Gaming in an online casino can be an extremely exciting and enjoyable experience, especially when things are going your way. However, it's not always so fun when you're down on your luck and seem to be losing more money than you're winning. In order to remain sustainable, casino businesses need to maintain profitability, whether they operate online or offline.
This means that games hosted on these sites are generally programmed to promote a better total outcome for the casino when the results are reviewed across thousands of games. The good news is, that doesn't mean you have to be one of the losing players individually, as your average win/loss ratio can still be in the positive while the overall tally is in favour of the casino, thanks to other non-strategic players.
Of course, any casino would go out of business and cease to exist if the average player was able to walk in (or log in) and milk the tables like cash cows. Fortunately, by utilising some of the following gaming strategies, you can maximize the likelihood of swaying the odds in your favour when playing some of the most popular online casino games:
1. Blackjack
If you know nothing about basic blackjack strategy, the house will have a 4% higher chance of winning than you – a statistic that’s known as the house edge. However, research has shown that players with a firm grasp on basic strategy are able to bring the house edge to within less than 1%.
While the full scope of blackjack strategy would be too much to go over in this guide, the main point here is to let you in on the secret that you can almost completely even the slate against any blackjack dealer just by studying basic strategy. Once you've gotten the hang of that, then you can get into more advanced card-counting techniques to further improve your odds if you're mathematically inclined.
2. Baccarat
Baccarat is an interesting casino game that's worth checking out if you're not already a fan. It's similar to blackjack, except the strategy here isn't as complex or mathematical. In fact, it's so simple that it can be explained in a few sentences:
At the end of each hand, before the cards are laid down and exposed, you have the option of betting on your own hand or the banker's hand. If your hand is not particularly strong, it's usually best to bet on the banker's hand, as they have a relatively high odds of winning if you choose to bet on your own hand. If you bet on the banker's hand, the house edge comes down to only 1.24%.
3. Keno
The strategy here is just to consider playing this game at all. A lot of people shy away from Keno because the house edge is so exuberant – ranging between 20%-35%. However, that depiction is somewhat inaccurate, as the amount of money you could potentially lose per hour is actually fairly low because of how the game is played.
Keno is a low-wage, high-reward game. So, every time you play one of these 15-minute games, you may only wager a single dollar. If you do that for an entire hour, you could only possibly lose $4 in an hour, which is extremely low compared to how much you could lose at a slot machine in an hour.
4. Craps
Craps is hands-down one of the most popular and beloved dice games you'll find at a casino, and for good reason – it can be an exhilarating experience because of the real-world randomness of a pair of die and the potential for sizable winning streaks when luck accommodates.
There are multiple ways to make bets when playing craps, but it's usually best to place “odds bets” – which pay off at a rate that is based on the “true odds” of winning versus a predefined house edge. In short, you place the highest-possible odds bet on “pass” or “don't pass” to reduce the true house edge to less than 0.02%, thereby turning craps into one of the fairest casino games you can find.
5. Poker
You knew this was coming. One simply cannot discuss casino gaming strategies without mentioning poker. This famous classic is one of the few games that you can win at even if you're dealt a bad hand, as you can bluff with your actions to lead other players into believing that you have a good hand and intimidate them into folding.
Unfortunately, teaching a universally advantageous poker strategy is simply not possible because unlike other casino games, poker is actually a game of skill to a degree, due to the number of decisions you have available within the course of a hand. Entire books, DVD series, and lengthy magazine columns have been dedicated to this topic alone, so it's easy to become overwhelmed by a sea of information. Begin by learning about starting hand requirements and aggressive betting.
5. Roulette
Some people assume that, because roulette is purely a game of chance, there aren't any strategies that can improve your odds of winning. While that's mostly true for each individual spin of the wheel, there are a couple of things you can do to slightly improve your overall odds. The default house edge percentage is 5.26% for American roulette and 2.7% for European roulette.
However, by playing single zero roulette wheels with the “en prison” option enabled, you can reduce the effective house edge to just 1.35%. Roulette is really more about knowing when to walk away with your winnings before they're lost back into the game. So, that's where the real strategy comes into play – leave with winnings instead of a deficit. The cool part is, that kind of stop-or-continue decision-making skill can really be applied to any casino game.
The List Goes On
Of course, this list could be much longer if we started to delve into the litany of online casino games out there. However, the five strategies above are some of the most statistically solid measures you can take to improve your odds for the most popular games that are found in virtually every online casino.