I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but many (if not most) of the casinos in Las Vegas are opulent. The buildings are exquisite, the decorations are lavish, and even the smallest of details scream luxury.

They can only afford that kind of opulence because you always lose when you’re gambling there. But how and why do you keep losing?

  1. However over the long term, the casino will always win more than the players. The reason for this is due to the Law of large numbers. All the games in the casino are designed to have a small edge in favour of the house. That is; the chances of the player winning are always slightly less than the chances of the casino winning.
  2. However over the long term, the casino will always win more than the players. The reason for this is due to the Law of large numbers. All the games in the casino are designed to have a small edge in favour of the house. That is; the chances of the player winning are always slightly less than the chances of the casino winning.
  3. Oct 31, 2020 In casinos, the house always wins because of the large number of bets placed. Without going too much into technical details, I will try to explain its application in casinos. Taking roulette as an example, there are 37 numbers; 18 red, 18 black, and the number ‘0’.

My dad would tell you that it’s because the casinos cheat, but that’s misleading.

This post explains the real reasons why casinos always win.

1 – Losing Is the Price You Pay for Playing Casino Games

Of course it’s disappointing to lose money during a gambling session. What’s worse is sometimes you lose all your money faster than you expected to. It’s hard to not spend time at the bar, throwing down drinks, imagining what you could have spent that money on if you hadn’t lost it.

But everyone who gambles in casinos experiences this. If you’re realistic, you’ll understand that this is how it’s going to happen most of the time for most gamblers. Even if you’re a seasoned stock market or real estate investor, you face the risk of losing money.

In fact, any time you risk money with the hope of a reward, you face the possibility of losing that money. You only have three possibilities in these situations:

  1. You break even.
  2. You lose money.
  3. You make money.

Does Casino Always Win Casino

Even if you put your money in a sock under your mattress, you’re going to lose money. Inflation will make sure that such money is worthless when you get it back out than it was worth when you squirreled it away.

And gambling is, by its nature, a high-risk venture. That’s why it’s called gambling.

Your job is to make sure you don’t risk money you can’t afford to lose. My advice is to set aside a gambling bankroll that you don’t need for any other purposes.

The house always wins, even if it is robbed at gunpoint. A brazen thief who stole $1.5 million in casino chips in December from the Bellagio resort in Las Vegas and then sped off on a motorcycle.

Scared money always loses, and if you’re losing a lot at the casinos, you’re probably gambling with money you can’t afford to lose (“scared money”).

I have friends who take their grocery money to the roulette table with the goal of doubling or tripling it. They usually come to me for a loan, a meal, or some groceries.

2 – Casino Gambling Is an Entertainment Expense

It’s normal to get mad or frustrated when you’ve lost a lot of money at the casino. If losing were fun, the casinos would have ALL the money instead of just a lot of it.

Avoid gambling if you’re not financially healthy. Avoid gambling if you feel guilty about gambling. If you do gamble, consider it a form of entertainment with a cost associated, just like a movie or a magazine subscription.

If you win, great, but always prepare yourself for the possibility of losing.

That’s the good news about casino games, too. Even though it’s entertainment, in the long run, you’ll lose your money. Sometimes, in the short run, you can come out ahead and win money. If that never happened, no one would ever gamble, and the casinos would go out of business.

If you only gamble with money you can afford to lose, you’ll limit the amount of frustration and guilt you feel after a losing session.

On the occasions when you win, you’ll feel even better because you won’t be thinking about how much money you’ve lost up until this point.

3 – Casinos Don’t Cheat, but the Odds Are Stacked Against You

Remember earlier when I mentioned that my dad thinks casinos cheat? He’s wrong, but he’s not that far off.

Casinos don’t cheat in the respect that they control which playing card you get next in blackjack. They’re unable to affect the outcome of a roll of the dice. They can’t decide which number comes up on the next spin of the roulette wheel.

Instead, casinos get their edge by paying off your bets at odds that give them a mathematical edge that’s realized over time.

