目錄
Xgtiger has written about house odds vs true casino odds before, but not in so many words. You can read about the basics of odds on this site, and you can read about the house edge. But another way of looking at these concepts is by examining the difference between payoff odds and true odds.
What are the Odds?
Odds are just one way of expressing probability. That’s a mathematical way of looking at how likely something is to happen. All probabilities are ratios between events.
Here is an example:
You flip a coin. You want to know the probability of it landing on heads.
You have 2 possible outcomes—heads or tails.
Only one of these is the outcome you want the probability of.
½ is the probability of the coin landing on heads.
That possibility can be expressed in many ways. A fraction is one way, but you can also convert that fraction to a percent (50%) or a decimal (0.50).
But this post is about the odds. How do you convert probability to odds.
You compare the number of ways it can’t happen to the number of ways it can.
In the coin flip example, this means the odds are 1 to 1, or even odds.
Here’s another example:
You roll a six-sided die. You want to know the probability of rolling a 6.
You have 6 possibilities. Only one of them is 6. The other 5 are NOT 6.
So the odds of rolling a 6 are 5 to 1.
What are House Odds?
One way of looking at house odds is in terms of the payoff for a bet. If the house pays out odds that are lower than your odds of winning the bet, over time, they will show a profit.
Here is an example:
You are in a casino that offers you a 4 to 1 payout if you bet on a number on a roll of a six-sided die. The odds of winning are 5 to 1.
You bet $1 each time, or a total of $6.
On 5 of those rolls, you lose a dollar. That’s -$5.
For 1 of those you roll, you win $4. (The bet pays 4 to 1, remember?)
$4 minus $5 results in a net loss of $1.
Of course, in the short term, you can win a few streaks or lose a few streaks. But in the long run, your actual results will start to resemble your theoretical results.
What Are Real Achievements?
The true odds are the actual odds of winning the bet. The difference between true and payoff odds is where the house gains an advantage over the players. This is how the casino makes money on a consistent basis.
Here’s another example:
You are playing roulette and place a one number bet on the number 2.
There are 38 numbers on a roulette wheel, each with an equal chance of appearing.
You have 37 ways to lose this bet and 1 way to win this bet.
The payout for this bet is 35 to 1.
The real odds for this bet are 37 to 1.
Let’s look at a theoretically perfect example where you place 38 roulette bets in a row. You win one of the bets and you get $35. But you lose $37 on another $37 bet, for a net loss of $2.
All casino games work this way. The casino pays bets less than your odds of winning the bet. Over a large enough number of trials, the casino will almost certainly make a very predictable profit for each casino game.
What is the Payback Percentage?
Another phrase that is often thrown around when discussing these types of issues is the “payback percentage”. This is a metric used to describe gambling machines. Table games are almost always discussed in terms of their “house edge”, but video poker and slots are measured by their payout percentages.
The payback percentage is simply the percentage of each bet that the casino expects to pay out in winnings over the long term. This is 100% minus the house edge.
Here is an example:
A casino in a bar in Las Vegas is programmed to have an 80% payback percentage. This means that every time you deposit a dollar, you get 80 cents back.
But that’s not literally true. You can win $2 on one spin, then win $20 on another spin, then lose 30 spins in a row.
But over time, the odds on that machine are programmed in such a way that they add up to 80 cents on the dollar.
And the long run happens in slot machines faster than you think, actually. Most slot machine players do 600 spins per hour—sometimes more.
Imagine a casino with 1000 slot machines, all getting 600 spins per hour, 24 hours per day. That’s over a million rounds a day. At that rate, the casino expects to see results very similar to the expected results.
In What Other Situations Are Achievements Used?
One of the most common uses for payoff odds versus actual odds analysis occurs in poker. This is not a casino game, and the players play against each other. Poker players use a concept called “pot odds” to help them decide whether or not to call certain bets.
Here is an example:
You are playing Texas holdem, and you have 4 cards in a flush. The odds of filling your flush are 2 to 1.
There’s $10 in the pot, and it costs you $2 to stay in the hand.
If you hit your flush and get paid, you’ve made a 5 to 1 payout.
Since your odds of winning are 2 to 1, it is profitable.
On the other hand, if the pot only had $2 in it, and you had to put in $2 to stay in the hand, the situation would be better. If you win, you get equal pay, but you have no chance of winning.
But this is one of the reasons why poker is a game where you can gain an advantage. You can fold in those situations where putting money in the pot is not profitable. All you need to do is analyze the pot odds against the probability of winning the hand and act accordingly.
Conclusion
House odds and true odds are easy to understand in online casinos. They are mainly gambling games, though. Casinos make money by paying out bets for less than the odds of winning. This is true for every bet in the casino.
Understanding how the odds work is a key step in becoming an educated gambler.
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