Even as the Airport Shuttle was cruising towards the Marina Mandarin where the Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010 was held (I spoke there, and got a great endorsement from Timothy Hughes of The BOOT blog), to my left on the way, I could notice, among many new buildings now dotting the Singapore skyline, a peculiar sight. It seemed as if someone had taken a long thin rounded - rectangular slice off a garden and had put it squarely on top of 3 buildings that looked like each other, with just a wee bit extra space tapering over the sides and front.
Located at Bayfront Avenue, looking over the Marina Bay (Opera house on the right and city skyscrapers on the left), this new colossal monument turned out to be the new new thing in Singapore called the Marina Bay Sands Resort & Casino.
Later on, upon interacting with the locals, I discovered, what I had seen was going to be the most amazing "Skypark" in the world, once completed !
(picture courtesy - http://www.luxury-insider.com/ )
I decided to pay it a visit once I was done with the conference and left with not much to do on a Saturday evening.
Getting there was easy by cab, even though the cabbie was dropping someone there the first time too. "First time, ah ?". "You gona make some money, lah ?". "You Singaporean or PR? " "No." "Ahh OK Lah .. You no pay S$100 - locals pay money to get into casino.
Revelation to me, but turns out, the Singapore authorities are discouraging locals to form a habit of gambling, by imposing a cover charge of S$100 for the Casino to citizens and permanent residents. To cut the payment queue for the charge, locals can also pay this online. The queues arent that long for foreigners despite entrance being free. They do check identity rigorously (3 times), and the security men seemed all over the place in at least 3 different uniforms !
The Casino is spread over a huge area of the hotel with two floors full of dealer tables for card games (spotted Poker, BlackJack), roulette machines/tables, some sort of dice games I didnt quite get, and last but not the least slot machines in all shapes and sizes. The lighting was glitzy, the music was slow, the slot machines were noisy and bubbly, and water bottles were being tossed out to all who need them. There must have been like a million cameras watching every move of the eye, hand, card, button. The best part of the casino is the central circular open area from where you can look down onto the ground floor to endless rows of green coloured poker, blackjack, roulette tables and witness the mad passion for making a quick buck. The Casino is bound to be a superhit in Singapore, Asians just love to gamble !
The noise and crowd of the slot machines on the ground floor drew me first. As luck would have it, my first go at a slot machine with a S$100 initial capital, made me S$189 within 20 minutes. However, over the next 3 hours, the gamblers paradox of quitting or trying to make more got the better of me and I lost over S$350 in the process despite trying every possible model/type of the machines on the ground floor and level 1. I realized my folly late - of course one had to lose money on slots if one kept playing on these electronic versions of the machines. They run virtual reels on computer screens these days and even back then they always ran on microprocessors. Programs are smarter than humans in knowing how to make money for the house. The probabilities of winning are totally variable and wholly unpredictable unless the machine is biased. So, best of luck (and incalculable luck) with slots.
With the last S$10 in my pocket, I almost walked out of the Casino, until I set my sights on the Roulette Tables. I spotted a Roulette Table full of Singaporeans / Chinese ppl and observed the game for 5 spins. On the 6th spin, I exchanged my $10 to betting tokens. The table had a S$2 minimum bet size, and I didnt really have the gall to bet on a number and expect to make 36x returns. Instead, my roulette betting strategy revolved around placing two bets in parallel - one on 1st 12 / 2nd 12 / 3rd 12 and the second on one of the 2 to 1 columns. That way my winning probability was more than 50%, with an additional probability of almost 1/9th for winning on both. As luck would have it that night, I kept winning on at least one of these bets, sometimes two. Each time I would leave just two tokens to bet with and keep the rest of the sum as my savings.
Within an hour, the lady sitting in front of me was bankrupt and left the place vacant - I could finally sit. I made some friends too - a retired Singaporean teacher named Lim - a sharp man in his late 60s, with million dollar smile on a weathered face - who thought I could fake the Singaporean accent quite well (since he assumed I was a resident). Lim said he had a target of S$1100 which is what his losses had been since morning (morning ! - and I told myself, I am not the only one who's been here since afternoon). Lim's betting tactics were very calculated and he would bet on 10 individual numbers - not my piece of cake. I did bet sometimes on the lines / on the grid, but one only once with that strategy. For me, it would be fair to say that the one major calculation guiding me above all logic and probabilities was my intuition, much like it does for decisions related to a fast growing company. When my intuiton sometimes said I risked losing both tokens I betted, I would place a bet on even/odd red/black etc. so that a win there could offset some losses. Lim quickly spotted my instinct / strategy and commented - "All the smartest players always play on the sides, more surety of winning, but smaller wins ! - Me only losing money". Yeah, right, the endless piles of tokens next to him told a different story.
