Casino Staking Strategy

However getting good odds, and knowing how to play the game well are only part of the story, you also need to know how much to stake, and when to stop (well if you want to give yourself a chance of coming away in profit).

Knowing When to Stop

If it weren't enough that all the casinos games have a house edge, many people making things even easier for the casinos by playing erratically and greedily in attempt to either make it big or bust.  In principle this is not a bad thing as long as the level of winnings is realistic, otherwise you are effective just playing until you bust.

We've done some calculations to show the probability of reaching £100 before you reach £0 (& hence have to stop) at different games for different starting banks when you are betting £1 stakes.

For example the table (figure 1) shows that if you start at £50 and are playing American roulette (5% house edge) and keep playing £1 stakes until you either reach £0 or £100, then you have less than a 1 in 200 chance of making it to £100 - i.e. you are almost certain to go bankrupt.

Obviously if you bet the £50 all in one go then you will either be bankrupt or make £100 at the end of that turn & hence will have something like a 47% chance of doubling.

This is what "gamblers ruin" theory is all about.  In a game where the odds are against you, the more you bet the harder its going to be to make a big profit before going bust.  Think of  the house edge as similar to the guy next to you stealing one of your chips every time you make a bet!

Staking

Our analysis has shown that the only way to play for a long time is

to choose a decent odds game (Blackjack, Video Poker, Bacarrat & Craps)

Always stake the same amount (unless you are using card counting strategy at blackjack)

Have a starting bank of at least 40x your unit stake