Picking your game: Part one
By Josh Zach
Luck is for suckers. Anyone who tells you differently is a sucker themselves. Just by simply doing a little research and learning the strategies and odds of any casino game will give you a heads up chance at winning, or simply breaking even, versus a ³sucker² who drops money on the table and crosses their fingers. The problem with most casino goers is that while some of them may be the most intelligent, sensible people around, when they walk into a casino they lose all sense of perspective.
Understanding basic strategies is the key to performing well at a table or machine in a casino. Itıs most likely that the odds are against the player no matter where they sit down, but if they have a rude understanding of the game being played, theyıre giving themselves that much more of a chance to win. A gambler, whether seasoned or raw, should study a game prior to even stepping foot in a casino. Just by doing an Internet search for a few minutes will turn up a plethora of sites discussing strategies and rules for just about every game offered in a casino. Knowing what youıre doing at a table will further add to the excitement and entertainment value of your visit to the casino, because, after all, casinos are just that, venues for entertainment purposes.
Baccarat is a table game that requires absolutely no skill on the part of the gambler, but not many people know just what baccarat is or how to play. Some will be very surprised that itıs probably the easiest table game in the casino. Baccarat is played with two hands: the Bankers Bet, and the Players Bet. The object of the game is to pick which hand will come closest to nine. Face cards are worth nothing, numerical cards are worth their pictured value and Aces are worth one. As the player, you are given the choice of either betting on the banker hand winning, the player hand winning, or a tie between the two. Two cards are dealt to the player and the banker. If the hand youıre betting on wins, you win even money. The simplicity of baccarat rules reflects the simplicity of the goal itself. There is really only one tricky part: while there is no such thing as a busting handı as in blackjack, when your initial card total is a two digit number, the first digit is dropped. Say you are dealt a pair of sevens - the total is 14, but the count is set to 4, as the leading 1 is arbitrarily dropped. One more key to baccarat is this: anybody can be the banker, not always a casino employee. This hint is enough to gain an advantage in baccarat, because you know if the casinos take a cut of just one hand, that one hand probably has a good chance of winning.
While baccarat can offer intriguing odds and is a game worth playing, not all casino table games offer the same good fun. Roulette, while elegant and interesting enough, is a game to stay away from. Itıs a sucker bet. Roulette, French for ³little wheel,² requires little strategy and carries an enormous house edge. It is strictly a game of chance. The individual who bets on roulette is simply guessing where the ball is going to stop. A standard roulette wheel has 36 numbers, half of them are black and half of them are red. It also has two green spaces which represent the house percentage. Every bet made in roulette that has two zeroes ($100, $200, etc.) carries a house edge of approximately 5.25 percent. That means the player will stand to lose $5.25 for every $100 bet. So itıs important to remember that the casino has the house edge on every roulette bet made.
If you already know about these games, then youıre a step ahead of the average casino visitor. There is one basic rule that casino patrons must remember when laying it out on the line: Casinos are venues for entertainment, but casinos are in business to make money, not to give it away. However, it offers a flurry of ways for you to pine your time away in an interesting way. It is recommended that anyone who attends a casino should have a general understanding of any game before participating in one. This pocketed understanding will further add to the excitement. And, who knows, you may be one of the lucky ones who walks away with a few extra chips on your next visit. But keep in mind, 98 percent of the people who walk out of a casino leave lighter than when they entered. Be sensible, have some kind of understanding of the game before you sit down, and donıt worry about winningjust have fun.