What Casino Game Has the Best Odds of Winning?

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This question is probably as old as casino gambling itself. But risk-takers are still playing every game they can their hands on, both in online and land-based casinos. This fact is one piece of good evidence to say that the “best odds of winning” problem still doesn’t have a good answer.

Of course, there are relatively more popular and less popular games, and the number of people playing this or that game changes over time. Also, the players know that different games offer different winning odds. But anyway, in modern casinos, there aren’t really any games people are going to refuse to play purely because of the low odds they offer. Nor indeed is there a game with odds so high that players are likely to abandon all the other games and play only that one, just because they’ve ended up being lured by a much better chance of getting an edge. But the question about which casino game offers the best odds is undoubtedly one which still persists.

People often say that every casino game is tilted, the house always wins, etc. However, casino games are games of luck. And Lady Luck does not know about such things as “tilted game” and “getting an edge.” And in particular, she does not believe in odds, stats, and math. She does not understand the difference between 48% and 49% odds. She only knows who is going to win at each specific spin, and who is going to lose. And why is this? Just because she picks her hero and smiles upon him, that’s just how it goes!

However, you should still bear in mind where and at which games and when she’s more likely to pick her favorites!

Players often say that the slots are attractive, eye-capturing, and nicely presented, but that table games could still offer you some better odds. However, there are various different slot games out there, and their odds are displayed on each machine. Nowadays, you can find slot machines with a house edge that is really very low. And you can still lose heavily at table games. Besides, table games might seem just that little bit more stressful and intimidating, especially to those who would prefer to play all alone.

Your Odds Depend on You

In general, thinking about your odds, you should always remember that how you play can be much more important than what game you play. Take craps, for example. If you make “pass line” wagers, your chance of winning is about 50%. This is the wager on whether the shooter wins or not. But your winnings will be relatively small. If you want to win big, you should take more risks, and make more specific bets — in this case, your odds are lower, but payouts are higher. This is the basic principle of gambling, which operates in every game and in every casino.

In roulette, you could make bets on whether the ball will land on the black or on the red with an almost 50% chance of winning. “Almost” — because there is also the zero slot in European roulette, and zero plus double zero slots in American roulette; these make your odds 48.60% and 47.40% respectively. But the payouts will be as low as 1 to 1 — if you win, you get $1 for every $1 wagered. Making up single number bets, you could take your payout rate up to 35 to 1 on the exchange of very low odds: 2.7%-2.6%. This is just another example of how your chances of winning could differ, depending upon the betting strategy you follow.

The Games at Which Your Odds Depend on Your Skills

At poker, your odds of winning are different with every hand you play: for instance, a small pair against a big pair is a 4/1 underdog, and a small pair against two overcards before the flop is about 50%. But you can never calculate your odds “in general” or “aggregated,” as your chances depend on how good you are as a player.

You can conventionally classify the whole variety of casino games into two large types: games of luck and games of skill. In the games of the first type, the most important thing that matters is how lucky you are. However, your chances of winning seriously depend on the decisions you make and the betting strategy you apply. There are tons of articles about how to reasonably bet on roulette, in craps, and at the slots. So if you understand the game mechanics and apply a reasonable betting strategy, your odds are certainly going to look a whole lot better.

Or alternatively, you can intentionally decrease your odds, in the hope of highest payouts. That is what jackpot hunters do. The odds of not winning a jackpot are astronomically high, sometimes hundreds of millions to one. But some people still hunt for the jackpots; and you know what, some of them do get lucky!

Buti strictly speaking, as long as your decisions have an influence on your results in the game you are playing, it is not a game of pure luck. You can rightly consider decision-making a skill, and that is why any “pure luck” game different from the simplest coin flip and dice throwing involves an element of skill.

Equally, your odds at such games as poker and blackjack heavily depend on how skillful you are. However, you neither have any influence on the cards dealt to you nor the ability to reliably predict them, and so the element of luck is still essential.

