Can Online Gambling Make You Rich?
Article called Can Online Gambling Make You Rich in the Economic Times today. Kinda interesting, and some cool trivia like when the first online casino site launched and how many online casino sites are operating today.
Where Did Gambler Man Go?
I'm sure if anyone out there has actually been reading this collection of articles that they've been wondering where I went and why I haven't been writing lately. The answer is simple: life got in the way for a while. But now I'm back, and I'm ready and eager to start tackling a few more articles. Not sure what I'm going to write about yet though, although I can guarantee you that I'll be writing about both online and offline gambling. I'm actually writing this while I'm playing poker at Bugsy's Club. Interesting poker room. I'll have to write a review of it one of these days, but I probably won't review it here. I'm working on a new site, Unknown Poker, which is going to be made up of reviews of some of the lesser known poker rooms on the internet. (Cuz after all, how many reviews of Party Poker does the internet really need?)
Slot Machine Strategies - Slots Strategy
Slots strategies are limited mostly just to bankroll management and good sense, because slot games are purely luck and are meant to be pure fun, and pure distraction. The slot strategy tips I'm offering here are meant to maximize the amount of fun you're having, since you don't really have a shot at reducing the house advantage by playing smart, like you can with blackjack. Consider this a short course on slots strategies:
- Have fun.
- Don't believe common slot myths
- Manage your bankroll. Understand how much you want to play, how many sessions you want to play, and do some simple division.
- Don't play with money you can't afford to lose.
- Always bet all lines with the max bet. If you can't afford to do that, then play at a lower denomination slot machine.
- Be sure you're a member of the slots club and that you're tracking your play--you want to get all the comps you've got coming to you.
- Progressives don't pay out as often as regular slots, but you've got the jackpot to look forward to if you hit it.
- Higher denomination machines have higher payback percentages. So play the highest denomination machine you can without putting undue stress on your bankroll.
- Consider video poker.
I recommend checking out Slot Tips for additional info about slot machines and playing the slots. Another good site for slots players is Slots King.
Video Poker Pay Tables - Jacks or Better Pay Table
You must understand video poker pay tables in order to make good decisions about video poker. Choosing a good machine with a good pay table is the first, most crucial, and fundamental step in a winning video poker strategy. If you understand a video poker pay table, then you can figure out how much the machine will pay out over time when played correctly.
Jacks or Better is the grandaddy of video poker games. The best versions of Jacks or Better has a 99.5% payback. This make Jacks or Better (full pay anyway) one of the best bets in the casino--right up there with blackjack and certain craps bets.
Hand--Payoff
Royal Flush--250
Straight Flush--50
Four of a Kind--25
Full house--9
Flush--6
Straight--4
Three of a kind--3
Two pair--2
Pair of Jacks or better--1
These are the one coin payouts on a full pay Jacks or Better game. You can multiply each of these payoffs by the number of coins you play to get the payoff for a higher amount bet. The exception is the royal flush. That's the jackpot hand and pays out 4000 coins.
This is called a 9/6 game because it pays out 9 coins for a full house and 6 coins for a flush. A common variation on this pay structure is an 8/5 game. This payoff schedule turns one of the best bets into the casino into a much poorer bet--97.3% payoff instead of 99.5%. Don't settle for a video poker pay table that is less than perfect if you can help it. 9/6 is considered a full pay Jacks or Better game. Any lesser pay table for jacks or better is a bad bet.
About.com has an excellent article on Video Poker Pay Tables.
Jacks or Better is the grandaddy of video poker games. The best versions of Jacks or Better has a 99.5% payback. This make Jacks or Better (full pay anyway) one of the best bets in the casino--right up there with blackjack and certain craps bets.
Hand--Payoff
Royal Flush--250
Straight Flush--50
Four of a Kind--25
Full house--9
Flush--6
Straight--4
Three of a kind--3
Two pair--2
Pair of Jacks or better--1
These are the one coin payouts on a full pay Jacks or Better game. You can multiply each of these payoffs by the number of coins you play to get the payoff for a higher amount bet. The exception is the royal flush. That's the jackpot hand and pays out 4000 coins.
This is called a 9/6 game because it pays out 9 coins for a full house and 6 coins for a flush. A common variation on this pay structure is an 8/5 game. This payoff schedule turns one of the best bets into the casino into a much poorer bet--97.3% payoff instead of 99.5%. Don't settle for a video poker pay table that is less than perfect if you can help it. 9/6 is considered a full pay Jacks or Better game. Any lesser pay table for jacks or better is a bad bet.
About.com has an excellent article on Video Poker Pay Tables.
Casino Bonuses - Incentives to Gamble Online
Casino bonuses are funds that an online casino deposits into your casino account as a bonus to your deposit. Online casinos are extraordinarily competitive, so they do all that they can do to encourage players to try their casino out, including giving you extra money to do so. Casino bonuses are normally a matching amount, but some casinos have bonuses that require no deposit.
Be sure to always read the casino's terms and conditions for the bonuses they offer you. Almost all online casinos require a certain amount of action (called "wagering requirements") before letting you cash out. Some casinos also subtract the amount of your bonus from your withdrawal too. (The money is in your account to wager with, but cannot be withdrawn no matter how many times you wager it.)
