If you’re exploring the casino as a new customer, you might be drawn to the slots room where you’ll find simple casino games for real money gameplay with opportunities to achieve real money wins. If you want to move further into the world of casino gambling, take a look at the classic casino games which are available at land-based and online casinos.
Casino Table Games
The first European Gambling House opened in Venice Italy in 1638. It was operated by the Council of Venice as a way to provide merry-goers with some controlled gambling fun during the carnival season. It was called the “Casino di Venezia” and was a wing of the Theatre Saint Moses that featured gambling during play intermissions.
Within 100 years there were more than 120 gambling houses in Venice. The games played in these casinos included faraone. Bassetta, biribiss (which later became the modern-day roulette) and dilettevole gioco dell’oca (the “goose game”).
The next big gambling center in Europe was established along the Côte d’Azur, an area also known as the French Riviera. French Riviera casinos became the playground of the rich and famous in the 19th century. The cream of European society and members of Europe’s royal families flocked to Riviera casinos where they played early forms of the games that we know today as baccarat, roulette, craps, blackjack (21), Punto Banco (a form of baccarat), and Chemin de Fer (another form of baccarat).
When the Vegas casinos opened in the 1930s, they sought to create gambling venues where traditional casino games and modern tech would meet. The Vegas casinos featured all of the classic card and dice games along with slots rooms where gamers could play on gaming machines for some additional interactive fun and excitement.
Over time, the Vegas casinos began to exclude budget players from the table games. The casinos favored the high-stakes players who would wager hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars on a game of blackjack, poker, baccarat or roulette.
Today’s online casino has reversed the trend. You can play any game in the casino lobby at a betting level that suits your individual experience level and betting preference. Roulette, Craps, Baccarat, Blackjack…..whichever game you choose is available to you for play for budget stakes, at a VIP level or anywhere in between.
Check out Grande Vegas’s suggestions of the casino’s top table games for beginners.
Blackjack
In Blackjack, the goal involves beating the dealer by building a hand value that is higher than the value of the dealer's hand without exceeding 21. Number cards (2-10) are worth their face value, face cards (Kings, Queens, Jacks) are worth 10 and Aces can be worth either 1 or 11.
The basic blackjack game is played with both the dealer and the player being dealt two hands, one face up and one face down. The player can choose to "hit" (take an additional card) or "stand" (keep the current hand). You can continue to hit as many times as you like but you have to calculate whether it’s worth the risk of going over 21 which will result in an automatic loss.
If your first two cards are an Ace and a 10-value card, you have a "blackjack," which pays out at a higher rate than other winning combinations.
Blackjack is suggested for beginners because it’s a game where winning involves a combination of skill and luck. Success isn’t completely based on chance – there’s a basic strategy to the game that can help you turn the odds in your favor. The more you play, the higher your chances are of winning!
Poker
Poker is another casino game where luck and skill combine to help you build a winning hand. There are different variations of poker but the basic idea is that you bet on whether you can build a hand that beats the hands of the other players.
If you’re playing at a brick-and-mortar casino, you have the added element of trying to bluff the other players into thinking that you have the best hand so that they’ll fold, leaving you to take home the pot.
The different poker variations involve different distributions of cards – in some, you receive five face-down cards, in others you play a hand of 3 and in some variations, the hand involves 7 cards where some cards are face down and some cards are face up.
Different versions of poker have different numbers of betting rounds. But almost all have, roughly, the same hand rankings – starting from two pairs, three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, full house, straight, flush, straight-flush, and royal (10-Ace of the same suit) flush.
It’s recommended that you try a few poker variations to find the one that suits you best. Other recommendations from experts include the suggestion that you study the basic poker strategy for the variation that you’re playing to maximize your chances of winning and to practice the game in the Free Mode as much as possible before moving to the Real Mode to play for real cash prizes.
Roulette
Roulette is the game that you want to play when you don’t want to think, don’t want to make decisions…..when you just want to have some fun and excitement in your casino visit. In roulette, you toss a ball into a spinning wheel after betting on your prediction of into which pocket the tossed ball will land.
There are several different types of bets including riskier (but better paying) inside bets and less risky (but lower paying) outside bets. But in truth, it’s an easy game to play and offers a lot of opportunities to score wins.
The next time you take a look around our Grande Vegas casino site, try some of the casino’s dynamic table games!
