Is Your Wallet Being Squeezed by What You Don’t Know?
Added: Sept. 16, 2013
Before you answer, you may very well want to take a look at some startling results recently released. These study results, from what some consider to be the granddaddy of all things gambling, the Nevada Gaming commission, reveal some facts about gambling behavior and player strategies that apply to both land based casinos and online casinos.
What are these findings? Sad to say, but this study seems to point out a distinct lack of real knowledge of how casinos and gambling operations actually work. According to the report, a fairly high percentage of casino players seem to have very little knowledge of the games they end up playing. For example, as you probably know, if you want to win you are better off playing a game where your chances of winning are more stacked in your favor than not.
With that in mind, consider the popular game of blackjack. Even with its many variations online and offline, the basic math behind the blackjack remains the same. Blackjack is the one game in the entire casino where you have a better statistical chance of winning, but only if you follow a basic strategy. In fact, when playing blackjack, the house edge is less than one percent if you play with a simple basic strategy. That’s right, less than one percent. However, the report showed that blackjack players often use either no coherent strategy or a non-winning strategy. The results are as you would expect, these player were effectively opening up their wallets and giving the house a greater edge. In many cases, improper blackjack strategy resulted in upping the house edge to more than 12 percent. Ouch, did you feel that sting in your wallet?
Also, interestingly the exact same results were found for other casino games such as craps or roulette. Consider the example of the game of craps. Using a basic winning strategy, the real house edge is less than one percent. Yet, using other strategies upped the house edge to 13.5 percent.
Bottom line is really simple. Knowing that a casino can only stay in business by having some sort of house edge over your play, why would you play in a way where the house has an even larger edge on you? Really, it’s all about understanding the games you are playing and how to keep the house from raising its edge over you.