesting and it's interesting to see the way people bet. The only consistent thing about it though is the house is always sweeping up the chips.

[|iR|Focalor]

Yep, those zeros can kill you. You employ the doubling strategy thinking that the only thing that can beat you is betting on black and getting continuous reds or betting on odd and getting continuous evens You double up and double up and double up and double up again until you don't have the chips to cover doubling up anymore... and then one of those two miserable god damned green zero slots hits, and fate kicks you swiftly and squarely in the nuts.

[ReCycled]

The ONLY game where the odds can be in your favor is Blackjack. This realisation started back in the 60s with a book called "Beat the Dealer", written by a statiscian. When computers became more readily available more stats were run to optimize the basic betting strategy, as the mix of small cards vs 10 cards changed. I was heavily into studying Blackjack in the early 80s. I could count, but it was a real mental task to keep a running count of all the hands played while remembering the best betting strategy. All the casinos were on to this new phase of the game and countered by increasing deck stacks (up to 8 in a shoe), changing rules on "soft" hands and evicting people suspected of counting. The fun was over. The best times to take down the house were in the 60s and 70s when casinos didn't believe the game could be beaten. In fact it was their most profitable game.
That said the best I ever did was being up a few hundred dollars in Monte Carlo on a European vacation. I also hit Baden Baden in Germany and a few other smaller casinos. Interesting times...

[|iR|Focalor]

The same number 8 times in 9 spins.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/las-vegas-roulette-wheel-reportedly-hits-19-seven-203237524.html