Many casinos also exclude certain games from the wagering requirements for withdrawing your money. Most often they exclude blackjack and roulette, but some online casinos are so restrictive that they won't let you count anything you wager on any game besides their slots.
Another perk some casinos offer, and one that I'm particularly fond of, is ongoing match bonuses. Crazy Vegas casino is my favorite example of this. You can get up to $1500 a month in bonuses with their monthly 15% deposit bonus incentive.
Some casinos also have lists of players they call "bonus abusers", who are players that play only the minimum requirement for cashing out their bonus and then leave. Theoretically, if the casino is offering a good enough bonus, and their wagering requirements aren't too strict, someone could play at quite a few casinos in a day, taking advantage of bonus offers and playing just the minimum required to cash out, and come out profitable. This is not a good idea, because most online casinos have written into their terms and conditions that if someone is a suspected bonus abuser, they can withhold their withdrawals.
Bonuses make online gambling a little more fun, and they get you more action for your money. But they're not a realistic way to make a long term profit, because you'll eventually no longer be allowed to play at any online casinos.
There are a few casino bonus related portals. One of the most comprehensive guides to online casino bonuses is Casino Cash Journey. Another good casino bonus resource is Casino Geek's Online Casino Bonus Advice page.
Be sure to always read the casino's terms and conditions for the bonuses they offer you. Almost all online casinos require a certain amount of action (called "wagering requirements") before letting you cash out. Some casinos also subtract the amount of your bonus from your withdrawal too. (The money is in your account to wager with, but cannot be withdrawn no matter how many times you wager it.)
Many casinos also exclude certain games from the wagering requirements for withdrawing your money. Most often they exclude blackjack and roulette, but some online casinos are so restrictive that they won't let you count anything you wager on any game besides their slots.
Another perk some casinos offer, and one that I'm particularly fond of, is ongoing match bonuses. Crazy Vegas casino is my favorite example of this. You can get up to $1500 a month in bonuses with their monthly 15% deposit bonus incentive.
Some casinos also have lists of players they call "bonus abusers", who are players that play only the minimum requirement for cashing out their bonus and then leave. Theoretically, if the casino is offering a good enough bonus, and their wagering requirements aren't too strict, someone could play at quite a few casinos in a day, taking advantage of bonus offers and playing just the minimum required to cash out, and come out profitable. This is not a good idea, because most online casinos have written into their terms and conditions that if someone is a suspected bonus abuser, they can withhold their withdrawals.
Bonuses make online gambling a little more fun, and they get you more action for your money. But they're not a realistic way to make a long term profit, because you'll eventually no longer be allowed to play at any online casinos.
There are a few casino bonus related portals. One of the most comprehensive guides to online casino bonuses is Casino Cash Journey. Another good casino bonus resource is Casino Geek's Online Casino Bonus Advice page.
Casino War, Tossing Coins, and Expectation
If you're going to gamble at a casino, online or land-based, it's important to know how the casino makes its money from you. Casinos make money from the players because they don't pay out at the real odds for the game. Expectation is what you can expect to win or lose long term on a given bet if you make it over and over again.
If you flip a coin, you have a 50% chance of it landing on heads, and you have a 50% chance of it landing on tails. If you paid someone $1 every time you were wrong, and they paid you a dollar every time you were right, you'd be making an even money bet on an even odds proposition. Your long term expectation would be 0. You would break even.
The way a casino would pay out in this situation would be different so that they could make a profit. They would probably pay you 95 cents every time you were right, and you would pay them $1 every time you were wrong. This would create a positive expectation for the casino, and a negative expectation for you. Half the time you would lose $1, and the other half of the time you would win 95 cents. Instead of breaking even, you would lose 2.5 cents per bet over time. (Because half the time you would win.) If you stated this in percentage terms, the house would be said to have a 2.5% advantage in this game.
This sounds like an oversimplification, but it's really not at all. One of the newer casino games in Las Vegas is casino war, which is a gambling version of the card game War that you used to play as a kid. You and the dealer each get dealt a playing card. If your card's value is higher than the dealer's, you win, and vice-versa, just like when you were playing as a kid.
Here's where the casino changes the expectation in their favor though: If your card is the SAME as the dealer's card, you can either surrender (in which case you lose half your bet), or you can go to war, which means you have to make another bet the same size as your original bet. When you go to war, three cards are burned and you each get another card. If you win the "war", you ONLY get paid out on the original bet. If you lose, the house gets both bets.
So you're facing even odds unless you go to war. If you go to war, the house has an advantage, because if you win, you only get paid $1 for every $2 you've wagered. The casino could just as easily create a game called "casino coin toss war", with very similar rules, and it wouldn't be too different from the coin-tossing game I described earlier. The single difference would be that the casino would have an almost 3% edge over you.
If you flip a coin, you have a 50% chance of it landing on heads, and you have a 50% chance of it landing on tails. If you paid someone $1 every time you were wrong, and they paid you a dollar every time you were right, you'd be making an even money bet on an even odds proposition. Your long term expectation would be 0. You would break even.
