For a little bit of fun, let’s take a look at what casino (and other) games have the worst odds and Returns to Player (RTP). We will be looking at land casino games as well as some games that are played outside of the casinos.
I will try to specify whether we are talking about specific games, or general games, throughout this article! I’d also want to let readers know that the focus on this will be games that can be found in the United States, but if you know of any games elsewhere in the world with even worse RTP’s, then I’d love to hear about them in the comments!
To get an idea of just how bad (some) Roulette wheels are in the United States, we must first understand how low of a House Edge (which means high RTP) that Roulette has had historically.
With its origins in France, in fact, Roulette is derived from the word, “Roue,” which means wheel. Combined with the ending, it roughly means, “Little wheel.”
With that, it should come as no surprise that the rules typically called, “The French Rules,” as can be seen on Wizard of Odds represent the best way that the game can be played. The original game of Roulette was played with either a rule known as, “La Partage,” or a rule known as, “En Prison.” Let’s take a look at what those rules do:
La Partage- Meaning something akin to, “The share,” in French, la partage refers to the player receiving half of any Even Money wager back in Roulette if the ball lands on the 0. As we will see with, “En prison,” this applies only to Even Money bets such as Red/Black/Even/Odd/1-18/19-36 bets. Any other bet on the table would lose the full amount, so Roulette played with either the La Partage or En Prison French variations offer a lower House3 Edge on Even Money bets, specifically, 1.35135% (rounded) which represents a return to player safely over 98.5%.
En Prison-Sometimes referred to as, “Imprisonment,” in English, this is a variation of French Roulette in which a player may choose (instead of half back) simply to leave the full bet out there on a result of zero. The way this works is that the bet winning on the following spin would cause the bet to be freed and the player could choose to pick it up. So, a sequence on a player betting Red might go first spin zero, second spin red and the player gets the bet back. It’s important to note that the player does not receive any winnings when the red spin comes.
Depending on how many levels of imprisonment are permitted, the house edge can range from 1.370117% to 1.387874%.
Keep in mind, this is on SINGLE-ZERO Roulette! Even some double-zero wheels in the U.S.A. will allow La Partage (called, “Half Back”) on a result of zero or double zero.
Most Roulette wheels in the United States have 0 & 00, which operate the same way. The house edge for all bets except for the, “Basket Bet,” (0, 00, 1, 2, 3---House Edge 7.89%) half a House Edge of 5.26%, except that gets cut to 2.63% on Even Money bets on wheels that allow for half back.
TRIPLE-ZERO ROULETTE---That brings us to the positively ridiculous game of Triple-Zero Roulette, which was originally called, “Sands Roulette,” and was first offered at The Venetian, which is a Las Vegas Strip property owned by Sands Corporation.
This abomination will either have 0, 00 & 000, or might otherwise have a symbol that basically acts as 000, as is the case with the Sands logo. It’s probably appropriate that they use their logo for the third zero, since it gives a pretty good indication of what their company stands for---ripping people off.
The House Edge for this game is 7.69%, which means that money is going to disappear in a serious hurry, especially if a player is playing Even Money bets, because then they don’t even have variance working for them. If La Partage was allowed on this game, which I’ve never heard of a triple-zero Roulette game permitting, the House Edge on Even Money bets would actually be lower than standard double-zero, “American,” roulette.
For this reason, if you live in the United States, or are visiting the country and are not an advantage player, I would personally recommend boycotting any property owned by Sands Corporation since they are the ones who created this abomination.
Unfortunately, the game seems to be spreading to other Vegas casinos, and even other jurisdictions entirely, but these are the guys who started it and are most to blame.
Players who are not familiar with land casinos in the United States might be surprised to see Blackjack on this list, but here we are!
6:5 Blackjack
The first item that we will address is 6:5 Blackjack, which is now offered in an alarming number of land casinos in the United States. Normally, if a player were to bet $30 on a Blackjack hand and be dealt a natural without the dealer pushing, (by also having a natural) that player would receive $45 in winnings. The simple formula for figuring out what the pay should be is $30 * (3/2), or you could just do $30 * 1.5 = $45.
The simple formula for 6:5 Blackjack is $30 * (6/5) for a natural, which can be further broken down into $30 * 1.2 = $36 if the dealer doesn’t push. As you can see, the player making a $30 bet wins $9 fewer for each time that he or she wins with a natural.
