Step inside the digital doors of the online casino, and you'll find players driven by two powerful, competing impulses. Most casino aficionados don't visit the casino to chase money. Rather, they are looking for the sheer, exhilarating rush of risk and dynamic play that turns a simple game into a fun-filled adventure.
A closer look will give you a chance to observe the players whose main mission is to turn their strategy into a tangible cash win. Some casino games are games of pure chance while others involve a mixture of luck and skill, where you will apply specific strategies that give you a boost towards winning. But there's an overall casino strategy of which many players are unaware – minimizing the casino's house edge.
If you can minimize the house edge, you can enjoy a more rewarding Grande Vegas casino event with bigger wins and higher payouts. How do you do that?
House Edge
The casino house edge (or simply the "house edge") is the average profit the casino expects to make from a player's bets over the long term, expressed as a percentage of the total amount wagered.
For example, we can look at the game of American roulette. American Roulette has 38 total pockets: numbers 1 through 36, a single zero pocket and a double zero pocket. That means that, if you bet on a single number, there are 38 possible outcomes – one outcome is if the ball lands in your chosen numbered pocket and the other outcomes are if the ball lands in any of the other 37 pockets. So the true odds of winning are 1 out of 38.
If you win your bet on a single number, the casino pays you 35 to 1. This means you get your original $1 bet back, plus $35 in winnings. The house edge exists because the casino pays 35 to 1 when the true odds of winning are 37 to 1. The two extra losing pockets (the zero pocket and the double zero pocket) are what guarantee the casino a long-term profit.
The house edge in American roulette is calculated at 5.26%. In the short run, everyone wins and loses randomly but the longer you play, the more your win/lose rate will match the casino's mathematically projected house edge – for American roulette, for every for every $100 that you wager, over the long term, the casino expects to keep $5.26. It's a small, consistent percentage but it ensures the casino's profitability over millions of bets.
Minimizing the Casino House Edge
Every game has a house edge. Games of pure chance don't give you flexibility to reduce the house edge – the results of every spin, every roll of the dice and every number pick are purely random and you're completely dependent on the luck of the draw.
However, it is possible to minimize the house edge in games like blackjack and video poker. In some cases, you can even mathematically eliminate or even reverse it to gain a slight long-term advantage.
The key to this minimization is the application of mathematically derived optimal strategies rather than intuition or superstition.
Blackjack
In blackjack, the house edge is derived from two core rules.
- The player must act first (and can therefore bust).
- The dealer wins all ties when the player busts.
How do you overcome this edge?
The single most effective way to reduce the house edge is by employing Blackjack Basic Strategy. This is a statistically derived table that dictates the optimal decision (Hit, Stand, Double Down, Split) for every possible combination of your first two cards against the dealer's up-card.
If you play every hand perfectly according to Basic Strategy, the casino's initial edge is reduced, with the percentage reduced depending heavily on the casino's rules (number of decks, payout for blackjack, restrictions on doubling/splitting).
The second strategy involves card counting, a form of advantage play. Card counting systems assign positive, negative, or zero values to cards as they are dealt. The player must be able to tally the cards that have been dealt mentally in order to use this method but if used correctly, the player will be able to estimate the ratio of high-value cards (Aces and 10s) to low-value cards that remain in the undealt portion of the shoe and, thereby, assess more accurately how to proceed with each hand and how to bet.
Video Poker
Video poker is unique among casino games because it is based on fixed odds (a 52-card deck) and publicly displayed payout schedules. The house edge is primarily minimized by player choice and perfect play.
The most critical factor in minimizing the house edge is selecting a "full pay" machine -- the highest possible Return to Player (RTP) percentage, based on the game's payout table. You can determine a full pay version by looking at the payout for two specific hands: the Full House and the Flush. A full pay version pays out 9 coins on a 1-coin bet for a full house and 6 coins for a 1-coin bet on a flush. The RTP is brought up to 99.54% which reduces the house edge to almost zero. You can check the game's payout table to find the variations that are full pay games.
Secondly, as with blackjack, you should use optimal strategy to play every hand correctly. This involves calculating the expected value for every possible combination to determine which cards you should keep and which cards you should discard. Memorize the optimal strategy to maintain a minimized edge. .
Make the most of your gaming experience by minimizing the casino's house edge to maximize your wins.