The way a casino would pay out in this situation would be different so that they could make a profit. They would probably pay you 95 cents every time you were right, and you would pay them $1 every time you were wrong. This would create a positive expectation for the casino, and a negative expectation for you. Half the time you would lose $1, and the other half of the time you would win 95 cents. Instead of breaking even, you would lose 2.5 cents per bet over time. (Because half the time you would win.) If you stated this in percentage terms, the house would be said to have a 2.5% advantage in this game.
This sounds like an oversimplification, but it's really not at all. One of the newer casino games in Las Vegas is casino war, which is a gambling version of the card game War that you used to play as a kid. You and the dealer each get dealt a playing card. If your card's value is higher than the dealer's, you win, and vice-versa, just like when you were playing as a kid.
Here's where the casino changes the expectation in their favor though: If your card is the SAME as the dealer's card, you can either surrender (in which case you lose half your bet), or you can go to war, which means you have to make another bet the same size as your original bet. When you go to war, three cards are burned and you each get another card. If you win the "war", you ONLY get paid out on the original bet. If you lose, the house gets both bets.
So you're facing even odds unless you go to war. If you go to war, the house has an advantage, because if you win, you only get paid $1 for every $2 you've wagered. The casino could just as easily create a game called "casino coin toss war", with very similar rules, and it wouldn't be too different from the coin-tossing game I described earlier. The single difference would be that the casino would have an almost 3% edge over you.
What it Costs to Gamble per Hour
You should always keep in mind when deciding what kind of gambling you're going to do what it's going to cost you per hour. This isn't a difficult calculation if you know how many bets per hour you're going to make, how big the bets are going to be, and what the casino's advantage is.
For example, if you're playing baccarat, you're probably going to play about 60 bets per hour. If you're betting $100 a bet, you're wagering $6000 per hour. Since the house edge if you're betting on the bank is only about 1.1%, you can expect to lose $66 or so per hour playing baccarat. $100 per bet X 60 bets X 1.1% house advantage = $66.
Blackjack played with perfect basic strategy reduces the house edge to about 0.5% under good playing conditions. You're probably looking at about 75 or so hands per hour, maybe more or less depending on how many people are at your table and how long they're taking to make their decisions. If you're playing at $5 a bet, you can play for an hour for a cost of only $1.88. That's a lot of action for your money, in my opinion.
Something else to keep in mind is that you're wanting to have fun. To have fun at gambling, you have to be playing for stakes that matter to you, but you cannot be playing for stakes that will break you. John Vorhaus talks about the gulp factor in a couple of his excellent books on poker. You should be playing for stakes that are high enough that you'd swallow hard if you just lost that much money one day and couldn't find it.
That amount might be $100 for you, and it might be $1000 for me.
The flip side to that is if you're playing for stakes that are too high, you're going to destroy your enjoyment of the game because you're so worried about being put in dire financial straits.
Also, if you're gambling online, you will usually be making more bets per hour than in a standard casino because of the speed of the software. I think there are now RTG casinos who deal 150 hands of blackjack per hour to you. THAT's going to change your hourly cost.
One last thing--if you play poker, you should be targeting an hourly earn rate. If you're playing poker, you should be playing to win, and tracking your results. A simple spreadsheet with three or four columns will enable you to track your hourly earn rate. But you'll need a lot of hours of records before you can be confident what your earn rate is.
For example, if you're playing baccarat, you're probably going to play about 60 bets per hour. If you're betting $100 a bet, you're wagering $6000 per hour. Since the house edge if you're betting on the bank is only about 1.1%, you can expect to lose $66 or so per hour playing baccarat. $100 per bet X 60 bets X 1.1% house advantage = $66.
Blackjack played with perfect basic strategy reduces the house edge to about 0.5% under good playing conditions. You're probably looking at about 75 or so hands per hour, maybe more or less depending on how many people are at your table and how long they're taking to make their decisions. If you're playing at $5 a bet, you can play for an hour for a cost of only $1.88. That's a lot of action for your money, in my opinion.
Something else to keep in mind is that you're wanting to have fun. To have fun at gambling, you have to be playing for stakes that matter to you, but you cannot be playing for stakes that will break you. John Vorhaus talks about the gulp factor in a couple of his excellent books on poker. You should be playing for stakes that are high enough that you'd swallow hard if you just lost that much money one day and couldn't find it.
That amount might be $100 for you, and it might be $1000 for me.
The flip side to that is if you're playing for stakes that are too high, you're going to destroy your enjoyment of the game because you're so worried about being put in dire financial straits.
Also, if you're gambling online, you will usually be making more bets per hour than in a standard casino because of the speed of the software. I think there are now RTG casinos who deal 150 hands of blackjack per hour to you. THAT's going to change your hourly cost.
One last thing--if you play poker, you should be targeting an hourly earn rate. If you're playing poker, you should be playing to win, and tracking your results. A simple spreadsheet with three or four columns will enable you to track your hourly earn rate. But you'll need a lot of hours of records before you can be confident what your earn rate is.
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