Ned & Jane wrote:
> Hi:
>
> On past cruises I have done, the casino will run a blackjack tournament or
> slot tournament for passengers during the cruise.
They are run on all of the Princess cruises I've been on.
The slot tournament is 100% luck, as far as I can tell, unless you
consider how many times you can pull the arm within a given amount
of time "skill".
The blackjack tournaments were conducted two different ways. The
earlier ones pay off according to the total pot from $20 entries.
The House gets 30%, First Place 50%, Second Place 15%, and Third
Place 5%.
The play was similar to the Las Vegas Million Dollar Blackjack
Tournament run by the Hilton hotel. Two players out of seven at
each table qualifies for the next round. Luck is still the
dominant factor, but skills enters this form because you only
have to beat five others at the same table.
That was the way my first two cruises on the Tahitian Princess
was run. On those two trials, I had enough luck to have won
First the first time, and Second the second time. But that was
the last time the Blackjack tournament was run that way
because the House got wise and realized they can make MUCH more
than 30% of a small pot by having a FIXED payout of $500 to
First Place, for entry fees of $20 each, with unlimited number
of times a player can be sucker enough to place this game --
which is almost 100% luck, because the qualifiers for the final
round is based on the amount of chips left after SEVEN hands.
A player can almost ALWAYS qualify if he enters enough times. :-)
But then, his entry fees may be more than the First prize even
if he won.
It's a game for SUCKERS, and there apparently are many on every
cruise in the Blackjack tournament of this form.
> Are there any Texas Hold 'em tournaments yet for passengers, or just the
> professional high-stakes variety that you see on TV?
>
I have not seen that kind of tournament on cruise ships.
There are at least several good reasons for NOT having them on
cruise ships:
1. It is much more time-consuming to run such tournaments.
2. Cruise ship gamblers are usually low skill and low stake
amateurs.
3. Hold 'em tournaments are not much a spectator sport unless
you have cameras peeking into the playing hands.
In short, gambling on cruise ships is pretty much catered to
low-stake, tourist-amateur type who doesn't know the first
thing about any of the table games other than they could win
something if they are REALLY lucky. :-) And the probability
of them losing is arbitrarily close to 1.
-- Bob.
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