What are good odds in a casino game

There are many casino games that can be hard to mentally calculate the probability of winning in. With slots, for example, it is impossible to get a general idea of the likelihood of winning with a certain combination. There are so many different slots online and they all vary somewhat. They all have different jackpots and payment tables etc.

Theory versus real payout
In a casino you have to be aware of the difference between theoretical payout and real payout . E.g. a roulette wheel comes with 36 slots. 18 slots are red and 18 slots are black. If, for example, you decide to play on a red, the probability of winning should be 50%. But it is not as the roulette wheel has up to 2 extra numbers (0 and 00), which are green slots. An example: These 2 extra green fields mean that the probability of winning is 18 out of 38 fields, 18/38=0.4737, i.e. 47.37%.

In this game, the casino has an advantage in that the chance of getting a black is 20/38 = 0.5263, i.e. 52.63%. The casino actually has an advantage of 2 times 2.63 % in all roulette games.

House edge
The name given to the casino’s advantage is ‘house edge’.
All casino games on Golden Horseshoe Casino, Inter Casino and all other casinos in both the real and virtual world have to have this advantage. What we as players have to focus on however, is how we can get the most value for our money.

House edge in selected casino games
Examples of house edge in selected casino games, so you see that if you do not get lucky short-term, cf. the other article on online gambling.co.uk, then it costs money to play. Remember that gambling is entertainment.

• Baccarat has a house edge of approx 1.06%. An example: If you turn over $5000, whereby you win and lose, you would statistically pay 1.06% of $5000 = $85.
  
• Blackjack has a house edge of 0.50%. An example: If you turn over $5000, whereby you win and lose, you would statistically pay 0.50% of $5000 = $25.
  
• Roulette has a house edge of 5.26%. An example: If you turn over $5000, whereby you win and lose, you would statistically pay 5.26% of $5000 = $263.
  

Based on the above, it is obvious that it costs money to play on a casino unless you are very lucky. The above also shows that out of the 3 casino games named, blackjack is the cheapest one to play. Blackjack is the one game in which the casino has the lowest statistical advantage.

All casino games are designed to enable casinos to earn money from us gamblers. But – it is possible to significantly reduce an online casino’s house edge. Read more about this in the article about negative versus positive expectations.