If you’ve ever heard the phrase “the house always wins” then you will know that a casino has once again come out on top and although some lucky people may land themselves a sizeable outlay from time to time, it is never enough to close the doors of a gaming palace.
No matter how many people try their luck, a casino will always amass an eye-watering amount of revenue on an annual basis and although it can be frustrating to lose at the blackjack table, it is the pursuit of victory which offers a continual thrill.
A thrill that has punters constantly coming back for more and it is this constant chase for dollars, that will ultimately keep any good casino in the black. Then again, it will even keep the bad casino’s profitable as well.
But the question that everyone wants to know, is just how does this constant casino fortune come about and why does the house always win? The answer to this, is rather simple and all honesty, the house never wants you to win.
With a proliferation of online us casinos over the past few years, it has been akin to a modern-day goldrush and with a litany of welcome offers and customers bonuses now available, your money is very much in demand.
However, your money is always viewed with the intention of eventually becoming the casino’s money in the end and even if you may find yourself coming out on top from time to time, the odds are simply not in your favour on a long-term basis.
Take the game of roulette for example, at its most basic level it can be played as a game of red vs black. A spin of the wheel and all you have to do, is decide which of the two colours the ball will land upon.
In theory, this should be played in the same way as heads or tails is contested, only two options with a 50/50 chance of victory on either side. However, with the addition of the ‘0’ and sometimes even ‘00’ elements, the odds go against those who are looking to strike it rich.
If roulette were a 50/50 game, there would be 18 black numbers and 18 red numbers and in theory, an even money bet should always be afforded to anyone willing to have a spin. However, this is not the case and with the two doubles added on, there are now 38 traps for the ball to fall into.
This should be a simple outcome of 18 winning options and 18 losing options. Although if you were to put it all on black, the wheel actually has 18 winning options and 20 losing options, meaning you are now up against it.
Of course, you may beat the odds on any single occasion and be celebrating for hours on end, but for every person who wins at odds of 36/1, there will be plenty more that lose and this is where the casino operators have such an important edge.
Because at these odds, punters will collectively never win on a long-term basis, the system is simply against them and even if there was a short-term run of incredibly good fortune, the imbalance of winning versus losing options would beat them in the end.
While system is also quite an important word in all of this, as many a person has devised what they believe to be the winning formula – that is until, they also end up out of money and departing the casino without a penny.
A system that sees players amend their stakes depending on previous fortunes and although sometimes it can be considered as hedging your bets, it is usually the fruitless pursuit of chasing your losses.
Whether it is staking less the following spin or doubling down and placing more chips than before, this behaviour is what a casino employee loves to see and with every spin of the roulette wheel that takes place, their bank manager affords himself another sizeable grin.
That’s not to say playing at the casino is not fun and that you will always come away empty-handed, because we all know that is not the case. However, if you did not know before, do be aware, that the house will have a habit of being considerably richer than you in the end.