The Five Best Casino Bets with Syndicated Gaming Writer John Grochowski • The Jackpot Gents

Hi and welcome to our series of. educational videos that are designed to make you a smarter, gambler my name is Steve Bourie and I'm the author of the American casino guide which is the number one bestselling book in the US on the subject of casino gambling and travel and the only book that comes with more. than one thousand dollars in casino coupons including free rooms free food free. shows free gambling money and much much more if you want to know. more about me or my book be sure to visit my website at americancasinoguide.com in this video we'll be hearing, from nationally-syndicated gaming writer John Grochowski will be giving us his list of the five. best bets you can find in a casino besides his gaming column john also has. written five books about casino gambling including the very popular slot machine, answer book john has appeared on three Travel Channel specials about casino gambling and he also writes monthly articles for several gaming related magazines Now before we start I need to explain that, john will only be talking about games that can be. found on the main casino floor that means he's not including sports, betting or race betting where it's possible for a good enough, handicapper to get an edge and he's also not including live poker, where you can have an edge if you're the best at the table but your edge is dependent on the skill of, the other players so with that in mind here's john Grochowski with his list of the five best bets you can find in a casino Number five on our list best casino. games is a game I often called the best no brainer bet. the casino and that's baccarat baccarat takes no skill to play whatsoever it is a simple guessing game you are betting on which hand you think. will wind up closer to a total of nine the player hand or the banker hand don't be fooled by the name so you don't get your own hand there are just two hands that are dealt one is designated player, one is designated banker if you bet on banker and you win you pay the house a commission of 5, percent which is where the house gets its edge on, the banker bet. Banker bet wins more ofthen than the player bet if there was no commission then you would have a edge and the casino's not going to do that.. However as it is the house edge is very small on that bet it's only 1.06 percent for a bet that has no. strategy you don't have to learn anything the cards are dealt according to a formula that is a very very good bet on the flip side of that the player bet is also a very very good bet it is a 1.24 percent house edge Again a low house edge, it takes no skill whatsoever to make it this guessing game is a good, one for players it is why this game is a very popular game with high rollers If you look in the high limit rooms at many casinos you'll find a big baccarat player and that is where a lot of the big money in. casinos is actually wagered number four on our list of good casino, games the best casino games on the main casino floor is video poker now there's a lot of. variability in video poker video poker has some great games that are some the best games the casino games on which it is possible for an expert player to get an edge a good edge deuces wild in its full pay version but these days you see them in local, places in Nevada and really not much of anywhere else Full pay deuces wild with expert play, returns to the player 100.8 percent the player has an eight tenths of a percent edge on the game it's a great great bet we have a game called 10/7/5 double bonus poker and the 10 refers to a 10 for 1 payoff on a full. house the others refer to the payoffs on flushes and straights that is a. 100.17 percent game with expert play if all video poker games were like that if they all had theoretical percentages over a hundred percent video poker would rank a lot higher on the list however in many jurisdictions you don't. find the 100 percent games at all and even, in Nevada they're becoming increasingly rare especially on the Las Vegas Strip, we just don't see those games anymore like we once did It takes some study it takes some. work training software is essential if you're going to learn to play video poker at that level but. for an average player one thing you do wanna watch out for are the payoffs on full houses and flushes Every unit that a full house or flush is taken down because that's where casinos change the pay tables in order, to decrease the payback percentages each unit that those are taken down cost. you about 1.1 percent so we have a game that's called 9/6 jacks,

