When you engage in a game of online roulette, you are trying to overcome one factor and one factor only, and that is the house edge. It should be no shocker that the casino has a built-in advantage in this game, because that is naturally the way in which it continues to exist and serve customers.
What exactly IS the house edge? Well, very simply put, it constitutes the difference between what the casino collects from you in the way of a wager and what it pays out to you in the event you win. You could probably refer to it as the “vig” or the “vigorish.” You’ll probably hear that expression more when it refers to what sports bookmakers do. The customer lays 11-to-10 on many sporting events. It becomes the losers who are paying that “vig” out.
The reason that the house edge is relative to the original wager, not the average wager, is that it makes it easier for the player to estimate how much they will lose. For example if a player knows the house edge in blackjack is 0.6% he can assume that for every $10 wager original wager he makes he will lose 6 cents on the average. Most players are not going to know how much their average wager will be in games like blackjack relative to the original wager, thus any statistic based on the average wager would be difficult to apply to real life questions.
The conventional definition can be helpful for players determine how much it will cost them to play, given the information they already know. However the statistic is very biased as a measure of risk. In Caribbean stud poker, for example, the house edge is 5.22%, which is close to that of double zero roulette at 5.26%. However the ratio of average money lost to average money wagered in Carribean stud is only 2.56%. The player only looking at the house edge may be indifferent between roulette and Caribbean stud poker, based only the house edge. If one wants to compare one game against another I believe it is better to look at the ratio of money lost to money wagered, which would show Caribbean stud poker to be a much better gamble than roulette.
Many people think they understand the how the house edge works, but it’s surprising how many fail to grasp the real concept of the house edge. The advantage enjoyed by the house is not experienced when you lose but really when you win, or rather the returns you make on your winnings. For instance – if you placed a single chip on every single number on a roulette wheel, you’d spend $38 to cover all the numbers. Of course your number would be bound to come up and you’d receive the odds of 35-1, that is you’d get $35 dollars back plus your stake – a $2 dollar loss. Here’s a perfect example of the house edge in action, the odds you receive are not reflective of the true odds and why a casino will always win in the long run.