A few clues to playing Colorado casinos

Following are a few clues to playing at the casinos.

Poker a great choice
What’s the best game to learn if you really want a long-term chance of winning? Hands down, it’s poker.
Poker players are not playing against the house, as in all the other casino games. They’re competing against the skill of other players, as well as a modest “rake” of the pot by the casino as a percentage cost for operating the game.

Odds made easy
Here’s a simple explanation of odds: The first number in an odds expression is the number of times an event should not happen. The second number is amount of times it should. If there’s a 4:1 chance that it will rain tomorrow, it probably won’t, as there’s only a 20 percent chance of it happening. If there are four black jellybeans in a jar and one green one, it means two things:
1) You’ll probably get a black one when you reach in the jar, and 2) Someone else ate all the good ones.

Reading your candles
Do you walk around casinos looking for certain coin denomination slot machines? Many players don’t know it, but casinos have made it easy for them: dollar machines have a blue candle on top, 50-cent machines have an orange one, a quarter machine’s candle is yellow and a nickel machine sports a red one. (The candle is the plastic tube on top of each machine that lights up to alert attendants of jackpots, malfunctions, etc.)

Video poker payouts
Video poker players can determine a machine’s percentage by reviewing the payout schedule displayed right on the screen. Most often, payouts for the flush and full house are the telltale signs. A 6-9 machine — paying six coins for a flush and nine coins for a full house (per coin inserted) — is generally the best paytable you can find.

— source: “Casino Fun Facts” by John Gollehon.