While I don’t disagree with CP’s advice, I prefer to take a more laid back approach to scouting. Since I play mostly local places I can afford the luxury of spending more time stalking my prey. I like to pick my targets very carefully. Sometimes a very big animal will only turn its back for a short time, but that will be enough time to kill it, devour it and move on. In CP’s case, a hungry roaming beast will need to find his next meal rather quickly.
Depending on the size of the casino, scouting could take me anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour or so. I like to watch every table, every game and every employee before I make any decisions. I look for weak shuffles, weak or unusual house procedures, weak or misused equipment, exploitable ploppies, weak pit critters, weak dealers and potentially helpful dealers. You might find a dealer giving 90% penetration, but the next table over has a broken shuffling machine and the table after that has a dealer that will flash if the person at third base is standing up and talking to her.
It’s not all about finding good conditions, it’s also about creating good conditions. In some cases the games are bad but you can encourage some opportunities or train some people to inadvertently give you an advantage. That’s the stuff you only learn by sitting down and playing your game, but a good amount of scouting will point you in the right direction and help you find those opportunities sooner.
-Sonny-