I’m actually not too sure where this game got its official start as it seemed to appear in many properties on the Las Vegas Strip all at once a little under a decade ago. What I do know is that it was originally intended for only the lowest limit (often $5) tables, but is now offered at some properties on tables as high as $25 minimums.
The worst part is that the plague has spread outside of Las Vegas! Don’t be surprised to walk into a Local or Regional casino elsewhere in the United State to be greeted with 6:5 Blackjack.
So, is 6:5 Blackjack the worst Blackjack variation?
Nope.
Ante Blackjack
The next thing that we will address is the rarely seen Ante Blackjack. This is an unpopular variant for those who just want to get their feet wet playing low-limit, but it pops up in various casinos every now and then and usually doesn’t last long.
The way it works is that it will often have a $2 minimum, and otherwise fairly standard rules, except the player must pay an ante of $0.25 for each hand the player wants to play. In terms of House Edge, the worst thing that a player can do is bet the table minimum, because then more of your bet has become a guaranteed loss. Even ignoring the rules of the game:
.25/2.25 = 11.1111%
The player is bucking an 11.1111% House Edge (assuming a minimum bet) just by virtue of paying the $0.25 ante alone! It becomes a little higher when you add in the other rules, but the big part is the ante.
For me, I actually give ante Blackjack a little bit of a pass because some players who are new to Live Blackjack might put more of a priority and not risking very much all at one time than they will on House Edge. I also understand that it would be difficult for most casinos to offer Blackjack with $2 minimums based on House Edge alone.
Electronic Blackjack (Mostly Bartops)
Finally, we will address Electronic Blackjack, such as that found on many bartop machines. It won’t take very long for Electronic Blackjack to eventually cause a player to lose because the House Edge is high and it has relatively low variance. There are so many factors that go into the House Edge that it’s tough for me to identify the WORST electronic Blackjack game, so let’s just look at a pretty bad one I know of:
Blackjack Pays---Even Money
Split---The player may split once.
Decks---Eight
Resplit Aces---No
Hit Split Aces---No
Double After Split---No
Surrender---Yes
Double---10 or 11 Only
With all of this, the House Edge of this game would only be .90884% with Optimal Play, except for the Blackjack pays Even Money part, which adds 2.27% to the House Edge and results in a House Edge of 3.17884%.
The reason that we say, “Mainly bartops,” is because electronic dealer games, stadium blackjack or live dealer (but with electronic betting interface) blackjack is becoming more popular on casino floors across the country, but those rules tend to look closer to normal Blackjack rules.
Blackjack Side Bets
Okay, it’s really hard to pick just one, so I am going to list a few side bets that can be found in the U.S.A. with a House Edge of 10%, or greater. I’m also only including games that I recall seeing dealt at least once.
Over/Under 13
If you take the, “Under 13,” side of this side bet, then the House Edge is going to be a hair over 10% regardless of how many decks there are in the game.
Super Sevens
This is a simple sidebet where the player wins if the player’s first card is a seven. The player wins more if the player’s second card is a seven and then this bet starts looking at dealer cards. There is also a bonus is the 7’s are suited.
With six decks the House Edge would be about 12.61%, but it goes down to 10.29% if there are eight decks because suited 7’s become slightly more probable. The reason why is because removing one suited seven still leaves a higher proportion of 7’s in the deck relative to the suit than it would with only six decks.
Bet the Bust
This is a strange one in that the House Edge varies because the player gets to choose whether or not to make this bet based on the dealer’s upcard. If the casino is letting you see the dealer’s upcard before deciding whether or not to make the bet, then a savvy player will immediately know (not that a savvy player would make side bets on Blackjack to begin with without some kind of advantage) that all bets have a house edge.
Assuming the dealer hits on Soft 17, the House Edge for this side bet can range from 2.61%-20.25%, with betting on a dealer showing eight is the least bad bet and betting on a dealer showing a four is the worst.
The dealer is actually MOST likely to bust with a five or six showing, but that only pays Even Money. I saw this bet in person and it was just called, “Dealer Bust,” but it was the same thing.
Blazing 7’s
This is another one based on Player 7’s and suited Player 7’s with a special jackpot for three diamonds. There are a few things to note about this popular side bet:
1.) It comes with a progressive, so the actual RTP depends on wherever the Progressive happens to be at when you sit down and how much it costs to make the bet. I have witnessed RTP’s under 75% when the progressive was low.
