In the below article we will look into the three most common casino myths going around to explain and try differentiate the myths from facts. Casino myths are generally called that for a reason, they are just myths.
1. Casino Games Are Rigged
Casino games are not rigged. How do we know they are not rigged? Casinos have to go through multiple authorities and regulatory bodies to ensure the games remain fair to the players. For the most part, the creation of these regulatory bodies was to ensure that casinos could not rig games. All casinos operate on a house edge, a standard but small advantage the casino has in every game.
These house edges are usually quite small but can vary game to game. With table games like roulette, all you need to know is the payout rate to calculate the house edge. Roulette, for example, house edge is usually 5,26% meaning over millions of games you should have a return of 94,74% of your initial investment. While a good or bad strategy can affect your odds, in games of chance, it is fair to expect a return of just below your initial bet.
Games of skill, however, are usually the only place in online casino games where you can hope to reliably overcome the house edge. While not easy, the existence of professional gamblers shows us that it is possible to overcome the house edge.
2. Gambler’s Fallacy
One of the more common and understandable myths in a casino is the gambler’s fallacy and it is one anybody could be forgiven for believing too. Gambler’s fallacy is this, the belief that in a game of chance, one result can have an effect on another.
Let’s use roulette’s black and red bets for example. If the ball has landed on red three times in a row, one would be inclined to think the ball would land on black next, however, this is not the case. No previous roll has any bearing on present or future rolls. While the odds off repeating colour rolls do diminish the higher a particular colour goes. We must keep in mind that in any game of chance, each roll or spin is an individual event and is not swayed by events before itself.
3. Payout Rates Are Assured.
While in the first myth we discussed that casinos have a standard house edge and we can use this to determine a payout rate, these payout rates are calculated over millions of sessions and taken at a large-scale average.
In games of chance, we can never take the payout rate as though it a short-term fact, if payout rates were so persistent, nobody would play just to lose every time. All games in the casino will vary from their payout rate on a daily basis, the payout rate is just a long-term average to prove the games themselves are not in any way rigged and the casino is conducting itself in a fair manner.