How to Improve Your Odds of Winning When Gambling – 15 Ways to Boost Your Chances

Casino games are all about probabilities, but we use that term loosely.

In reality, a probability table is not a very helpful tool for most gamblers. That is because probabilities feel too much like predictions, and when you base your decisions on your belief that the probability table favors you, your decisions are flawed. There may be only 1 low card left in the shoe, but no probability table can tell you whether that is the next card waiting to be drawn.

Casinos win because they play against everyone or take a commission and stand aside while the players devour each other. But in most games, the casinos play against the crowd, and they count on the small percentage of the large gullibility of people.

And we gamblers are gullible, superstitious people who will believe anything.

If you truly want to improve your chances of winning at the casino, check out the tips below.

The first thing you should do is take a gambling course. Anyone who is looking to start winning in the casino needs to know the ins and outs of what game they are playing.

You’ll have difficulty winning in the casino if you simply walk up to a table and throw all your money down. One of the best ways to improve your odds of winning at gambling is to avoid user errors.

Let’s say that a certain casino game gives you a 50% chance of winning. That means by playing perfectly; you’ll win about half of the time. If you don’t play the right way, you could reduce your chances of winning to around 35% by making small mistakes.

You don’t have to be a mathematician to understand that a 35% chance of winning will have you on your way home empty-handed in just a few games. If the casino gives you a 50% chance of winning, it’s up to you to maintain that 50% chance every turn.

Take the time to learn the game on an expert level, and you’ll start winning at casinos.

If you’re looking to start winning in gambling, chances are, you’re not an expert right now. Everyone starts somewhere; you’ll never become an expert if you don’t try. You’ll experience some growing pains as a gambler, but it’s all a part of the journey.

That said, there’s always going to be someone better than you. There’s also going to be someone who is worse. The trick is to play against the people you’re better than and avoid those who have more experience.

As I said, user error is a big issue for inexperienced gamblers. Not playing a certain game the right way will decrease your chances of winning. Playing at a table of novices will make for a profitable time if you play your cards right.

I would steer clear of playing at tables with experienced poker players. Instead of playing in their game, I would much rather examine and learn from their styles. You’ll naturally become better by examining their playing styles and decision-making skills.

If you’re looking for how to improve your odds of winning in the casino, start with facing inferior opponents.

This is not a betting syndicate. A betting syndicate is more than a betting pool. With a betting pool, you and your friends choose a designated player for each game.

You’re each risking a smaller percentage of your money.  You split the winnings after each game and automatically share the losses.

We’ll get to that further on, but whenever you gamble, as the Star Wars Jedi says, eventually, you lose. So your goal when you gamble is to survive as many losses as possible until you get a big win.

The more money you have to gamble with, the more losses you can survive.

This is counter-intuitive to everything you have learned about gambling, but we’re not talking about picking 10 numbers in real money keno.

The math in lottery-style games is pretty simple: the larger the payoff you’re chasing, the more expensive it is to play that game.

That is why you don’t want to bet on a single number in roulette. The big payoff sounds great when it happens, but getting to the big payoff is expensive (except on those rare occasions when Lucille Ball puts a chip on the roulette table and instantly wins).

Poker comes to mind. The more players there are in the game, the faster the pot grows. Assuming the betting doesn’t get crazy, you should be able to stay in the game long enough to win a nice pot.

Slot machine games also have a big bet to win ratio. But so many people lose their money on slot machine games no “serious” gambler wants to play them.

Blackjack also has a terrible win-to-bet ratio. The most you can win is 50% of your bet. That is 0.5 in return on investment. A $5 slot machine that pays a $5000 jackpot offers 1000 in return on investment.

So, you can bet $5 per hand at blackjack, hoping to rake in $2.50 every hand (which is not going to happen) or bet $5 on a slot machine, hoping to win that $5000 jackpot before you’ve blown through $5000 (and sometimes that does happen).

You will have noticed something by now that we’ll call perspective in the timeline, but we’ll come back to this in option 15.

