4 Casino Games You Need to Forget

Every casino has a variety of available games. Most of these games offer decent odds. But some casino games have such terrible odds that gamblers would be much better off forgetting about them.

Of course, if gamblers didn’t play the worst games, the casino wouldn’t be able to make a quick buck. It’s up to you to learn which casino games have the best odds and which casino games are the worst.

Here’s a list of four casino games that you need to forget that they exist. Your bankroll is going to be better off if you never play any of these casino games.

1 – American Roulette

The first game on this list of gambling games to avoid isn’t the worst choice on the list. But it deserves the first spot because it’s so devious.

Keno doesn’t have the best odds, which I cover in the next section, and most slot machines have a worse casino edge than roulette wheels with 38 spaces. So, why does this version of roulette deserve the top spot?

The reason roulette with 38 spaces, which is sometimes referred to as American Roulette, is here is because it looks just like roulette with 37 spaces until you look closely. The 37-space version has a casino edge that’s almost half what the edge is on a 38-space wheel.

Gamblers who don’t know the difference will play at either type of wheel and lose far more money when they sit at the wrong table. Of course, the casinos don’t want you to know the difference so they can make more money.

Without going deep into the math, here’s a simple explanation of why you should never play American Roulette.

When you make one of the even money wagers on roulette, you get paid 1 to 1 when you win. On a 37-space roulette wheel this means you win, on average, 18 out of every 37 spins. The same wager on a 38 space wheel means you win 18 out of 38 spins on average.

At first glance, this doesn’t seem like much of a difference, but consider what this means when you consider the cash implications.

If you’re wagering $20 on every spin, you lose an extra $20 on average every 38 spins. How many spins do you play an hour when you play roulette?

The number varies based on many factors, but most roulette games play at more than 38 spins every hour. This means that you’re losing over $20 more every hour in this example than you need to. This is why American Roulette is so bad.

2 – Keno

It’s difficult to determine where to even start with explaining why keno is such a bad game for gamblers. If you simply took my word for it that you should never play keno you’re going to be much better off as a gambler. But you don’t have to take my word for it.

The first thing you need to know is in many casinos that offer keno it has the highest casino edge of any game. It’s worse than the worst slot machines and the inside wagers at the craps table and the tie wager at the baccarat table. And all of these wagers are terrible.

The specific casino edge on keno depends on the payout amounts and how many numbers you play. But the best games of keno rarely have a casino edge under 20%. And some casino keno games have a much higher casino edge than this.

If a keno game has a casino edge of 25% it means that for every $100 you wager you lose $25. Compare this to a good blackjack game where you only lose, on average, 50 cents for every $100 you wager.

Even the terrible roulette game I covered in the first section takes less than $6 for every $100 you wager on average.

If you need another good reason why keno is a game you need to forget about, you don’t even have a chance to win a huge jackpot when you play. Some of the best keno games have a top jackpot of $100,000, but this isn’t even close to the top prizes for some progressive slot machines and stats and national lotteries.

Keno combines a huge casino edge with a limited top prize amount. Do yourself and your bankroll a favor and forget that keno exists.

3 – Table Games That Don’t Start With a “B”

This is a fairly broad section and the truth is that this includes more than one game. But I included it in a single section because almost all casino table games fall into the same category.

The reason why I title this section table games that don’t start with a “B” is because real money blackjack and baccarat are both good casino table game options. But it’s safe to ignore every other casino table game. If a casino table game isn’t blackjack or baccarat you should act like it doesn’t exist.

The casino edge for other casino table games varies based on the game, the rules, and how you play. But none of them offer an edge as low as the 1.06% for the baccarat dealer hand. And none of them even come close to the edge you get with a decent blackjack game, which can be under 0.5%.

I used to try out new casino table games when they came out, and I really enjoyed playing some of them. I especially enjoyed Let It Ride and Mississippi Stud Poker. But I stopped playing them because they cost too much to play.

And I don’t mean that the individual wagers cost too much. What I mean is that the casino edge keeps too much of my money when I play these games.

Another thing I want to point out is if you find a table game that starts with “B” that’s not baccarat or blackjack, you can safely lump it in with the other terrible table games. I can’t think of any other casino table games that start with a “B,” but I can assure you that if you find one it’s going to be closer to the casino edge for slot machines than blackjack.

4 – Slot Machines

The final casino game on this list is a group of games that most casino gamblers don’t want to forget about. This is because more people play slot machines than all of the other regular casino games combined.

But slot machines are huge money makers for the casinos. Slots games have a high casino edge, with even the best machines having a higher edge than baccarat. And even though you’re only risking a few dollars on each spin, you can play slots so fast that you can easily risk $1,000 or more every hour.

Remember the example in an earlier section about how much you lose for every $100 you risk playing keno?

Slot machines have a casino edge that is somewhere between 2% and 15%, depending on the machine. And there are very few slot machines that have a casino edge under 5%.

Using the same example used in the keno section, this means if you’re lucky enough to find a slot machine with a 5% casino edge that you’re going to lose, on average, $5 for every $100 you wager. And if you risk $1,000 in an hour you can expect to lose $50.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to lose $50 every hour I gamble for very long. This is why you need to forget that slot machines exist.

If you don’t enjoy gambling on casino table games, you need to learn how to play video poker. It takes a little more work to learn about the best video poker games, but you can still play a machine based game and play with a casino edge of less than 1%.

A 1% casino edge is five to 10 times better than most slot machine games offer.

Conclusion

Keno and slot machines are terrible games for gamblers. Most gamblers have figured out how bad keno is, but the slot machines are still extremely popular. Roulette wheels with 38 spaces and table games don’t look that bad, but once you dig into the numbers, you realize how bad they are for gamblers.

The next time you walk into the casino, ignore the four games on this list. They all take your money too fast. And unless you get quite lucky, you’re not going to win. Even if you do get lucky every once in a while, you’re going to give the money you win back to the casino soon.