2.) In some places, this side bet ends if the Dealer has a Natural Blackjack, even though the player has won the side bet with two sevens. This bet can also be played with the player’s first two cards and the dealer’s first card. When playing based on both player cards and the dealer’s first card, the player always gets to see three cards to the side bet, but when not playing that way, the player sometimes only gets two cards which just increases an already obscene house edge.
Bet the Set
The non-progressive version just pays the player if the player starts with a pair, and sometimes more if it is a suited pair. Depending on the paytable, this side bet has a house edge of over 10%.
Lucky Ladies
Once quite popular, but discovered to be highly countable, many versions of this side bet had a house edge in excess of 10%.
Royal 20’s
Finally, though this was hardly comprehensive, Royal 20’s pays on player totals of twenty, then pays even more if they are both suited or both suited face cards. An eight deck game would have a house edge of over 17.5% and it goes up from there the fewer decks there are.
It’s fairly common knowledge that Video Poker is one of the best games in the house if you are a machine player, but unfortunately, that often results in players who play Video Poker and get an expected return scarcely better than what they might get on a slot machine.
There are two reasons for this:
1.) Paytable Matters
-Even playing with Optimal Strategy, a player needs to be playing a good paytable for the best possible RTP’s. One of the better paytables for Jacks or Better, for instance, pays 9-for-1 on a Full House and 6-For-1 on a Flush and is called, “9/6 Jacks,” for short, by players in the know. This game returns 99.5439%, with optimal strategy, and can often be played profitably if casino mail offers are strong enough or if there is some other promotion going.
It can also be a low-risk high-returning game to take advantage of online casino bonuses that have a profitable expectation, but casinos are increasingly not allowing video poker. That’s why it’s important to check the Terms and Conditions, as I have mentioned here in this article.
With that said, 6/5 Jacks or Better (which pays 6-For-1 on a Full House and 5-For-1 on a Flush) only has a return of 94.9961% and is one of the worst video poker games to be found. That’s assuming Optimal Strategy, of course, and I’d bet you’d be surprised to see how much strategy between the two games differs...but you can check it out on Wizard’s Video Poker Game Analyzer, just input the different paytables and go!
That said, you’ll want to make sure everything else about the paytable is, “Normal.” On rare occasions, you might find a Royal Flush 9/6 Jacks or Better that pays 500-For-1 on a Royal Flush, regardless of how many coins you are betting. While the return-to-player is still 98.8793%, reasonably good by live Video Poker standards and even okay by online standards, it’s still lower than the, “Normal,” game and there are strategy adjustments to be made.
2.) Strategy Matters
-We hinted at it above, but there are strategy changes for different games and even different paytables in the same game! Obviously, if you are dealt 7-K-7-2-7, then you would want to hold the three 7’s on Jacks or Better, but you would want to also hold the deuce (four of a kind) if you were playing Deuces Wild. That’s one of the simplest differences I can think of and will do for the purposes of this article.
So...is 6/5 Jacks or Better the worst Video Poker game out there? You wish!
One version of Deuces and Joker Wild (an uncommon game) actually has an RTP of 93.5847%, and remember, that’s if you play every hand perfectly! Off and on, there have been other Video Poker games with a House Edge of well over 5%, but those are usually by mistake. In the case of this Deuces and Joker game, it was once a common paytable at West Virginia Video Lottery Terminal (VLT) parlors, but the Game Kings with Video Poker aren’t as common as they used to be. If you can find one, however, this game is probably on there. These also had a Deuces Wild game with a player return under 95%!
I recently did a review of Pittsburgh Live! Casino (relatively new property) and found that Video Poker returns ranged---and this is just on standard single-hand---from 94.66%-99.11%, so it’s exceptionally important to understand the differences in paytables!
If there’s one game that players would think doesn’t change much, then that game would probably be Craps. That’s mostly true for players who play the Pass Line (House Edge 1.41%) or Don’t Pass (House Edge 1.4% per bet resolved), but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad bets on the table.
Not including side bets, the worst bet is probably the, “Any Seven,” bet, which usually pays 4:1 on an event with odds of 1:6, so that should already sound terrible! It is. The House Edge of this one roll bet is 16.67%.
