Originally Posted by monet View Post
You think that was the reason?
I always thought it was because they realized that double up was a true 50/50 proposition which they don't like to begin with.
Also, it could be beat in the right circumstances.
I know when I would lock up the machines with double up it would always confuse the attendants.
Yes. It was naive thinking to be sure. As you say, a better reason is because you can safely churn more playthrough with the added 50/50 bet (as for beating it, well that's a hell of a good reason to stop it too.) - just like the odds bet in craps if a player is being rated for their play (that's why a few casinos limit the max odds bets to 2 or 3 to 1). But retrospectively, I now believe the primary reason was the Nestor/Kane bug that Ron discovered independently. The reasons you gave are valid and are most likely secondary and tertiary (with my reason only a very small fractional quaternary component of its elimination) motivations for eliminating it (I'm sure it can be found in small shops around the country on very rare occasions like convenience stores, bar tops in dive bars, rural/smaill indian casinos, etc.).