The same goes with slot machines and video poker. There's a simple reason for this, if you buy in a $5 game with $100, you have only 20 bets in the bank, so to speak, not counting doubles, splits, etc., so it's very easy to walk away with nothing, even if you're playing a game with a low house edge. If you look at the Nevada gambling reports, the actual hold from blackjack is closer to 15%. To hit just the house edge, you need a bankroll large enough to absorb big losses without busting out. Roulette has a house edge over 5% for a 'normal' game.įor a recreational player with a couple hundred bucks to play with, variance rules the day. 18% for a really ideal game to well over 2% for the worst games. Blackjack can have a house edge ranging from about. There are a couple things you need to think about when gambling. Never heard of the house edge being referred to as return to player. This is why players figure in the value (to them) of things like room comps, dining, etc. In actual play the concept of variance will rear its ugly head and even playing perfect strategy in a positive expectation game (a few video poker variants have this) no human will ever play enough to see those theoretical returns (or losses) except by pure luck. You might also look at some of the 'advantage play' discussions such as Bob Dancer's articles at

You can find details on specific game odds on many sites, for example, here's WizardofOdds blackjack calculator: as you can see, with good rules (good luck finding those) and perfect strategy the black jack house edge is considerably less than the 3% you suggest and slots considerably worse, though minimum slot payback is defined by law, in Nevada its 75%. The publicly held casino groups report as required by law, but I doubt you'll find much detail beyond aggregate statistics unless you have internal accounting access. In Nevada gaming control publishes monthly reports detailing gaming results organized by region, size of casino and game including a breakdown by various slot denominations. You're 'heard' a lot of misleading little factoids.

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