Which casino games have the best odds?

It’s a fact of life that some casino games offer better odds than others. While slot games are generally purely luck with little strategy involved, some casino table games, like blackjack, rely on skill that improves your chance of making a profit.

So, if you are determined to make the most of the odds, which are the best online casino games to play?

Choose the card games

Three table games, all of them using cards, share a house edge of around 1.5% - blackjack, baccarat, and three-card poker. On the face of it, that means for every $100 you bet you can expect to lose $1.50. If you bet $5 a turn, your money is going to last quite a while, and your entertainment dollars will be well spent.

However, you can look at these three games in another way. Baccarat is a simple game of luck with little (read ‘no’) skill involved. Three-card poker has just one decision each hand. But blackjack does have some strategies you can employ to significantly improve your chances of winning, at least over the short term.

When you double down, choose to stand or split are all variables that a skilled blackjack player will employ at just the right time. Some suggest a blackjack player who knows what they are doing can reduce the house edge to only 0.5%.

Spin the roulette wheel

European Roulette, the version with just one green zero number (American Roulette has a zero and a double zero), has a 2.5% house edge. There’s no real skill involved in betting on roulette, so the game is what it is. However, many have theories about betting patterns which, given a decent bankroll and an element of luck, can show profitable rewards, at least in the short term.

Video poker

A skilled video poker player might bring the house edge down to around 1%, which isn’t bad at all – and certainly makes for better odds than slot machines. However, for the recreational player, the odds might be three or four times that.

Low volatility slots

Casinos have hundreds of exciting slot games, each trying to attract your attention with cool themes and hi-tech features. What you may not know is that every slot has a published Return to Player (RTP) percentage figure. The higher, the better.

Some slots are described as low volatility, meaning they pay out more often, but with smaller amounts. Over a regular period, your RTP would be quite high on these games, perhaps as much as 98% (the equivalent of a 2% house edge). But other games, usually the jackpot games, have a lower RTP of maybe 96% or even lower.

If you can suck up the fact you’ll need to spin more before making a winning line, you might be rewarded with a higher than average payout. But the lesson is if you want your money to last longer, go for the higher RTP games.

Accept the odds and have fun

While we all want to win money, a key reason to visit the casino is to have fun. So, perhaps accept the odds are in the house’s favor and make sure you enjoy yourself. And who is to say you can’t get lucky and have a productive session?

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