Whether it is just for fun or we’re playing for a prize; humans like to win. It rewards us with dopamine and reinforces the confidence in our abilities. No wonder, gambling as an activity has been a popular form of entertainment pretty much since humans were around. These days, gambling gives us the opportunity to wager little and win fortunes. But if it were really that easy, more people would readily spend money on the opportunity to be wealthy.
Gambling is a lucrative service to offer for casino owners because winning isn’t a sure thing. Still, countless gambling enthusiasts stick to their hobby. What exactly are the chances of winning in a casino game, and how profitable is it for gamblers?
How Much Can You Win in an Online Casino in the First Place?
When you want to determine if gambling online can be worth the money spent, it’s a good idea to first research what the possible payouts are. For many casino games, the height of prize money correlates with the size of your wager. The higher your wager, the more you – potentially – win.
Secondly, the potential payout is often influenced by how risky your bet is. You would win less when wagering the same amount on a coin toss than you would betting on which number on a die will be rolled. Since it is more unlikely to choose the right number out of six choices than it is to be correct in a 50/50 guess, you get rewarded with more money because you were less likely to win.
The biggest jackpots by far can be found in games with progressive jackpots. These are usually slot machines, but can be found in video poker or roulette as well. When you play for a progressive jackpot, your prize money progressively rises with every bet you place in the same game until the player wins. Not every online casino offers progressive jackpots, slot gacor, for different games or at all.
The biggest payout for an online casino was a progressive jackpot from the slot game Mega Moolah, with ~19 million Euros in 2018. The bet that was placed? €0.75. If you want to look for casinos that offer Mega Moolah games or progressive jackpots in general, check out gambling communities or review sites. In a Bitstarz Casino review, you can see how these help you find the best options by listing the available games and other important information.
The Math of Winning
The factor of luck can never be excluded, but winning is very much tied to statistics and probabilities. Casinos are businesses and they need to make money. The only way they can offer any prize money at all is by gaining the amounts their players have wagered and lost. If the casino were to statistically lose more than they earn through players’ loosing bets, they would be declaring bankruptcy in no time.
That’s why it is in the casino’s best interest to tilt the favor in their direction. That does not mean casino games are rigged. When we use a licensed casino, we can be sure that the games are fair, since they are tested and monitored by gambling authorities. As a player registering on and using an online casino, we agree to certain terms and conditions. A part of this agreement is for the player to recognize the circumstances and odds of winning before they start gambling. The percentages and advantages of individual games are listed on the website. When we gamble online, we agree to play with these probabilities.
Game Odds
There are multiple ways casinos can list the odds of a game. Typically, it’s either:
- fractional: The odds are listed as 10/1, meaning when you bet $1 you can win $10. In a game with 5/3 odds, you’d bet $3 and win $5. In comparison to the 10/1 odds, you would have to bet more money ($6) to gain the same amount ($10).
- percentages: A game with 10/1 odds would leave us with a 9 % probability of winning the $10 after betting $1. The formula looks like this: probability = B / A + B. With our odds of 10 (A) / 1 (B) that would leave us with 1/(10+1) = 0.09, or 9 %.
The casino often lists these odds as the House Edge and Return to Player numbers for their games. These give you an idea on how likely it is for the player to win a specific game.
The Casino’s House Advantage vs Return to Player
There is a delicate balance between rigged games and just enough vantage for the casino to make it a profitable business, and it’s called the house advantage or house edge. It’s important to keep in mind that, no matter what game you play, the casino always has an edge over the player. How high the number is, depends on the specific game and game type.
We can use roulette as a prominent example:
- There are American and European versions of roulette wheels. The difference is that one has 37 numbers (EU: 0 to 36) and the other 38 (US: 0 to 36 and an additional 00).
- The possible bets are the same using either wheel, where you choose from the 36 numbers, number groups, odds/evens or blacks/reds.
- This leaves the US roulette with a house edge of 5.26 %, based on the 2/38 odds. In comparison, the EU roulette has a house edge of 2.70 % (1/37).
If you were to take a group bet, like betting a black number will win, your odds for winning are:
- 47.37 % or 18/38 for a US roulette wheel
and
- 48.60 % or 18/37 for an EU roulette wheel,
making it more likely for you to win playing the EU variant of the game.
Games like poker, where player skill is a factor, typically have lower house edge percentages. The highest house edges can be found in slot games, with over 7 %.
The flip side is the RTP, the return to player percentage. In a game with 7 % house edge, the RTP is 93 %. In theory, for a game with this RTP, for every $10 you wager, the percentage, meaning $9.30, will return to you trough winnings. However, since the wins and losses happen randomly, the RTP cannot be taken literally. Instead, it can be used to find the games where it is statistically more likely to win more or lose less money.
The odds, house advantages and return to player percentages are important numbers to know when you want to gamble online. They give you pointers on what to expect when it comes to winning or losing money. While luck is always in play, games with smaller odds of winning, like choosing a single number out of 37, are harder to succeed in than picking a number out of a smaller selection. Use the RTP values to find the games with the highest success rates and increase your chances of winning.