However, Craps also gives players the option of making what is called a, “Put Bet,” which is nothing more than a bet on the Pass Line after the point has been established. Players will sometimes place this bet after coming up to a Craps game that is already in progress. On points of 4 and 10, the house edge is 33.33% and is 20% on points of 5 and 9. Put Bets can sometimes be combined with an Odds Bet that will lower the house edge relative to the total action, but it’s usually better just to make a Place Bet on the number, or even better still, just wait for the current hand in progress to resolve and make a normal Pass Line bet.
In general, there aren’t very many side bets for Craps because the game usually has a lot of different bets going on already. The only two side bets that can be found pretty commonly are the Fire Bet and the Small, Tall, All bet.
The Fire Bet is a bet in which the player wants to establish, and make, multiple points before ever sevening out. The main rules for this bet are that sevens on the Come Out roll do not cause this bet to lose AND repeating the same point doesn’t do anything. Players must win with unique points. However, if you have established and made a point of Six, roll a six on the Come Out roll and then seven out, then that Fire Bet is ended.
Possible unique points are 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10. The Fire Bet starts paying out at either three, or four, unique points made, depending on the paytable. All paytables have a House Edge of 20%, or greater, so a Return-to-Player of under 80%.
Most Fire Bet players will only bet $1 on this bet and, by the very nature of the bet, it MUST last for at least two rolls. In fact, the only way for the bet to be over in two rolls is for the player to roll a point number and then immediately seven out. For that reason, the Fire Bet actually has a lower Expected Loss on a per roll basis (a basis commonly used to evaluate Craps bets) than does the Any Seven bet---which is always over in one roll.
The Small, Tall, All bet is a little bit different than the Fire Bet. With this bet, a player betting, “Small,” wants to roll all numbers 2-6 before rolling a Seven, a player betting, “Tall,” wants to roll all numbers 8-12 before a seven and a player betting, “All,” wants to roll every number, except seven, before rolling a seven. The House Edge of Small or Tall is over 18% and it is over 20.5% for the, “All,” bet.
Many players consider it fun to have a pseudo-jackpot type bet at the Craps Table at a relatively low risk, but what many of them don’t realize is that the same thing can be done at a lower house edge simply by making a Pass Line bet and letting your winnings, “Ride.” This is also a betting system called the, “Reverse Martingale.”
No, I am NOT saying the Reverse Martingale is a good system. As has been discussed on this site, there is no such thing as a good system. I’m simply saying that, if the goal is to make a large amount with a small amount initially risked, then you can do so at a much lower House Edge.
Three-Card Poker!? What? What has three-card poker ever done?
By itself, Three-Card Poker did nothing wrong. It’s a low-volatility game with a ridiculously simple strategy and generally low house edge. If a player’s goal is to, in the long run, lose very slowly (relative to other games) than Three-Card Poker offers just that opportunity and a very consistent slow losing experience.
The worst known version of the Three-Card Poker main game is a version where Straight Flush, Three of a Kind and Straight get paid 3-2-1, respectfully, in terms of player profits, on the Ante Bet. Even then, the House Edge is 4.28% (bad for a table game, but still better than double-zero roulette) and an Element-of-Risk (think of EoR as House Edge for the total actual amount of money bet) of 2.56%.
There are some unusual side bets out there for this game, but one common one is known as the, “Six Card Bonus,” bet, which takes the player’s three cards and the dealer’s three cards and pays based on the best five-card poker hand that can be made out of them. Starting at Three-of-a-Kind with pays going up from there, the most common paytable for this bet comes at a House Edge of 15.28%, which is a return-to-player of under 85% on this awful side bet.
Baccarat!? Doesn’t Baccarat have one of the lowest house edges in the casino, Brandon? Isn’t that and the low volatility why many online casinos will not allow players to play Baccarat if they are taking advantage of a bonus?
Yes, all of those things are true. However, Baccarat has something known as the, “Tie Bet,” and if you’ve heard of the phrase, “Diamond in the Rough,” think of this bet as finding a patch of rough in a field of diamonds.
In the case of eight decks as well as six decks, betting that the Player and Banker will tie on the result comes with a House Edge of greater than 14%.
For a game with no player decisions (other than on what to bet) that only consists of anywhere from 4-6 cards, Baccarat sure has a ridiculous number of side bets. A few of the more exotic ones have had house edges north of 20%, but many individual Baccarat side bets are restricted to just one land casino or online casino software. For that reason, I’m just going to look at a few Baccarat side bets that I have personally seen in multiple land casinos.