I had my share of learnings - just like a card game, you need to get into the rhythm of your dealer / table manager. His hand holds the key to where the ball will stop, and I could hear Lim screaming at times - "I told you this guy is a 26 man - 26, two times in a row! ", or "I am waiting for this guy to change soon. Not my guy." They changed every hour. One of the security measures I guess. But Lim was right, with one particular dealer, I was almost on a losing spree. No familiarity or comfort development with anyone ! Also, random betting on zero can be great, I kept betting on it when it didnt come, and when I didnt, it came, and that's when the house makes the most money. also, I realized that the reason why every 2 minutes the dealer would make a expression of "what" with the palms of his hands, turning them face upwards was because he needed to show the cameras above that he is not hiding any chips/tokens in his hand ! My, my .. some training they must have, but I wish they were taught some mental mathematics too. Lim was usually helping them calculate winnings and doing it thrice as fast with 100% accuracy. The girls on the other end of the table joked Lim should become a dealer. I learnt some roulette etiquettes too - collect wins only after all outside wins have been laid out, for cash change / token change, always place the tokens on the table - they wont be accepted in the hands of the dealer. And no bets after the "no more bets" has been called.
The most mentionable part of the otherwise monotonous 9 - 10 PM of the evening roulette was this couple who played only 3 times on just one number and each time it was their number that won - they left the table within 20 minutes - whew - some ppl know that they are lucky !
By 11 PM, the table buddies considered me a veteran at the game, with some Indian fellow travelers stopping by seeing my pile of tokens and asking me - "Bhai isko kaise khelte hain?" I tried to teach them, but after losing money twice, they seemed more interested in the nearby slot machines (God bless them !).
By midnight, I had made S$460 starting from a capital of S$10 at the roulette, and I figured it was enough for me, lest I lose it all - covered my previous S$350 losses handsomely.
At 12:15 AM on Sunday, I walked to the cashier counter and got in exchange for my tokens S$460 in freshly minted notes. Lim made S$1240 and he gave me his tokens for cashing out on his behalf (the queue at the cashiers was huge) - he did meet his target - but God only knows how much he actually came to the table with.
When I was returning late at night, there was a queue of about 200 people waiting for a taxi right outside the Casino entrance, all orderly in typical Singaporean fashion. This was past midnight, and despite the 50% extra fare to be made, taxis were coming in at a leisurely pace of 3 per minute. The Indian entrepreneur in me quickly figured out I would have to stand an hour in this queue to get a ride back. Well, that's where the agility and "jugaad" of our Indian instincts, and the restlessness and impatient struggle of entrepreneurship came to my help. I walked for 5-10 minutes and got a cab 300m from the Casino.
The moral of the evening was - Roulette Tables rock & Slot Machines suck ! And gamble only for the highs of it - dont make it an addiction.
The warmth of those "hard earned" 9 freshly minted S$50 notes could be felt throughout the ride back !
- Aloke Bajpai
@alokebajpai on twitter
Oh, and by the way, of course I had booked my Delhi-Singapore flights using iXiGO.com - you should too - nothing beats that experience :)
Let me say this. The Casino is somewhat pretty to look at. That's the one pro. I went there for the first time and won roughly 1200 bucks. One thing and only one thing the casino has going for it is that its in Asia. If this same hotel were on the Vegas strip it would be empty. No bars. No music, basically the most un-fun casino ive ever been to in my entire life. The place is built for Chinese people drinking water and looking to lose some of their money. I love gambling in Vegas, however if you are Chinese and expecting to go there and beat the house, this lace could be for you. If you are a westerner and are going there to have some fun, probably lose soe money, but at least do so while getting drunk and hopefully bumping into a few good looking women, forget it!
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