When you go to an online casino, sometimes a game will say that it has good casino odds, but what do these odds mean? Most sites, articles, and books which discuss casino odds refer to the house edge. The house edge is the statistic for how much the casino expects to earn. For example, a game with a house edge of 2% will, over time, give the casino $2 of every $100 bet. Some games have a house edge that cannot be changed. For example, the best strategy in the world won’t change your odds in keno. In some games, your odds are affected by strategy, such as counting cards in blackjack.Remember that every casino game has a theoretical house edge, because if it didn’t, the casinos wouldn’t make any money. In some games, the house edge is much higher than in others. For example, in double zero roulette, the house edge is 5.6%. That means that if you bet $100, you should expect to lose $5.60. It’s not much, true, but if you run the leftover money through the game again, you’ll lose another 5.6%, meaning you’ll lose about $5.28. Go through the bankroll again, and you’ll be down more than $15.
If you’re playing blackjack, on the other hand, the house edge is 0.8%, meaning that when you’ve run through the bankroll 3 times, statistically, you can expect to have over $97 in your pocket.
If you’re just playing for fun, then you know you’ll probably lose the money you take with you to the casino, and that’s okay with you. If you only play for small change, and only once in a while, then you probably don’t want to devote your time to learning strategies that might earn you an extra few cents here and there, but you probably still don’t want to lose all your money. A quick way to cut your losses is to avoid games with a house edge. The game with the worst house edge is Keno. The house edge is at least 25%, and can even be worse. Unless you’re clairvoyant, keno is a waste of your money. People often play keno because they like the way the game looks or they like the chairs. Professional gamblers don’t play keno.
Below is a table showing the house edge in several common casino games.
Game | House Edge |
Craps | 0.60% |
Blackjack | 0.80% |
Baccarat | 1.63% |
Roulette (European) | 2.7% |
Three-Card Poker | 3.4% |
Sportsbook Betting | 4.5% |
Caribbean Stud Poker | 5.26% |
Roulette (American) | 5.6% |
Keno | 25% |
You’ll notice that blackjack, craps, and baccarat have the smallest house edge. The great thing about blackjack, though, is that you can, by implementing a counting system, eliminate the house edge. If you’re really skilled, you can even get blackjack to a system where the player has an edge. If you’re a great card counter, and you really know how to play well with the information you have, you can increase the player’s edge to as high as 2%. The problem is, if you’re playing in a casino and someone notices that you are counting cards, the casino’s pit boss may ask you to leave. It’s not against the rules to count cards, but casinos reserve the right to bar any player that they choose. If you want to count cards, you’ll have to work out a system that the dealer can’t see.
Whether you have a system or not, it’s important to know the odds on any game before you start playing.