However, I do have to mention one that is, or was, available at the Palms Las Vegas. They had a specific Baccarat side bet where a player could bet that one total would beat some other total, and which side won didn’t even matter. Why would anyone not counting it (if it can even be counted) make this bet? I have no idea. The worst of these, “Golden Frog,” side bets was one in which a total of eight must beat a total of six, paid 25-To-1, and had a House Edge of almost 22%.
Lucky 6 is a bet by which it pays if the Banker wins with a hand total of six, it pays more if this takes three cards to accomplish than if it is done in two. The House Edge for Las Vegas rules Lucky 6 is 11.7%, but at least it’s better than the tie bet.
Bar top Baccarat? I guess that’s a thing in some places and comes with a side bet called, “Lucky Nines.” This is a bet that pays based on how many nines appear in the hand and whether or not they are suited. The House Edge is north of 19%, so stay away from that one.
As always, players would do well just to completely avoid side bets.
There have been a ridiculous number of non-Blackjack, non-Baccarat and non Three-Card Poker Table Games that have appeared in various casinos throughout the United States. Two of the historically most popular games have been Pai-Gow Poker and Let it Ride, but both of those have been kind of tapering off in favor of new additions such as Mississippi Stud and a really reasonable game (with optimal strategy) called Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em.
Even then, some games to enjoy modest success include entries such as High Card Flush, I Luv Suits and a few others.
For this section, we’re going to look at some of the more common side bets on these various games.
Casino War is a semi-popular game which is fundamentally the same as the home card game, “War.” This casino version is even more popular online than it is in land casinos, but it can still be found in several land-based locations across the country. The House Edge in this game comes from the fact that players have the choice of forfeiting half of their bet if they tie the dealer, or doing a, “Raise,” where they bet the same amount, but can only win in the amount of the raise and lose both bets if they lose.
Casino War is an extremely low-volatility game that requires no strategy and can result in players (particularly low-rollers) getting some time at table for their buck, if that’s what they value. That said, much like Baccarat, the Tie bet is TERRIBLE and has a house edge ranging from 17.83%-35.29%, which is worse the fewer the number of decks used for the game.
Asian Stud is a game analyzed by the Wizard of Odds himself and is or was semi-popular in card rooms in the Pacific Northwest, particularly Seattle area cardrooms. The base game doesn’t have that high of a House Edge, but there is a side bet based on just the player’s five-card hand with one joker in the deck that acts as wild. The most common paytable for this side bet has a house edge of 14.42%---ouch.
Let it Ride was once one of the most popular, “Carnival,” games in land casinos, but is dying a slow death. I suppose that’s fitting, since the main hook of the game is that it is very slow playing and, despite the House Edge not being great, does have some time at table value if players are concerned with that. The big offender with this game is a five-card Bonus Bet (which is odd, considering that the main game is based on your five-card hand anyway), and has a House Edge ranging from 13.77%-36.52%, depending on the paytable.
I have no idea why anyone would ever want to make that side bet! The main hook of the game is that you can take your bets back (remove up to two of three of your initial bets) if the hand doesn’t look like it’s going well, so why would you even want to make a bet that’s stuck?
Pai Gow Poker is another slow-playing game that can offer players who value time at table just that, at least, compared to some other games. It’s important to know the strategy for the game in order to ensure the full value, but given the pace of the game, even a decent player should be able to extract good time at table---and there are many pushes which slow the game down even more.
Pai Gow Poker remains more popular than Let it Ride, but is not quite considered the carnival game staple that it used to be.
The big one to often avoid on this is the Fortune Progressive bet, which can often have a House Edge in excess of 20%, depending on where the progressive meters are at.
Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em might be the best table card game ever created. This game offers an absurdly low Element-of-Risk (return to player just under 99.5%), enough variance to give players a reasonable chance of winning a, “Session,” whatever that might mean to you AND the potential for big payouts. Of course, this comes at the cost of wanting to learn an extremely solid strategy to get the most out of the game.
For example, a player, “Playing in the dark,” which means just betting without even using any strategy, will suffer a House Edge in excess of 40%!!!
This offers a six-card bonus, similar to the one mentioned above, so that side bet (and all side bets) are best avoided.
The Big Six wheel is the true definition of a carnival game in which a player will make a bet that the wheel will land on a particular section. The player will be paid whatever amount the section represents if it lands there.
