I wrote in today's metro section about the Seminole Casino Coconut Creek offering a space flight as its summer promotion.
GM Steve Bonner was very honest about facing competiton from The Isle in Pompano Beach, which has been open for about 13 months. The two casinos are the northernmost in Broward County, so if you live in Boca, Delray or north Broward, they're your closest choices.

Bonner's thoughts:

"We’re in the midst of an ongoing battle, in a good way, it’s a good thing and keeps us all on our toes. We're going after the same base.

Having competition does step up the scale of what we want to do for the guest, and frankly it grows the market for everyone."

The Isle declined to comment on another casino's promotion (I don't blame them), but it makes me curious.

To Isle players: Would having a chance at a space flight entice you to Coconut Creek?

To Coconut Creek players: Would the Isle's promotions draw you away and over to them?

Or is there one facet or another about your casino, aside from promotions, that keeps you there? Food? Service? Smoking/non-smoking? Clientele? The compact? Card room? Parking?

It's a long weekend, so fire away.

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I write about the tragic injury of the filly Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby, the issues it raises for thoroughbred racing and PETA's uninformed response in my Mayo on the Side blog today.

Click here to read it.

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Apparently the Palm Beach Kennel Club is still buzzing from the performance of Frank Greentree, aka Poker Talk Frank, the host of Poker Talk America (4 p.m. weekdays, WBZT, 1230 AM).

Seems that Frank was playing in a tournament there -- "And it wasn't more than three or four hands in," he says -- when he got K of hearts, 5 of hearts. He calls.

Flop turns up two hearts; he bets a little bit, his opponent bets a little bit. A blank on the turn, but the fifth heart on the river.

With no pair on the board (so no full house), Frank goes all-in, gets called.

"Only an ace-high flush beats me," he reasons.

So an ace-high flush does. And his victor points at the cards and starts laughing, "Poker Frank! Poker Frank!"

Frank starts to make his exit -- "just about out the door," he says -- when the man's voice gets contagious. The room breaks into a chant for the early bust-out.

"Po-ker Frank! Po-ker Frank!"

Graciously, he bows and makes his exit. More fame for a guy working to get a show off the ground.

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I finally found time to play in an All in Free Poker night, on Friday at the AMF Lanes in Davie.

Bar poker (All in's Bryan Oulton calls it "Pub Poker") is free, but most people tip the dealer $5. You play a Texas Hold 'em tournament, and the winner sometimes gets a bar tab, or points toward a greater prize, or a larger chip stack to enter an end-of-season tournament that has big prizes, such as a satellite seat in a for-cash event.

All in Free Poker is one of the two large groups in South Florida; BarPokerPros is the other. I've played with both and had fun with both.

Friday night drew about 25 players, and I made the final table in the first tournament, got fourth in the second one and was among the first to bust out in the third.

It's a great opportunity to work on your game. My plan for the night: I tried to work on reading other players' weaknesses, then attack. You see it all the time; the bets go check-check-check, and the first person to fire wins.

I'd like to say I had success, but I got trapped as much as I got away with anything. Only two all-in breaks -- rivering a 6 after going all-in with 5-6, and rivering a flush after K-10 suited -- got me as far as it did. That, plus quad queens early in the night. Final tournament bust-out was when I raised with 10s, got check-raised with Aces by a bigger stack and put him on 2 big cards (which is kind of true, just didn't think they were two of the same big cards).

It's funny, the more I play, the harder the game seems to get.

That said, a pretty good Friday night, with a beer or two, the ballgames on. Too bad the Marlins blew their lead.

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So, thanks to my new friend Steve Bourie, I made a video poker field trip. I'm kind of interested in it because of the alleged best payout of all the games if (big IF) you follow the proper strategies.

Gulfstream and the Isle have run promotions offering new players club members a $50 rebate -- they say "the first $50 is on us" which is somewhat true. If you lose $50 on the day you sign up, they give you a voucher for another trip back, which you can just pop into a machine and cash out. (The Isle finished its promotion on March 31, but I'd think they'll bring it back some time.) Now Seminole Hollywood (the old one) has a similar deal but you can get the $20 the day of.

So, if you're not much of a slots player, why should you make a trip, lose money, then make another trip just to get your money back?

