Casino Myths

The world of Casino is filled with a lot of myths and this has been the case since day one. Here are a few common ones:

"Slot machines haven’t paid in ages so a big win is coming".

"A big win has just been paid so not worth using that slot".

"Free games pay out more than real cash games".

To get that house edge, all games of chance are statistically designed to earn the casino more money than it pays out to players over time. But that does not mean you cannot win, or that the odds are stacked against you.

You are just one of the thousands, if not millions of players that the casino makes money from over time. Each casino game has a Random Number Generator (known as ‘RNG’ for short) that is simulated billions of times by casinos and game developers. This guarantees an exact payback percentage (also known as Return to Player RTP) and gives every player an equal chance to win.

RNGs are also constantly checked by authorities which regulate both land-based and online casino sites

Of the many video slot machine myths out there, one of the most common is that if a slot has not paid out a win in ages, it will surely do so soon. This is the main myth that many players believe, and it simply is not true.

Slots are run by Random Number Generator’s (RNGs), and these ensure that each spin is random. Because of this, there is no saying when a game will pay. It could pay out in seconds, minutes, weeks, or years. If slot payouts could be predicted, we would all be taking advantage of this.

The next most common myth is, if a progressive jackpot slot has just been won, it is a waste of time playing it because it will not pay out again so soon? This simply isn’t the case. There are plenty of examples where a progressive game has paid out several jackpot prizes just days apart.

A common online casino myth is that the casino lets you win more when you use free bonuses, such as no deposit bonus offers. Then, when you want to wager real money, they ensure that you do not win. Given that all games (free and real money ones) use the same RNGs (random number generators), this myth is totally unfounded. 

So why do casino if these myths aren’t true and the casino will always make money, surely its just gambling?

I can completely understand that, at face value, casino offers can seem like pure gambling, since you can win as well as lose on them. However, the offers we list on Outplayed all have positive expected value (+EV) and are worth doing in the long-run, because we have the edge over the bookmaker or casino when we do them. In contrast, if you are just spinning on slots without doing an offer, this has a negative expected value and you will just lose money in the long run. The expected value comes about due to the return to player (RTP) of the slot, which is the average percentage of the amount wagered that you will win in cash.

 To give you an example of the negative value nature of genuine gambling, if you were to do £100 worth of spins on a 95% RTP slot you would, on average win £95 from these spins, and hence lose £5. For every £100 you gamble on that slot you would, on average, lose £5. You might be lucky and win £200 on one occasion, but that doesn't make gambling on the slot worthwhile. In the long-run, gambling on that slot (i.e. betting without an offer) will lose you £5 per £100 staked. This would have an EV of -£5 per £100 wagered.

In contrast, a very simple casino offer might be 'Wager £10 for £5 Cash', with the wagering to be completed on a 95% RTP slot. For the initial £10 wagering part of the offer you will, on average, lose 50p. The part where you are wagering your own cash is always -EV, whether or not you make a profit from it. However, after completing the wagering, you receive £5 in cash. Since you will have lost, on average, 50p during the initial wagering, and will then receive £5 in cash, you will, on average, make £4.50 profit from the offer, so it has an EV of +£4.50 EV, and will definitely be very much worth doing in the long run. You might lose £6 on the initial wagering and only get £5 cash, so lose £1 on the offer, or you might gain £10 on the initial wagering, and then gain the £5 cash, giving a £15 profit. However, in the long run, the offer is worth £4.50 on average. If you were to do this offer 100 times you would expect to be around £450 in profit.

If you were interested to know more about why casino offers aren't actually gambling, and why they have value, I collected some different threads about casino offers here:-

https://forum.outplayed.com/topic/77793/tip-of-the-day-27th-november-2020

 A couple of the more appropriate threads to answer your question are these ones:-

 https://forum.outplayed.com/topic/77793/tip-of-the-day-27th-november-2020

https://forum.outplayed.com/topic/66571/casino-myths-busted

Casino offers require a much different mindset due to expected variance. Simplified, casinos earn their vast profits by using a simple formula:-

 A mathematical edge X volume = profit

 We flip this round with casino offers we list as for each one WE have the edge. The mathematics are the same again:-

 We have the edge x volume of offers we complete = profit