The hypothetical casino has a game where you bet on a coin toss. You’re required to bet a minimum of $5, but you’re also required to post a 14 cent “ante.” When you win, you get $5. When you lose, you lose the $5. In either case, you lose the 25-cent ante.

In the long run, it’s impossible to win this game. Look at what happens to your bankroll after 100 statistically perfect coin tosses.

You win 50 times for winnings of $250. You lose 50 times for losses of $250. But you also paid a 25-cent ante on all 100 of those hands, for another $25 in losses.

You wagered $500 total, but you lose $25, or 5% of your wagers. This 5% figure is the house edge, and it’s built into every casino game you play. It doesn’t always take this form, although an ante is a popular type of fee charged by Oklahoma casinos.

4 – Most Casino Games Don’t Pay off at the Same Odds You Have of Winning

Roulette is one of my favorite games to illustrate how the house edge works because the math behind the game is so simple. Most people know that you can place a bet on red or black at the roulette table and win almost half the time.

But do you know how to calculate the actual probability of winning and what effect that has on the long-term house edge for the casino?

Again, you can just look at a statistically perfect set of results. A roulette wheel has 38 possible outcomes, so that’s your starting point.

For illustrative purposes, I’ll just assume that you’re betting $100 per spin. On a roulette wheel with 38 numbers, 18 of those numbers are red, 18 of them are black, and two of them are green.

So, a bet on black (or a bet on red) would win 18 out of 38 spins. That’s $1800 in winnings. But this also means you’ll lose on 20 of those spins. That’s $2000 in losses.

When you subtract the amount you won from the amount you lost, you’ve seen a net loss of $200 over 38 spins or an average of $5.26 per spin.

Since that’s 5.26% of your $100 bet on each spin, you can think of the 5.26% as the house edge for the game.

Does casino always win cash

5 – All Casino Games Have an Edge and There’s No Way to Overcome It

Most of my readers know that some people gamble professionally. This doesn’t mean that a professional gambler can get an edge in every game in the casino. For the most part, most casino games don’t offer you any opportunity to get a mathematical edge.

Roulette is a good example. No matter what you do, it’s impossible to change the number of possible outcomes on the roulette wheel or predict where the ball is going to land.

Slot machines are another good example. The game has payouts for various combinations, and each of those combinations has a probability of coming up. The payback percentage for the game is based on those two factors, and no amount of skill can help you affect either factor.

Blackjack is one of the few exceptions. Card counters can get an edge at blackjack by changing the size of their bets based on the composition of the deck.

Here’s the difference between blackjack and roulette—roulette has no memory. Every spin of the wheel is an independent event.
Always

But what if when the ball landed on a number, that number was removed from play? Over time, the probability of winning a bet on red or black might change based on previous results.

Does Casino Always Win

Does Casino Always Win Cash

In blackjack, when a card is dealt, it’s gone from the deck until the next deal. This has implications about what’s going to happen next in the game.

A card counter keeps rough track of this and raises the size of his bets when the odds favor him. This tilts the odds back in his favor.

Conclusion

Why do you lose when gambling in a casino? The answer is simple. The games are designed mathematically in such a way that the house always has a mathematical edge over the player.

Any time there’s risk involved, you might lose. But with casino games, the odds are set up so that you’ll lose more often than you’ll win.


Chance”—often we use that word to mean no more than an accidental happening, and it is indeed correctly employed in this manner.'

But as examples below will show, it has another meaning.
It brings to mind the subject of probability.
This subject is not just something for mathematics experts, though they particularly relish the intricacies more than others.
For one thing, a basic knowledge of how the casinos operate can keep you from naively thinking that you can really win against the casinos in gambling. In the long run you cannot.
Why not?

