Breaking the Bank: The Myth of Beating the House

In casino games, beating the house is basically winning. You overcome the odds that are stacked against you, and come away from your gaming sessions with a sizable profit. Countless gamblers have claimed that they can beat the house, and run home with a clean swipe. Tall tales and exaggerated exploits aside, it does beg the question. Is it possible to beat the house?

All casino games are designed to give the casino an edge over players, in the form of the house edge. You may beat the house on pure luck, like winning the progressive jackpot on your 3rd spin at a slot machine. Or, if you don’t want to leave it all on lady luck, you could come up with something a bit more systematic and less reliant on chance. And you wouldn’t be the first if you did. Here, we will look at the romantic theory behind beating the house, and examine the practical aspects of it. And, of course, answer the question as to whether it is possible or not.

How Casino Games Are Designed to Favor the House

The one universal rule of all casino games is that the house must have an edge. Casinos cannot just provide a game where the chances of you winning are better or equal to the house. For the most part, casinos don’t charge you to play, take a direct commission off your winnings, or have fees for signing up. No, the fee is hidden in the games’ payouts, with a tiny advantage in favor of the house. If you were to check the RTP, or return to player, of any casino game, the percentages are under 100%. The value between the RTP and 100% (4% in a 96% RTP game, for example), is the house edge.

It is more obvious in games such as roulette. A 1:1 bet (red/black, high/low or odds/evens), implies that the chances of winning are 50%. But they are not. 18 of the 37 segments (in French or European roulette) win those bets, which is just 48.64%. This is basically how casinos do it. They don’t pay out the wagers true to the real probabilities. But they skim off a percentage of the potential winnings.

The house edge is not the same across all bets either. Generally, side bets or jackpot bets carry a higher house edge. But because the payouts are so high, a lot of players will use them anyway. The basic principle, is that by giving you a negative Expected Value on your wagers, ultimately the house should win. The mathematics point to the gambler’s ruin, but that doesn’t mean you will always lose when gambling.

Laying Out the Plan to Beat the House

You could hit a lucky streak, or land a good bit of variance. But if we are going to rule out luck as a means to beat the house, you will need something a little more concrete. And faultproof. Instead, a guaranteed way to beat the house is to pick out the weaknesses or shortcomings of the games and exploit these to favor the players.

When talking about beating the house, we mostly think of skill based games. Such as blackjack, where your decision making can directly influence the outcome of each round. Another winning feature of blackjack for beating the house, is that you can use card counting. Many gamblers have used card counting to capitalise on a good deck of cards. From the MIT Blackjack team to notable Hollywood celebs such as Ben Affleck. But you don’t necessarily need to pick one of these so called “skill based games” to beat the house. There are workarounds even for the games of pure chance. Pick any casino game, and there will be a way to beat the house.

Though most methods are unorthodox, or outright illegal.

Beat the House at Skill Based Games

Don’t think of card counting as a guaranteed way to win, because it’s not. You card count to get an idea of what cards are left in the deck, and if the cards are high value, then the edge will swing in your favor. Keep a true count while watching (or playing) at a table. Then, if the remaining cards in the shoe are 10s, you can begin to bet, or raise your stakes. You do so until the dealer decides to reshuffle the deck. And once that happens, your advantage is gone, so you have to move on.

Even if you do have an advantage, it will not mean guaranteed wins. Those 10s will favor you, because of the mechanics of the drawing. But the dealer could also draw those cards, and you could end up losing even with a positive true count. Another skill based game is video poker. While there are more favorable video poker paytables, and even optimised strategies to help curb the house edge, there is no way to push the RTP over 100%. And you can’t beat the house if it still holds an edge, as minimal as that may be.

Strategy for “Pure Chance” Casino Games

Slots, roulette, baccarat, and craps are arguably the most popular “pure chance” casino games. In these games, you have no way to influence the outcome of a single round. Even in slots with nudge features or other interactive mechanics, they are not there to help you beat the house. They are simply elements to make the gameplay more exciting. In these games, you can use bet sizing systems, helping to either overcome variance or make the most of it.

So then beating the house in these games revolves around the less-than-legal practices. In craps, some gamblers believe they can fix the outcome by throwing the dice in a certain way. By throwing them across the table, and with minimal rolling (centrifugal force), the dice should land on the desired face. However, this is a myth. You must hit the craps wall for your roll to count, and the wall is made up of a bumpy surface to help randomise the results.

Another one is players thinking they can find loose slot machines, or hot slots. The belief is that these games are closer to the aisles at the front of the casino, to lure in gamers. But slots use RNG algorithms to make every outcome random and unpredictable. There are no games rigged in favor of, or against, players.

Beating the House in Roulette

Now in roulette, there are more palpable ways of beating the house. It involves timing the roulette ball throw, and the orbit of the ball around the wheel. By timing the orbit, and pinpointing the segments the ball passes over, players can more or less predict the region where the ball will land. There was a scandal at the Ritz Casino in London in 2004, where roulette players used exactly these tactics. With lasers and timers on their mobile phones, the gamblers found a way to predict where the ball would land. They would then place their bets after the ball was released, right before the dealer called off all bets.

These players were arrested and put on bail, but eventually they were allowed to walk away with over a million pounds in winnings. This was only because they exploited a loophole, prompting the casino to amend its house rules and ban such devices.

Ending the Debate: Is it Possible Or Not

There are, of course, more ways to beat the house. You could run simulations on one slot machine, use software to work out the seed and the algorithm of the game, and then find the points at which the jackpot will drop. But this requires thousands of hours of gaming and meticulous attention to the detail of each outcome.

Or, beat the house using a number of cheating tactics, such as:

• Marking cards
• Defacing craps dice
• Placing mirrors behind card players
• Dealer collusion

All these methods are illegal, and you couldn’t beat the house cheating anyway. Casino security is top notch, and if the pit boss doesn’t spot you vandalizing or sabotaging games, the Eye in the Sky will catch you.

Dealer collusion involves bribing the dealer to help you beat the house. One of the most notable gamblers, Charles Well, who broke the bank of Monte Carlo, most probably used dealer collusion to win 20+ rounds of roulette in a row. Nowadays, though, there is no way to bribe a dealer. And even if you found a way to, it could result in the casino opening a lawsuit against you and the dealer.

So, to answer the looming question, no. It is not possible to beat the house, no matter whether you play within the rules or try to break them. The casino games cannot be beaten. And any cheats run the risk of breaking the law and, not just losing any money they made, but also getting sued.

Psychological Dangers of the Myth

Though the legends and tall tales will still persist in gambling culture. And with them, they bring more ideas or theories of how players could possibly beat the house. One of the most dangerous theories out there is the effectiveness of card counting. Or, in sports betting, the idea that arbitrage betting can guarantee wins.

Players can get the wrong idea about these so called faultproof, or risk free, strategies. It can lead to overconfidence, poor decision making, and ultimately, cause players to chase their losses aggressively.

Therefore, you should always respect the fact that these games are a gamble. Sometimes, you may win, and other times you may lose. If you ever feel stuck or frustrated, the best thing to do is take a break. Don’t allow fatigue to affect the way you play, and never fall for gambler’s fallacies such as believing in streaks or that you are due a win. Instead, practice responsibility and spend only within your means.