Gambling information essays
Cards, Table or Slots - which needs
the most luck?
From Barrie Smith
October 2018
You'll need some luck if you want to make it big
playing at the casino - there's a great selection
of games on offer from the thrill of a table game,
to the strategy of a card game, to the bright lights
and thrills of spinning some slots! But which of these
games requires the most luck? We've had a look at
the odds involved in each game and adding the house
edge on top of it, narrowing down which one is going
to most need Lady Luck on your side.
Cards!
Cards are the game of choice for many an advantage
player as they offer a unique way to avoid the perils
of relying on luck. In fact, card games played in
the casino have had to evolve over time in order to
avoid the unique quality which makes them perfect
for advantage play. This unique quality was discovered
by Edward Thorp and explained in his book Beat
the Dealer. As there are only a finite number
of cards in the deck, what has already been played
will have an effect on the future results. This led
to the invention of card counting and the start of
a major change in casinos across the world as the
house edge in blackjack eroded. This, in turn, spurred
casinos to make changes to their strategy - the formalisation
of using multi-deck games and, in some cases, the
revaluing of a blackjack as paying 6:5 instead of
3:2, all in an effort to curb the work of card counters.
Nevertheless, blackjack still has one of the lowest
house edges in the casino.
The same is true of poker and baccarat, because they
too use decks, meaning there is a certain degree of
predictability in when cards will appear and what
you can expect to see dealt. Baccarat uses so many
decks in the shoe that it may be difficult, or almost
impossible, to count as they come out, but the odds
are low enough that you don't even need much luck
to come out in front. And poker? Assuming you're playing
Texas Hold 'Em, all you have to worry about is the
rake from the casino and how skilled you are at the
game. Yes, in terms of luck needed, cards are very
much at the low end of the scale.
Table!
The table games however have a far greater variety
to them with pay-outs and odds dependent on what bet
it is that you choose to play. If you bet on the low
paying odds then you only need a bit of luck for the
result to occur, but if you're after a big pay day,
you need to bet on the riskier options that could
easily see you coming up short. The two most popular
table games of roulette and craps both exemplify this
clearly.
When playing roulette, you can calculate the probability
of achieving the result you want by dividing the number
of results that would result in a win by either 37
or 38 depending on if you're playing single or double
zero roulette. If you bet on red or black then you
have 18 possible spots that will be a win once the
ball lands in that pocket, so the odds are 18/37 which
is slightly less than 50:50. If you're betting on
a single number, then the odds are closer to 2.7%
which makes it significantly less likely. The pay-outs
for these are appropriate, you get a pay-out of 1
to 1 for red or black and a pay-out of 35 to 1 for
the single number. The correlation between the odds
of an event occurring, and the higher pay-out, means
you need more luck in order to see a profit. Craps
is similar in that the odds can range from 50:50 with
a 1 to 1 payment to specific numbers like double six
which are unlikely to arise but offer a much higher
payment.
This puts table games in the middle of the group
for luck.
Slots!
Continuing the trend of higher pay-outs and longer
odds, it should come as no surprise that slots with
a jackpot in the millions will require more extreme
luck than the ones to win a quick pay-out. It's important
to remember that you can win minor pay-outs from slots
for smaller pay-lines which gives them around the
same odds as some of the other table games,but the
house edge on slots tends to be a smidge higher than
the even money bets for roulette and craps. However,
if you get lucky, you can have a much higher pay-out
than you would get if you played card or table games.
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