From the astounding poker wins to mind-bending jackpots in progressive games, the history of gambling knows hundreds of rags-to-riches stories. But are there any chances to outplay the casino in the long run, or is a sudden stroke of luck the only hope?

Neither we’re naive nor want to mislead you. Of course, it’s absolutely impossible to outsmart the casino in the long haul – otherwise, casinos would have long gone bankrupt – but there are still a few jokers you can pull out of the sleeve when playing in land-based casinos and online.

Random Number Generator and RPT

Whether we’re talking about the biggest brick-and-mortar Vegas casinos or online platforms like Сasinoeuro, about half the games – that is, all slots and against-the-machine games – are governed by the Random Number Generator, which is a computer program that generates random outcomes.  

So what you should know about the RNG?

  • First of all, since it does require an initial input, it can be hacked, and therefore you should choose only casinos with verified RNGs – which you can do by making sure the casino you’re going to play has seals of approval by eCOGRA or an independent software agency alike.
  • Secondly, any RNG generates outcomes ALWAYS in favor of the casino in the long haul. For example, a slot with an RTP rate of 98% would return you 98% of the money wagered on it if you played it for an unlimited amount of time. In reality, though, your actual RPT may vary from 0% to thousands and even millions % depending on your luck – and that is actually good because if the RPT were static, there would be no chance to win at all.

Conclusion: the higher RTP, the better, but there are no games that would offer an RPT of over 100%, which is why there’s no way to outplay the casino in the RNG-based game in the long-term perspective.

House Edge

You might have heard the expression ‘the house always wins.’ Well, here comes the other most important parameter of casino games: House Edge, which is the advantage of the casino over the player depending on the bet of the latter.

At its core, House Edge is just the same as RPT as both indicate the casino’s advantage. For example, a House Edge of 2.7% means that on average, players lose 2.7% of the money on each bet, which equals an RPT of 97.3%.

Conclusion: the lower the Hose Edge, the better, but there are no games with a zero House Edge, which means the casino will always have an advantage over the player. The games with the lowest possible House Edge are Video Poker (0.5%), Craps (1.4%), Blackjack (1.5%), and Three-Card Poker (1.5%).

Exploiting the Vulnerabilities of Land-Based Casinos

As sad and discouraging as it is, there’s no chance to outperform an online casino. BUT you can try your luck in a brick-and-mortar casino by capitalizing on the following vulnerabilities:

  • Inexperienced/exhausted dealers. That might sound surreal, but sometimes clumsy dealers make horrible mistakes, such as, for example, inadvertently facing the face-down card in Blackjack. For a true gambling aficionado, it won’t be hard to keep a record of newbie dealers and exploit it heavily. By the way, the ‘card holing’ trick gives you an advantage of up to 9%.
  • Damaged roulette wheels. Yet another unimaginable scenario that does happen from time to time with land-based casinos. Unlike online roulette, real roulette wheels slightly lose balance with time, which leads to ‘hot’ numbers. The worse the state of the wheel, the more frequently the ‘hot’ numbers play out.

Conclusion: there’s a minuscule chance to outperform a land-based casino, but that requires unprecedented patience and determination, let alone perfect gambling skills.

Exploiting Casino Bonuses

Finally, there’s good news for you: no matter the technical supremacy of online casinos, many of them do provide free bonuses, and that’s your biggest chance to beat the game without spending a dime on it.

There’s only one type of bonuses that would allow you this, though: no-deposit bonuses, which provide you with small amounts of money – up to a few dozen dollars – while not requiring anything from your pocket. However, most casinos will require you to complete the wagering requirements before allowing you to withdraw your no-deposit bonus – which makes it harder, but not impossible.

Conclusion: no-deposit bonuses are the only chance to win money with no risk at all, but the odds of that happening are against you all the same.