Michael.Witbrock@CS.CMU.EDU (02/02/91)
From: Stewart Daniels <daniels@apollo.HP.COM> Newsgroups: soc.culture.australian Subject: Re: Tabaret? Message-Id: <4f7f1177.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> Date: 29 Jan 91 15:05:00 GMT References: <10259@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM Reply-To: Stewart Daniels <daniels@apollo.HP.COM> Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA Lines: 46 Apparently-To: <outnews+netnews.comp.sys.amiga.misc@ANDREW.CMU.EDU> The Taberet is Victoria's Claytons Casino. It is run by the TAB (a state government body which runs all off course betting in Victoria) and is basically a video game parlour where you pay money to play some really brain-dead random chance type games and occasionally win money. The way it works is you walk inside, pay the cashier some money (anything from 20 cents upwards) and they give you a plastic card encoded with that amount. You then go to a terminal, put your card in the slot, choose a game, bet some money and generally lose it. On the rare occasions that you actually win some money, your card is credited with this amount. You can take your card to the cashier at any time and cash in all or part of the outstanding credit. The games themselves are all based on sports (tennis, golf, footy, basketball etc.) and there is no skill involved at all. All you do is chose the amount that you wish to bet (between 20 cents and 20 dollars I think), and press the go button (actually you touch the screen, all the terminals are touch screen jobs with an Amiga behind each one running the graphics. These Amigas are connected to a network of PS/2s which do the real work, such as continually monitoring how much money is being won and lost throughout the Taberet and thus determining whether you will win or lose). On some games you also choose what odds you wish to play. The higher the odds the greater the potential win (naturally). There is also a facility for placing bets on virtually any sport imaginable, but this was closed when I was there, so I cannot give you any more details on that. Overall the place is not much more than a glorified pokie machine parlour and I got bored fairly quickly (but I did come out $5.00 ahead). BTW, I seem to recall Kirner announcing late last year that Victoria is getting a real casino some time in the next couple of years. Stewart.