The House Edge depends on the wheel and the bet, as the probabilities might vary from one Big Six Wheel to another. Some casinos have their own custom Big Six Wheels, so there’s really no way to just walk up and immediately know what you are getting. That said, the most common Big Six wheels have house edges ranging from 11% to almost 25%, depending on what the player is betting. Usually, the bigger the payout being bet upon, the higher the house edge.
What’s easier than playing the Big Six wheel would be to just wear a T-Shirt that says, “I’m a sucker.”
The return percentages for individual slot machines are often not made known in land casinos, though they are in some online casinos. For that reason, it’s difficult to point to any one slot machine and say, “This is the worst.”
That said, most penny denomination slot machines will have RTP’s of under 90%, so those are best avoided, unless they are variable state (or progressive) machines that you know you have a good reason to play.
In land casinos, usually the bigger and more state-of-the-art (sound, graphics, vibration and even 3D) the slot machine is, the worse that the return-to-player will be, with many slot machines even holding in excess of 15% of all monies bet!
Of course, high House Edge is not the only way to take a bath on slot machines. In this Wizard of Vegas Post, I took a look at some of the house edges on Atlantic City slots, listed annually and by denomination.
Anyway, what I found is that some of the common assumptions that people make are simply wrong.
One assumption might be that the highest denomination slots, such as $100/spin, have the highest returns to player. As it turns out, in Atlantic City from 2013-2019, not only were there zero years where that was true, but the $100 denomination actually had among the worst returns!!!
A possible reason for this is that all machine returns are listed by denomination, so other denominations are being improved by better RTP Video Poker machines, which won’t be the case with $100 slots.
Still, many players probably think, “Well, if I’m betting $100 per spin, surely the casino can afford to give me a 99% return, right? After all, that IS a lot of money for one spin that takes five seconds!” The part I agree with is that is a lot of money.
For the most recent year, 2019, the $100 denomination held (won) 8.5% of all monies bet by the players. For every $100 spin taken, the average player lost $8.50...so whatever the returns on other denominations might be, in terms of loss per spin, $100 players have a greater expected loss per spin than the total amount that the majority of other players are even wagering in the first place!
Keno is kind of an unusual entry because it is one of the few games where the, “Video,” version tends to be much better than the live drawing version. The opposite tends to be true for a game like Blackjack, for one example.
The Las Vegas Live Keno survey on Wizard of Odds is quite dated, to wit, a few of the casinos don’t exist anymore, but the House Edges are almost universally 20% (80% or less RTP) or higher based on the nine-spot games. My own findings in Las Vegas are generally consistent with those findings with The D being the only casino I observed that (in 2015, anyway) offered Live Keno returns north of 80%.
Wizard did the same survey in Laughlin several years later (but, this time for Pick 10) and the House Edge was universally 25%, or more, for Live Keno.
That said, Live Keno is a very slow-playing game. In my comprehensive review of The D (both in 2014 and 2015), I found that the Live Keno returns were very close to, or just north of, 80% back to the player. Additionally, The D had a set of ten cards that could be purchased for $0.40 each at the time, for a total purchase price of $4.00 that were good for ten drawings, which took about a half hour. If you were watching Live Keno drawings, then the TV’s for sports were also in that section at the time, so you could basically get free drinks and sit there for an expected loss of not even one dollar each half hour.
I don’t know if you can still do this at such a cheap cost, but if you can and the pace of the game wouldn’t bore you, then that’s some serious value.
Lottery Keno
Keno is also offered through many state lotteries via ongoing drawings that happen throughout the day. West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania an California (as well as others) offer this game. The way it works is that players can purchase their tickets, either from an agent or from a machine, and the place will usually have a closed circuit TV that broadcasts the (usually electronic) drawings.
I’m going to compare the Five-Sport Returns to Player for three states just to give you an idea:
Pennsylvania: 63.947%
West Virginia: 60.723%
Ohio: 64.995%
In all three cases, the returns are terrible, as they will be for lottery Keno games in most states.
Online Casino Keno
There are probably a few exceptions, but for some reason, where slot and video poker returns are generally better than average for online casinos, they tend to be worse for video keno games. I have no idea why that should be the case, but House Edges are (generally) 15%, or higher.