More than one gambling expert has pointed out the fact that casinos don’t like windows, don’t allow you to use your smartphones at the table, and generally do whatever they can to keep you playing your games.

They’ll bring you food and drinks and may even cash out your chips for you. They would go to the restroom for you if they could.

You settle into a mental fog and lose awareness of what is happening around you. Some people have been robbed in casinos merely by leaving their money in plain sight and allowing themselves to become mesmerized by the game. The casino security system might catch the theft on video, but the chances that they can prevent or recover your stolen money are not very good.

When you stop playing the games, walk around, go outside, or do something other than obsess about how you will win, your mind can relax and reset.

Your judgment improves, and you can assess where you are in your list of goals. If you just keep playing the game, you take more risks, become more desperate to recover your losses, and make worse and worse decisions.

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Earlier, I mentioned that you’d start winning at gambling by playing against inferior opponents. Well, another way to boost your chances of winning at casinos is to play a less experienced dealer.

This is great when you recognize that one dealer is less polished than the others nearby, but it doesn’t always happen. Worse, any dealer who doesn’t quickly improve their game probably won’t last long.

Top Tip

Watch the tables for a while and pay attention to how often the players win and lose.

If a dealer seems to be really hot or lucky, maybe he’s not so hot or lucky. Maybe he’s just a really good dealer.

That’s not supposed to happen, but you do hear stories. And when you see player after player lose their money at the same table, you should be asking how the dealer is “beating the probabilities” so consistently.

The secret to playing less experienced dealers is that they are prone to making more mistakes. Mistakes take the edge off your game. Casinos count on players making mistakes, and they set their rules to minimize the potential for mistakes by their employees.

Gamblers most likely to make money against less experienced dealers may not be playing honestly. But this is an option for improving your chances of winning.

Whether you count cards or just try to play by the probabilities at blackjack, your chances of making good choices improve when it is just you against the dealer.

Casinos don’t like to see dealers playing one-on-one against the players, and they may close tables if there are too few players. The casino’s biggest advantage in a table game comes from players changing up the probabilities for each other.

When it’s just you against the dealer with a six-deck shoe, your probability tables help you. When there are three other people sitting at the table, you have to do more math, but even so, the chances that someone else will split or double down (changing the distribution of the undealt cards) increase.

If you are winning by yourself and someone else joins the table, leave. If you are losing by yourself and someone else joins the table, keep playing for a while.

This strategy only works for games dealing with fixed distribution sets. Electronic lottery game outcomes can also be affected by changing the mix of players.

If you have to bet more to be eligible for a progressive jackpot, don’t bet more. Merely being eligible for a progressive jackpot does not provide a sufficient return on investment. The win-to-bet ratio declines as you increase your wagers.

The higher payouts or more frequent payouts are an incentive to keep players gambling. If the percentage increase is significant enough, it may be worthwhile to make the maximum allowed bet, but more often than not, you are just throwing money away.

A truly random progressive jackpot is awarded regardless of how much you bet. These kinds of jackpots are less common, although you may be able to win local progressives on less-than-max bets when you play games that offer several progressive levels.

Another jackpot type to look out for is hot drop jackpots. These jackpots have a timer on them that can be anywhere from a week, day, or hour. They have to drop at a certain time, which gives you a nice window of opportunity. If the timer is running low, that could be your time to hit a massive jackpot.

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Some slot machine games offer a secondary game you can only play when you win a prize on a spin.

Say you bet $10 and win $20 on a spin. You see the “Gamble” button light up. Pressing that button, you are taken to a screen where you might be prompted to guess the next card in a series or to adjust a large dial.

The classic “gamble” feature offers a 50% chance of doubling your money or a 25% chance of quadrupling it. You might think this is a great chance to win more money but consider that the slot machine you’re playing offers anywhere from a 65% to 98% theoretical return to player.

On the slot games that allow you to adjust the percentage chance of winning, you’ll win a smaller prize as you increase your chances. Maxing out on the percentage is your best choice, but if it’s less than the basic game’s theoretical return to player, you should keep your prize and stick to the basic game.