Because you can hit it big. Say you play the slots and run your winnings up to $100. That's a $50 profit, and you could cash it out then, knowing you're up.

Or, you could do like I did last week at Gulfstream and take a shot at the video poker jackpot.

I sat down and played Jacks or Better, and max-bet the 25 cent machine, making it $1.25 to go (If I had it to do over, I'd have played the $1, with a max bet of $5.). I know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer to just now figure this all out, but we all have a learning curve of some sort of another.

Had I hit a royal flush, it'd have paid $1,000. So, anytime I had even 2 face cards of the same suit, I threw away everything else and tried to draw for the royal. (Came close twice, getting four to the royal, but...)

I got tired and I got hungry, and I kept winning just enough to not lose the $50. Then I had a hot streak, got the total up to about $50 -- actually, $45, but I'll take the $5 loss -- cashed out and went for lunch.

But I took the shot.

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The first time I watched The Natural, when Glenn Close stood up, then Robert Redford homered, I had no problem with that. Romantic license.

But when Roy Hobbs (Redford) knocked the cover off the ball, well, I went nuts. How can you not portray baseball correctly? That ball never would have been in play. No way it unravels.

The difference: One is sports, and the Close thing, well, that's romance... something we never can figure out.

Which brings me to 21 again. First of all, the object of card-counting is for more 10s to be in the deck and the dealer to bust -- not to always hit 21 yourself. But the movie shows scene after scene of paint upon paint in front of our hero. Rain Man did the same thing. Fools. Then there's the idea of college kids who are trying to be anonymous being greeted by name and comped the finest suites. (Now, I'm questioning the whole $800,000 figure the MIT kids are citing.)

That's only part of it, if you ask Matt Eagan of The Hartford Courant, who runs with the over-glamorization of gambling in a recent article. Greater point: You win, someone else loses. Sometimes you're the someone else.

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Saw 21 this week, and I wrote about blackjack and card-counting in this week's Showtime section. Thought I'd write here more about the movie.

Talk about rip-offs. Let's see... Oceans 11 (with the replays of the action you just saw), Risky Business (especially the closing interview -- I can almost see Tom Cruise and hearing "Princeton can use a man like..." and on Jim Sturgess' first date, I can almost see Rebecca DeMornay as the girlfriend on the train), Rain Man (although they acknowledge that one, when Fisher runs his mouth) ...

Actually, the movie is about a college kid deciding whether to allow himself to be seduced by money, Vegas, beautiful women and adventure (tough decision?). I guess it has something to do with gambling, heck now I do kind of want to read the book Bringing Down the House.

But on Amazon.com, reader Craig Kenneth Bryant scored the "most helpful critical review," verbalizing some points in the movie that I felt in my stomach, but couldn't put into words. Good job, Mr. Bryant.

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I spent another Saturday at a poker seminar hosted by Antonio Pinzari, a pro based in Lake Worth who also runs a dealer's school. He spent most of the day concentrating on the math, what hand are worth playing, which aren't.

The main points: straights are the winningest hand in Texas Hold 'em if you play to the river, because it's a seven-card game. Pocket pairs and Ace-King (Big Slick) are overrated. Overcards put you in mortal danger.

Pinzari is on each Monday on the Poker Talk America show I wrote about last week (see link below), and I'm thinking the numbers he came up with would be good fodder for an article.

That, with the usual caveat, which Antonio himself acknowledges: poker is really about reading people, not numbers.

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So I'm sitting down today to fill out my NCAA bracket to enter whatever contests might be in the newsroom. (Pools are illegal; but contests...)

I will fill out one bracket. One.

ESPN's Mike Golic got me going, talking about how many brackets he's filling out. Hey, don't hedge your bets -- it's like trying to buy the pot -- except there's just a certain rule here being violated. I can't quite define it, but it's just not right.

Somebody out there, help me explain...

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Why do you play penny slots?

Our new gambling pages in Showtime today had a story about their growth, especially in South Florida.

Officials say some people like to cover all the pay lines, others like extending their entertainment values, and some just like the machines.

I'm not much of a slot player, so I need you all to answer: why do you play penny slots?

