Games of chance verses games of skill
Basically when it comes to gambling there are only two types of games. There are games of chance and games of skill. Knowing the differences between the two types is very important to you the player. One depends totally on lady luck with little skill on the part of the player, while the other depends a great deal on the skill of the player and very little on luck. Smart, knowledgeable and professional players only play in games that have a small house edge and those that require skill. Generally speaking, skill games have the lowest house edge of all the games found in a casino. On the other hand, the novice, and uninformed will play in any and all games unaware of the high house advantage or edge. Don’t forget, just like any other business the house must charge a price to be able to stay in business; but at some casino games the price can be unreasonably high. You need to find those games and situations that allow for only a two percent or lower house advantage.
Games of chance
The first type, games of chance, include craps, roulette, slot machines, the Big 6 wheel or wheel of fortune, keno, bingo and lotteries. The analogy in determining why these are considered games of chance is this; the dice, wheel, and ball have no “memory’. What that means is what happened on the last throw of the dice or spin of the wheel has no relevance on what will happen next. Each event is totally independent and separate with no relationship from the preceding one. These games of chance depend totally on lady luck. The term used by scholars to describe games of chance is: “events of independent trials”.
Games of skill
On the other hand, when we look at games of skill, such as blackjack, video poker, regular poker, sports betting and horse racing we discover what has happened before will effect what is going to happen next; making them “events of dependent trials”. For example, if all the aces have shown up in the first round in blackjack we know no more blackjacks are possible until the deck is reshuffled. Playing perfect strategy at poker, blackjack or even video poker, will greatly increase your chances of winning the hand. Becoming a handicapper at racing will give you the best chance of betting successfully at the track. The same is true for sports betting. Lots of work has to go into learning these games of skill, however, the end result will always justify the time and effort needed. As I’ve said many times: “there is no thing as a bad player….only an untrained one”.
