THERE IS NO WIN IN WINSTAR
To any one thinking they are going to capitalize at WinStar Casino in OK, better THINK AGAIN. Now everybody knows that the house always has the advantage. As a frequent player I would like to share some of the pitfalls learned along the way, some of which I wished had been given to me prior to going. If I can spare even one individual, it will be worth it. WinStar has come up with a few extra ways to help you part with your money.

First some of the common unknowns. NO ALCOHOL is served at WinStar, WinStar is NOT open 24 hours a day, the establishment ( I hate to call it a casino, since they don’t run it like one) is divided into 3 sections the first of these 3 sections is shut down at 3 or 4am regardless of how much investment you may have put into a machine you will get thrown out. The second section closes at 5am and the last section or entire building shuts down at 6am NO EXCEPTIONS. To the best of my knowledge this information is not posted anywhere, I've seen many customers burned by this trick (work a machine to then be told by security to get off it). Almost every game uses a magnetic type card, which tracks every thing you do there along with keeping track of your money. From your initial investment and any winnings you may have been fortunate to obtain. VERY IMPORTANT if you do not redeem the monies on these cards or any tickets printed from a cashed out machine by 6am, that money will be gone. WinStar makes a feeble attempt of warning you on this but again I've seen and been victim to this "low blow" of WinStar's. WinStar does very little in the way of "Comps". After spending somewhere between $30,000 - $50,000 did I finally get a comp for a free meal; I HAD TO ASK THEM FOR IT THOUGH. WinStar's rewards points work like this; Last time I was updated you will receive $1 for every $600 you play, so if you plan on having the $12.95 steak dinner + drink, tax & tip on your rewards points you better plan on playing approx. $10,800.

CUSTOMER INCONVEINECE is the specialty of the house. Most games use the card, others will pay out tickets which need to be redeemed, you will love it when you stand in line to cash in your ticket only to finally get up to the teller and be told they can't cash that kind of ticket. You probably will have to go all the way to the other side of the establishment to redeem. My favorite is when they tell you the person responsible for that type of payoff is on break or at lunch (the trick here is to aggravate you enough to go back out on the floor and start losing back the money). I've even been told on more than one occasion "We are out of money" You'll be guaranteed to see the most people available to assist at the least needed time and the least amount of assistants at the most needed time "Blackjack cashing out, a joke".

Blackjack the player's best bet, usually. NOT HERE It has been told to me in probably 14 different tales, what the $.50 ante is used for. Regardless you as the player will be out $.50 for each and every hand you play, win, lose or draw no matter if the state is given this money and the casino can't show it as a profit etc., etc.. I've seen blue colored cards mixed into red colored decks, short shoes, cards found on the floor, etc., etc. if you don't know the word "gaffed" better look into it. Read up on the average number of times a dealer should flop a ten valued card then go to WinStar and count how many they flop, talk about pre-arranged. Learn lots more about Blackjack at blackjackforumonline you will need to be able to see a stacked deck and continuous shuffle machines can easily be setup against players.

"The quietest casino I've ever been in", a good indicator of a casino's slot pay out opportunities as a whole is to listen for the winning sounds. People tend to get loud when a winner appears and the slots will usually produce a winner indicated noise. I have been in the WinStar when nobody is there and I have been there when it is at full capacity. On many of these occasions when the establishment is full I have noted the noise indicators resemble an empty casino. Let me put it to you like this. Why does WinStar feel it necessary to announce over the loud speaker every time they have a jackpot. Here's a theory, usually when something comes along that’s rare people tend to brag about it and since it happens so infrequently they want the other couple of thousand people playing who were not in the vicinity to witness to know (I wonder how many fall for this). A jackpot is $1,200 and up, the majority paid out are between $1,200-$2,000. These types of pay outs are very rare. In most cases you will lose your initial investment and try again and again etc. Eventually you hit, think you’re a winner, chances are your not. If you don’t immediately leave you are going to lose more of the winnings, subtract the investment prior and the taxes you will have to pay and the end result is usually negative. Don't think you can make up the difference by claiming losses on your taxes either. You can only claim losses up to the total amount of winnings and the way the gov't factors those two you get screwed even more. You wont be avoiding the whole tax thing either, if you want your money you have to fill out the forms and WinStar will send in your claim so the gov't will know. If you like to gamble play the state lottery. If you need a casino go to Louisiana or ones that are regulated. The cost of the drive will be offset by the generous comps offered elsewhere. Why give your money away to an operation that won't even show their appreciation for your business. This is a hospitality industry apparently Winstar was never informed.

You dropped $30,000 - $50,000 at an Oklahoma casino?

2 players over the course of a year. A good chunk of this is roll over money, they will let you win little bits at a time not enough to make it worth your wild. Win 20 take it down to 1 win 20. Using the rewards cards as a gauge based on accumulated points. I figure its more than most but the real point here is even that kind of money will not get you a comp. When you cant buy someone lunch for spending these numbers in your store. Well face it your one greedy s o b. Thats the point to the post at the Horseshoe they would be on their knees

I stopped at the gas station at the Winstar exit and some guy claimed to have won 36g. There were a lot of ppl making a fuss.

Considering the revenue generated from the gaming interests has been reported to be $100 Million a quarter. Who really is the winner?

