Every casino player (or just about every one) knows that the house has a mathematical edge on the games being offered. The edge works consistently. That is why the “house” over time will come out the winner in human versus house competition.
That time period could be short, medium, or long but it does come eventually or, yes, it can come right now. You could lose your first bet and never get a winning history in your ledger.
Players who are not aware of this fact are asking for trouble because they don’t know what is really happening when they play the casinos’ games.
Only a few players (make that very, very few and they are far, far between too) can get the edge over the house by skill as opposed to by luck. Skill can last; luck is ephemeral. Anyone can get lucky in the casinos.
However, there is another ingredient in all casino games that most players tend to overlook and that is the pattern of how a game plays itself out. Does roulette play itself out the same way that blackjack does? Maybe and maybe not. And what about all those other games, too? What’s with them?
So, let’s take a look at the patterns of some of the games and what you can expect if you play them.
[Please note: Many players do not understand how to translate the house edge of a game into cold, hard cash. If the house edge is 10 percent that means the player will lose 10 percent of all the money he or she wagers. So, you bet $100 and the expected loss over time will be $10. Some games have low house edges and some games and bets in some games come in with outrageously high house edges. Players should know which are which. Those edges are cash to the casinos!]
Roulette
This is one of the oldest casino games and it has been a favorite of players all over the world since the late 1600s – and it is a real (real!) favorite of casinos all over the world too. If you were a farmer, roulette would be your cash cow.
There are three types of roulette games found in casinos today. From best to worst, they are the single-zero wheel (0) which is called the European/French game with a house edge of 2.7 percent; the double-zero wheel (0, 00) which is called the American game with a house edge of 5.26 percent, and the newest one which I call the “Yuck” triple-zero wheel (0, 00, 000) which has a 7.69 percent house edge.
There are 36 numbers on a wheel (1-36) along with those zeroes. The payout of a single number hitting is 35 to 1 on all the above games. You have a one in 37 chance to hit a single number on the single-zero wheel; a one in 38 chance on the double-zero wheel; and a one in 39 chance in the triple-zero wheel.
If you want to bet just one number, you will have many long losing streaks; after all you have all the numbers on which you aren’t wagering hitting as often as the one number you want. The wait for a hit could be almost interminable.
Now, some players decide to bet straight-up on multiple numbers, which is called “inside” betting, and this increases their chances to get a hit. Of course, more money is usually being bet to go with those multiple numbers. The pattern is that you’ll have more hits but you will ultimately lose more money because you are probably betting more money.
Interestingly enough, there are other bets at roulette that can change the above pattern. These bets won’t change the house edges but they will give you more numbers that can hit without having to make multiple bets. On such propositions as the dozens, the columns, the inside combinations, the even-money bets of red/black, high/low, and odd/even, a single player bet can cover many numbers.
The more numbers you are covering, the better chance long losing streaks won’t occur. Of course, a single-number wager brings in 35-to-one, while the multiple-number proposition bets bring in far less money.
The higher the payout, the better chance for a long losing streak. The bets covering more numbers will mean far fewer long losing streaks. Those are the two extreme patterns for roulette, longer losing streaks with bigger wins or shorter losing streaks will smaller wins. The player chooses what the player wants.
And, yes, some players bet all over the place. They are not restricted to one or the other types of bets. They “have at it” so to speak. The pattern for these players is simple – they are all over the board and so are their wins and losses!
The players can take their pick of however and whatever they want to bet and enjoy or cringe at the pattern or patterns they have selected. That’s the game.
Blackjack
This popular game is today’s favorite casino table game by a wide margin. Every decision that a player makes against the dealer’s face-up card impacts how the player will do at the game. How the player plays will dictate how well or how poorly such a player will do. That’s a short and sweet point of it all.
To be good at this game requires knowledge of basic strategy, which is the computer-derived strategy for the play of every player’s possible hand against the dealer’s up-card. It is one of the few games that some small number of players can actually beat if they know how to count cards. (How many players can do that? Not many. But some!)
Blackjack surpassed craps and roulette in the rankings in the mid-1960s with the publication of Edward O. Thorp’s famous card-counting book Beat the Dealer. That book stimulated players to give this game a try. Indeed, few players could learn to count cards but the game became a hot item and still is.
Blackjack does have some wrinkles that make it an interesting enterprise for players and for writers such as me. One is the simple fact that the casino wins approximately 48 percent of the hands while players only win about 44 percent of the hands (with 8 percent of the hands being pushes – meaning draws). I’ve rounded the percentages here to make them easy to remember but they are reflected of the game’s dimensions.
