UNITED STATES

Nevada
Humorist Hod Shewell characterized Las Vegas as "The city of fish and chips: Some poor fish is always losing his chips." But given the choice of losing my money in the stock market or in Las Vegas, I think I'd take my chances at being a fish. Las Vegas is generally regarded as the most fabulous place for gambling in the world, and for no small reason. No other city can offer the same level of gambling alternatives, entertainment, or sheer ac-tion and glamor than this desert town.

The Las Vegas casinos are clustered into two main areas: downtown and the Strip. The Strip is the glamor center where the big bettors play. It offers the bigger stars and the more lavish shows. In any given month, Strip casinos can offer anything from a heavyweight championship prize fight or a tennis challenge match to the World Championship of Blackjack tourney.

The downtown casinos are smaller in size and type of opera-tion. The big business in most of these casinos is slot machines, which tend to be more liberal (pay off better) than on the Strip. Betting limits are much lower than on the Strip, and heavy bettors rarer. There is no lavish entertainment downtown. Instead, small groups usually entertain in the bar or there is no entertainment at all.

At this writing, the Strip has generally become a very difficult place at which to play. All the casino personnel are on the look-out for any card tracking. Small signs are on display at each table, stating, "We reserve the right to bar counters." As Lillian Hellman observed, "Callous greed grows pious very fast." In other words, the casinos still aren't happy with their skyrocketing winnings. The lower average-player win rates as shown in the earlier tables (from 57 per cent to 55 per cent) are direct reflec-tions of what has happened on the Strip.

The downtown casinos still offer worthwhile Blackjack oppor-tunities if you are willing to live with the lower table limits and acceptable betting ranges. At times, though, I have had the dealer take countermeasures when I was betting only one to four dollars during a casual daytime playing session! Your best choice here and at the Strip is to stick to one of the highly rated casinos from the tables.

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