Electronic poker tables at casinos (1 Viewer)

meh

I see the efficiency thing but I like playing with chips (and cards) way too much to go for this crap.
 
Age-wise I'm roughly from their target demography it seems, but this? Seriously nope. Kills off everything that makes up the casino flair for me. No cards, no chips, no dealer. Might as well stay at home and play online poker.
 
I've played on one of these on a cruise a couple years back since that was the only poker option available. It was pretty average but given the choice, I don't see how these compete with real cards and chips.
 
Madison WI casino had these for a while and I played there 5 or 6 times. Just feels so weak not having cards and chips. It did move a little faster which was nice, but overall just has a blah feeling about it.
 
I played on one of these once at the Plaza Las Vegas. I didn't mind, but I did bink a 2-table tourney.

I found it to be far more hands per hour, which allowed be to pick spots - which isn't easy in Vegas low-dollar tournaments. I also got blackout drunk. Plaza waitresses aren't used to tps, so once I started tipping they were bringing another round every 5 minutes or so. Still, not having chips to knock over or fiddle with or whatever other tells I may have did not come into play on such a table.

At any rate, they're not as good as chips and cards, but they do have some serious advantages.
 
(n) :thumbsdown:

Oaklawn had these electronic tables (haven't been in a while, might still have them), hated playing on it. Just a fancy RNG, almost exactly like playing online except much slower and only 1 table at a time. Take all the soul out of the game.
Is it exactly like playing online? Because I'm an average player at best, online, and I'm an above average player live. Part of that is live reads like body language, and part of it is that I have an easier time associating betting patterns and such with a live face than with whatever avatar is at any given position.
These electronic tables wouldn't be my first choice, but I'd give it a shot.
 
I found it to be absolutely nothing like online poker.
  • It was super social. Granted it was the Plaza and I think it was a $20 buy-in, so you are getting friendly, chatty, out for cheap fun players anyway, but face to face chatter and gab was more like a home game that I didn't have to drive home from afterwards and I didn't have to worry about hosting.
  • Online, you stare at a screen. Here you look at everyone else. People, not avatars. Reads like pulse in the neck, hard nips, flush chest, and repositioning in the seat are all still available.
  • I had to wear pants
  • No worry about bots or HUDs. You're playing vs people.
  • You can say "Hey, it's on you!" if someone zones out. You know they're there, and not in the bathroom or fighting with a dropped connection.
  • No dropped connections.
 
I think I told this story before, but here goes anyway. Do NOT play on electronic tables.

We had one here and we proved it had a glitch: every game it would pick a winning seat which could (almost) not lose.

We'd fill the table with our own gang, start playing, and would immediately spot the lucky seat. After that, lucky seat would not fold a single hand. Not 7-2 off suit, nothing. By the river, lucky seat would win like 80%+ of ALL hands. Player in that seat would switch to autopilot and just call everything. Half the hands we'd say what we had. "I have AA", lucky seat would say he had 72 and proceed to call to river and win.

We went back over and over and kept doing the same thing, and proved that each time we played, a new lucky seat was chosen by the table.

We might have given a lot in the rake given we were all friends who could've just played at home, but we proved there was a flaw and others who played on the same tables across the region actually started reporting the same thing online.

I don't remember the brand in case more than 1 company makes these.

Maybe next time you sit at an electronic table it won't be as obvious as our experience, but the table could have a glitch or a pre-programmed method of playing. Perhaps not as random as they'd have you think.
 
I played on a cruise ship years ago, and I found it to be slower. Yes, quicker between hands, but we constantly had to tell each player..."its on you" because it wasn't obvious because each screen did its own thing and you couldn't see that it was you unless you were looking straight down constantly, which gets old. Then each person had to carefully cusp his hands in the right place with the right pressure so they could see their cards. The sum of these 2 things for most people every round slowed the hands per hour way down.

I'm going on another cruise in a few months. I hope there is some real poker going on and not this electronic crap. I'll report back after that.
 
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Couldn't management skew those tables in their favor if they wanted to? Or make a random seat the "lucky seat" where the player constantly wins against all odds?
 
