There are many reasons people visit casinos and enjoy playing casino games. They may be on vacation or live within driving distance of a casino. New gamblers often wonder which casino game offers the greatest chance of winning.
This question is not easy for me to answer. Wisdom is more than knowing the right answers to your questions. Knowing the right questions to ask is key. It’s too difficult to answer the question “What casino game has best odds of winning?”
Is it asking what casino game gives you the best chance to win if you play it every weekend? Are we asking what casino game has the best chance of winning if you only place one big bet?
This post is intended to answer the question better than the many other pages on Google’s 1st page that claim to answer the query. It’s more complicated than choosing the lowest house edge casino game.
Why does the casino always win?
Another common question is “Why does the casino always win?” The short answer to this question is that the casino DOESN’T always win. Sometimes you win. You might not win if you didn’t. This question really asks why the casino wins long-term.
It is easy to answer. The odds of winning are not proportional to the value of the games. Odds can be used to describe the payout of a bet.
Here’s an example.
The odds of rolling a single 6-sided card are 5 to 1. There are 5 ways to get a 6 and only one way to roll a 6. You have 5 ways to roll something other than a 6, and you only have one way of rolling a 6.
The house edge is the difference between the odds that you win and your payoff odds. This is why the casino always wins long-term.
Here’s how it works:
With a $100 wager on each roll, you assume that there is a perfect set of 6 dice rolls. For a total $500 loss, you lose five bets. For winnings of $400, you win one bet. Over 6 rolls of the dice, you have lost $100. That’s 16.67% of your wager. This hypothetical game has a house edge of 16.67%. This is the average loss for each bet over infinite trials. Your actual results will be closer to what you expected mathematically if your dataset reaches infinity.
This is how the house edge looks for most casino games:
- Blackjack 0.5%
- Craps: 1.41% (But it varies depending on the bets that you place. This is the edge for the pass-line bet, which represents the most basic of all bets in the game.
- Roulette– 5.26%
- Slot machines – 7% or More (The house edge in slot machines varies from one game to the next–it can go as high as 25% or higher).
- Video Poker – 0.5%
Blackjack and video poker have the lowest house edge, as you can see. These are good places to begin if you want to play a game with a higher than average chance of winning.
What is the best bet in a casino?
Although a blackjack hand is the best bet, it’s not the most reliable. Let’s suppose you want to double your money. What bet has the highest chance of you achieving your goal?
Blackjack has the lowest house edge and you would be wrong if you thought so. If you don’t count ties, the probability of winning a single blackjack hand is 46.36%. This is not bad but there is a game that has a higher house edge and offers better chances of winning: Roulette.
A roulette even-money wager has a 47.37% chance of winning. You can double your money by placing a single wager on roulette, not blackjack. If you have a higher chance of winning a roulette bet, then blackjack might seem to have a lower house advantage than roulette. It’s a valid question.
The house edge does not only reflect the chance of winning. It also determines the amount of your winnings. Blackjack is a game where you can get a natural, which is a two-card hand that totals 21. This pays 3 to 2 rather than even money. You’ll double your money when that happens.
While the odds of winning the bet or doubling your money are lower, you may occasionally win more. This is where you’ll find the difference in your house edge. If your goal is to make more money, it’s better to place fewer wagers than you win. The closer you are to the long-term, the more you place bets.
Mathematicians have a phenomenon known as “The Law of Large Numbers” that says that the more you bet, the closer your results will match the mathematically predicted results. Your chances of success are lower if you aim to double your money.
Which Casino Game Offers the Best Payout?
Payout is the difference between the initial wager and the winning amount. A progressive slot machine would have the best payout–specifically, MegaBucks, which has a progressive jackpot that starts at $10 million and grows constantly until it’s hit.
This is not the same as the payout percentage. This is the number that predicts how much you will get back from a slot machine for each bet you place. This is the opposite side of the house edge coin.
REMEMBER:
The payback percentage for a slot machine game with a house edge greater than 5% is 95%. The average loss for every dollar you bet should eventually reach 5 cents. However, this number can fluctuate over time. One bet could win $20, but you might lose all your money on the other. You might also have smaller wins. Important to remember is that the machines do not “remember” how many times the machine won in the past. The odds of winning and the payout odds are the functions that determine the payback percentage or the house edge.
Each spin on a slot machine’s reels represents an independent event. The video poker games are the best place to look for the highest payout. When referring to table games, most gambling people don’t use the terms payout percentage or payback percent. This term is only used to describe gambling machines.
Are You a Slots Player?
