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Commentary: The dominating theme to this year's G2E was "Screw the customer or, barring that, confuse the living hell out of them." Every new game being introduced either had a house edge of not less than 4% and commonly up to 25% and more, or was so convoluted (imagine craps with 8 dice and two dozen more propositions), you needed to take an extended learning course from the local community college just to understand how to play.

Concerning the former, in addition to massive house edges, every new game being introduced had built-in volatility that was through the roof. Anyone with an earwig's worth of statistical acumen could tell that many of these games give the player the pleasure of winning an incredibly generous one hand out of ten, and often less.

There was simply more and more evidence that casinos don't want to give players a fair shot. They want a guaranteed cash flow and empty wallets, and if many of these games make it to the floor, they'll have it.

On the vendor side, concerning the latter, you could tell that game designers were just running out of ideas. I never understood it well enough to really do it justice, but one such game called "33" involves anteing, playing, raising, then if the dealer has this or that, rolling the dice, counting some number of cards, rolling the dice again, etc. I actually got 33 (three Aces) on my second hand. They gave me a free chip.

There's a reason slot machines are so popular: They're easy to play. 99% of the people pitching their new table games were doing more to drive people away from the tables than draw them back. It's much harder to create something that is simple and addictive, than something convoluted but slickly marketed.

There were also ten gajillion "Texas Hold 'Em Played on a Blackjack Table" derivations. The two most likely to make it come from the creators of the Lucky Ladies sidebet, and of course Shufflemaster. Shufflemaster was also pushing several variations of 3 Card Poker, aka 4 Card Poker and 6 Card Poker. Again, more and more complex to play, but some good potential for HCers.

There were plenty of new VP machines from IGT, including a triple-play Pick 'Em clone and my favorite title, "Ace Invaders." All of them just add more and more volatility in order to add life to the venerable video poker, but several of them show promise.

Finally, on the game protection side, Griffin Investigations were on hand showing off Griffin Gold, with a picture of Usama Bin Laden and his Griffin Gold file on the screen. Apparently, a new selling point for Griffin, Bio, and their ilk is that they've loaded their databases up with al Queda operatives and the other world's top terrorists.

That's right, folks! If you get Griffined for counting cards, you are now thrown into the mix with international terrorists. That should make the next trip through airport security a whole lot more exciting.

Of course they're not smart enough to be original. All of the surveillance section of G2E is now "Surveillance and Homeland Security." While I'm actually quite hawkish when it comes to homeland security, it's how they use this new position, for example putting APs and terrorists in the same database, that concerns me, and should concern all of us.

Lastly, below you shall find close-up photos up Bally's MindPlay system. As you will see, it tracks EVERYTHING. As I predicted in my Lux interview, if you lay down a bet during a positive count, the pit, the camera room, and every one with a monitoring screen will know it. This system is just inviting abuse, as evidenced by the recent lawsuit posted here on Blackjack Main.

Also, keep an eye out for former President Richard Nixon, who happened to make a couple of cameos at this year's G2E.

Good Cards,

V