Chances in gambling


Does Casino Always Win No Deposit

For example, in a casino, there may be a roulette wheel (pictured above) with a series of alternating red and black numerals, 1 through 36; there is also one white zero (0) and a double zero (00).
The idea is to bet on one number and, if you win, the casino will give let's say thirty-five times as much as your bet.
But probability reveals that this is at a poor risk to the casino.
To prove this, imagine yourself placing a one-dollar bet on each of the 38 numerals to guarantee yourself a win.
Since only one of them can win, and so for your $38 investment you will get back $36, that is the $35 offered for the win plus your original dollar placed on the winning number.
The difference, two dollars, which amounts to over 5 percent is still in the casino’s favor and a loss to you.
Now imagine your bet is left to chance, definitely your chances of loss are even higher.
True, a customer may hit on a winning streak and win several thousand dollars in one evening.
He might do it again for two, three or four evenings.
Should the casino be worried?
Hardly, the casino knows that in the long run it must win.
The laws of probability are still in its favor because of what is called the 'law of large numbers.'

The law of large numbers


To appreciate the applications of “the law of large numbers', let us consider it at its fundamental level.
Flip a coin into the air.
Will it land heads or tails?

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No human can unerringly predict.
Flip the coin ten times.
How often will it come up heads?
Again, no human can foresee.
But just suppose that you took time to flip the coin two million times.

Does Casino Always Win The Lottery

Then how often will it land heads?
About one million.Does casino always win no deposit
Yes, for reasons that cannot be fully explained by men, the coin, over the long haul, will land half the time heads up.

Does Casino Always Win Real Money

True, in any short test, you do not know for a certainty whether heads or tails will turn up.
It may be flipped, seven times out of ten, heads.
But next it may turn out to be seven times tails.

Why Do Casinos Always Win At Blackjack

The more times the coin is flipped, the closer it will approach its natural average of 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails.
This is what is called “the law of large numbers.”
To further illustrate this lets us use an example we are all familiar with.
The law of large numbers also helps insurance companies to set their rates.
A customer regularly pays a relatively low sum to a company and it, in turn, pays the customer a certain amount at the time of an emergency.
The insurance companies know from experience that they will not have to pay off all clients. How can they be so sure?
Life insurance companies, as an example, study the mortality rates of thousands of persons and determine what percentage of persons in each age group die annually.
Knowledge of this percentage is the basis for determining the rates that each group pays for its insurance; only a certain percentage, the rates indicate, will have to be paid off in varying amounts through the years.
However, when someone wants a special insurance, as when a dancer wants her legs insured, the rates are much higher.
Why?
Because there are just a few of such cases; the law of large numbers principal is restricted.
The risk is greater to the insurance company.
Again, it is like flipping a coin.
When the insurance company will be, so to speak, flipping the coin thousands of times, the odds are in its favor.
But when there is only one flip, the risk is much greater.
So the insurance rates are much higher.
Do not conclude that holding insurance and gambling are the same; rather, the same laws affect both subjects.
In gambling you might win whether you need the money or not.
But with insurance you “win” only to cover a loss on your part.
So, what are the odds of winning of against the casino?

Odds of winning against the casino


So, really,'odds of winning” for the average gambler usually means nothing more than “luck.”
He may know nothing about any law of large numbers, but he earnestly hopes that somehow the right combination happens to appear while he is gambling.
But, with thousands of customers playing, in the finally analysis because of ' the law of numbers' the casino will always come up top to win against the gamblers.
But what if some gambler is lucky to win big money from the casino?
Does it mean the casino has lost?
On the contrary, this exciting experience of having won will only make him are a constant feature at the casino.
He will return with same winnings to casino with the feeling that he is ‘destined to win' again and again, until ultimately finally he loses to the casino.
'For instance, Charles Wells, an Englishman, visited the Monte Carlo casino in July 1891. In just a few days, he converted ten thousand francs into a million, and astonishingly, he repeated the feat four months later. He acquired an international fame that he had never lost. Many other gamblers tried to discover his “system” but to no avail. Wells always insisted that he never had one. In fact, the next year he lost all his money, and he died penniless.'

Ironically, the whole episode only turned out to be a publicity coup for the casino.
Many people were also wooed to also try their luck at the casino.
Thus, increasing the number of customers and with the 'law of large numbers' in it's favor, the casino made great gains in the end.
You can understand now why casinos stay in business, pay its employees and afford fancy decor.
It is because the casinos always wins in the end.
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