Top 15 Myths About Casinos

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A blanket of myths neatly covers gambling, and we, as a respectable blog, have to pull it aside. Most casino myths sound a bit weird to anyone who doesn’t like games of chance, but for gamblers they aren’t so strange. It’s quite easy to believe that you can win a jackpot by picking the right slot machine when you’re looking at long rows of slots in a gambling hall. It’s also easy to believe that a roulette wheel is biased if you’ve just lost your monthly salary.

Here, we’ve assembled all the notorious myths about gambling that have to be busted, and we hope that you will learn something new from this list.

Top Myths About Casinos, Slots, and Gambling in General

All myths about gambling are somewhat similar. They’re either about casinos being unfair or about how the chances of winning and payout percentages depend on something other than the RNG (Random Number Generator). We will go through all of them, and explain why they’re myths and not facts. Our list below covers myths about online and land-based casinos, table games and slots, dealers and players. Let’s go!

Games Are Rigged

If you tell anyone that casino games are rigged, there won’t even be an argument. Everyone knows that the games are rigged; it’s called House Edge! The house always wins in the long run. That’s why casinos exist! They allow their owners to make some money, and you can’t take it away from them. They all use so-called RNG to make the outcome of each game genuinely random. It’s similar with slots, roulette, craps, and all other games of chance. There is a certain possibility of winning, and you can win big, but that will only mean that more people will, at the same time, lose. The other thing is that “the long run” is very long indeed. The data on an RTP (payback percentage) of each particular slot is based on billions of simulations, checked multiple times. This point gently leads us to the next stop.

Dealers Can Affect The Outcome of Games

Many people think that casino staff can affect your outcome. It’s a pretty fair assumption, since a dealer operates the cards and surely can cheat. The problem is that they can only do that once, and the act of cheating will, most likely, be spotted by the security staff and instantly reported. Believe us, the penalty that a gambling venue has to pay is nothing compared to the possible losses that a casino might incur because of a cheating dealer. Each casino has a large team of professionals watching games on all tables, and analyzing them to spot cheaters from both sides. If you suspect that the dealer in a land-based casino is cheating, report it to the pit boss and you’ll get a significant reward and proper treatment. In online casinos, it’s even more comfortable, as you can see everything on video and record it if you wish.

Payout Rates Are Literal

Some novice players genuinely believe that if a slot has a 95% RTP, you won’t lose more than 5% of your bankroll. It doesn’t work that way, because as we’ve explained in the previous paragraph, RTP numbers are based on an abundance of simulations. Let’s make it simple for you: if an RTP is 95%, you apparently won’t get it by making, let’s say, 5 spins. It’s just not enough, it’s too few! If you’re rich enough to make a billion spins, you might find out that your outcome will be exactly 95%, but with an ordinary bankroll you will never know. The possibility of losing is higher than the possibility of winning, but that’s what makes gambling so exciting: you don’t know whether you will win or lose.

A Winning Combination Occurs Once In a Number of Spins

This one is tough to explain, as you can’t prove it in real life. There is no such thing as a “win per X spins,” because slots don’t work this way. There’s a high probability of hitting at least one winning combination in twenty spins, but it’s not a hard-and-fast rule. You may win ten times in a row, or get a losing streak 30 spins long, and it won’t mean anything. It’s all random. The fact of non-randomness is very easy to prove, and if you find an unfair gaming venue or unfair game, you can make a living out of it. The most important reason for casinos not to cheat is that allegations of providing non-random games are harsh to clear. You can find some websites in blacklists of watchdog portals decades after a non-random game was spotted on their sites, and by now these guys surely have realized that crime doesn’t pay.

“Cold” and “Hot” Slots

According to your regular superstitious gambler, temperature matters a lot. Slot machines, as well as tables and roulette wheels, might be hot and cold. You should find a hot one by literally trying each one until you win. Of course, the same result could be achieved by playing at the same slot/table/wheel for the same amount of time or number of games, but they will never admit that.

What’s even more interesting is that this myth contradicts with another one, which states:

Spend More to Win More

There are many such contradictions in gambling myths. We believe that according to it, you should find a hot slot first, and then make it pay by betting a considerable sum of money. The source conceals the recipe of turning a “cold” slot into “hot” one. This one is, basically, another variation concerning non-randomness, and we’ll tell you exactly what we’ve said before: casino games are random. If you find the one that’s not random, you will get way richer by suing a casino or a developer than you could by winning on any slot. Except for a progressive one, probably.

Winners in Casinos Don’t Get Paid

This one might be true for those who play in casinos whose pop-ups ads can be found on torrent-trackers and “adult” sites. We mean that only a low-quality gambling venue can afford not to pay legitimate winnings, since the losses of a licensed and well-known casino caught failing to pay winnings will be enormous, and definitely more than the amount of an unpaid win. Such a direct violation of the law will result in a casino losing a license and being instantly blacklisted by major casino aggregators.

