Why Does the House Always Win?

All casino players have heard the saying ”the house always wins”. But have you ever stopped to wonder what that statement means and how it affects gamblers? Check out our infographic that explains how casino games work and how the odds are always in favor of online casinos.

When talking about ”the house”, we refer to casinos or in other words real money gambling service providers. It can be an online casino, a hot spot on the Las Vegas strip or even your national lottery. It does not matter what business or establishment we are talking about, in gambling they are always the real winners.

But just because the house always wins, it does not mean all players must lose. The appeal of gambling lies heavily on the fact that there is always the possibility of winning big. And we are here to help you beat the odds and understand how casino games actually function.

How Online Gambling Works?

Let’s dig into little deeper into the topics that the infographic examines. Casinos do not operate from the goodness of their hear - they are businesses whose key objective is to make a profit. Remember that. If the odds of your winning would always be 50/50, the casino would go out of business in a matter of months. So how do they prevent this from happing?

The answer is simple: in all casino games, the house has a mathematical edge that guarantees that in the long run, they will never be in the losing end. So even though a couple of players might win big, 100 others will lose and tip the scale in favor of the casino.

The edge varies a lot between different games but believe when way say: it is always there. E.g. Blackjack has the lowest casino edge of 0,5-1%, bingo has 10% edge and keno has a massive 40% house edge.

When you play for a long period of time, it benefits the casino. And that’s why at brick and mortar casinos are said actually pump more oxygen to the space in order to keep you alert longer (among other tricks). A tired player might go to bed after a big win…

Always Check The Return to Player Percentage

This brings us to our next point. Each and every casino game has a calculated RTP (Return to Player) percentage that tells the theoretical amount the game will pay back over a period of rounds. Not all games advertise this percentage (which usually is not a good sign). But when it comes to online casinos, you can easily figure out the RTP of a certain slot.

So what good does it do to know what Return To Player percentage a game has? Honestly, it is not exact science and even if a game has high RTP, it does not guarantee that you will win. But it does give a good overall idea whether a casino game is profitable or not. If we simplify things: a game with a 96% RTP will in theory pay back $96 from each $100 played. But since the percentage is calculated during over 1,000,000 spins (and most of us don’t play that much), you can end up winning or losing.

But by choosing a high RTP game, you are improving the odds of winning. That’s why our recommendation is to never pick a slot that has an RTP of less than 95%. There are so many options out there so why settle for a game designed to make you lose more than 5%?

Unfortunately the RTP is always between 0-100% - there is not a single slot or live game that would give players the edge.

Examples of RTP

We absolutely love examples so let’s have one more. Loads of Blackjack games have a 99% RTP which is extremely high. If you place a $50 bet, there are four different outcomes: you will either lose $50, win $50 or in case of a blackjack $75, give up and keep your bet or split and win/lose $100. In none of those scenarios will you lose $1 that the RTP suggests. But if a casino full of people will bet $1,000,000 during the night, the casino will probably make a ~$10,000 profit.

And allow us to have one more example from the world of slots. In this case we will examine Quickspin’s Big Bad Wolf Megaways slot that has an RTP of 96,05%. The slot is a high volatility game which means that you might need to wait around for wins but once they occur, they are bigger than usually. High volatility games work well for those gamers who are willing to take bigger risks.

The RTP of Big Bad Wolf Megaways consists of the following things:

Base Game: 39,17%
Base Feature: 35,53%
Free Spins: 21,53%

The key elements contribute towards the overall RTP. In this instance, the base game refers to the main game that is the basis of all slots. In the base game your are always playing with real money where as base features, bonus games and free spins are usually free.

Quickspin is also very forthcoming with win probabilities. In Big Bad Wolf Megaways, only 1 in 123 players will win a 15x win and 1 in 1235 will grab an epic win (100x bet). So yes, there is always one player who wins the jackpot but 1234 others who won’t.

What Games Have the Highest RTP?

It might sound that you have absolutely no chances in winning which is not the case. We just want to make sure that our readers understand that when it comes to gambling, wins are never guaranteed - except for online casinos.

But e.g. Mega Moolah has given more than 70 jackpots with a total value of more than $400,000,000. Each day there are lucky players who walk away with massive wins, hundreds of gamers who will be able to double their gaming account balance - but also hundreds of thousands who will end up losing.

So what can you do to even the playing field? Pick games that have high RTP and avoid games such as bingo, keno and slot machines at brick and mortar casinos.

Live casinos: Blackjack, Roulette and Baccarat usually have 98-99% RTP.

Slots with Best RTP:

• Ooh Aah Dracula (99%)
• Ugga Bugga (99%)
• 1429 Uncharted Seas (98,5%)
• The Catfather (98,1%)
• Blood Suckers (98%)
• Jokerizer (98%)
• Starmania (97,8%)
• Jack Hammer 2 (97,1%)