A house edge is a mathematical advantage that the casino has over you if you play long enough. In this post, we look at the meaning of house edge, how casinos make money on different games and how you should look at the odds.

The 6:5 blackjack game has a much higher house edge. The house edge is even larger when a player doesn’t play with perfect basic strategy. Casinos allow players to use a basic strategy card at the table. Unfortunately, not many players that could use the help from a blackjack card carry one. House edge is a percentage which is worked out for all casino games, both online and at land-based casinos. The game of blackjack has a house edge of 2-3%, if the player isn’t using a strategy. When it comes to blackjack’s house edge, one thing to keep in mind is that the number of decks used will alter the house advantage. Single deck blackjack has the lowest casino edge of 0.16%, which gives the player better odds. Double deck games have a considerably low edge at 0.46%.

A Quick History on Gambling

Gambling dates back to a time when history, as we know it, was not even written.

Excavations at sites of the Mesopotamian civilization reveal the use of a six-sided dice dating back to around 3000 BC. The gambling dens of ancient China placed bets on animals fighting.

By the 10th century, games like lotto and dominoes (a precursor to Pai Gow) appeared in China. Playing cards in China can be seen in the 9th century, the Japanese gambling pastimes were tracked to the 14th century and the Persian game of As-Nas dates itself to the 17th century.

The first known casino, the Ridotto, opened in 1638 in Venice, Italy. It closed down in 1774 as the city government felt it was impoverishing the locals.

In the United States, gambling dens were the saloons (yes, as in the Westerner movies). In the early 20th century, the United States banned gambling through state legislation and social reforms.

It wasn’t until 1931 that gambling was legalized in the state of Nevada. In 1976, the state of New Jersey allowed gambling in Atlantic City.

Casinos around the world

Gambling centres have come up all over the world now but some are more famous than others.

Here’s a list of the most popular ones –

Monte Carlo in Monaco is a popular casino and tourist attraction for the rich & famous. This casino is featured often in James Bond novels and films.
Casinò di Campione is located in the Italian enclave of Campione d’Italia in Switzerland. Founded in 1917, it is today Europe’s largest casino and a most popular gambling destination besides Monte Carlo. Such is the income from the casino, that it manages the entire operation of Campione without the need for any other revenue or taxes.
Macau is a former Portuguese colony and a special administrative region of China since 1999. Macau recently surpassed Las Vegas as the world’s largest gambling market. The Venetian Macao is the world’s largest casino.
Singapore is an upcoming destination for visitors who have the urge to gamble. The Marina Bay Sands is the world’s most expensive standalone casino and among the world’s ten most expensive buildings.
The United States has over a thousand casinos. This number continues to grow as more states seek to legalize casinos. On last count, 40 states have some form of casino gambling. Las Vegas in Nevada has the largest concentration of casinos in the United States followed by Atlantic City, New Jersey and then Chicago.

Recommended Article: In gambling as in life, there are very few times when humans keep emotions aside. The gambler’s fallacy is one important lesson in human behaviour where people believe in something which has no statistical basis. In this article I explain in details the everyday examples of gambler’s fallacy, inverse gambler’s fallacy and retrospective gambler’s fallacy.

Types of Casino Games

There are many types of casino games which use pure luck or a combination of luck and skill. The games created are card games, slot games, table games, number games etc.

Here’s a list of all popular casino games –

Roulette
Poker
Blackjack (21)
Baccarat
Craps
Slots
Texas hold ‘em
Keno
Bingo
Wheels of Fortune (The Big Six)
Pai gow poker

Of these the top five favourite games among casino visitors are Slots, Blackjack, Roulette, Poker and Craps.

What is House Edge?

House Edge is a term used to describe the mathematical advantage that a gambling game has over you when you play the game over & over again. This advantage results in an assured percentage return to the casino or gambling joint over time. Quite true in reverse, the house edge is the assured percentage loss of what you bet.

Let’s understand this in numbers.

Casino House Edge Blackjack Games

If the house edge is 0.5%, it means for every $100 you bet, the casino should have earned $0.50 cents back from your initial stack. This means over a long playing time, for the $100 you bet, you are likely to take home $99.50.

Remember, all games featured in a casino are skewed in the favour of the casino. In other words, the casino has a better chance of winning than you do.

Why is House Edge important for Casinos?

The House Edge assists the gambling provider as a commercial business to cover its costs of providing the game, paying for the staff, maintaining the casino or club etc. It also helps to turn the business a profit.

This casino advantage (house edge) is the product of the games themselves and not set by individual casinos. So no matter where you choose to invest your dollar, if you’re betting on casino games, the fact is you can’t escape giving the casino it’s due.

Casino games are designed to provide predictable, repeatable long-term advantage to the casino. The games offer the players the general possibility of short to long-term gains in the short run.

This is what keeps players coming to the casinos often. And the more the player plays, the higher is the probability of the the house winning.

Example of a House Edge

A house edge (or house advantage) is created with the casino not paying the winning wagers according to the game’s true odds.

Let’s understand with an example.

House Edge example with one roll of a die

Let’s play a game which will have the roll of one die.

You can choose a number from 1 to 6 and if the roll happens to fall on your chosen number, you shall be paid four times of the money you have waged.

So, where is the catch?

Now, the true odds would be 5 times the amount wagered as there is a 1 in 6 chance of your winning number to show up. By paying only four times, the house has created an advantage for itself and a disadvantage for the player.

The house edge is defined as the casino’s profit as a percentage of the player’s original bet. Going back to our previous scenario, we see –

Probability of winning = 1 on 6 (16.66%)
Winning factor (multiple) = 4
Probability of losing = 5 on 6 (83.33%)
Losing factor = -1

Therefore, the player’s expected value = [16.66% * 4] + [83.33% * -1] = 66.64% – 83.33% = -16.69%

In other words, the house edge is 16.69%

Let’s take another example

Casino House Edge Blackjack Free

House Edge example with American & European Roulette

In American Roulette, there are two zeroes and 36 non-zero numbers (i.e. 18 reds and 18 blacks).

This gives the house a higher edge as compared to European Roulette which have only one zero.

So, in the American Roulette, the chances of a player who bets on the red color winning is 18/38.

Correspondingly, the chance of him losing is 20/38. Online gambling uk news.

Casino House Edge Blackjack Online

The player’s expected value is – [18/38 * 1] + [20/38 * -1] = 0.473 – 0.526 = -5.26%

Thus the house edge (or house advantage) is 5.26%

On the other hand, the player’s expected value on a European Roulette table comes to –

[18/37 * 1] + [19/37 * -1] = 0.486 – 0.513 = -2.70%.

The European Roulette table’s house edge is lower at 2.70% making the European version a more player friendly version as compared to American Roulette

House Edge of Different Casino Games

The house edge of casino games varies greatly with the game.

The calculation of the house advantage for the roulette table was ver