Odds Guide

Odds can be quite confusing to understand and to make use of when you first start gambling online or at casinos, and you don’t necessarily have to understand how they are derived, or even be able to come up with them on your own while you play a game, you just have to take the time to learn more about odds and figure out how to use what you remember about them to your advantage as you play.

That means sticking with the banker bet in baccarat, playing at specific pokies casinos and avoiding a flush draw when the pot size isn’t large enough. You’ll have to study the odds of the specific game a bit before you begin to recall important information as you play, but once you have it committed to memory winning will be easier to do.

Why You Need to Know Odds

Make better betting decisions
Pick out more favourable games to play
Pick and choose the best casinos
Choose the best game variants

Pokies

While playing pokies games you’ll generally have to deal with a house edge of between 5% and 15% depending on the game and the location you are playing at. That means every AU $100 that you bet, you’ll get back approximately AU $85 – AU $95. The best way to improve your odds while playing these games is to pick out the casino and pokies game that offers the best odds overall.

While playing this game you should bet the maximum amount that you can and also use as many betlines as possible. This maximizes your chances to win prizes because many of the bonus games and special jackpots simply don’t unlock unless you are betting this maximum amount.

Poker

Poker odds are much more difficult to predict than in other games because a lot of it comes down to skill and the other players that are around you. There are always going to be pot odds when you play a hand of cards, and they will determine the moves that you should make as you play. To figure out whether you should call that next bet or not, you need to calculate your total outs and your odds of winning.

If you have two hearts in your hand, and there are two others laid down on the table, you have 9 potential outs that could get you a flush. That’s because there are 9 other heart cards somewhere in that deck of cards that you don’t know about. There are 9 outs available overall out of a possible 52 cards. But when you subtract the two cards in your hand and the three cards on the table from that figure you have 47 possible cards. Now remove the 9 remaining outs and you have 38 cards that will keep you from losing the hand if they are flipped over. Your odds of making a flush hand for the next turn is 9:38 or around 1:4. That means that the pot out on the table must be worth at least four times your current bet for it to be worthwhile, otherwise you should fold your hand in most instances.

That’s how you have to play poker in order to win effectively, but of course you should bluff now and again to keep your opponents on their toes as well.

Roulette

When it comes to calculating odds for games, roulette is one of the simplest. We’ll take a quick look at both American and European roulette to show you the difference.

American roulette has a 0 and 00 space, while European roulette has just a 0 space. When prizes are paid out for this game the 0 and 00 spaces are not factored into the total prize amount paid out. While there are 38 total spaces in American roulette and 37 spaces in European roulette, a single number only pays out 35 times your bet amount. That means you’re losing out quite a bit on the American variation since you’ll win once every 38 times approximately, but your odds are better with European and you’ll win once every 37 spins on average.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the payout for some of the different bet types in roulette.

Odd – 1:1
Even – 1:1
Black – 1:1
Red – 1:1
1-18 – 1:1
19-36 – 1:1
One Number – 35:1
Two Numbers – 17:1
Three Numbers – 11:1

Blackjack

In blackjack the main advantage that a dealer has is that he will collect money anytime that the player goes bust, even if he would have gone bust himself as well. That means you must do your best to never go bust if it can be helped. Anytime the dealer has a turned up value of between 2 and 6 it makes sense to stick with any value of 12 or over because the dealer has good odds of going bust.

The dealer has a 30 per cent chance of having a hole card worth 10. That’s the most likely scenario each and every time that you play a hand, so you should assume that the card is going to be a 10 more often than not.

When the dealer has a upturned card greater than 6 or you must try to make a stronger hand whenever you’re less than 10 over the dealer’s upturned card. For instance, if the dealer has a 7 and you’re currently at a 15, it makes sense to try for a small card because the dealer has very good odds of turning over a 10 that will win him the hand. When the dealer has a 7, 8, or 9 you should always take another card unless you have a 17 or greater.

Baccarat

In baccarat there are only three different decisions that a player can make, to bet on himself, the banker or a tie. A player bet has a 49.32% chance of winning, a dealer bet has a 50.68% chance of winning, and a tie has just a 9.55% chance of becoming a winner. With a payout of just 8:1 for winning a tie it’s not worth placing the bet at all and gives the house a 14.4% advantage when you do.

In baccarat a banker bet has a house edge of just 1.17% and a player bet has an edge of 1.36%, meaning that it makes the most sense to bet on a banker each and every time that you play the game.

Odds Terms

Pot Odds – The odds that you’ll get the cards you need to win a hand, compared to how much money is already in the pot for the given hand. The higher the pot amount is, the more you can risk to win that pot.

House Edge – The per cent chance a casino will win more money than it loses for a specific game.

Outs – The possible cards that you could get to win you the current hand. Having more outs is a good thing and it means you are more likely to win money.

Calculating odds as you play games is quite difficult and often doesn’t make sense to do unless you’re playing poker, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be familiar with the odds and rely on known odds to help you make decisions in games like blackjack or baccarat.