Today, I can offer you a double-shot of prose pieces featuring a game called Double Action Roulette. First, this week’s Green Felt Journal takes a look at the odds against new table games, focusing on Double Action Roulette:
Sometimes it seems like there are more people with ideas for new casino games than gamblers. From afar, it’s a lot like watching salmon swim upstream; you know that many of them aren’t going to make it, but in order for the big circle of life to keep turning, they’ve got to try.
Then, because I had lots more to say about the game than space in the print edition allowed, I wrote a medium-length blog piece:
I think the game is going to be accepted by casinos because it does two things that the generally like: it increases revenues while holding steady (or decreasing) labor costs. With one dealer, Double Action can generate as much revenue as two dealers on two tables. That’s important, because payroll (including pay, benefits, and payroll taxes) takes up out 32 percent of gaming revenues on casinos included in the “Boulder Strip” reporting area (geography be damned, that includes the M). In general, the casino innovations that have caught on are those that help casinos lower their labor costs; coinless slots are the most dramatic example.
I hope to do more of this sort of follow-up in the future. Often I have to leave a lot of good stuff on the cutting room floor because it doesn’t fit in with the main point of the article but is nonetheless enlightening.