or better and it doesn't say that on the machine it just says jacks or better on a machine you have to look at the pay table to see that full houses are paying 9 for, one fulshes are for six for one that's why, players call it 9/6 jacks or better with expert play that pays players 99 and a. half-percent If as is fairly common that 9/6 was taken down to 8/5 8 for 1 on full houses 5 for 1 on flushes we're losing 2.2 percent of. our payback 1.1 percent on each of those hands which takes the overall payback, percentage with expert play to 97.3 percent so watch out for those games look around the casino and choose the best version of the game that's available in that. casino Now I mention that some video poker games can pay over 100 percent if you play at an expert level there are some that pay ninety-five, percent ninety-four percent even lower even if you play at an expert level and with those games the expert play is not to play them but you do have to watch those pay, tables making sure that you get the best version of the game is available to you Third on our list of the five best casino bets are the good bets at craps Now craps has good bets and bad bets and a lot in between you have to understand. what you're getting into when you make a craps bet There are all kinds of different house edges on the different, bets in craps two of the good ones are pass and come and their opposites don't pass and don't come which if you leave them alone and. just make those bets the house edge is 1.41 percent on pass or come and 1.36 percent on don't pass or don't come Now one of the big advantages in craps at making those pass and come bets are the ability to back the bets with what are called free odds you can once a point is established, once the. shooter has established a point number you can back your original pass bet with, a free odds wager and that wager is paid at true odds for example if you have, five dollars on the pass line shooter rolls a 6 that becomes your point. number now you can back that with free odds, let's just use single odds as an example now you back it with an amount that's equal to your wager and then if the shooter then rolls another six before rolling a 7 you win both your pass bet and the free, odds bet your pass bet, your five-dollar pass bet wins five dollars your five-dollar free, odds bet win six dollars because the odds of. winning that wager are 6-5 against you So the combination has a lower house, edge than the 1.41 percent we talked about as a house edge on pass and come with single odds betting that equal, amount it drops to 0.8 percent casinos that allow double odds it. drops to 0.6 percent and it keeps dropping We see some casinos today that offer 100 times odds if you have a five dollar pass bet you can back that with five hundred dollars in odds a hundred times the amount of your bet and that drops the house edge all the. way down to two hundredths of a percent Now some people will say well that's a, better bet than blackjack for a basic strategy. player and it is if you're sufficiently bankrolled and you know how to use the odds and you can afford to bet five hundred and five dollars at once Okay there is that however for an average player work were talking more of a house edge that gets under one, percent but not all the way down into the hundredths of a percent. There's another bet in craps that deserves to be on this list we're kinda running a combination here this would be a little lower on the list if we took it. by itself but this is a place bet on six or a place, bet on 8 House edge on this is 1.52 percent so it's a very good bet not quite as good as the best bet in craps but still one of the better bets in the casino. One thing to watch out for with those place bets on six and 8 in craps is that you bet in multiples of six dollars because that wager pays you at 7-6 odds True odds are 6-5 this gives you 7-6 that's the 1.52 percent house edge is the difference these If you don't bet in a multiple of. six dollars if you bet five dollars instead the house is only going to give you five, dollars you don't get that 7-6 payoff so you want to be sure to bet in multiples of six dollars One last, thing to mention before we leave craps is that for the select few who practice, a method of dice control it is possible to get an edge on the, game I know people who do it the people who do it are not trying to, hit number specific numbers and every time the main thing is to depress the number sevens it's difficult it is a physical skill that has to be practiced and practiced and practiced we're, not going to dwell on this a great deal but if everybody could do this then

this would be our number one bet but it's something that very few people. can actually do Our number two game on our list of good casino bets is blackjack for a basic strategy player basic strategy has been with us since the 1950s when it was devised by an early computerized team a team from the US army mathematicians and blacjack basic strategy has been refined over. the years you can find charts anywhere nowadays that will tell you what your. best play is it will specify every possible, combination of your cards and the dealers face-up. card and tell you for example that if you have a 16 and the dealer has a 7 face up your best play is to hit Now if you take. all that into account memorize the chart practice the game learn your basic strategy and play with that method you cut the house edge in a six deck game with, average rules down to about half a percent or so That means in the long run you expect to lose about 50 cents out of every hundred dollars you wager Sometimes you're going to win sometimes you're going to lose but in the long run you're going to lose about 50 cents per, hundred dollars wagered Blackjack has a mix and match, set of rules and not all games are created equal even for, a basic strategy player A single deck game if all other rules. are equal is a better game for the player than a double deck game in fact in, the when I first started coming to Las. Vegas in the 1980s we used to be able to get single deck games in which the dealer stood on all 17s and it was a game that was an even game. if you learned your basic strategy it wasn't a half percent house edge it was an even game we don't really see that much anymore, and certainly not on the Las Vegas Strip other games if it's eight decks that increases the house edge a little bit. there are things like does the dealer stand on all seventeens does the dealer hits soft 17 an ace and a six for, instance or ace, 2, 4 it is better for the player if the, dealer stands on all 17s and that makes a difference of almost two tenths of a percent in the house edge So there's all these mix and match sets of. rules that an informed player learns along with basic strategy but we certainly can say that a player who learns basic strategy is much better off. than an average player who doesn't by quite a bit and we talked about a. half percent or so edge in a six deck game an average player who does not know basic strategy faces a house edge of more like two to. two and a half percent so insteas of that fifty cents per hundred dollars wagered they're losing two to two and a half dollars per hundred dollars wagered and that makes a difference that's why we have blackjack for basic strategy here on our top five list and we do. not have blackjack for an average player And number one on our list of the best bets in the casino is blackjack for a card counter Now. blackjack for a card counter is a game where it's possible for the player to get an edge on the. house it's possible to make money at this game and the reason it works the reason card, counting works is because you are raising and lower. your bets as the proportion of high cars to low cards, from the deck changes when there's a greater proportion of. high cards remaining to be played in the deck that means that there will be, more blackjacks more Blackjacks favor the player because, the player is getting paid three to two on his blackjacks unless he's playing an awful 6-5 game that he shouldn't be playing and the dealer does, not get paid 3-2 on Blackjacks also when there's a greater proportion of high cards your double downs will play truer if you have about six and five for a. total of eleven and there's a greater proportion of high cards, remaining to be played you will get that 10 to complete your 21 more often so that's why card counting works, you raise. your bets when the proportion of high cards remaining in the, deck is high and you lower your bets when the proportion of low cards remaining in the deck is high. Low cards favor the dealer If you want to know more about me you can look on my website casinoanswerman.com I write a weekly column that goes out to newspapers and web sites One place you can find that is, called casino city times I write for number of magazines including, casino player, Midwest Gaming and Travel, casino journal, slot manager,, strictly slots and I've written six books on gaming, including the casino answer book the slot machine answer book and the video poker answer book Don't forget that you can see more of our educational gaming videos on our YouTube channel just go to youtube.com/americancasinoguide.