Understanding Casino Odds

Before you head to an online or local casino it's important to understand what odds are, and how they affect your chances of winning and losing money with each game that you play. The odds of each game are different, and you'll experience different odds depending on the given situation in the game you're playing as well. Understanding the odds can help you make more informed bets and help you make the most of your situation overall.

What Are Odds?

Odds are your chances of winning or losing while playing any particular game. Odds change with each game that you play and you'll soon realize that some games are a better bet than others. By learning the games with the best odds you can improve your chances of walking away with extra money when you're finished at the casino.

Understanding Roulette Odds

One of the easiest games to learn is roulette, and at a casino the odds of you winning this game are very clear. There are number spots between 1 and 36 and depending on if you are playing American or European roulette there is either one or two green "0" spots on the board. These are the positions where you will always lose and for this reason the European wheel has more favourable odds for the player. Each of the numbered positions other than the zero spots is coloured red or black.

To play the game a ball is positioned on the wheel and rotates from the middle out to the outside where it will roll from one section to another until finding the final resting position. You can bet on the ball landing on red or black, or you can choose a specific number or range of numbers.

When you bet on black or red your odds of success are nearly 50 per cent. On the European table your bet would pay off 16 out of 37 spins. On an American wheel your bet would pay off 16 out of 38 times. A successful red or black bet would double the money that you bet effectively.

Each number that you bet on would only provide you with between a 2.7% and 2.6% chance of actually winning. A European wheel gives you the chance of winning 1 out of 37 times and an American wheel allows you to win approximately 1 out of 38 spins. While you will win much less often when betting on a number rather than a colour, when you do win you'll earn roughly 36 times your original bet making the win much more valuable.

Now that you understand odds a bit better it should be plain to see that European roulette is a better deal than American roulette is. With nearly a 50/50 chance of winning when you bet on roulette it is one of the best games to play at a casino and well worth considering.

The House Edge

No matter what casino game you play there is always going to be a house edge. The house edge is a greater opportunity for the casino to win versus the player. When you play a game in a casino statistically you will lose money more than you will win it and this is the house edge. It's how casinos stay in business over time and why they are so profitable. In roulette the house edge is represented by the green "0" and "00" spaces. For every green space on the wheel the casino gets a slightly larger house edge. Every time the wheel lands on one of the green spaces the casino makes money and all the players lose it. Other games like Blackjack incorporate a house edge as well, they just do it in a different way.

Understanding Blackjack Odds

While roulette is a simple game to understand, blackjack isn't much different. Instead of sections on a wheel you have card values. There are 52 cards in a standard deck, but in blackjack the 10's, and all the face cards up to King are also valued at 10. Aces are valued at either 1 or 11, whichever works in your favour, and all the number cards are valued at their number

When you play blackjack you and the dealer each flip one card over at a time. Your goal is to either hit 21 to win, or get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over 21. If you can get closer to 21 than the dealer, or the dealer goes over 21 and you double your bet.

Stop at 12

There are 16 cards out of 52 that are worth 10. The 10's, Jacks, Queens and Kings. That means that there is roughly a 16 out of 52 or 4 out of 13 chance you'll flip a card worth 10. For this reason 12 is a very significant value to have between your existing cards. When you are at or over 12 your odds are very good of busting on your next card and losing it all. This is the point when you should stay every time no matter what you think the dealer is going to draw next, unless he is already over a 12.

Go Under 12

At any number under 12 it's vital that you keep going. When you're at a value between 9 and 11 you have a particularly big chance of winning the game by getting a value hard for the dealer to match. But anything less than 12 can't cause you to bust so your best move is to always draw another card.

The House Edge

In Black Jack the dealer goes after you, and he wins each time you bust even if his cards would have busted him as well. That's the house edge, and it helps the dealer win quite a bit more often than the player.

By recognizing what the house edge is in each game that you play, and understanding how it affects your odds of winning you can set yourself up for success while playing. In roulette it means that you are better off with the European wheel than the American one. In Blackjack it means that you should always stay on or above 12 and that you should always go if you are below that figure. Odds are everything at a casino, and only by doing everything you can to make them work in your favour can you increase your chances of winning over time.