House Edge Explained
The casino has a predictable, long-term advantage on every casino game and this simply how they make their profit – don’t ever forget they are in business too! It is this advantage that is known as the ‘house edge’. It is the casino’s profit expressed as a percentage of your original bet. Since the house edge differs from game to game and even from bet to bet, you want to find out which casino games and bets offer the lowest house edge so you have a better advantage. In my opinion, assuming that you know how to play these games at a reasonable level, the top five games and bets to play are poker, video poker, craps, pai gow poker and blackjack. These are all skill based games are not easy to master so it’s really not all that surprising that they offer better odds. But no matter how skillfully you can play, you are never going to eliminate the house edge entirely.
With respect to craps, the ‘don’t come’ and ‘don’t pass’ bets are only just slightly better than the ‘pass line’ bet. ‘Don’t come’ and ‘don’t pass’ bets with full odds are a couple of the best bets in the casino and can even be improved by playing full odds. ‘Pass bets’ and ‘come bets’ also have a really low house edge and it’s also best to take the maximum odds allowed.
And just to stress my point again, even if you play one of these games that is known to have a low house edge but don’t play using a proper strategy, the house edge increases. If you play video poker, for example, by just guessing rather than using a strategy, you will play with a terrible disadvantage.
