1. Blackjack House Edge Calculator
2. Odds Of Winning Blackjack At Casino
3. Free Bet Blackjack House Edge

The great thing about blackjack is that you can even lower the edge even more by card counting and basic blackjack strategy. You can even swing the edge in your favor if you are a superior counter. If blackjack isn’t your thing, then craps is your best alternative with a house advantage of 1.41%. In the 3:2 blackjack game, the house edge, for player playing perfect basic strategy, is in the 0.5% range. That means for every $100 wagered, they take in, on average, $0.50. With 6:5 blackjack, that edge shoots up to almost 2%! So now you can expect to contribute upwards of $2 per $100 wagered to the house coffers. The house edge is half of one percent so if we take $100 million and multiply it by.005 we get $500,000 which is how much the casino expects to make off of you in the long run if. Good blackjack and Spanish 21 games have house edges below 0.5%. Traditionally, the majority of casinos have refused to reveal the house edge information for their slots games and due to the unknown number of symbols and weightings of the reels, in most cases it is much more difficult to calculate the house edge than that in other casino games.

If you spend any time at all reading about online casino games and gambling in casinos, you’ll encounter an expression—“the house edge.”

You’ll see writers explain that blackjack house edge is the lowest in the casino, and that the slots have the worst.

You’ll see them mention that some of the bets at the craps table have a house edge of less than 2%, while other bets at the craps table have a house edge of more than 16%.

But what is the house edge in a casino game and how does it work?

This site covers some similar concepts as they relate to the math of sports betting, but the casinos’ house edge works slightly differently.

Some Probability Background that Matters

You can’t understand the house edge if you don’t understand some of the basics of probability.

Probability is just a mathematical way to measure how likely something is to happen.

When a weatherman says there’s a 50% chance of rain, he’s using probability (as well as meteorology) to express that likelihood.

And most people have an intuitive understand of probability when it’s stated as a percentage, because we use it all the time.

If you paid attention in 8^th grade math, you probably already know that a percentage is just another way of expressing a fraction, and that’s all a probability is—a fraction.
To determine the probability of something happening, you just look at the number of ways it could happen and divide it by the total number of possible events.

Since there are 6 possible outcomes, and since only one of those outcomes is a 6, the probability of rolling a 6 is 1/6.

You can convert that to a percentage of 16.67%.

You can also convert it to “odds format,” which just compares the number of ways it can’t happen with the number of ways it can. The odds of rolling a 6 on a 6-sided die are 5 to 1.

Once you have a basic understanding of probability, you can move on to the next step, which is determining the house edge of a bet.

What Is the House Edge and Why Does It Matter?

Every bet has a payout if you win and an amount you lose if you lose. This is often the same amount, or even money.

In other words, if you bet $100 on a hand of blackjack and win, you usually win $100.

If you lose, you usually lose $100.

That’s called even money.

(And some bets in blackjack result in bigger winnings, and you sometimes have the option of surrendering, which means you only lose half your stake. But that’s a complication that doesn’t help you understand the house edge, so I’m going to save that discussion for another blog post.)

A bet’s payout can also be expressed using odds, though.

An even-money bet pays off at 1 to 1.

A bet that pays off at 5 to 1 is also possible—if you win, you get 5 units, but if you lose, you only lose 1 unit.

In the die-rolling probability example I used above, if you have a payout of 5 to 1, you’re playing a game with no house edge.

That’s because in the long run, you’ll win as much money as you lose.

But suppose I reduced the payout for rolling a 6 to 4 to 1?

You can use statistics to determine an average amount you’ll lose per bet in this situation.

You assume 6 statistically perfect rolls of the die. This means you’ll win once and lose 5 times.

If you’re betting $100 every time, you’ll have a single win of $400 along with 5 losses of $100 each, or a $500 total loss.

Your net loss after that is $100.

Since that’s a net loss of $100 over 6 bets, you’ve lost an average of $16.67 per bet.

That’s the same thing as lose 16.67% of each bet, and that percentage is the house edge.

There are other ways to arrive at that number, but that’s the easiest method I’ve seen used.

With every online casino game you play, the house pays off your bets at odds lower than the odds of winning. This results in a mathematical edge for the house.

That’s why casinos are profitable in the long run, even though every, a percentage of their customers go home with winnings in their pockets.

Probabilities—and the house edge—are always long-term phenomena. In the short run, anything can happen.

Individual online casino gamblers are always playing in the short term.

