Parx Online Casino & Sportsbook PA Online Gaming & Betting

Hey all really appreciate this sub. It is one of my favorite go-to’s on Reddit and I just wanted to get this off my chest. I certainly understand the reasons why and I’m not trying to start a super negative thread on purpose. However I was pretty disappointed with the play at Aria when I was at Vegas a few weeks ago.
I don’t get to go out there a lot and was staying with my girlfriend at the Mandarin since I have a ton of free nights through Hilton. I’ve always heard they were ranked as one of the best poker rooms in Vegas and loved the idea of having a room 75 yards away from the entrance to my hotel. I went to play 2/5 NLHE all night Thursday and then Friday afternoon evening. Thursday was fun even with many tight passive players and I ended up +200 on the night (bachelor party came late). However I couldn’t believe how empty that poker room got by 1am. It was eventually just me and two other guys playing. I play a lot at Parx, sugarhouse (in Philly) and sometimes AC and to be frank there were more people at those places that time of night than Aria.
Friday afternoon/evening was only worse. They were plenty of people there this time but I couldn’t believe the number of tight passive players who all knew each other at my table. Not saying it was collusion but they didn’t even try to hide the fact at all lol. There was literally a couple there together who had headphones and were playing video games online against other people. They spent more time in those online games and only played about five or six hands for entire seven hours I was there 😂. Three other people at the table knew them and each other and they all checked down the hands they were exclusively in several times or placed a minimal bet on the river. It was pretty gross. I ended up +120 for the day but it was so boring. Shit put me to sleep.
Again I could’ve moved tables or gone to another casino as I know ”Aria” is one of the first things that pops up when people Google “best Vegas poker rooms” so of course nit regs are everywhere looking for tourists. I’m not really hard-core ccomplaining and I look forward to trying new places in the fall for 2/5 NLHE.
I think bottom line is that while it may be a saturated game it is great to see so many new places popping up in cities where live cash games are now legal. Vegas still has that it factor but I had just as much fun playing between loose aggro and tight aggro at my local casinos during the weekend. Thanks for listening and I look forward to going out there and giving it another shot!

I've got a friend from back in high school who's now a Bernie supporter, so I copy/pasted a rather long conversation we had about the morality and costs/benefits of increasing the minimum wage. For identity purposes, he shall be referred to as Staty McStatist.
Me - alright, so what do you think the minimum wage should be raised to
Me - for the record, i'm against any minimum wage, especially on the federal level by virtue of the concept of federalism
Staty McStatist - It depends on the state, id say range it from 12-15
Me - and what makes between 12 and 15 the perfect range for a minimum wage - if minimum wages are beneficial, why not raise it higher to, let's say, 30 or 50 dollars an hour?
Staty McStatist - How much do you think it costs to live independently, without children of course? 15 is being modest but I understand it might be too high for some states
Me - it depends on where and the level of comfort in which you wish to live
Me - and if you raise the minimum wage, then all you're doing is helping some people who are able to produce goods or provide a service at the level of a minimum wage, but what happens to those who are being employed and cannot produce that much?
Me - and what happens to people who are already unemployed now and unable to find a job - if you raise the minimum wage, are they more or less likely to be able to find one? Me - we're already at the lowest labor force participation rate since the 70s
Staty McStatist - There needs to be a respectable minimum wage set up for anyone who does any job, there needs to be a standard. Not all low wage jobs pay the minimum, some of them pay closer to 15 which is good on there part, they won't take as big of a fall if it gets raised to 15. I'm however disappointed with slumlord employers who really pay as low as they can and they'd pay even less if the government didn't demand them to pay minimum wage
Me - so employers who are paying their workers at 15 an hour right now - are they doing so out of the good of their hearts or are they doing so because that's the market equilibrium for the supply and demand of that specific type of labor?
Me - similarly, are employers who are paying 9 an hour doing so because they're evil or because paying a higher wage would cause the company to run at a loss on that worker's productivity?
Staty McStatist - They apparently value there employees more. Do you know why better jobs pay competitive wages and offer benefits? Because they want there employees to be passionate and dedicated to working for them rather then other employers who can care less about there workers, they exploit them
Me - i agree that employers should treat their workers well enough to maximize his productivity - it's in a company's best interest to do so and i've never understood companies that treat their workers like shit
Me - however, does that mean that the supply and demand of labor has no bearing and the only thing that determines the wage of the employee is how good-hearted the employer is?
Staty McStatist - I think an employee should be paid based on his employees profit margins, however more prosperous businesses don't like to disclose these facts to there workers as obvious as it might seem
Me - right, that would be one of Marx's general principles, that the workers should own the means of production - however, does that mean that in a down year during a recession, let's say, when the company runs at a loss, that the worker either makes no money or has to pay out of his own pocket to foot the losses?
Me - after all, 80% of businesses fail - most of them being small businesses and small businesses provide the most jobs in our economy
Staty McStatist - I also think seniority based payscales should be established, this is popular among unionized and public sector jobs. However I don't expect the government to demand this from a private employer, so to balance the wealth I think raising the minimum is justifiable to account for there shortcomings
Me - yeah, that's the spirit of tenure laws and increased pay with experience in public schools, but if you end up paying based on experience rather than productivity and quality of the service you provide, then there's not much of an incentive to work as hard or do as well a job as you can - this is why tenured teachers are often some of the worst in the school
Staty McStatist - And what happens when were talking about very profitable employers like Walmart, parx casino and even the Philadelphia Phillies, is it right that highly profitable companies often pay there staff very low wages while expecting a considerable amount of productivity out of them which might be considered a lot considering?