That is why it is very difficult to say, even technically, how much luck and how much skill you need to succeed in gambling. The math of odds inherent to this or that game has only a limited influence on your bottom line. When picking a game with the best odds of winning, you could still lose a lot of money if you make some wrong decisions.

Take blackjack, for example. As proven by serious studies quite a long time ago, this is a game at which the player can theoretically get an edge against the house. But do you know many people who got rich playing blackjack? On the other hand, there are many people who have lost a lot of money playing blackjack — the game with theoretically the best odds of winning — just because they have not been good enough at it! And not because they weren’t lucky.

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There can be the only conclusion: if you want to play a game with the highest odds of winning, choose the game you like more and learn how to better play it. In the long run, Lady Luck favors better players!

Frequently Asked Questions

• What casino game has the lowest house edge?

There are many listings rating the games according to the house edge (in %). Don’t be surprised to find out that the numbers taken from different sources don’t always match. There are slight variations, in the rules as this or that version of the same very game is played at different casinos. Also, the odds of winning and the game results largely depend on the decisions the player makes. That is why every game’s house edge is always a window or a gap rather than an exact value. Here’s our list of games with the lowest house edges:

Blackjack (1.5% and lower)

You need to study the rules and learn how to play this game. It is not difficult at all. But if you don’t play your cards well, it won’t matter how low the house edge is – you can still lose heavily. The edge of 1.5% and lower fully depends on the player’s skills. Some players can even reverse the game, turning the edge into 0.5%-1.0% in their favor.

Craps (1.4% – 5.0%)

Here the house edge also depends on the decisions the player makes. By making more risky bets, you can win a lot of money, but such bets move the house edge up. Study the best betting strategies and learn how to find the best table for playing craps.

Baccarat (from 1.5%)

There are three different kinds of bets at this game: Banker, Player, and Tie. The banker bet only has only a 1.06% house edge, but there is a fee attached to it. The Player bet has 1.24%, but the Tie has the edge of 14.4% (in the average, the player loses 14.4 units for every 100 units wagered). Be careful with your bets.

Video Poker (from 0.5% to 5.0%)

Some people would say that the edge can be even lower than 0.5%, or that a skillful player can even make some money, if not necessarily enough to live on, by playing video poker. Even if this is true, not many players can be that skillful. However, you don’t need to have years of practice to become quite good at this game. Begin with the simple versions (Jack or Better or Deuces Wild) and see how it goes!

Slots (from 2% to 10%)

There is a great variety of slot games with different house edge values. The lowest edge is about 2%, but the player can still influence it if the best betting strategy is in use.

Roulette (European, 2.7%)

While the betting strategy applied is very important at this game, too, and the level of the risk taken largely varies, the house edge still stays the same. However, you may find playing the French version of the European roulette a more favorable option, as there are some variations to the rules that bring the edge down by as much as half in some cases.

• What is the most profitable casino game?

You could find plenty of different answers to this question, featuring this or that game and explaining why it is the “most profitable” one. Which only means that there is no such thing as the most profitable casino game – at least for the player, anyway! You can improve your skills in blackjack or poker, or else try to develop a winning betting strategy in roulette; but in terms of profitability, nothing compares to hitting the jackpot in jackpot games – however, the chances of being that lucky are very low.

• How do I pick a good slot machine?

First, you should look at the payout percentage of different machines, compare them and then choose the machine with the best payout. If you are not a jackpot hunter, choose a machine with no jackpot. But if you are indeed that lucky kind of person, you may want to pick the game with the smallest jackpot – your chances of hitting it will be relatively higher. You may also want to study the different betting options available – try a simpler game if you feel uncertain about having to make many different bets at once.

• What are the best slot machines to play in a casino?

There are almost 200,000 slot machines in Vegas alone, so picking up the best one to play is a difficult task. We can only recommend that you choose a machine with the best bonuses, free spins and re-triggered free spins, attractive promotions, and nice multipliers – because all of these do increase your odds of winning by some distance! Just walk around and check what other people say about the games. You may like Cleopatra, Zeus, Chests of Plenty, Beverly Hillbillies, The Walking Dead, Elvis the King, The Book of Ra, to name but a few!