Winning casino gamblers are rare. It’s not rare for casino gamblers to win sometimes, but to win in the casino in the long run requires a special set of circumstances.
It’s so difficult to be a winning casino gambler that if you don’t have a few secrets that the casinos don’t want you to have, it’s next to impossible to win.
The good news is that this article includes 5 secrets that every casino gamblers needs to know. Now you have a chance to beat the casinos.
1 – Know the Return to Player and House Edge Numbers
Everything in the casino is run by a few simple mathematical principles. Every game is built so it wins a certain percentage of the money gamblers risk when playing.
Some casino games offer a better chance to win than others, and the return to player percentage and house edge tell you which games offer the best odds of winning. Here’s a definition for each of these important numbers.
Return to Player
The return to player, which is displayed as a percentage, is the amount of money that you risk playing a casino game that the game returns to you. This percentage is a long term percentage that varies in the short run and evens out in the long run.
For example, a casino game with a return to player percentage of 97% is designed to give you back 97% of all of the money you risk when playing. If you risk $10,000 over the course of a playing session, the game is going to give you back $9,700.
If the game has a 99% return number, it’s going to give you back $9,900 for the same $10,000 in bets. You can see why finding casino games with a high return percentage are better than playing games with a lower return.
House Edge
The house edge is the other side of the return to player percentage. A game with a 97% return to player number has a 3% house edge. The house edge is the percentage that the casino game is designed to keep.
A casino game with a 3% house edge is going to keep $300 out of every $10,000 wagered on it for profit. And a game with a 1% house edge is going to keep $100 for profit on the same $10,000 in wagers.
If you want to improve your chances of winning in the casino, you need to play games with a high return to player percentage and a low house edge. And you need to stop playing all casino games that have a high house edge and low return to player percentage.
2 – Casino Games Strategy
The way you play most casino games influences the house edge and the return to player percentage. The word used for how you decide to play games is strategy. And when you use a good strategy you push the return to player percentage up and the house edge down.
Some casino games are designed so you can’t use strategy. Games like slot machines and roulette don’t have a strategy component. Games like blackjack and video poker do have a strategy component.
If you followed my advice in the first section you know which games offer the highest return percentages and which games have the lowest return percentages. The games at the top of the list all have strategy components. And the games on the bottom of the list don’t have strategy components.
This tells you that you should only play casino games that offer the chance to use gambling strategy. And you have to find out what the best strategies are and use them at all times.
Find the best strategy for blackjack and use it every time you play. Or find the best strategy for your favorite video poker game and use this strategy when you play.
Finding the best casino games and using the best strategy is the only way to gamble with a high return to player percentage and a low house edge.
3 – Beware the Free Offers
I’ve received all kinds of free things from casinos. Sometimes I get a free meal, or a free drink. Other times I get a bonus in a real money online casino, or a free hat or shirt. All of these free things seem nice, and sometimes there’s no harm in them.
But what you have to understand is that casinos don’t give things away because they have your best interest in mind. In fact, everything that a casino gives away is designed to increase their profits.
You might be wondering how giving something away can increase a casino’s profit.
The most common form of free things that casinos offer is through a comps scheme. You sign up for a club, the casino tracks your gambling, and you earn free stuff. This sounds like a good deal for you.
But comps schemes are designed to get gamblers to gamble more. A good comps scheme gets you to gamble more often and risk more when you gamble. Comps schemes have levels, and the more you gamble the more you get back.
Online bonuses are built to get you to deposit more money to get a bigger bonus. And you aren’t getting the bonus for free. Instead, when you get a casino bonus you end up having to gamble longer because you can’t cash out your money until you meet the requirements of the bonus.
Take free things when casinos offer them, but make sure that you understand that the free things are designed to take more of your money.
4 – How Fast and How Much?
You need to understand two important things about gambling in casinos. The casinos make more money when you risk more. They get you to risk more money by getting you to gamble faster and risk more on each wager.
The reason why slot machines are designed so you can take 100’s of spins every hour is because this is as fast as casinos can make them work. The reason why table games have a minimum bet amount is to make you risk more.
If you want t have a chance to beat the casinos you need to do the opposite of what they want you to do. This means that you need to bet less on each hand or spin and play slower than they want you to play.
When you gamble slower and risk less you lose less, and it lets you play much longer on the same bankroll. Instead of gambling as fast as you can and risking a high amount, make smaller wagers and slow down.
5 – Comparing Land Base, Online, and Mobile Casinos
Most casino gamblers have a choice of where and how they play. You can travel to a land based or live casino, or play at an online casino on your computer, or play in a mobile casino on your phone or tablet.
On the surface these 3 options look to be the same. If you’re playing 9/6 Jacks or better, does it matter if you’re sitting in a casino, playing in your living room, or playing on your phone?
Each of the 3 options has plusses and minuses. The big advantage to gambling in an online or mobile casino is you have 100% control over how fast or slow you gamble. The other advantage is that the minimum bet amounts tend to be much smaller online and in mobile casinos.
Of course, if you’re not careful, table games can be played much faster online than they can be played in land based casinos.
The other thing you need to consider is the difference between comps schemes, which are usually only available in land based casinos, and bonus schemes, which are usually only available in mobile and online casinos.
It’s impossible to say which of the 3 option sis bets. It depends on how you gamble and what your goals are.
Conclusion
If you don’t know what the return to player and house edge numbers are you’re never going to win in the casino. These numbers help you quickly eliminate the worst casino game options so you can focus on the games that give you the best chance to win.
When you find the best casino games, the next step is learning how to sue strategy to improve your odds. Without strategy a good game can quickly turn into a bad game.
Things that look good on the surface can be bad, so beware of free offers. How fast you gamble and how much you gamble are also important factors in how much you win or lose, so keep a close eye on these things.
Michael Stevens
Michael Stevens has been researching and writing topics involving the gambling industry for well over a decade now and is considered an expert on all things casino and sports betting. Michael has been writing for GamblingSites.org since early 2016. …