I found some GREAT strategies here:

Lionhead Community - Pub Strategies

There are some other threads with great info as well.

Pub games were released with a glitch that some people are taking advantage of maybe they will patch that soon.

If you need to unlock your Keystone tournament items and are having trouble, what I did was to bet the minimum bet each and every time. The AI will keep placing chips all over the board, and while you won't be winning money (it's not your money anyway unless you place 5th or lower in the tournament), you won't be losing money like the AI is.

The first time I did this I placed 6th because the AI got some jackpots, the second time I was 2nd. We have to bet archstones, and I put a minimum bet on the keystones square. You don't have to do that but on mine 10 and 11 come up ALL the time, and I usually win a couple of those every game. Just keep hitting "roll dice" with your minimum down and keep doing that throughout the tournament. The sword you get from a win on the 5 star looks like it could be useful ingame.

For spinnerbox, open up that cow and corset 250 ASAP, once I got that opened the jackpots and money earned brought me right out of debt.

Hope this helps someone.