Types of games by profitability
Casino games are designed so that the players sometimes win, but above all, so that the bank always wins.
The world of chance and bets is a business where a lot of money moves, and the casino, either a physical casino or an online casino, has to ensure its profitability.
How do you achieve it? Well, in most gambling the bank (the casino or betting website) has a profit margin.
This means that of the total money that the players bet, it is not 100% that is returned in the form of a prize but a smaller percentage.
Let’s say that a particular game has a profit margin for the house of 5%. This means that of the total money that players are betting on a particular game, 5% of that money will never be returned since it is the profit that the casino bank has.
The good news is that this margin in some games can be minimized.
One of the options to minimize this margin of the bank in an indirect way, is to take advantage of the bonuses offered by the casino games, since thanks to these promotions you can multiply the amounts of your deposits, or for example, get free spins or receive refunds of a part of the possible losses you may have when playing for money.
You will wonder in which games the house has a greater advantage, and in which we have a greater ability to minimize the advantage of the bank thanks to our skills, and strategies and game tactics.
Well, depending on the profitability of each casino game, we can divide them into three types.
This is not to say that some games are better than others, but it is important that you know the difference between each type of game.
After all, the aim of casino games and bets is not only winning but also the fun you get while playing them.
Skill Games
In the games we call “skill”, luck plays a minor role.
What will most condition your chances of winning or losing will be your knowledge, practice and skill in the particular game.
Games with mathematically optimised betting
In this type of casino games, the game ultimately prevails over the player, but it is still possible to improve your odds and minimize the house advantage by sticking to the mathematically optimized betting systems or strategies of each of the games.
By using statistics and making mathematical calculations of probabilities, that is to say, optimizing your bets mathematically, you can manage to minimize considerably the advantage of the bookmaker.
BlackJack
By following the “basic strategy” of BlackJack you can manage to reduce the advantage of the casino banking to 0%. This means that the house would not have any advantage over the player.
You can see the basic Black Jack strategy table as well as other tips for winning in this card game in the article 11 Essential Black Jack Tricks.
Roulette
Both French (classic) and American roulette have a fixed house advantage. This is marked by the green box (zero and also double zero in the case of the American one).
Taking into account that each spin is statistically independent from the next one it is impossible to develop an optimized betting system as for example in Black Jack where cards can be counted.
Baccarat
Baccarat is a very popular card game (James Bond’s favourite in fact).
Its popularity is due to three main advantages: it is easy to play, it has class and the house advantage is extremely low.
This means that you should always bet on the hand of the dealer, but otherwise it is a game where luck is the most important thing, there is not much skill required.
Slots
Slot machines are the most popular game in physical casinos and online casinos.
This type of gambling, along with all those virtual games based on random number generation, have a fixed advantage that is determined by software that generates very long number sequences.
This makes defeating the bankers impossible in the long run, even when they have bonus rounds in which everyone’s skill is involved a little more.