Why Does the House Always Win? A Look at Casino Profitability
There’s one certainty in gambling: Nothing is left to chance. In the end, the house always comes out the winner. A casino is a business, not a charitable organization throwing free money away.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A casino has a number of built-in advantages to ensure that it, and not its customers, will always win in the end.
- These advantages, known as the “house edge,” represent the average gross profit that the casino expects to make from each game.
- The longer you play, the greater the odds are that the result of your play will match up with the house edge—and that you will lose money.
The House Edge
No matter what game you choose to play, the odds of the casino winning your money are greater than the odds of you winning the casino’s money. That’s because all casino games are designed to provide the house with a built-in edge, diminishing the chances and sizes of potential payouts.
For example, a roulette wheel is numbered from one to 36, so you might think this puts the odds for winning a single number bet at 36 to one. However, roulette wheels also have a zero, and sometimes they have a double zero and even a triple zero. The actual odds of winning are thus 37 to one, 38 to one, or 39 to one, not 36 to one.
The house edge, which is the odds advantage in the casino’s favor, represents the average gross profit that the casino can reliably expect to make from each game. On the games with the lowest house edge, a casino might be generating a meager profit of anywhere from around 0.5% to a bit over 2%. On other games, it may make profits of anywhere from 15% to 40%.
The casino isn’t aiming to bankrupt a player in one sitting. The goal is to give the player hope, keep them coming back, and over the long run gradually empty their pockets.
