Progressives are in no way a
“Cluck-for-the-Buck” deal
October 31,
2008
Dear Mark: Although I seldom win
anything, I do enjoy playing video keno. Is
there any advice you could give me to improve my
chances of winning? Kaye S.
The reason you seldom win anything, Kaye, is
because keno is a negative-expectation game that
has a higher casino edge than most games the
casino has to offer. On the plus side, with
video keno, the medium house advantage compared
to that in a live keno game is much lower. For a
live keno game it’s 28%, whereas with video keno
it is 7.5%.
Why lower you ask? Video keno simply has better
paytables, but that doesn’t necessarily mean
video keno is a better entertainment deal for
the evening. At $1 a ticket, the most you could
lose on a live game over an hour is about $15,
that being the average number of games called
per hour. A typical video keno player can burn
through $15 worth of quarters in mere minutes.
Which leads me to my first bit of advice. Only
bet what you can afford to lose. And just as
important, the slower you play, the less
hard-earned money you’ll put through the
shredder.
Also, Kaye, hunt for the highest-paying
paytables. Scrutinize each paytable to find
which one gives you the lowest house edge. Oh
yeah, and don’t forget to use your slot club
card to offset the losses you can, no, will,
experience on such a negative-expectation game.
As for strategy, sorry, Kaye, but like
the emperor’s new clothes, there isn’t any. The
numbers are chosen at random and each draw is
independent, so playing providential numbers you
think are lucky, or numbers you feel are "due,"
just doesn’t work. (A friend of a friend uses
the numbers out of Fortune cookies, but he
borrows bus fare to go home.)
Dear Mark: Between these three games, Three Card
Poker, Caribbean Stud and Let It Ride,
which game offers the player the best bet? Tom
G.
Although it lacks a progressive jackpot, as does
Caribbean Stud, or decent sized payoff for a
royal as in Let It Ride in a casino environment,
I would recommend of the three, Three Card
Poker, simply because the casino advantage is
lower on select bets among the three games you
mentioned.
With Caribbean Stud, the best you can hope for
is a casino edge of about 5.2% based on the
player's ante wager, or 2.6% based on the ante
and call bet. As for the progressive wager, the
average house edge is over 26%, depending, of
course, on the size of the jackpot.
As for Let it Ride, even if you played the game
flawlessly, the casino's edge on Let-It-Ride is
3.51%. And, oh! let’s keep track of those
Let-It-Ride side bets where for $1 you are
offered an additional payoff with certain paying
hands; those bets carry a double-digit casino
advantage.
As regards Three Card poker, it depends on whether
you like your cards or not; I’ll rephrase
that—on whether you should like your
cards. The house edge is 3.37% against the Ante
alone, but only 2.01% against your Queen-6-4, if
you decide to make the Play bet. With a Pair
Plus wager, the casino advantage is slightly
higher at 2.32%.
As you can see, Tom, Three Card Poker, offers
better wagers for the player, and although the
casino advantage is above my suggested “never
make a wager that has higher than a 2% house
edge,” it is tolerable, easy to learn, and
plenty of players find it fun to play.
However, you knew this was coming, didn’t you?
….You might want to think about giving
Mini-Baccarat a try, or even blackjack, using
perfect basic strategy. Each has a house edge
well under two percent, beating the bejeebers
out of all the table games mentioned above.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week: “No
matter what our character, no matter what our
behavior, no matter if we are ugly, unkind,
murderers, saints, guilty sinners, foolish, or
wise, we can get lucky.” Mario Puzo,
Inside Las Vegas (1976)
