"The house doesn't beat the player. It just gives him the opportunity to beat himself." - Nick "the Greek" Dandalos Truer words were never spoken...at least when it comes to casino gambling. Yes the house does have an advantage, but more times than not it is the play of the gambler that increases that advantage to an unbeatable amount. I can't tell you how many times I have seen players making bets that actually cancel a bet they already have made, or even make ridiculous bets with no rhyme or reason. But most of that comes from not knowing their game and not knowing the house percentage and the odds to win a particular bet. Knowing your play is critical when it comes to gambling. I know in the short run anything can happen including the long shot bets, but over the course of time and even in the short run for the most part those won't happen enough to make you a winner. Yes, I know there is some confusion on house percentage vs. the odds to win a bet, and how do you recognize when you are betting against yourself? Well, let's begin with house percentage vs. odds to win; the odds of you winning a bet are based on how many ways you can win vs. how many ways you can lose and the house percentage is the casino take each time the bet is made. Let's go to the crap table and look at the number 8 place bet. It's a simple bet and there are several ways to win and lose the bet. If you roll 8 before 7 you win, if you roll 7 before 8 you lose. There are 5 ways to make an 8 and there are 6 ways to make a seven. So the odds of winning the bet are 6 to 5 (5 times out of eleven) or about 45% of the time. If the house paid $6 to every $5 bet on the win, the house percentage would be zero, because they would pay out $6 five times for $30, and collect $5 six times for $30 leaving a net gain of zero dollars or 0% house advantage, But they pay $7 for every $6 bet, so they pay out $7 five times (each time an 8 comes up) for $35, and they collect $6 six times (each time a 7 comes up) for a total of $36, so the casino takes $1 for every $66 bet or a house percentage of 1.5%. So your odds of winning the bet are 45% and house gets 1.5% of everything bet. That is actually a pretty good bet, the closer you can get 50% odds to win (50-50 or even money) the better the play is, and of course the closer you get to 0% house advantage the better off you are. Staying on the craps table, let me give you an example of making a bad bet, that is actually not only betting against a good bet already made, but also has a small chance to win and a large house percentage to boot. With a bet on the pass line I have seen many a gambler also place a bet on "Any Craps", thinking they are protecting their "Pass Line" bet, when in fact they are just throwing their money away. "Any Craps" is 2, 3, or 12, it is a one roll bet and one of those numbers must be thrown or it loses. Those three numbers can be made 4 ways, so with 36 different combinations possible, there are only 4 ways to win and 32 ways to lose, this means the odds of winning are slightly over 10%. "Any Craps" pays 8 for 1 which is the same as 7 to 1, therefore it has a house percentage of about 11%. So now you are making a bet with only a 10% chance to win and the house is getting 11% of everything bet and you have to lose the good bet to win this one (which, by the way has a 49% chance of winning with about a 1% house advantage). Don't add to the house advantage by beating yourself. Know your play. Know your way. |