Only risk your prizes if the chances of winning in the secondary feature are better than your chances of winning in the basic game.

You can avoid gamble feature games entirely, or merely pick your spots. Of course, if you specifically are seeking them out, start with the following gamble feature slots.

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Some players love those “no deposit” bonuses offered by online casinos. You risk nothing and might win something with $20-$25 in casino money. The playthrough terms and withdrawal limits might seem odious.

But take the long-term view. You only need to keep as much money as the casino gives you until you can roll it up.

Just being able to play for real money with someone else’s cash is a win. You have a chance to claim that money later. What the casino counts on is your giving into temptation. They want you to make big bets, so you’ll lose the money as fast as possible (without becoming discouraged) and start making deposits.

On the other hand, suppose you have $500 for a deposit, and the casino offers a 100% match. If they loan you $500, and you can roll that up before you touch your own money, you’ll eventually be able to withdraw your deposit and keep playing.

That’s a risk the casino is willing to take, and, again, it’s because they are counting on the players to make bad choices.

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Have you ever been dealt a hand that was simply awful? I hope that you didn’t find yourself going all in. The simple fact about casino games is that you aren’t going to win every hand. It would be foolish to go all in when you are almost guaranteed to lose.

Sometimes it’s better to take your loss and live for another day rather than lose your money in a flash and head home empty-handed.

That brings us to my next point: to raise when you have a good hand in poker.

The pundits argue back and forth on this all night long, but any game that involves psychology will always divide opinions.

How many premium starting hands are in poker versus all the weaker hands? The probabilities are against the player who calls or raises with a weak hand.

Raise and fold strategists assume they’ll lose less money over time by folding quickly rather than by calling (or calling and raising) before folding.

In this clinical view of betting strategies, the calculation is the same as in other games: you burn through your money faster when you play more large losing bets than when you play more small losing bets.

As you gain more experience at reading other players, you can try breakout strategies where you raise on a bluff or call on a weak hand–if you are confident your opponents are not happy with their cards.

Sometimes the good cards in your hand include the other guy’s willingness to fold, but if you’re not ready to play at that level, then cutting your losses keeps you in the game longer, increasing your chances of getting to that next win.

If you’re looking to start winning in gambling, real money poker sites are a good place to practice.

“Variance” is a word that is overused. What you want are games that pay prizes more often at the expense of paying smaller prizes.

Blackjack is a low variance game (but even this low variance varies based on player knowledge and the number of decks in the shoe). A 1 pick keno bet is a low variance game. A 10 pick keno bet is a high variance game.

When playing the slots, you should be aware of the theoretical return to player, but the variance depends more on the size of the largest possible prize. Ignore randomly awarded progressive jackpots. The smaller the maximum prize, the more winning combinations that pay a prize (equal to or greater than the bet), and the higher the theoretical return to player, the lower the variance tends to be.

Some slot games pay prizes less than the bet. These games tend to be bad choices, especially if most of the prizes they pay are less than the bet.

There are many betting systems for craps, each with its own weird name. Minimum bets stretch your bankroll. Aggressive bets increase the risk. If you spread yourself thin on the table, you might do well, but when you lose, you lose it all.

Some players prefer the don’t pass or don’t come bets and laying maximum odds. Some players like to play pass or come bets and take max odds. Avoid the field and prop bets. Don’t skip the come out roll.

My next step for you to start winning more at gambling is to stick to a plan. There are a lot of possibilities when you take that first step into the casino. If you don’t walk in with a plan, there’s a good chance you will be out of money very fast.

Casino games don’t just hand out money. You might have to spend a few hours in the casino before you make a decent profit.

It’s also extremely rare for someone to hit the jackpot, even more so one the first spin. If you’re expecting to make thousands of dollars as soon as you start playing, you’re in for a rude awakening.

The best thing you can do is plan out your entire trip. This means sticking to games that you’re comfortable with, having a set bankroll, and more. You can even try a simple gambling strategy like the “Martingale Strategy.”