When it comes to land casino Video Keno, most House Edges live somewhere in the 10% region, plus or minus anywhere up to 5%. There might be some exceptions. One big exception is that straight Video Keno games with big progressives tend to have a base paytable in the 20% House Edge range.
The safest thing to do is just to stay away from Keno, in general, but make sure that you know what you’re getting if you are going to play it.
It should come as no surprise that many carnivals, and particularly to my recollection years ago, have offered semi-legal or even illegal forms of gambling. For your enjoyment, I present two such games here:
The Seven Game is what I am calling it and is a game where a player simply bets on, “Under 7,” “Over 7,” or “7.” The way that this game worked is that two dice would be set up on a platform with a piece of wood blocking them. When players made their bets, the carnival worker would pull out the piece of wood and the dice would tumble down the chute.
If you bet either Under 7 or Over 7, then your probability of winning was 15/36 and the bet paid Even Money, compared to the 21/36 probability of losing, the House Edge was 16.67%.
Players betting on the Seven would only be paid 3-To-1 (GASP!) which would result in a House Edge of 33.33%! Of course, that’s twice as bad as the, “Any Seven,” bet on Craps.
Under/Over 8: Another one that I remember was the Under/Over 8 Card Game. The way this game worked is that there would be a deck of cards and a player could bet on Under 8 (2,3,4,5,6 or 7), Over 8 (9, 10, J, Q, K, A) or on the 8.
If the player won on the Over or Under bet, then the player would be paid Even Money. The probability of winning was 24/52, which makes the probability of losing 28/52 for a House Edge of 7.69%---which probably isn’t that bad for a literal game at a carnival.
The big house edge would come on the bet ON the 8, where players would only win 10 units on a 4/52 probability of winning as opposed to a 48/52 probability of losing. The House Edge of that is more than 15.38%!
It was also highly suspected that the carnival worker would stack the deck based on where the bets were going!
The worst players would reason that they could simply bet Under (or Over) 8 as well as also betting on the 8 hoping for that big $10. Their thinking was that they would still profit $9 if the eight came out and that they would essentially breakeven if the Under hit. What was really happening is that they were just making two bets with a big House Edge instead of one.
Inevitably, when the game would slow down, there would be one player sitting there betting whatever the maximum was and just winning hand after hand after hand, whooping it up and trying to draw more people to play. Was he just the luckiest guy at the carnival that day, or was he a carnival employee? What do you think?
Most states in the United States (but not all) have authorized one form of gambling or another for charitable purposes.
50/50 Raffles do what they say on the box. 50% of the ticket sales go to the organization and the other half either goes to the winner, or is split amongst multiple winners. That said, I see no harm buying these tickets as they typically go to a good cause...just think of it as making a donation.
Charitable Bingo is another example of a game that could be a terrible gamble, but it isn’t always. There are usually various progressive prizes that accumulate, so some of the value depends on how high those are for the session. The biggest contributor to your return-to-player is going to be probability, which is mainly decided by how many cards are being played for a particular Bingo Game, or series of games. It’s for that reason that these Bingo events are often called off if not enough players show up---the house would end up giving money away.
Assuming everyone plays perfectly, (which means they don’t miss numbers) then suppose a particular drawing had ten cards in play and a prize of $25. The expected return for each card would be $2.50, so the House Edge (or Player Edge!) would just depend on how much that individual card cost, or in the case of card packs, what the total of the prizes to be won is versus the number of cards in play for each drawing versus how much you paid for the pack.
Generally speaking, I would expect to see a House Edge of about 20%, or so. In terms of individual sessions, I’ve observed individual sessions where the House Advantage could be presumed to be as high as 40% and others (decent jackpot drawings and not many players) where players could enjoy an advantage as high as 25% if each player only purchased one card for each drawing.
Generally speaking, the more that you can win relative to your bet by bet type, the greater the juice that’s going to be working against you. This report from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission for Fiscal Year 2019 is illuminating.
We’ll start with on-track handle (bets made) of 103,324,490 for the year against return to public of 82,841,992 for a RTP (return to punter) percentage of 80.177%. That’s pretty bad overall, but keep in mind that straight bets to win are going to have a lower juice than this and exotic bets tend to have much more juice.
That said, the percentages don’t differ as much as you might think and will only be (generally speaking) +/- 5% of that average based on wager type.
With that, I think we have covered some of the worst wagers that can be found in the United States. Did I miss any? Let me know in the comments!