The trick is that casinos nowadays have to pay out only relatively small winnings. Each slot has a win limit, which is the maximum number of coins you can get for one winning combination. The win limit usually ranges from $1,000 to $250,000. You can win more only by hitting a progressive jackpot, which can reach millions of dollars. Progressive jackpots are paid by providers, not by casinos, and with them, you can be sure that you’ll get paid. Gambling software providers are huge legal companies, many of them are publicly traded on various stock markets, and paying out jackpots is what they do.

You Won’t Hit a Jackpot If It Was Just Won

Speaking of jackpots, many players are concerned about them. The question is: can you win the jackpot if it was won by someone else, let’s say, an hour ago? And the answer is: yes, you can. It’s even stated in the T&Cs of reliable casinos that offer progressive jackpots that if you win a jackpot simultaneously with another player, you’ll get it divided into two equal parts. “Simultaneously” means that the second winning spin has to occur within a response time of a request for the first one. And by the way, if your jackpot win wasn’t simultaneous with another one, but still close, it doesn’t mean that you will get nothing. All jackpots have their established starting points, which usually depend on the slot’s popularity and the profit it generates. For the most popular progressive slots, jackpots typically start at $500,000 or $1,000,000.

Change a Bet Size to Trick a Slot Machine

If there is a way to trick a slot machine, it has to include a large hammer. Unfortunately, many players believe that you can do it in mysterious ways, such as by changing the bet size or the number of pay lines. To tell the truth, there is a game where you can improve your odds of winning by placing a more substantial bet. It’s called Video Poker, and there you get the best RTP by playing five coins per bet. In all other games, the winnings are directly proportional to the size of the bet.

They Can Put You in Jail for Card Counting

While casinos obviously don’t like people who count cards, they can’t put anyone in jail for it. You can use your brain while you play at a casino, and it might help you to win big, but a casino won’t be happy. If you’re caught counting cards, they will take you for a little walk and ask you politely not to play at their casino anymore. There is no law forbidding you to count cards and to use your knowledge of the game to win, but of course, casino bosses don’t like when you neutralize their advantage.

Patterns of the Slot Machines Placement

Some people say that the “paying” slot machines are purposefully placed near entrances to a casino so that the first thing you see coming in is the sight of some guy winning a huge jackpot. This one is tightly intertwined with a few other myths that we’ve already debunked. There is no such thing as a “paying” or “not paying” slot. They are all random, yet some of them might have an RTP a few percents higher than the others.

Skilled Slot or Roulette Players

If you’re into games of chance, you’ve probably heard stories about guys who are sure that they know how to play slots or roulette to win. They know hidden secrets and mysterious patterns that allow them to predict the results of a spin, and so on. We advise you not to take them seriously. It’s very simple: all the games of chance are based on random events, but some of them also involve skill, and some don’t. The games that involve skill and knowledge are Blackjack and Baccarat, where you can count cards; Craps and Video Poker, where you can learn the optimal strategy and follow it; and Poker, where you have to overthink your opponent. Slots and Roulette are entirely random, and the only thing you can do is manage your bankroll.

“Virgin” Gamblers

This one is not about your sex life. A “virgin” gambler is the one who plays for the first time. Opinions vary about whether it has to involve the first ever time gambling or just the first time they play a particular game, but the popular opinion is that the “virgin” girls are lucky, and the “virgin” guys aren’t. We can’t even say what it is based on, and we don’t want to know. What we do know is that if you’re playing a skill game, like Craps or Poker, for the first time, you’re unlikely to win because you will make unwise bets and turns. In slots, for example, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve played before.

Lucky Charms and Rituals

Do you wear your lucky socks when you’re going to play at a casino? Do you have your lucky rabbit’s foot with you? Did you spit over your left shoulder before entering a casino? Do all these questions even make sense to you? If they do, well, we cannot prove anything. No study shows the influence of chopped-off rabbit limbs on your gambling outcomes, but if you feel right about all these superstitions we’re sure that they won’t cause you any harm. They won’t do any good either, so you can just do whatever you want.

Gambler’s Fallacy

The last but not the least essential myth is called the Gambler’s Fallacy. In short, it is the belief that the previous results somehow affect the upcoming one. In truth, they don’t. The Gambler’s Fallacy is also known as the Monte Carlo Fallacy, because of the event that took place at the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco, in 1913. The roulette ball did hit black 26 times in one streak, which resulted in millions lost by people who repeatedly betted on red. The thing is that if a roulette wheel is perfectly balanced, as it has to be, the ball has the same probability of hitting either black or red. Each particular event is random, and when the ball was thrown in the game for the 27th time, it had the same chance of hitting red (48.65%) as it had on the first spin. Such a chain of events, on the contrary, is improbable. In the case of the famous Monte Carlo event, the odds were 1 in 66 million.

Wrapping It Up

Most of these superstitions and gambling myths aren’t based on anything, and we’ve tried to explain as much to you in this article. Myths about slots, casinos, and casino games are usually the last resort of those who failed to win, but we assure you that you don’t need them. Everyone is free to walk out of the casino when they’re on a losing streak, and if you do so, it will be easier to return later and grab the RNG by the tail. We’ve debunked these myths to help you understand that all casino games are random. If you want to improve your chances, play responsibly and separate the casual games from skill games. Good luck!