We all love that winning feeling, that feeling you get when the symbols line up on that max payline, when your river card makes the entire table throw their hands down in despair, when that ace drops on top of your face card to give you a blackjack.
For seasoned gamblers, especially those who focus on a specific game, the ups and downs of gambling can be made a little more even through practice and expertise. For beginners, it may take a long time of small wins and frequent losses before they get a proper grasp of just how to play for maximum profitability.
But who’s got time for that? We just want to know what games to play for the easiest win and for a quick buck!
Let the CasinoPlay.com crew take you on a short tour of the easy-win fallacy when it comes to gambling and casinos.
Let’s begin with that word: easy. What is ‘easy’? Is easy a casino game that doesn’t take effort to learn? Is it a casino game that you can just show up to, sit down and start playing?
The easiest game in a casino – land-based or online casino – is slots. And the easiest slot game is the classic fruit machine with 3 reels and minimal paylines. As you add reels and wilds and scatters and bonus games, the slot games become more complicated BUT they are still simple: choose your bet, hit the spin button, wait for an outcome.
But there is no easy way to ‘win’. There is no easy way to guarantee that you will be walking away with more money than you started with. If you are looking for an ‘easy’ payout, an ‘easy win’, then gambling may not be for you. There is no easy way to win. The point of casinos is to take as much of your cash as possible, while still giving you as fun a time as possible. Easy and luck are two opposite ends of the gambling spectrum. If the games are easy, you won’t win much. If the games are easy, there will be no challenge. But if the games are challenging, requiring a little thought and strategy from your side, with a lot of Lady Luck leaning on the win/lose scales, you can be sure you will hit a big payday when that reel or card or wheel goes your way.
If you want to know which casino game is easier to win compared to others, you need to understand the ‘house edge’.
The house edge is the mathematical advantage the casino has over the player. For a game with a house edge of 10%, every bet made means 10% goes straight back to the casino – on average. Some games have astronomical house edges. Slots, for example, has a huge 17% house edge on average. Keno goes as high as 25%.
This house edge basically means that the casino always wins. While there may be lucky punters who hit a big jackpot, or first timers who manage to score a good run, at the end of the day the casino is always making money off gamblers.
But gamblers can ease the pain of losing by choosing games where the house edge is lower. For regular gamblers, games like slots or keno are very much once in a while pleasures. Table games offer much better odds for the gambler, which is why they spend much of their time on the blackjack or baccarat games.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s take a look at the easiest to win games – understanding that easy to win just means a lower house edge and more probability of hitting a winning hand. The house edges we have posted are an average. Different casinos may have different house edges.
One other factor to consider is your ‘chance’ of winning. This is a percentage of winning hands or rolls or spins over a period of time.
There is a reason blackjack is known as the King of Casino Games and the most popular game at casinos: a low, low house edge of around 1.5%. With blackjack being a much more even game than others you are looking at around a 49% chance of winning!
Picking up the rules of blackjack is quite simple making it one of the easiest games to master when it comes to basics: all you need to do is draw cards that are higher than the dealer without going over 21.
Add to that the 1.5% house edge and you can see why this is the game you need for easier and more frequent wins. Keep in mind though, with easy wins comes lower payouts. A winning blackjack hand pays out 1:1 so a R100 bet will pay out R100. A blackjack (ace and a face card) will pay out 1.5:1 so a R100 bet will pay out R150.
Compare that to the 35:1 pay out on a roulette table where a single number win will pay out R3500 on a R100 bet. But the odds of getting that single number? Astronomical.
Pai Gow Poker is a poker version of the Chinese tile game Pai Gow with a low 2.5% house edge. In Pai Gow Poker you use your seven cards to create a 5-card hand and a 2-card hand. Each hand is played against the dealer to find a winner.
If you know the rules behind draw poker, Pai Gow will be quick to master. If not, practice your poker skills and then try this fast-paced and action-packed game with great odds at beating the casino.
Beware – roulette has a reputed house edge of 2.5% but this does not tell the full story. Consider, for example, betting on red or black, or odds or evens. You have a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Actually, because there is a 0 or a 00 slot, your odds are slightly less than 50/50.
Now go further. Imagine the odds of betting on inside or outside numbers, on different lines or even on one single number. Suddenly these odds start rising fast in favour of the casino. For a single number win your odds are somewhere around 37/1.
Playing roulette for a beginner is quite simple: choose a lucky number or series of numbers and hope the ball stops on your pick. For regular, seasoned players there are all sorts of permutations and patterns and picks that can affect the house edge and balance wins and losses.
Because video poker relies on a random number generator (RNG), the odds change quite significantly from game to game. But, in general, the house edge on video poker is between a very low 0.5% and a high 5%.
Check the game before you plat to see the RTP or house edge and decide whether or not to play.
Video poker is a simpler game to play and easy to learn, especially since the game usually has the winning hands posted on the game for easy reference.
For a game with such an air of exclusivity, baccarat is surprisingly simple to pick up. And it offers a low house edge and great odds.
Even better, as the player you can choose to bet on your hand or on the banker (dealer) hand if you think that one is better. Betting on banker is a solid strategy for baccarat beginners as the bank does have a slight advantage when it comes to gameplay.
Make no mistake: slots are super fun. But from a dispassionate position of mathematical and statistical probability? Possibly the worst game to play at a casino.
Slots can have wildly different house edges depending on the game. These can go from a low 2% to an insane 15% and higher.
Think about how often you get a win when you’re playing blackjack versus how often those reels spin with no luck on a slots game.
Pretty high house edge with incredibly low odds of winning – especially the high variance, high volatility slots games like progressive jackpots! Those massive winning jackpot numbers are a definite lure to have a spin or two and change your fortunes forever – but how often does that really happen? Have a look at our biggest ever slots wins article to see how seldom these wins occur. The time between the announcement of any big jackpot wins can run into the years.
Casinos will do everything in their power to get you spending more and winning less. This is not a judgement call, they are businesses after all, just a fact.
With this in mind: the easiest casino games to win are the ones you are most comfortable with and the ones you enjoy the most.
Practice, practice, practice. The better you get at quick analysis of the games, the more chance you have of making the right calls.
Stay away from the side bets – they are not worth your money.
Always, always play responsibly, have fun and stick to your budget. Any game you enjoy is a winning game as far as we are concerned.
