The aim of all gamblers is to develop a Gambling Strategy to beat the house edge. Gambling tends to have a bad press on people who have a surface-level idea of it. Historically, it has been looked down upon by many religions and even banned by the Church of England at one point. The most obvious reason is gambling’s apparent association with recklessness. Consequently, to gamble with money is to let it go down the drains. But despite that image, to profit from gambling, one has to be strategic and calculating the strategy. Now, each and every game at a casino has some element of luck in it. Because if something were 100% beatable consistently, it would be a sinkhole to the casino’s finances.
By design, the casino gets a ‘house edge’ on every gambling game. No matter how much of a game is down on random luck, you can always use one casino games strategy or the other to at least help your chances a bit. Below are some of the top casino games and gambling strategy that can significantly boost your odds of winning them.
Splitting Aces and Eights in Blackjack
Blackjack is one of those games which have a perfect combination of fun, luck, and applicable skill. The rules are easy: you must have a hand value higher than the dealer’s but not higher than 21. If you exceed 21, you immediately go ‘bust’, i.e., lose your original bet. This is the one blackjack disaster that even the dealer is not impervious to. But one of the best things about blackjack is your ability to split. To clarify: if you have two cards of the same rank, the casino lets you split your hand into two separate hands. That gives your play a lot of fluidity to wiggle out of sticky situations. But in a sense, splitting can be both a bane and a boon. Namely, you cannot just split on any hand and hope to improve your hand.
One must also know exactly when to split and when to keep the hand nice and tight. Thus a lot of blackjack strategy books dedicate more than one chapter to just explaining splitting. But splitting blackjacks and aces are the most basic blackjack strategy among them. You should always split aces because of the unique way their values work. Two aces mean one of them will give you a soft 11, leaving you at an uncomfortable 12 subtotal. Splitting aces gives you two separate contingent chances at hitting the blackjack, essentially two bets for the money of one.
So many casinos go so far as to implement restrictions on split ace hands. On the other hand, splitting eights is not so much about gaining two hands. It is more about the fact that 16 is considered an uncomfortable point to rest your score. Splitting the eights will improve your hand by limiting your chances of going bust.
Gambling Strategy- Betting the Banker in Baccarat
There is one piece of data consistent across every study of blackjack and baccarat strategy. The later a hand draws, the higher its chances of winning the round. If you remember the rules of baccarat, the implication of that will be obvious. Like the dealer in blackjack, the ‘banker’ in baccarat always has a statistical edge on the players. Casino bets cast on the banker is indubitably the most successful baccarat strategy. First and foremost, the banker can hit a natural 8 or 9 before the players can even call their claims on the round. If that does not convince you, there is also the proven fact that the banker wins more often. Even if they do not hit a natural 9, the banker draws next after all the players declare their actions.
The biggest proof is the global house edge. A player bet averages a 1,24% house edge for the casino, while the banker bet wields only 1.06%. The banker also wins just a bit over 50% of the time, odds good enough to bet on. It is almost too overpowered as a strategy. Thus the casino actually has to take 5% of your winnings as a commission just to preserve house edge.
Playing French Roulette
Roulette is infamous as one of the most difficult classic casino games to win. It puts a lot into a player’s luck. And if you are in for a profit, you have to convert that luck to mathematics. American Roulette stands at a high 5.26% house edge. The best roulette strategy is to avoid American roulette tables altogether. Most online casinos, like Betfair, offer better alternatives, e.g., French roulette. French roulette mitigates one of the biggest contributors to roulette house edges: the green numbers (0 and 00). French roulette instead has only one 0, lowering the house edge to 2.7% right off the bat. So whatever your roulette strategy or betting system is, it would be much better spent on French roulette.
Gambling Strategy- Using Casino Odds in Craps
Many craps strategy guides will have you don the role of the shooter. The idea in it is to have more player agency. In other words, refining your dice control. But that just brings a physical skill into a game of mathematics and luck. If you want to play by math, the best craps strategy is outside the role of the shooter. Generally, the two types of bet you can make at the start of a craps round is the pass line bet and don’t pass bet. But craps is one of the most unique casino tables in that it allows further betting as the game progresses.
After the come-out phase, you can actually back or adjust your bet with odds wagers if a point has been established. But why not just put the extra money into other bets in the next round? For twofold reasons. Firstly, you can decrease, increase, or even back out of odds wagers depending on house rules. Secondly, it is one of the rarest casino bets where the casino has virtually 0% house edge.
Using a Strategy Card in Video Poker
Many card players revere poker as the casino staple with the highest skill ceiling. Luck plays a role in it, sure. But one can significantly improve their chances of just being skillful rather than just lucky. On the other hand, it does take a great deal of genius and practice to actually become a poker pro. Fortunately for you, that is not the case for video poker. Or any form of poker that you can play remotely, for that matter. No need to consult a video poker strategy guidebook. All you need to have as a frame of reference for the current hand is a good video poker strategy chart. Many of these are available as free resources on the internet. Although they are a bit tricky to use, the strategy cards can really help a beginner make a more well-informed decision.
All of these casino game strategies boost your chances of success. But at the same time, remember that no gambling strategy can give you a 100% win guarantee. Casino games always have that little luck factor lurking at the backdrop, and they can often make or break your game. One should embrace it as a challenge and ought not to forget to have fun.