Me - right, because supply and demand of labor also play a factor - let's say you raise the minimum wage of all Walmart workers to $15/hr
Me - and now you have someone who's unemployed and wants to work at Walmart, but there are no positions available, and he says hey, i'll take that job for $14/hr
Me - what has the government done other than legislate him into unemployment?
Me - if two parties are willing to come to an agreement over a specific wage, be it $100/hr or $10/hr, why does government get to come into the equation and say "no, you can only hire this person at $15/hr or not at all"
Staty McStatist - You know what's the worst thing about working a low wage job, they often treat you like shit on a regular basis on top of paying you shit as well. It's sometimes a systematic thing or it can be as direct as your assistant manager anf customers riding your ass nonstop, point being these jobs aren't as fun as you think they are, many of them suck.
Me - i agree, a lot of them do suck - i've had minimum wage jobs in the past
Me - but if they sucked so much that people weren't willing to do them, then the supply would be lower and the price of labor - that is, the wage - would be higher, like you see in the septic business
Staty McStatist - I don't feel sympathy for employers who underpay there employees, they deserve to pay fair liveable wages
Me - and who gets to decide what a fair wage is? the government or the two people who agree on the contract?
Me - who are you and i to decide for two other individuals what a fair wage is for one to employ the other at?
Staty McStatist - What justifies a realistic liveable wage on a 40 hour workweek
Me - the issue with a liveable wage is if we decide that this number of dollars is necessary for a liveable wage, then you legislate people who don't produce that amount out of business Me - so yes, if you raise the minimum wage, you could certainly raise the standard of living of a few people Me - but you'd also throw many into unemployment
Staty McStatist - There was a study on this I saw on the news the other day, it's tallies up to about 13 an hour nationwide, some areas more other areas less, but that sounds about right
Staty McStatist - Not necessarily
Me - so let's say you have a company that pays a bunch of their workers 8/hr
Me - if you tell that company that they have to pay any worker they hire $13/hr, what happens
Staty McStatist - These companies have the right to lower the wages of there employees who make about 15, especially in the 6 to 7 figure range. If these management types are not locked into contracts they should lower there wages simply because the law says they can, that's how they'll straighten themselves out
Me - so you're saying what these companies should do, but you're saying that they should do this because you want all those workers to stay employed - however, you and i both know that's not how the companies will act
Me - firstly because if they lower the wages of those who make $15/hr, then those people could easily say no thanks, i'll take my work to someone who pays me what i'm worth
Me - and the same would happen for management
Me - secondly, because they will act in order to make sure they maximize profits, and to maximize profits, they will lay off the least efficient workers
Me - the ones who were paid the same wage as more efficient workers who might be producing at $13/hr, but weren't making as many widgets
Staty McStatist - If they wanna treat there low wage employees like dirtbags why not knock down the wages of store managers, district managers and do forth. They can get away with it, but they value these workers more even though they can easily replace them with less qualified staff at half the price, maybe even less. They can make that work for them, so why don't they do that? Why do they value the big guys yet trample on the little guys?
Me - and how would you do that? even ignoring the morality of forcing a company to pay its manager a lower wage, how would you legislate lowering salaries of managers?
Staty McStatist - Because they can do it simple as that, it's within there legal right
Staty McStatist - They can always raise the price of goods to offset there losses, that might simplify things
Me - but if they raise the price of goods, then people won't buy their product and they'll lose profits
Staty McStatist - Not if it's done very marginally, they don't gotta make drastic changes, even very small increases might go undetected. But if you're selling goods people need regardless they'll buy them
Me - that would only work if it occurred across the whole industry - if every single seller rose prices to such a value, and it's against their interest to do that because people buy their products more if they're cheaper
Me - also, let's say that this did happen, and prices were raised across the board, then you've decreased the quality of life of every single person because the have less money to buy other things
Me - and because they have less money to buy other things, the decreased demand for other industries causes those companies in those industries to go out of business
Me - there's a finite supply of money - you can't create something from nothing
Staty McStatist - Don't you think this will benefit them from another angle too, yeah they might upset the middle class a little bit but if low wage workers are making more money they'll probably spend more, that alone might offset any differences
Staty McStatist - Creative marketing schemes don't really influence my spending, I buy what I need and I'll buy as much as I need regardless, I know what I want and will stick with that strategy
Staty McStatist - I'm very frivolous, I wish more Americans were more cost conscious as I am, unfortunately many of them are too impulsive
Me - not quite, because the economy is a zero-sum game - any extra money that people who are now at minimum wage get is offset by money that others lose. the people who are most likely to lose that money are other people at the bottom because it's more profitable for businesses to lay off less productive workers than to slash salaries of managers. also, the money that others lose cannot go towards buying goods in other industries - you can say you want what you want, but the fact is, it depends on the amount of money you have. if you have to spend more money on milk and food and other things you cannot go without, then you have to forego the other things that you buy for luxury that you feel you earn through the efforts of your labor