Many Happy Returns

9 May 2023

By Frank Scoblete

The lament among some slot players, many other casino players and most gaming writers is the fact that slot machines do not tell you what their percentage returns are except in cases where an area of machines has signs saying something to the effect that “these machines return a minimum of 98 percent” or the like.

You play a machine and you have no idea of what percent of the money it will return. That is true.

But what is also true is that the casino tells us no information about the return of any of its games.

That’s right; no casino explains what the returns are at their games; at any of their games. Look at a machine and it tells you nothing, that’s true; but look at the blackjack table or craps table or roulette table or at any other game’s table and nowhere does it tell you what the return is.

So how is it that we gaming writers can confidently tell people in articles about all the other games and what their returns are? There are no signs at the tables telling us this information. There are no signs on video-poker machines telling us this information either. Yet, we know what the video poker returns are.

So how do we know? What magic allows us to ferret out the truth of all those other games but we can’t ferret out slot machines?

The casino does not make a point by telling us anything about what we can expect to get if we play any game. Yet, we talk and act as if the casino does such a thing. Again, it doesn’t.

How do we know what the percentage return at every craps bet is but we don’t know what the return is on Lucky Slots Fun?

Knowledge of Payout Percentages

We know payout percentages at almost all games because the casino tells us at every game what a bet pays us. Not slots. Machines tell us a payout for this or that hit but we have no idea of how often such hits occur.

But we do know about card games and we do know about dice and we do know about roulette.

Follow this now: We know how often that decision at the table games and video poker comes up, what it pays and what it should pay if the game were a fair contest.

We know in craps that the pass-line bet pays even money and that the casino will win 251 decisions and the player will win 244 decisions on that bet. We know therefore that the house edge is 1.41 percent. We are expected to lose $1.41 per $100 wagered over time.

We know the relationship of every number at craps to the 7 or to making it as a one-roll bet. We know the percentages and how those percentages relate to money. And we know how the casino changes payouts to give themselves the edge.

One more example: Roulette has a house edge of 5.26 percent on the American roulette game that has a 0 and a 00 as two of its 38 numbers. Make a bet on this game and you have a one in 38 chance of hitting the winning number. The payout is 35-to-one which means the casino shorts you by two units on a win. A fair game would pay out 37 to one.

[Next week: The Truth Will Out!]

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and bookstores