Avoid These Bets at the Casino if You Like to Win!
When you head on down to the casino, you’re going to want to walk out a winner. We all want to walk out winners, but casinos also want to win. So, to increase their edge, casinos offer variants of games, hundreds of side bets and they even create games that give them the upper hand.
Today, we’re going to teach you which bets you should avoid playing at a casino if you like to win. While these bets can pay off under exceptional circumstances, for the average player, it’s best to skip these bets all together!
Live Keno
When we talk about live Keno, we’re on about a Keno parlor where a person gets up on stage and draws the balls live as opposed to you sat on a machine playing on a computer. The house edge in live Keno ranges anywhere between 25% and 40% depending on which bets you place. Now, if you don’t know what house edge is, simply put, it’s the edge the house has over you as a player. This means the casino has a 25-40% chance of beating you every single time you play Keno. When you compare it to the likes of blackjack that has a house edge of around 0.5%, you can see why Keno quickly becomes a bad game to play if you want to win.
The Blackjack Insurance Bet
Next up, we’ve got the insurance bet in blackjack. If you’ve read any of our blackjack guides, you will know that we can’t stress enough how idiotic is it to play this bet. The insurance bet in blackjack is only offered if the dealer shows an Ace face up, and it essentially means you will win your original stake back if the dealer has a 10 in the hole. However, in a six-deck game of blackjack, there are only 96 cards that will give you a win. That means there are 215 cards that will cause you to lose. So, unless you’re counting cards and know exactly how many 10s are in the shoe, then you’ve got a pretty good chance of losing this bet – so avoid it like the plague!
The Tie Bet in Baccarat
Baccarat is one of our favorite games thanks to its simplicity. You don’t need to learn anything in order to play baccarat. You can simply walk up to a table, place a bet on the banker, player or tie – it’s really that easy. To top it off, the house edge on banker or player bets is a little over 1%, which is a total bargain in our books. Now, the house edge for a tie bet is a little over 14%, meaning that it’s a very expensive bet to play. You can work this bet into your strategy by placing more units on the other two outcomes, but we advise against it for beginner players. Just like the blackjack insurance bet, unless you’re counting cards, it will most likely end up badly for you.
Playing 6 to 5 Blackjack
Finally, we come to the last bet that you don’t ever want to place if you like to win. While this isn’t exactly a bet, it’s an entire variant of the popular blackjack. Casinos started offering this variant for one or two deck games of blackjack to make it a bit fairer for the casino. However, many casinos have now adopted the 6 to 5 payout tables as the norm, and you will occasionally find casinos offering this payout with a six-deck shoe. The 6 to 5 refers to the amount paid out for a blackjack, and by cutting how much you get back for a blackjack, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Blackjacks are one of your chances to make money and catch up with the dealer, so don’t sell yourself short. Play at proper 3 to 2 paying tables, or don’t play blackjack at all.
There you have it, if you avoid playing these bets at casinos, you will have a better time and will more than likely walk out with money in your pockets. By avoiding these bets, you cut the house edge down and give it to yourself.
Good luck out there!