Speed Counts!

15 October 2023

By John Grochowski

Speed of play matters in casino games. More wagers per hour means more exposure to the house edge.

In setting budgets, players need to keep in mind they make more bets per hour at sparsely populated tables than at crowded venues, that blackjack moves faster than roulette, craps moves faster than blackjack, baccarat moves faster than craps and slot machines move fastest of all.

That's part of the reason slot machines are so profitable for casinos. Individual wagers may be small, but play is so fast a penny slot player betting 80 cents a spin has an hourly wager about on a par with a blackjack player betting $10 a hand at a crowded table.

Blackjack speed is highly dependent on the number of players, from about 50 hands per hour at a full seven-player table to 250 with one player heads-up with a fast dealer. A dedicated slot player who hits the button as soon as the reels stop can play more than 1,000 spins per hour, though most play a bit slower.

Video poker? I was once clocked in tournament play at more than 800 hands per hour, though in relaxed recreational play I cruise at 600 to 700. In calculating average results per hour, I often use 500 as a middling number. Experienced players will find that slow, but it's breakneck speed to less experienced folk.

Craps has an extra component. Some bets are decided in fewer rolls than others, so decisions come faster. Propositions such as the field, any craps, any seven and others are decided on every roll. If you always want one in action, you're making a fresh bet every time.

Pass and come, place, and buy bets, and the hardways move at a more leisurely pace. It takes an average of 3.38 rolls to settle a pass or come bet. Place bets depend on the number, with an average of 3.27 rolls on 6 or 8, 3.60 on 5 or 9 or 4 rolls on 4 or 10.

Average rolls per decision are the same as place on buy bets and hardways.

Those averages carry serious implications for those who like to hedge their bets with a small wager on any 7 to go with their pass or place bets.

Imagine you're betting $6 to place 6 and hedging with $1 on any 7. To always have that hedge working, you'd need to make 3.27 times as many any 7 as place wagers.

To work with whole numbers, let's say you do this 100 times, meaning your place bets on 6 total $600. You'd also make 327 any 7 bets, and at $1 a pop that's $327.

The house edge on placing 6 is 1.52 percent. With average results, your $600 in wagers would bring $9.12 in losses. That's a close enough call that a minor short-term swing to wins above average can take you to profit territory.

What about the $327 in any 7 wagers? The house edge is a whopping 16.67 percent, leading to average losses of $54.51. The hedge to cover the 7 that loses on the place bet is far worse than the problem it tries to fix.

The high house edge is an important reason to avoid any 7, but so is the speed with which the decisions come. You can look for full blackjack tables and take time over your decisions. You can discipline yourself to slow down at slots, relax and take your time. But relative to decisions per hour at other craps bets, one-roll propositions are speedy bankroll gobblers.