Online casinos are always playing in the long term.

If the House Has an Edge, Why Do People Still Play Casino Games?

So if, in the long run, the house can’t lose because of the math behind the games, why do people still play?

The answer is simpler than you think:

I have a friend who visits the casino at least once a week. He loses money on 4 out of 5 visits to the casino, but on one of those 5 visits every month, he comes home a winner.

He doesn’t care that he’s losing money hand over fist in the long run. He just wants to keep getting that buzz from his occasional wins.

The human brain is irrational, especially when it comes to gambling.

How the House Edge for Various Casino Games Compare

The house edge is only one factor that affects how much you’re going to lose when you’re gambling on online casino games. Other factors include how many bets you place per hour and how much you’re betting every time you place a wager.

That being said, if everything else is equal, you should play the casino games with the lowest house edge.

Keep in mind, too, that game conditions affect the house edge, too.

And, in fact, blackjack is a good place to start a discussion of the house edge for various casino games. It’s widely known that the house edge for blackjack is between 0.5% and 1%, but that number assumes that you’re making the optimal move in every situation. The average blackjack player is probably giving up 2% or so in mistakes.

Craps is a game where different bets have a different house edge. If you stick with the basic bets, pass and come, you face a house edge of 1.41%, which is relatively low. The more “exciting” wagers on the craps table come with a higher house edge.

Roulette comes in 2 main versions—single zero and double zero. The double zero version of roulette is predominant in the United States, and the roulette house edge for that game is 5.26%. By removing one of the zeroes, the online casino reduces the house edge to 2.70%.

Slot machines have a house edge that varies based on the PAR sheet for the game. (That’s the logic behind the game which determines the probability of getting various combinations of symbols and the payouts for those combinations.) You can find slot machines with a house as high as 35% or as low as 5%, but you never know what the number is.

Video poker machines look like slot machines, but they offer a better house edge—if you play the hands optimally. Depending on the pay table, the house edge for video poker can be as low as 0.5% or as high as 5% or 6%.

Conclusion

And those are the basics of the house edge as it pertains to casino games.

Now that you have an understanding of the probability behind casino games and how it affects your winnings and losses, are you going to be more or less likely to play casino games?

Are you going to change the amounts you bet or the games you play?

Let me know in the comments.

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.

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 –

1. Roulette
2. Poker
3. Blackjack (21)
4. Baccarat
5. Craps
6. Slots
7. Texas hold ‘em
8. Keno
9. Bingo
10. Wheels of Fortune (The Big Six)
11. 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.

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

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.

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 very easy. However it is not the case for other games which require computer simulation.

Games like Blackjack involve skills. The house advantage is arrived on an optimal play basis. This means it does not involve use of advanced techniques such as card counting.

Good blackjack have house edges below 0.5%.

Some games have an edge as low as 0.3% while for some games like Keno, the edge goes up to 25%.

Slots (a novice favourite) have a house edge of upto 15%.

Games with a high house edge will obviously pay out less on average over time compared to those that have a lower one.

You can now avoid getting stung by games where the casinos have a massive advantage over the player.

Casino.org published this list of house edge on different games

Lessons for Investing

Just like a casino, the world of investing also offers such long-term advantages if you look at it carefully.

Blackjack House Edge Calculator

This reminds me of what Jeff Bezos from Amazon.com once aptly said:

I very frequently get the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?‘ .. I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?‘ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two — because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time … in our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection.

It’s impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, ‘Jeff I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher,’ [or] ‘I love Amazon; I just wish you’d deliver a little more slowly.’ Impossible. And so the effort we put into those things, spinning those things up, we know the energy we put into it today will still be paying off dividends for our customers 10 years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.”

A smart investor will be able to identify this “house edge”. This could mean better quality products, lower prices, beautifully crafted aesthetic products, money back guarantee, fast delivery, excellent after-sale services, prompt customer support, amazing deals, better returns, lower portfolio risk, wide selection, environmentally conscious, superior brand etc.

Additional Resources

Odds Of Winning Blackjack At Casino

Here are some articles you can read to get better details on financial and stock metrics

Free Bet Blackjack House Edge

• Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and his secrets to investing (Part 1)
• Building a high return portfolio with index funds – a step-by-step approach
• Complete SIP Investment Guide (over 8000 words compedium updated until 2020)
• The trillion dollar index fund story that John Bogle started in the 1970s
• Best SIP for achieving long term goals