Casino betting is more complicated than that, though. There is more to choosing a casino game than deciding whether or not the house percentage is very high. In fact, that’s not even the best predictor of how much it will cost you to play a particular game.
You also have to take into account how much you are putting into action with each bet and how many bets you are placing per hour.
If you are playing Slots of a cent to the minimum bet and make 600 moves per hour, is only spending $ 6 per hour at work. Even if the percentage is 20%, you will only lose an average of $1.20 an hour.
On the other hand, if you’re playing blackjack for $100 a hand, and you’re placing 50 bets an hour, you’re putting $5000 an hour into the action. Assuming the casino edge for that game is 1%, you’re looking at losses of $50 an hour on average.
One game has a 20 times more casino edge than the other, but your average hourly losses couldn’t be more different.
And that’s just one consideration among many. Another consideration is how much you are earning while playing. If you’re like some people, you don’t have to be interacting with others while betting. Maybe he’s an introvert.
If that’s the case, a game with a lot of social interaction, like craps, could be the worst possible experience you can have in a casino.
On the other hand, if you’re an extrovert, playing slots or video poker can be more tedious than looking at drying paint.
Most of what determines whether a casino game is good or not depends on your temperament and goals. You should spend some time thinking about what kind of person you are and what kind of games you might enjoy before setting foot in the casino.
That said, I have some opinions about the worst games in the casino. I express them below:
Slot Machines
If you’ve read the accompanying piece to the text of this blog, “ The Top 10 Casino Games ”, you’ll notice that I also include slot machines in my list of best games.
No, I’m not crazy.
And no, I’m not trying to be dishonest.
Some slot machines are a lot of fun, and some are not. Slot machines in the worst games list include some of the following games for the following reasons:
Slot Machines at the Airport
These have notoriously low payout percentages, especially in Las Vegas. If you’re absolutely desperate for a little more action before you fly home, you can play these games, but you should know that the payback percentage is probably between 75% and 85%.
This means that you will lose, on average, $15 to $25 for every $100 you wager on these games.
Compare that to slot machines in casinos that are full of people, like those on the Las Vegas Strip. The payback percentage in these games is always right at 90%.
The reason is simple:
When you are at the airport, these are the only machines available. They don’t need to compete with other casinos for their attention. If you want to play slots while you’re at the airport, you’re stuck with their games.
Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, on the other hand, are constantly competing with each other. If you don’t like how the game is going in a casino slots game, you can just go out, go to the casino next door and look for a losing slot machine there.
Progressive slot machines
These also offer lower payout percentages than slot machines with fixed jackpots (which have a jackpot as a fixed prize, which does not increase over time). The math here is just common sense.
To feed an ever-increasing progressive jackpot, games take a small percentage of each bet and use it to increase the size of the jackpot. This is money that comes directly out of the smaller earnings return percentage. The probability of winning a progressive jackpot is similar (if not equal) to winning the lottery.
So 99.9999% of the time, the payback percentage is going to be significantly lower for YOU because it’s likely that you won’t hit the jackpot while playing.
Slot machines are good for some players, but not all slot machines are the same.
6/5 Blackjack
You’ve probably noticed that blackjack ranked first on my list of best casino games. That’s because it’s so much fun and offers some of the best odds in the casino. But not all blackjack games are created equal.
Most blackjack games pay 3 to 2 if you hit blackjack (a “natural”). This is a 2-card hand that totals 21 – it has an ace and another card worth 10. This payout changes the texture of the game dramatically.
In fact, the increased payout on that hand is why counting cards works. Card counters check the ratio of aces and 10 in the deck for low cards. When there are relatively large numbers of these cards in the deck, your odds of hitting a blackjack and the biggest payout that goes with it increase. So they raise their bets when this situation happens.
But some casinos only offer a 6/5 payout for a blackjack. This has a huge effect on your profit. This particular rule variant takes unfair advantage of younger players who don’t understand the big difference the extra payout makes to their bankroll.
Changing this same rule adds 1.39% to the casino percentage. This may seem like a small amount, but here’s what it really means in your bankroll.
Let’s say you’re playing $100 a hand, and you’re playing 30 hands an hour. You’re putting $3000 into play every hour you play.
You can calculate your expected hourly losses by multiplying the casino’s edge by the amount of money you are betting.
Let’s assume you are playing a reasonably good blackjack game with perfect basic strategy, and the casino advantage with all the rules variations for this game is only 0.5%. We’re talking about losing, on average, $15 an hour.
That’s not bad for an hour of entertainment. And the standard deviation will help you win in some sessions too.
But let’s make this rule change by starting to pay you $120 when you hit a blackjack instead of $150. The casino advantage goes from 0.5% to 1.89%.
Now your expected hourly loss is around $57.
There is a big difference between losing $15 an hour and $57 an hour.
And this is the result of an apparent small change in rule variation.
OUR RECOMMENDATION
My advice is NEVER play 6/5 blackjack.
American Roulette
Roulette is an OK game for some casino players. It’s relatively slow-paced, so you usually don’t have a lot of money on the line per hour. And it’s a good way to socialize with other players without the intensity of the craps table.
But there are 2 types of roulettes in most casinos. One is American roulette, and the other is European roulette.
The difference between the 2 games is the number of zeros (0) on the wheel. And just like changing the payout in blackjack from 3 to 2 to 6 to 5, adding another 0 to the wheel has a devastating effect on your odds.
The European roulette wheel has 37 numbers. One of them is a 0, which is green, but the rest of them are odd and even numbers that are colored black and red.
The American roulette wheel is exactly the same with one exception – the addition of a space with 00 on it. It’s also green. But it effectively doubles the casino’s odds of winning.
The casino takes its advantage in roulette from these zeros. If you removed them from the wheel and kept the same payouts on bets, you would have a 50/50 game. Neither the casino nor the player would have an advantage.
Here’s how it works:
In fact, the casino’s advantage for European roulette is 2.7%. For American roulette, the casino advantage is 5.26%.
What effect does this have on your bankroll?
Let’s assume you are betting $100 per turn . And let’s also assume you’re making 30 plays an hour. You’re putting $3000 into play every hour.
You can multiply the casino’s advantage by the amount of money you are putting into play in order to have an estimate of your expected hourly losses.
2.7% of $3000 is $81. That’s a big loss per hour compared to blackjack, but it’s still MUCH better than your expected losses in the American version of the game.
5.26% of $3000 is $157.80. This is much more than I want to give up for now for the privilege of playing a game that has only one difference – an extra 0 on the wheel.
Not all casinos offer European roulette. I suggest you stick with casinos that offer it, and simply stay away from American roulette.
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