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So, the Heat and other NBA players play big-money poker games on flights, in yet another enterprise story by our Ira Winderman, by now among the NBA's top beat writers. (An aside: I couldn't imagine many writers getting this story, on the record.)

The gambling thing doesn't make me nervous. But here's what does: These guys are teammates; they rely on each other -- basketball is a game of total trust -- for 82 games.

Then, in the air, they play a game in which deception is not only rewarded, but necessary. A mental contest of getting the other guy to blink.

There's gotta be hard feelings. Think about your own home game; how many times do you leave with a little friendly ribbing cutting a little too close to the bone when the stakes got high? (Send me an e-mail if you have a comment on this, please.)

Now, add another zero or two to the stakes; you gotta see players getting off the plane with hard feelings.

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As you can see by the posts below, we've been here for a while. So take a few minutes, cruise through the old entries, find something that interests you.

And if you have topics you think needs to be covered, hit respond to this post.

My thinking is the blog is the area to flesh out topics, go into more detail than we do in print.

Example: On the bad beat story in today's paper, some card rooms debate whether to include all types of games -- Omaha, 7-card stud and Hold 'em -- in the same bad beat jackpot. Gamblers follow that kind of information; the general public does not.

Meanwhile, here's video gleaned from the bad beat hitting at Palm Beach Kennel. (FYI, Palm Beach Kennel did include them all, but after the 7-stud hit for the $233,400, they changed it back to separate jackpots.)

Help me out here, you all. This is your world; I just have the blog password.

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And of course, by posting that headline, Wotan, the god of poker, is deemed to frown upon me for 40 days and nights.

I've played bar poker maybe eight times and won four tournaments, even though I'm an average player and sometimes get flat-out outplayed.

Case in point: Friday night at MJs in Lauderhill, I play with the SportsBarPokerTour game (a small company, with only a couple of bars).

I don't get a hand the first 45 minutes, finally get ace of hearts, 6 of diamonds. Flop comes out 10-10-7. There were 3-4 callers to the flop, but my thinking is no one hit the set, so bet like I did have a 10. So I fire out $500.

Two folds, then one caller. Uh-oh. I check the next round, and she puts me all in. I'm down to $300 or so, so pot committed. Call.

She turns over K-K. Semi-slow-played me. Ridiculously way ahead of me.

But without following it too closely, 3 diamonds are on the board, and I hold the 6d.

You know what happens. Another diamond. Not even playing for it, not even considering it.
I was so apologetic, and she took it well. Better than I would have.

I go on to win the tournament, hitting a straight on the river against a pair of aces. (An update: yes, I know it's 'units' and not dollars we're wagering, but it shows how bad of a player I am to still be thinking that way.)

This comes after my last time at MJs, when I called with a pair against two pair, honestly thinking I was ahead, only to again win a suck-out.

We all have bad beat stories, but the point is that for every bad beat story, there's a lucky win story.

So, in the name of fairness, c'mon folks. Give me your lucky win story.

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When I go to the track, I’ll put $5 to win on a horse if I like it. If I love a horse, I’ll shell out $10 or $20.

But I can’t imagine anybody in their right mind doing the same thing with their Lotto picks.

As in, “I really like my chances of hitting the 4-11-17-26-39-44 this week. So I’m going to put $3 on those numbers, not just $1.”

Yet that’s what the state is about to allow, in an effort to boost Lotto revenues.

Starting March 5, the Florida Lottery will let Lotto players increase their potential winnings by selling add-on bets to each set of picked numbers.

Those who play the minimum $1 will be eligible for the standard jackpot pool. Those who play for $2 will get an additional $10 million if their numbers hit. And those who play for $3 will get an additional $25 million if they pick all six numbers.

My reaction: Anybody who buys the add-on has to be nuts.

Lotto is already the biggest sucker bet going. For somebody to double or triple their bet on a 23 million-to-1 shot is madness. Shame on the state for trying to boost revenues this way.

Here’s what would have been a better idea: Lowering the minimum bet to 10 cents.

It’s something racetracks have done with longshot gimmick bets such as superfectas. By lowering the minimum, people can get much more bang for their buck, as in 10 different combinations instead of 1.

Imagine if you could get 50 sets of Lotto numbers, not just five, for your weekly $5 quick pick.

That’s something even a sporadic Lotto player like myself could get on board with, even if it meant getting a smaller share of a jackpot.

