Spinning the Wheel

Online casinos like 32Red (who’ve racked up an impressive array of online casino awards in the process) have gone from relatively small start up operations to some of the biggest internet entertainment companies in the world in a surprisingly short time. Just a decade ago, hardly anyone had heard of an online casino, and now they’re absolutely everywhere.

The main draw of these sites is, of course, that you can win money, although they also offer the opportunity to play almost all the casino games with no risk. Poker, as the casino game with the most skill involved has become incredibly popular, because instead of playing the house you’re playing other people, and therefore skill takes over.

That’s not to say that there isn’t skill in other games, notably roulette and blackjack (two other highly popular games) but that the skill element is greatly offset by the amount of luck involved.

In all situations, a good head for numbers is important, because it all comes down to probability. If we consider that the odds of a ball landing on red are a fraction below 50% (because of the green end number), roughly 49 times out of 100 you’re going to win. Of course, on these occasions, you’d double your money meaning that in a completely even game you’d always come out 1% down (if you played for long enough).

Yet, by the same token, the odds of a completely balanced wheel producing a string of reds (for example) becomes incredibly low. For simplicity sake, we’ll say the odds of having a ball landing on red are 1/2, which means the odds of it happening twice in a row are 1/4, then 1/8 an progressively lower until the likelihood of it landing another red becomes incredibly small.

Accordingly, by calculating the odds you can increase your chance of winning, if the table has miraculously produced 5 reds in a row, it’s worth putting a bit of money on black (and if it continues producing reds, it’s worth emailing the casino and asking what’s going on). A good tip, therefore, is to stay out and watch a while, don’t play every turn, wait until a moment arrives when the odds suggest a certain colour will arrive. To gamble successfully in a casino you need to balance the risk against the potential reward, and against the amount of money you have available.

That said, at the end of the day, you should never play online casinos (or any casino) with the sole intention of making money, because eventually bad luck will clean you out, never gamble more than you’re willing to lose and always be careful with your money.