You can win at slot machines. However, this is only true in the short-term. Because slots have a house advantage, you will lose all your money if you play enough. This is how it works.
You can’t cheat the edge of a slot machine unless you keep track of the progressive jackpot size and know what the payback percentage is. This is unlikely. The pay tables of slot machines are provided by the manufacturers. They include symbols and payoffs for filling them.
Important Note
They don’t give you the probability of receiving those symbols. These probabilities are also difficult to predict with any accuracy in the short-term. This information might be possible if you keep track of spins over 1000 to 10,000 spins.
Even this small sample is not representative of the real long-term. You don’t have to win at a slot machine to be a winner. Just walk away with what you have.
Be prepared for a loss eventually that will outweigh any winnings. You can think of slot machines (and all casino games) as one continuous, long-lasting game that you will continue to play for the rest your life.
What are the best slot games to play at the casino?
The best slots games will not lose you any money. This can be achieved by sticking to low-denomination slots, which don’t require you to lose a lot of money each time you spin.
One of the online casinos that offer free slots, such as Bovada or Slots.lv, has the lowest stakes game. These games are not guaranteed to win you any money but they can help you save some money. These games are just as expensive as the ones that you will lose.
You might also consider skill-based slots machines if you are willing to risk your money. These games are more appealing to me, but I do not believe I can be skilled enough to win over the casino. This is a mistake you shouldn’t make.
Two things are key to winning real-money slot machines:
- Make the lowest possible bet for each spin. It’s still thrilling.
- You should play the highest-denomination game you can afford.
These sounds like opposites and you might assume I am suggesting a paradox. I am not. It’s not a good idea to play for low stakes if you don’t care about what happens. This is a waste of time.
When I say that you should place the lowest possible wager, I don’t mean that you should bet the maximum on every machine. No matter how many coins you bet, most slot machines have the exact same pay table. To be certain, however, you should read the pay tables.
Truth is, the higher the amount of the coin used for the machine game, the higher the payout percentage. Quarter slots pay more than dollar slots. Nickel and penny slots pay less. While you don’t need to wager the maximum coins, you should make the most of these games.
It’s also possible to ignore most of the advice on how to pick a casino slot machine. This weekend, I was accompanied by a young, intelligent woman who believed that if she played the exact same slot machine every time she went to Winstar Casino, she would eventually win.
When I explained how the slot machines work, she was confused. We had fun and she didn’t feel the need for the same machine.
It doesn’t matter if the machine is situated near walkways or aisles. This might have been an old strategy for casino managers, but it is almost impossible to do so anymore. You can play any slot machine game that looks fun.
How do you count cards in blackjack?
Blackjack is the game you should play if you want to have the greatest chance of winning long-term. However, you must learn how to count cards. Blackjack has a low house edge, but it is still very unique. Blackjack has a memory, which is the most important thing.
Let me explain:
People who play roulette often think that red is either hot and more likely than not to hit again. Or it’s cold and less likely. There are 38 numbers on the Roulette wheel. 18 of those are red. This ratio doesn’t matter what happened in your previous spins. Blackjack is a game where the ratios of cards in the deck change with each round. You can make a rough estimate of how many high cards are in blackjack and increase your wagers to increase the chance of getting a natural. This will allow you to get the 3 to 2 payout.
Card counters assign values to cards and keep a running count. The ratio of low-ranking cards (aces, 10s, and tens) to high-ranking cards increases as more cards are dealt. You can increase your chances of winning if you increase your stake as this happens.
Here is one common method of counting cards. These cards can be tracked in the following way:
- 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 6 count as +1.
- 7, 8 and 9 count as 0 each.
- Aces and 10s count as -1 each.
You need an ace to get a Blackjack, so it is obvious that your chances of getting one increase as the cards in the deck change.
You increase the size of your wagers if the count is positive. If the count is negative or 0 you should bet as low as possible. As a guide, you must also use a perfect basic strategy. It is possible to change your decision based on the count, but this is only an option. Increasing your stake sizes will give you the most edge.
CONCLUSION
Blackjack is the casino game that has the highest chance of winning over the long-term, but only if it’s counting cards. An even-money roulette bet is a good bet if you are just looking to make more money.
Do not believe any other websites that claim that you have the best chance of winning if you play with the game with the lowest house edge. Although it is a factor, it can confuse things in ways that overlook subtlety or nuance. This is a lazy and inefficient way to rank casino games against each other.
I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t bet on games with the highest house advantage. That’s foolish, too. Keep in mind your true goals and select the best strategy to reach them.