What do you think? Do you play Lotto? And will you plunk down the extra buck or two for the add-on jackpot?

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By Tom Jicha

Twelve points too many to lay on the Patriots in the Super Bowl but you don't really like the Giants and you can't make up your mind on whether there will be more or fewer total points than 54? There are still myriad ways to enjoy the game with more than an emotional rooting interest.

As always, there are more Super Bowl prop bets than there are players on both sidelines. You can get in action fast; there's a line on the coin toss. Either way it's minus 115.

(For future refernce, all odds are based on a $100 multiple. Minus 115 means you lay $115 to win $100--$215 total. In cases where the line is not even, minus 200, for example, translates to laying $200 to win $100 on the favored side. Plus $160 on the underdog means you get back $160 plus the $100 wagered. All lines quoted are from Sportsbook.com, so they are for entertainment purposes only (they make me say that) since betting with an offshore wagering site is illegal in the United States, which should have more urgent things to police.

Maybe you have a feeling about who will win the coin toss. Either way, it's also minus 115.

Think Tom Brady's passing yardage will exceed Eli Manning's by more than 97 1/2 yards? You can get plus 160. If you want to take the yards with Manning, it's minus 200.

Counting just completions, Brady less 2 1/2 is minus 250. Manning with the spot is plus 200.

Brady's total completions is minus 130 for over 25 1/2, even money for under.

You have to lay 290 if you think Brady's first pass will be completed and can take back 230 if you think it will be incomplete. Manning is minus 180 for a completion, plus 150 for an errant throw.

Brady's passing total is set at 274 1/2 yards. Over is minus 215, under plus 175. For Manning, it's 191 1/2 yards with the over at minus 220, the under plus 180.

(For novices, the disparity in prices is known as the "vig." It's the way, theoretically, bookies make their money, regardless of the outcome. The half-points are designed to eliminate ties.)

Maybe you prefer the running game. You can get 20 1/2 yards with the Giants' Brandon Jacobs against the Patriots Laurence Maroney. Either way, you lay 115.

Maybe you're into the team game. If you think the Giants will score first, you can get plus 150. For the Patriots you have to lay 180.

Front-runners might be interested in the "team that scores first wins the game" prop. Yes is minus 240; no plus 190.

Think the first score of the game will be a touchdown? The bookies do. It's minus 215. If you think it will be a field goal or safety, the take back is plus 175.

Those who like to back longshots have a couple of interesting opportunities. You can get 8-1 that there will be a safety but you have to lay 13-1 if you are a naysayer.

Taking the game to go into overtime will get you back 9-1 but you have to put up 14-1 to say no.

There's even a price on the bane of sports: instant replay. You can take either team to use the first coach's challenge for minus 115.

The most delicious irony of all this is how the sanctimonius NFL is beng used as the official arbiter. Sportsbook.com. decrees that all bets will be paid off according to the official stats posted on www.nfl.com.

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He walked -- well, limped by -- not at all looking like that guy that I remember teamed up with Mr. T in Wrestlemania I about 20 years ago.

This Hulk Hogan, with black bandana and all-black outfit ... well, I think I could take him. He had bodyguards.

The master of the leg drop? Needing bodyguards?

He showed up at the news conference at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Monday, when officials officially unveiled their Class III Vegas style slots (see post below).

With mostly Tribe members in the audience, two or three tribe members addressed the crowd first, addressing everyone first in their native language, then going to English. They spoke about how many years they have waited for real slots -- the biggest knock you could always put on the casino was that you were playing bingo. And Max Osceola reminded the Seminoles of their history, that many years ago they fought to keep land that was theirs.

"We are descendents of those warriors," he said, to applause.

Then Hogan got up, and continued the theme.

"I'm here because I love hanging around winners," he said. "And the part of the story that Max forgot to add... the Seminoles NEVER surrender."

Maybe you had to be there, but his point made sense. Wherever you stand on the compact, people's perceptions on what a "level playing field" is, or even gambling -- and it's all such a sticky wicket -- actually hearing the Seminoles talk about the history gives you a better insight into a point of view many of us may not have considered.

Still, I was hoping Hulk would do a quick pose-down, just for the nostalgia.

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