Unlike all of the other games we’ve featured previously, Let It Ride is truly a modern, American creation.

John Breeding, founder of Shuffle Entertainment, invented an automatic deck shuffler for casinos. In order to popularize the device, in 1993 he created Let It Ride, which is a player-friendly variation of Five-Card Stud (poker). Compared to other card games, Let It Ride is played at a relatively relaxed pace, which makes it a good option for newbies and people less interested in pulse-pounding gambles.

The game first appeared in Reno but continued to spread over the course of several years. By 1995, Let It Ride was generating more revenue for Breeding’s company than the actual shuffler! Today, it’s a very common game; naturally, the Riviera’s own 100,000 square foot Las Vegas casino space offers it. According to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Center for Gaming Research, as of 2010, there were more Let It Ride units on the Strip than pai gow, keno or bingo games.

How To Play Let It Ride

The game combines three player cards and two community cards, and runs roughly like this:

1. Cards are dealt – three to the players, two to the community (face-down). The players look at their hands and, before any community cards are revealed, are given the chance to withdraw one-third of their initial wagers.
2. The first community card is revealed (the second is left face-down). The players again have the chance to withdraw one-third of their initial bets. A player “lets it ride” whenever he or she decides not to withdraw part of the wager.
3. The second community card is revealed, and winners are determined.

Marketing, The Game

Moving Card Shufflers

Shuffle Entertainment produces gambling devices, most notably an automatic card shuffler called the Shuffle Master. Funnily enough, Breeding had no real background in gambling or casinos. He invented his shuffler after reading an article about card counting. But as casinos began using multiple decks for blackjack, Breeding’s single-deck shuffler found itself being squeezed out.

Ever the entrepreneur, he simply invented a brand new, single-deck game: Let It Ride.

So the game wasn’t invented so much to please gamers as to move products; but obviously to spur adoption, it had to be an attractive game. That’s part of the beauty of Let It Ride: it’s designed to appeal to both players and casinos.

For players, it’s simpler than many casino games, so it’s less intimidating and easier to play. You’ll also note that it gives players more control, with multiple opportunities to change their wager, which is reassuring in a gamble.

House Advantage

Casinos also have reason to like Let It Ride. Like other poker-based games, player skill can affect the house advantage, but the game still offers a relatively high house advantage. Depending on how you crunch the numbers, the casino advantage is either 3.51% or 2.86%. (That means, for three $1 base bets, the casino will earn back – on average – 3.5 cents per hand).

As a point of comparison, the house advantage in craps averages 1.4%.

Even though Let It Ride offers a high house advantage, it compensates with some extremely high payouts on winning hands.

No wonder Let It Ride is popular among players and casinos!

Image Credit: ctechs via sxc.hu

Cheaters ruin everyone’s day. They make it impossible for responsible players to win, while making it harder on casinos to keep games running fairly. Every casino in Vegas has their own recipe for protecting themselves and their guests from unscrupulous cheaters.

While we obviously can’t go into specifics on our own anti-cheating measures, you might be interested to learn more about some of the tools we generally use to fight cheating. Ultimately, our tactics are designed to keep the playing field level so that everyone who walks into our 100,000-square foot casino game space can have a good time without worrying that someone’s going to take advantage of them.

Eagle Eyes In The Sky

You probably already know that most casinos use surveillance cameras on the game floor. They supplement plainclothes security personnel who wander around and sometimes even join games. With all the action, it’s just not always possible for dealers and security staff to keep track of everything, and cameras can catch what people miss.

Have you ever seen a street magician at work? It’s amazing what visual tricks people can pull off. Our own ILLUSIONS master Jan Rouven can perform downright astonishing visual tricks on a grand scale; but many people have similarly mastered smaller, subtler sleights of hand. And unfortunately, some of them put their tricks to illicit use, like switching cards in and out of a game (called hand mucking).

To catch such tricksters, we have to be equally adept at spotting the cheat. Between cameras and security staff, we pay attention to the details. If we notice unusual behavior, like players repeatedly touching the same spot on their clothes, a security person will quietly take a closer look.

Gaming the Games

Sometimes it’s not about what the cheater can take but about what they can illegally add. Here are a couple of examples:

Roulette: A pair of cheaters work together. One distracts the croupier (dealer), while their partner-in-crime makes a late bet, that is, lays a bet on the table after “last bets” have been called. A late bet is more likely to win because it’s easier to predict where the ball will land as the wheel slows. Dealers are specifically trained to watch for this tactic, and plainclothes security personnel frequent these tables, but you can also be sure that multiple video cameras are monitoring the roulette tables.

Craps: Here, a cheater might throw in crooked dice (weighted dice). This is harder to pull off, but we still keep our eyes alert to it. This kind of cheat is also part of the reason why casinos switch out dice so frequently and permanently retire dice after little more than a partial day’s worth of play.

Data Detectives

Like any detective work, often it’s just a matter of connecting the right dots to figure out what’s going on. We don’t have access to endless information about the people who play in our casinos, but we notice if there are unusual patterns in the financial transactions that take place. Frequently, it comes to nothing. But sometimes, it pays off when it alerts our people to shenanigans.

Which brings up an important point…

The Best People

We will happily use security technology where it helps us catch cheaters before they can ruin everyone’s game; but the best security means more than just dumb tech. It means smart, observant and experienced people, both dealers and security staff.

Casino employees who are in on the cheat are rare; casinos go to great lengths to ensure they hire the right people for the job. That said, it happens. That’s why casinos employ a sort of “checks and balances” system to keep everyone honest. Dealers may not – and in fact, rarely do – know all of the plainclothes security personnel who are mingling, wandering, and even playing. Even the watchers are watched!

Safety First

Altogether, we employ every tool and technique we can to ensure everyone has a great gaming experience. Learn more about our Las Vegas Casino games and policies. Our dealers and staff are always happy to answer questions and introduce you to the games.

Image credits: poker hand by amab7 and dice by ollycb, via sxc.hu