I wouldn't waste my time with Oklahoma casinos. Hit Tunica or Vegas for real excitement and a real chance to earn some money.

By the way, I've never won much from Oklahoma casinos either.

A friend of mine has won around $2,000 playing blackjack at one of the area casinos. I forgot to ask him which one.

Is there anyone out there that knows the truth behind the $.50 ante charged on every hand played at the blackjack table. I have been told various placating stories by a number of different employees from top management down. All of these excuses put the blame on the state. But now I hear a different twist to this that half of the monies goes to the state the other half to the Winstar. If this is true why in the world would Winstar want to lie about it. The number of untruths seem to abound from the establishment. Ranging on a variety of topics a lot of this mis information being told from management. The last thing you would think a casino would want to have instilled in its players is doubt about their integrity. If you can't be honest about such minor issues as comps and antes, then how honest are you on the actual gaming. How does the chain of command work, Who is overseeing the day to day operations at the Winstar location? Does the tribe have their own people from corp. involved there or is the facility being managed by outside entities. Multimedia I'm sure keeps close track of their vested interests. Considering how backwards the policies are and the out right lack of caring or concern for the customer one would have to question the motives here.

Word is if anyones thinking of taking in a few hands of blackjack over the 4th July holiday weekend should reconsider. It appears Winstar is thinking of capitalizing on the long weekend crowds. 4 different players, over the course of the last 2 days and nights playing at over 10 different tables at different times all indicated the same outcome. "Dealers are flopping 10's and making hands at a rate that has become almost insulting to players intelligence. The number of disgruntled players leaving broke has reached an all time high."

I don't about any massive conspiracy where the casinos are manipulating the deck for good hands. Seems impossible to do. (Not to mention the fact it seems pretty stupid to cheat when they don't keep the money that you lose.) Not keeping the money won by the casino leads in to why there is an ante. Under the current compact with the state, casinos are not allowed to operate any "banked" table games. Basically, casinos aren't allowed to keep their winnings. The money the casino takes in must be refunded back to patrons. This is almost always done via a blackjack tournament. the casino makes money off of the ante. (It's basically the same thing as a buy in to poker game.) I believe the casinos do have to split the commissions with the state, although I don't know the breakdown on that.

It sucks for the players to cough up an ante for every hand of blackjack. Especially since most people are $5 players. That means you are paying 10% commission for every play. makes it virtually impossible to come out ahead in the long run even if you play perfectly.

I figure eventually the commission/ante thing will go away. Many states that are light years ahead of us in terms of Indian gaming began the same way we did. It's kind of an evolutionary thing I guess.

ChrisOk, You make some very good points for contention but heres a few points that should be considered.

Removing high cards from the shoe is the easiest way to cheat players at a multi-deck blackjack game and requires no skill or brains. Removing 8-10 ten-valued cards and 2-4 aces from a four-deck shoe before the game starts will effectively increase an operator's advantage. If you are consistently left hanging with a positive count at the cut card, you may be bucking a short shoe. There are also ways to short shoes without actually removing cards. There have been some sophisticated shuffling procedures designed to "slug" or keep groups of high cards together (Steve Forte). The pre-arranged order of several decks of cards is not that difficult of a task, you base the order on a studied average of the number of actual players playing at any given time. This is why tables are closed in one section of the casino forcing players to other tables. Burn cards help to keep things in check and cutting your cut at dephts of 1 to 11/2 decks. Why do they burn a card anyway if it has no significants? Burn a card after every dealer change. Burn a card for every player playing on fresh shoes hum!!
Automatic card shufflers. Open one up and note how they grasp the cards in clumps, then ask the house to not keep putting each hand back into the machine after the hand is played. They will tell you no can do. hum!! What difference then should it make if we loaded the countinueous shuffler after playing the majority of these 4 or 6 decks all at once?

From the Oklahoma state treasurer's office:
All 24 Oklahoma tribes that offer gaming have negotiated compacts with the state since the law passed in November. Under the agreements, the state receives 10 percent of the net winnings from card games, and from electronic games it receives 4 percent of the first $10 million in winnings, 5 percent of the next $10 million and 6 percent of winnings over $20 million. Oklahoma is not entitled to gaming revenue from the bingo and video bingo games that were already legal, these type make up the majority of Winstar games.

Contrary to what you may have been told regarding profits. The state collected $273,000 for card games from the Chickasaw casino in March and April. If that represents 10% Then the amount for the casino equaled $2,730,000, after states share, casino nets profit of $2,702,700. What would be the point of having a casino if it could not make profits.

The financial reports on the Chickasaw tribe's Web site show its net assets have more than doubled since WinStar opened -- from $138 million in August 2003 to $315 million in April 2005. This represents $177 million dollars in 18 months

30k to 50k on a casino? You must be a wealthy man. I suggest you donate 10k to this site.

Travich, read on my friend. As I mentioned its not hard to rollover the same dollar 10 times especially with 2 people, in that lenght of time. This has been a staple for the industry for years. Remember this is calculated based on play, similar to how a dollar generates 10 dollars when spent around in the same community. I didn't walk in there one day and spend 35 G's. You go into any casino with a $100 and play the quarters or even dollars I assure you you will play a lot more than 100 dollars. Spend one lose one, spend one loss one, spend one win five, stop now and you won 2 bucks. Hardly worth the effort and thats part of my point.