First off, players who enjoy parlaying their wining bets are looking to take a beating because adding your previous win to your current bet faces that 48 percent probability of a losing hand. Parlaying might seem good in games where the decisions are really close to 50/50 but this is not so in blackjack.
If you don’t play correct basic strategy you can increase the house edge over you four-fold or more.
And what is the edge the house has over a basic-strategy player? It is a mere one-half percent (maybe a little more, or maybe a little less, depending on the casino’s blackjack rules). A half percent edge is good; the best in the casino!
Sadly, if you play at an empty table or with one or two other players, again you can be asking for trouble as you will be playing far more hands than if you played at a full or nearly full table. A standard rule of casino play is that the more decisions you experience the worse it is for you and the better it is for the casino.
You also have blackjack players who enjoy playing two (sometimes three) hands. Unless such a player is a seriously expert player, all those extra hands mean extra money for the casino. It is hard enough to win when you play perfectly; it is almost impossible to win when you play foolishly. Take that to heart.
Too many players think a lot is good; a lot is not good unless that is how you describe the money you just won at a game. Few players will be in that situation too often if they play poorly. If you want to say the words “a lot!” then play perfectly. You must play perfect basic strategy if you want a good shot at winning at this game.
A big negative that many blackjack players face is the self-reputed blackjack “expert” who tells everyone how to play his or her hands. These “experts” are usually wrong in their advice as they do not actually know basic strategy – they may even poo-poo it as being for “math heads” or “math boyz.” (Sorry, there is no use of “math girlz” by the expert BJ fringers. Negative equal rights have not yet hit the blackjack tables.)
Even if you are winning the “experts” can take away some of the fun of the game and, oh no!, these experts seem to enjoy long playing hours and at times are hard to escape. During the week, you can usually escape them if they come to your table because you can scoot away to other tables but weekends can be tough. The crowds might make it impossible to escape the “experts” and also to play at almost empty tables. Those who can play during the week are the lucky ones.
Craps
This is the most exciting game in the casinos – craps players will certainly maintain that. I don’t disagree with them. When a table gets hot because some shooter is hitting number after number, your juices flow, as do the juices of just about everyone at the table. It can become a wild time!
Craps is a communal game, too; most players sharing the desire for the shooter to hit their numbers and everyone else’s numbers. Look at the table – it looks like a primitive altar where sacrifices were routinely made. And what do we craps players offer up to the gods of chance? Our money!
Craps tables can become loud, louder, and loudest with players exclaiming, shouting, applauding, howling, and slapping fists and fives. You might even see some (overweight) men bumping bellies. It can also become deadly as a morgue if shooter after shooter sevens-out and everyone loses.
Craps has many, many dangers in the game’s wagering structure. It has a cornucopia of bets, yes, but most of these go from bad to simply awful; bets that can soak players to their very core and do so on a regular basis. Why players make such bets is hard to fathom when the best bets give a player a good chance to win on any given session. [For the complete 888casino craps strategy guide, click here.]
Just watch a game and you will be amazed that almost every player at the table will be betting three, four, five or more wagers. There does not seem to be much discrimination between a good bet (and there are some) and a rotten bet among many craps’ players.
Craps came to the fore during World War II when this river and city game hit the armed forces. My first experience of the game came in Atlantic City alongside those World War II veterans. (Oh, how I miss them!)
Baccarat and Mini-Baccarat
These are two games with the same bets and the same house edges but one is a magnificent game and one can be a player head-pounder. Why so?
Baccarat was usually a high-roller room game, played on a large table with sometimes six casino personnel working the game – well dressed personnel at that; tuxedoes for the men and cocktail dresses for the women. Most players were indeed high rollers. Playing it was going into another world. James Bond’s world.
The game was slow; players even got a chance to deal the cards. (They could not decide what to do with the hands as all decisions were preset but still, dealing was a fun thing!)
Two great bets with a house edge in the low 1 percent range. There was a third bet, a terrible bet called the “tie” which could strangle you if you made it a part of your play.
The game could hurt if things went south but that was usually a slow-moving bad streak.
And then came mini-baccarat – a game that is as fast as lightning. Where baccarat might have had 40 hands an hour (with many ties), playing mini-baccarat can zoom up to 150 hands (or more) an hour. It also has many side bets and propositions that are absolutely not worth making. And fast dealers too!
Here is a game where speed is a true detriment for savvy players. Fast is good for the casino; slow is good for the player. Memorize that.
If you can afford and find a real baccarat table, play the game. If not, only play maybe one-third of the hands at mini-baccarat.
All the best in and out of the casinos!
