Paul Sculpher: Table game pacing and the side bet blind spot

I imagine most readers of this publication are involved in the online world. From a casino perspective, it must be nice to be in a position where game supply is unlimited and you’ve every bit of data imaginable.

In the offline world of table gaming, where every seat costs money to provide and as many customers are time limited as wallet limited, game pace is critical. Side bets (on card games in particular) are a time-honoured way to boost theo (theoretical loss) per player hour. If we are reasonable and say the base game runs around 2% (with sub-optimal play and increasingly tough rules), adding side and jackpot bets with double-digit edges starts to balance the equation.

You’ll hear many an old school manager bemoan how customers lose too fast via side bets, or complain how they’re not “proper” blackjack, whatever that is, but one thing that’s not looked at enough is the effect they have on game pace. A good proportion of side bets need a different denomination chip than the base game, and the delays caused by changing chip denoms for players are a killer. It’s exacerbated with inexperienced dealers and onerous security procedures, but each chip change can easily cost you 3-4 seconds.

It’s easy to err...

I have a couple of superb examples of how badly it’s possible to mess this up. Earlier this year, I was in a UK casino with a card game with a side bet with a 1000/1 max payout.  The operator, presumably mindful of potential liability, kept the maximum low, but wanting to make money, kept the minimum relatively high. That led to, on a £5 ($6.75) landbase game, a betting range of £3 min to £4 max on the side bet.  Forcing every player to change for £1 chips every hand or two is just a brutal murder of game speed, for the sake of saving a tiny bit more liability.

The other example is even worse. On a consultancy trip overseas, I was at one casino where they doubled most of their minimums on a weekend night – yay for dynamic pricing! However, this ended up meaning in the local currency the jackpot bet was 10, one side bet was 25, one was 50 and the base bet 100. Infuriating; and made sure the game moved at the speed of stink at all times on the busiest days of the week.

Finding the balance

It’s a balance for sure and, in bricks-and-mortar land we just don’t have the data to make a fully data-driven decision. I don’t even think there’s comprehensive data available on the basics of how much side bets affect game pace, and then you’ve got things like player dissatisfaction to take into account. Maybe they want to play side bets for £1 when you’ve set them at £5 – you can measure the change in participation rate, it’s tough to precisely measure the effect on game pace, but you’re never going to accurately assess how many players leave your site to go play down the road.

All that said, a mixture of using the data we do have along with informed pit experience can get us closer to an optimal mix, or at least can steer us away from abominations like the ones noted above. You need the tools to do the job, though, and in this little micro example, that can include suitably denominated physical chips. For example, if you decide £2 is the right level for your side bet minimums, get yourself some £2 chips and reduce chip change requirements.  

That kind of question, however, leads to the topic for next issue’s article… misaligned agendas between operators and corporate offices...