Couldn't management skew those tables in their favor if they wanted to? Or make a random seat the "lucky seat" where the player constantly wins against all odds?

That's what we were afraid of. Especially since management and their friends were all poker players, and since we clearly identified some type of glitchy "lucky seat" programming. Word got out and tables disappeared shortly after. (They were loaned or rented to the poker room on a trial basis prior to purchasing them).
 
I played a tourney on something similar (different brand, I think) a few years ago at Indiana Live! casino (I think that was it). Very boring, no chatter, not very entertaining, and totally lacking all of the tactile and human interaction I prefer in a live setting. I vowed to never play on another e-table again -- and if that's the only option for poker, I'm still out.
 
Call me a conspiracy nut but....

When it comes to games of chance I simply don't trust computers...
Largely because a system based on algorithms can't in the truest sense of the word be "random".
Add human greed to that equation and the fact that casinos aren't doing great as disposable incomes shrink and I think you can see there is an opportunity for exploitation.
I like to look at casinos one way. Take into consideration how many different games they offer, how many of each game the casino offers and play accordingly. There is a reason the big casinos will have 1000 slots to 1 craps table...
 
Call me a conspiracy nut but....

When it comes to games of chance I simply don't trust computers...
Largely because a system based on algorithms can't in the truest sense of the word be "random".
Add human greed to that equation and the fact that casinos aren't doing great as disposable incomes shrink and I think you can see there is an opportunity for exploitation.
I like to look at casinos one way. Take into consideration how many different games they offer, how many of each game the casino offers and play accordingly. There is a reason the big casinos will have 1000 slots to 1 craps table...

You would be right if the online poker rooms merely relied on computer algorithms to get their "randomness". Randomization algorithms aren't truly random, they only appear to be but with enough effort, understanding of the inner workings and mathematical knowledge, you can sort of "reverse-engineer" these algorithms to always generate the number you want if you can control some of the inputs to this function (one of them usually is timing).

But that's why those poker rooms employ (and have to employ, at least in EU regulation) more: They have a randomness source that relies on uncontrollable, unpredictable physical events. Think of a geiger counter for example. You might be able to control whether it'll crackle at all or not depending on where you hold it close, but you cannot foresee when each single crackle will happen when you do put it close to some radioactive substance triggering it. There are a lot more ways to generate true randomness, e.g. with an avalanche diode circuit: http://onerng.info
 
I can think of only one advantage to this. If a casino sells off all of their real poker tables at good rates to put these in...then they go busto when nobody plays....then buys new real poker tables and new chips too.
 
Yeahhh definitely a pass for me. Makes it feel too much like a video game, the numbers wouldn't feel real to me. Plus like others have stated, nothing beats playing with actual chips.
 
(n) :thumbsdown:

Oaklawn had these electronic tables (haven't been in a while, might still have them), hated playing on it. Just a fancy RNG, almost exactly like playing online except much slower and only 1 table at a time. Take all the soul out of the game.

Oaklawn has since removed the electronic poker tables for a 2nd time and replaced them with slots now where those used to be because people eventually quit playing on them as much. It actually made me kind of sad. I will always prefer playing with chips and cards, but didn’t mind playing on the electronic tables since it was less than half the distance to Oaklawn from my house than to Tunica. Oh well. Probably for the best. RIP Oaklawn poker room.
 
So..... if a casino offering e-poker goes out of business, are they required to destroy their virtual chips? :sneaky:
 
So..... if a casino offering e-poker goes out of business, are they required to destroy their virtual chips? :sneaky:

Break-the-chip.png
 
Yeah i played them too Not a fan...

as far as being rigged, i dont see anything in it for that casino. its just as easy to rigg it as it is to make it random ( altho the randomness might be a bit dodgey)

all said i agree with the comments about it being a horrible experience.
 
Just got this sales email from a Distributor. :eek:.

2018-01-31_12-00-39.png
 
Tried these but it's just soulless, give me real chips and cards or you might as well stay home and multitable online
 

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