By Carl Van Eton
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| Image courtesy of Casino Players Club |
I was recently telling a friend of mine about the benefits
of the Casino Players Club including the educational component that is built
into it. This particular friend is a
skilled entrepreneur who is incredibly analytical when it comes to building a
business. However, when it comes to the casinos, as I soon found out, he was
anything but. After listening to me tell
him about the free educational videos on our website and our resident blackjack
school, he looked up at me with furrowed brow.
“I like to play roulette.
What can you teach me about that game?”
“Go find a European wheel.”
“Excuse me?”
“How many numbers are on a roulette wheel?” I asked.
“Thirty-six.”
“On an American wheel there are thirty-eight, thirty-six
numbers and two house numbers. This
gives the house a 5.26% edge no matter the wager. Whether you bet a single number, a quad, a
row, even or odd, red or black, the house edge remains 5.26%. A European wheel with only one house number
cuts the edge nearly in half to 2.7%.
When it comes to roulette, that’s as good as it gets.”
I then went onto explain how 5.26% is a huge advantage. The house edge on the Pass Line bet on the
craps table is only 1.4 percent and the house edge on a 5-deck game for a basic
strategy player is .56%.
“So, what you’re saying is that I need to go to Europe to
play better roulette?” he asked.
“No, what I’m saying is you need to find a better game to
play,” I told him.
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| Image courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org |
The game of roulette is actually an excellent way to get a
bead on house edge. If you place a
dollar on a single number, let’s say 12, and the ball hits that number, the
house will pay you $35 on an American Wheel.
If they were going to pay you true odds, they would pay you $38 for the
bet, since there are 38-numbers on the wheel.
That’s how house edge works, by paying you less than true odds.
But hey, there are lots of other bets to make on a roulette
wheel. Let’s say you decide to bet red
and black at the same time, figuring you can’t lose. Are you going to lose? You bet, because the house numbers 0 and 00
are green, which means every time they come up you would lose both bets.
What if you watch the electronic tote board posted at the
end of every roulette wheel and wait until black has come up 6 times straight,
then drop a black $100 chip on red. Why
do you think the casino provides the tote board? They want you to believe that that one spin
has an effect on the next. But it doesn’t. That’s why they can afford to spend a billion
dollars to build a casino. Because the
vast majority of players don’t have a clue as to how house edge works.
Of course, there are other games you can play. Let’s take a look at craps. Anyone who plays craps knows the odds of
rolling a seven is 1-in-6. That’s
because there are 6 ways the dice can come up with 6: 1-5, 6-1, 2-5, 5-2, 3-4
or 4-3. Just as in roulette, in the game
of craps, one roll of the dice has no bearing over the outcome of the next
roll. Dice players have a saying for
this. “The dice have no memory.”
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| Image courtesy of flickr.com |
The reason this little ditty has such weight in craps is
with the exception of the comeout roll,
whenever the seven rears its ugly head,
the dealer will sweep the table clean, with the exception of the don’t
players. That’s the bad news. The good news is that when compared to
roulette, there are some bargains to be had at the dice table. Remember when I told you that the Pass Line
was only worth 1.4 percent to the house.
Well, there is a way to sweeten the deal on the Pass Line by taking odds. The way this works is that the Pass Line
bettor will add a second wager equal to their original bet which is kind of
like doubling down at blackjack. The dealer will then pay this second wager at
true odds. This means if the point is 4
or 10 and the shooter makes the point, the dealer will pay the odds wager at
2-1. If the point is 5 or 9, the dealer
will pay the odds wager at 3-2, and if the point is 6 or 8, the dealer will pay
the odds wager 6-5. This in turn reduces
the overall house edge on the Pass Line to eight tenths of one percent. Of course, in order to do so you need to in
essence double your bet, which also doubles your risk.
Don’t forget, there are many other wagers on the craps table
that make roulette seem like a bargain. The Hardways are worth anywhere from 9
to 11 percent to the house depending on the number. Any Craps is worth 11.11%. The Horn bet is worth 12.5%. Any 7 takes the cake being worth 16.7%.
Unless you can find a way to overcome the house edge, you
aren’t gambling. You are donating to the
casino coffers. The casino owners and
managers would like you to think that it’s alright to pay for the pleasure of
their company. But at what price? Below is a chart that shows you expected
hourly losses on a number of popular casino games.
Slot Machines – 25 cent wager set at Vegas Strip odds of 9% $158
$1.00 wager set at odds of 7% $490
Roulette – American Wheel with a $5 wager
$145
Craps – Pass Line
with a $5 wager
$ 30
Blackjack – Basic Strategy with a $5 wager
$ 17
Baccarat – Banker with a $20 wager
$148
Player with a $20 wager
$174
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| Image courtesy of Wikimedia |
You’ll notice that the basic strategy player at blackjack
only loses 10% of the baccarat player.
But that assumes the blackjack player uses perfect basic strategy. A hunch player at blackjack can lose as much
or more than a quarter slot player, depending on their lack of knowledge. And what about those baccarat players. Why is the burn on the game so high, when you
consider that the house edge on the player side is 1.24 percent? That’s because the table minimum on baccarat
is usually set at $20. This also means
that a blackjack player sitting at a $10 table playing perfect basic strategy
is looking at a $35 per hour burn.
Make no mistake about it, casinos are built for one thing
and one thing only; to siphon every last dollar from your wallet. That’s why you will always find hundreds of
dollar slots and a Big 6 wheel stationed at the entrance to a casino. Casino
management doesn’t want you to leave the premises with even a dollar rattling
around in your pocket if they can help it.
That’s also why you need to find a game that pays if you don’t
want to visit your money every time you travel to the casinos. Like it or not,
there are only 2 games in the house where the player can overcome house edge:
Poker and Blackjack. That’s because
neither of these games is governed by a random trial process. Unlike roulette and craps where one outcome
has no bearing on the next, in blackjack and poker the removal of even one card
directly effects the odds.
Sometimes while you were sitting at the blackjack table the
odds favored the player. Remember the
time you were sitting there grinding out those $5 bets and the dealer busted
five times in a row? I’ll bet you can
also remember the time the dealer beat you five times in a row even if it took
drawing four times to do so. That didn’t happen by accident. That’s because the production of big cards
favors the players and the production of small cards favors the house.
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| Image courtesy of Big Game Blackjack |
The only fly in the ointment is that Basic Strategy isn’t
capable of telling you when this happens.
To
determine the composition of the shoe, you are going to need to add
another tool to your blackjack kit: card counting. Why is it that every time I hear the words “Card
Counting” I also hear a distant peel of thunder? It’s because the casinos have managed to
convince the vast majority of players that counting cards is either illegal, or
it takes a brain like a Swiss watch.
Neither of these premises is true.
The fact of that matter is that card counting has been around since the
1960’s when mathematician Ed Thorpe devised the first accurate card counting
system. During the past 50 years, card
counting has evolved. The problem isn’t
counting, it’s trying to do so in the noise-filled casinos. If you want to see an example of a simply yet
effective card counting system, click on the link below.
As for the game of baccarat, even though it is a card game,
it is a game where the player makes no decisions. The total of the first two cards dealt
determines whether any additional cards are dealt. Unfortunately, that means you can’t build a
better baccarat player. That means if
you want to win in the casinos, you need to learn how to count cards or hone
your poker skills.
Carl Van Eton is a professional blackjack player with more than 20 years of professional playing experience. If you want to play better blackjack, check out his Big Game Blackjack website,
Who knew that the House has all the odds in their favor on every game?
ReplyDeleteNot me, until now.