They say the house always wins, but not all casino games are equal. There are somewhere the house has a higher edge and wins more, and there are somewhere the casino has a smaller edge, and the player has a bigger chance.
If you’ve been wondering in which games does the house has the smallest edge, we’ve compiled five of the best ones for you to play if you want your money to last longer. Let’s take a closer look:
House Edge: 1.35%
Most online casinos offer multiple types of roulette – some casinos have double-digit varieties – but the one that will give you the best edge is the French game. What you want is a game that features either the en prison rule or the la partage rule.
American Roulette has a single zero and a double zero, which puts the house’s edge at 5.26%. However, the French version has just a single zero, which cuts the house edge to 2.70%. Then if you bet on 18 of the outcomes like red or black, high or low, odd or even, and the ball ends up on zero, the bet goes “en prison”, which means you’ll get an opportunity to recover the stake in subsequent spins. What happens here is that you don’t lose the bet right away; you get another spin. If you win on the next spin, you get your stake back. If it fails a second time, then you lose it entirely. With this rule, the house edge drops to 1.35%.
La Partage is a version of the game where the house edge also falls to 1.35% if you’re betting on the two-sided outside bets.
House Edge: 1%
One of the most popular games among Chinese players is Baccarat. It’s a game where the player faces off with the banker, but the trick to this game is that you can bet on either player or the banker; it’s up to you.
If you decide to bet on the banker, the house edge is just 1%. Even betting on the player, the house edge is a mere 1.2%. Where the house makes their money with this game is all the various side bets. If you bet on a tie, for example, the house edge jumps to 14%. Or if you bet on a pair, the house edge ranges from 10%-11%.
While this is a bit of a complicated game to learn, it’s one of the best due to the player advantage. Just make sure you avoid the outside bets.
House Edge: 1.36%
If you ever hear loud cheers from the corner of the casino, it’s probably coming from the craps table as it’s always a party. But did you know that it’s one of the games that give you an excellent opportunity to win? The key is knowing which bets give you a better chance of winning and which are just for suckers.
The key to this game – is to stick to the Pass and Don’t Pass bets. When you stick to those, you’re looking at a house edge of about 1.36% to about 1.4%. When you start veering off into the exotics like betting on any seven, for example, the house edge jumps to 16.67%. Many of the exotics will drop your winning percentage between 83% and 90%.
Stick to pass and don’t pass, and even go for the Odds side bet. That has a zero house advantage, but remember that you can only play this after a roll has been made, so you would have had to bet pass or don’t pass on the first roll.
House Edge: 1.5% (roughly)
There are many blackjack versions out there, but if you find the right one and play with a very disciplined strategy, you can turn the odds in your favour. However, one of the main reasons the casinos love to offer blackjack is because many people can stick to a strict regimen.
There are a few things that you’ll want to look for, starting with the fact that the game has to be single-deck. Then you’ll want to learn about card counting as well as the optimal strategy to play. The good news is if you’re playing online, you can have a separate window open with all sorts of charts or tools that tells you the exact move to make. You also want a game that pays 3/2 for a win rather than 6/5. Most players don’t notice the difference, but this is a huge component.
If you manage to get it all together, the house’s edge will be at about one percent, but you can even tilt the scales in your favour.
House Edge: 0.46%
Video poker is another game where the house edge will depend on which variation you’re playing and your employing strategy. However, if you pick the right game and play the right way, the house edge can be as little as 0.46%. That means the RTP (return to player) is 99.54%. There aren’t many games in a casino of any kind that offers this type of payout.
The key is to look for a game like Jacks or Better and play the full max coins (usually five) every time. There’s more to the strategy, but the variation of the game you need is the 9/6 version, which pays out nine times your money for a full house and six times for a flush. After you learn the rest of the basics, this game has among the lowest edges in the casino.
