MACAU BUSINESS “My role was to evangelise the advantages of this game,” he
says. “What I did was to popularise something that already existed in Macau”. The popularity of NCB does not mean, and will not mean, the end of traditional baccarat. Twelve years after appearing in Sands and The Venetian, NCB is the dominant baccarat variety of the mass market in every major casino in Macau; in the high limits stakes games NCB is on a par with traditional baccarat (varying between 25 to 75 per cent). The junket areas, however, remain uniformly anti-NCB because its players are far more sensitive to small changes in house advantage, Alidad Tash explains.
2NT8
Alidad left The Venetian in 2010 to join Melco Resorts, first running analytics before assuming responsibilities as Senior VP of Gaming Operations & Strategy at Melco Resorts & Entertainment, where ‘he helped guide the company to becoming the ultimate premium mass destination in Macau from 2012 (when he took over gaming operations) to 2016, posting the highest win per table figures and featuring the highest table minimums in Macau’ (from the 2NT8 website). His time there coincided with the mass table hold
percentage – a key metric – increasing from a sub-par 21 per cent to an industry-leading 36 per cent. The seeds thrown at this time have left good fruit. “Last
year, Macau’s casinos combined to win 38 billion USD, of which 18 billion was in VIP tables, another 18 billion was mass tables, and the remaining 2 billion in slots. Roughly half the mass table win (between 8 to 10 billion) came from NCB,” Alidad did the math. “If NCB had never arrived in Macau, much of its winnings would have been collected by the slower Traditional Baccarat, but not all. Conservatively, 1 billion, and aggressively, 3 billion a year, would’ve disappeared from the casinos’ winnings,” he states. Alidad left City of Dreams in late 2016 “for various
reasons” – but mainly, maybe, because he wanted “to adventure on my own. It was a nice departure, friendly. All my guys are still there”. Next, Alidad Tash founded 2NT8, of which he is Managing
Director, and is promoted as ‘a full-service gaming and Integrated Resorts firm comprised of senior industry leaders with extensive experience throughout the gaming world’. “I’m assisting European and American companies that are trying to reach Japan and South Korea,” he says, but he does not close the door on returning to Macau or teaming up with companies from Macau, a place he considers his own, proudly proved by displaying his Macau passport, which he obtained to the detriment of a US document.
NCB – 35 per cent more money W
hereas in traditional baccarat the dealer takes a 5 per cent commission for every winning Banker bet, NCB does not – hence the name. The only
exception is when the winning bet is exactly 6 (which occurs about once every 19 hands), in which case the commission is 50 per cent.
Alidad helps us understand how that single variation makes
all the difference to the three parties involved. The first group – the dealers – like NCB because they don’t
have to calculate and deduct the 5 per cent commission, and then use more chips to pay less. For a winning $1,000 bet on the Banker, for example, the NCB dealer pays back the same $1,000 which uses just one chip. But traditional baccarat requires the dealer to first calculate and deduct the $50 commission, and then use six (!) chips to pay $950: one $500 chip, four $100 chips and one $50 chip. This takes longer, and can lead to errors and time-wasting disputes. The second group – the players – like NCB because it is
faster and does not tax their winnings, except on the rare six. They are aware that the odds of NCB are slightly lower because of the 50 per cent commission on six, but the overall difference is not viewed as exorbitant. The third group – casino management – like NCB because
it not only has a higher house advantage but generates more hands per hour. As a result, all things being equal, NCB makes around 35 per cent more money than traditional baccarat.
28 SEPTEMBER 2019
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