I wouldn’t say this is a fool-proof way of gambling, but at least it’s a plan. The premise of the strategy is to double your wager every time you lose. Since you have around a 50% chance of winning, there’s a good chance you won’t go on a crazy, losing streak.

Depending on your bankroll, you should have enough funds to lose seven hands in a row. You would have to get pretty unlucky to go on a losing streak of seven when the odds are 50/50.

Another major takeaway here is to set a target for your profits. If you walk into the casino hoping to make $1,000, and you do, the best thing you can do is cash out. Not having a target mark could mean you’re just playing until you’re out of money.

I would also strongly advise against going all in once you’ve built up a profit. Everyone has intrusive thoughts about putting it all on red for one final spin, but that would ruin all of your progress.

Sticking to a plan is one of the best ways to improve your chances of winning at casinos.

Big wins are great, but you have to put everything into perspective. When you gamble, there is a perspective in a timeline that is best explained by thinking about two workers, Cheap Charlie (representing minimum bets) and Expensive Edward (representing maximum bets).

Charlie and Edward work at the same pace. Each of them produces 100 Work Units per Hour. When you hire Cheap Charlie, he agrees to be paid $10 per hour. When you hire Expensive Edward, he insists you pay him $50 an hour.

After 10 hours, you owe Cheap Charlie $100 or Expensive Edward $500. You sell their Work Units.

Charlie’s units are poorly made and sell at auction for between $0.50 and $2.50. Edward’s units are high-quality merchandise, and they sell at auction for between $2.50 and $12.50.

Every 2500 units or so, either worker will accidentally make a unit that is 100 times more valuable than the average unit he makes. You know this when you start your business, but you only have $1000 in startup capital. You will run out of money before Edward gets close to his Magic Unit. He might produce it in the 2,000 or so units he can make for you, but the chances that he will are less than the chances that Charlie will produce HIS Magic Unit.

Charlie will produce, on average, about $15,000 in revenue for you. Edward will produce, on average, about $15,000 in revenue for you as well. The only way you can make more than $15,000 in revenue is if a Magic Unit is produced by either worker. Charlie should produce about 4 of those units. You’ll be fortunate if Edward produces even one. Sure, Edward’s Magic Unit should be worth more than all four of Charlie’s Magic Units, but the safer money is on Charlie.

The longer you keep your money in play, the more likely you’ll win big in a game that offers a big prize. Those low variance games don’t pay the largest jackpots, but you can adjust your bets between a minimum and maximum value. Betting the maximum looks like a smart play, but it reduces the chances of winning a better than average prize or the number of better than average prizes you hope to win.

If the only difference between a $5 bet and a $50 bet is a multiple of 10 in prize value, stick with the $5 bet. Your money will last ten times longer, giving you many more chances to grow your stake regardless of what game you’re playing.

If you’re looking to boost your betting odds, you will want to head over to our top-rated sports betting sites online. Those sites allow you to combine your bets into a parlay. Parlays are one of the easiest ways to boost your betting odds. Simply by making multiple bets at once, you get a higher payout.

Let’s say there’s an upcoming game that you want to bet on. Team A is favored to win with -200 odds, while Team B is the underdog with +175 odds. You probably don’t like -200 odds by itself, but you also don’t find the underdog moneyline that is appealing.

What we could do then is add the -200 leg into a parlay and find another leg to boost the odds. Team C could be heavily favored to win at -350, but these two plays together have a price of -109.

Going from -200 odds to -109 is pretty significant. You could also do this with riskier plays, but again, you won’t have as high of a chance of winning. Stick to a few legs per parlay, and you’ll be able to improve your betting odds rather easily.

That’s going to wrap up my 15 tips to boost your chances of winning in the casino. Eager to put these tips to the test? Head to BetOnline to play casino games or gamble at their top rated sportsbook now!

Footnotes:

• Basics of Poker provided game details and rules.
• Martingale System is courtesy of Investopedia.