House Advantage Explained

House Advantage Explained - Casinos are a Big Business

The casino has an advantage over the customer in every game that is played. There’s a good reason for that. The casinos are a business, a huge business netting billions of dollars a year. These revenues certainly do not magically appear out of thin air. Casino play is predicated on mathematical calculations based on probability. The percentages in favour of casinos might, indeed be small, but when you factor in the trillions of plays on casino games each year, you can better understand the reason for the huge revenues garnered by land and online casino parlours.

The advantage of the house allows the casinos to offer the entertainment and dining pleasures at reasonable prices, as well as other amenities, such as free rooms, payback monies and other items of value. You might enjoy the casino games, but every one of them has a percentage payoff in favour of the casino.

House Advantage Explained - Let’s Do the Math

The house advantage is measured by the mathematical chances of the house winning at any game. The casinos make considerable money on unskilled casino players who don’t understand the intricacies of the casino games they are playing.

Let’s look at one of the more popular games in the casino parlour, Blackjack. Mathematicians have figured that the winning percentage in favour of the casino in Blackjack is 2.74 percent. Now, that doesn’t sound like much and, if you are a disciplined player, the chances are good that you have won more than you have lost at the game of Blackjack. However, you must take into account two factors when you look at the winning percentage in favour of the house:

   1.  The unskilled players add tremendously to the overall average winning percentage of the house. In reality, a skilled player may realize a profit anywhere from 3-5 percent of his cumulative bets over the course of the year. The novice and relatively unsophisticated players may lose between 4-8 percent of their total amount of monies wagered. This accounts for the relatively low overall house advantage explained.

   2.  The amount of money wagered on Blackjack over a year’s time is astronomical, so a 2.74 percent of that total is a huge sum of money coming back into the hands of the casino.

You must remember that the house advantage percentages are calculated over a long period of play. In actuality, even the novice players have the opportunity for large winnings over the short haul. If you play the games with the lesser house advantage, such as Bingo, Mini-Baccarat, Blackjack, Craps and Baccarat, you’ll be able to sustain yourself over a longer period of time and come out with a winning edge. You have a better chance of winning if you play consistently and within a pre-set budget.

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