The 3 Hardest Games to Master
Working a corporate job can be stressful. There are deadlines to meet, colleagues to deal with, and bosses to negotiate. But every now and then, it can help to unwind by doing something that as far removed from office life as possible.
Playing in a Casino can have multiple benefits. For one, it is a form of entertainment humans have enjoyed for millennia. Secondly, there is always the opportunity to win big. There are some games, that have more to offer when it comes to either of these things. Hard games are more rewarding to master, thrilling to play, and often give better prizes than games that are easy to win. Here are the three most challenging casino games to play.
What’s the Upside of Challenging Casino Games?
When you chose to spend time playing in a casino, and you have your sights on winning, chances are you have already learned a thing or two about the odds of different games. Phrased simply:
- The less likely it is for a player to win, the higher the reward is.
The casino tries to tempt players to gamble away their money on games that leave them loosing more often than winning by offering larger amounts of money to win to make the risk worth it. If guessing one out of ten numbers would give you the same payout as guessing five of ten, nobody would have any incentive to go for the option that is harder to win.
There are several other factors that decide what the odds and height of prize money for individual games look like. Another huge influence is the degree to which a game is affected by a player’s skill. Typically, the payouts for purely luck-based games are higher than those a gambler can win more reliably by honing their abilities. The percentage of the house advantage lets us know which games are harder to win than others. The higher the percentage is, the more edge the house has compared to the players.
If you want to know more about odds, payouts and game strategies, make sure to use the collective knowledge of gambling enthusiasts on themed community sites such as https://www.casinomeister.com/.
The Most Challenging Casino Games
When you want to look for the most challenging casino games, it’s a matter of definition. Are they the games that are the hardest to win, or the ones that are the hardest to play? Playing on a slot machine is simple, but the odds of winning are low. On the other hand, a card game like blackjack is much harder to master, but in doing so you can win more easily.
When we talk about the most challenging casino games, we are thinking of those games that are harder to master than to win.
Blackjack
Blackjack is one of the favorite games to play for gamblers who are set on winning. Played without a strategy, a game of blackjack typically has a house advantage of about 2 %. Applying a basic blackjack strategy can lower the number to 1 %, making it more likely for the player to win, while still benefitting from the payout that was set for a 2 % house advantage game.
In blackjack, the player plays against the casino. Using a, or multiple, standard 52-card decks, he deals one card to the players and one to himself. One card is placed face-up in the middle. The players try to beat the dealer’s hand, but are not allowed to reach a number higher than 21 when adding their hand card’s value to the middle card.
When their hand card plus the middle value are under 21, the player can choose to be dealt another card, adding it to the value. The higher the value of your hand card and the middle card already is, the riskier it becomes to draw another card in hopes of reaching (closer to) 21.
Naturally, there are more complicated decisions and plays used than this basic description. Famous blackjack strategists such as Roger Baldwin have developed strategies to find the optimal plays for any given situation. These take into account the own hand, the other player’s hands, the number of players, the number of decks, the number of cards already in play and much more. While you can use these strategies to influence your chances of winning effectively, you first have to get familiar with these complex systems.
Baccarat
The concept behind baccarat is similar to blackjack. Here, the goal is to reach a total value of 9 and beat the other players in getting closer or the exact number. When the value exceeds 9, the last digit of the total value becomes the player’s end result. Meaning, when a player reaches a total of 16, it will be counted as a 6 instead.
Instead of using the card’s regular values, baccarat assigns values to groups of cards:
- Ace = 1 point
- 2 to 9 = 2 to 9 points
- 10, Jack, King & Queen = 0 points
Naturally, the same kind of complex strategies have developed for baccarat as they have for blackjack, making the game hard to master in its entirety.
Craps
Reduced to its basics, craps is a game where we roll dice and bet on the number that will be revealed. Similarly to roulette, we can bet chips on single numbers or on number groups. If you have ever looked at a craps table layout, you can already tell that there is much more to the game. There are pass lines, don’t pass bars and don’t come bars and many other somewhat confusing markings.
There are many specific rules in play. When you start and roll a 2, 3 or 12, you are “crapping out” and anyone who had played a bet on the pass line loses. If you roll a 7 on your come out roll, the pass line wins, but the don’t pass line loses. Any other number gives the “shooter”, the person rolling, a point, and he can roll again. If he rolls the same number once more, he wins. If he rolls a 7, he loses, if he rolls anything else he rolls again.
To win reliably, you need to learn these rules and the right times and places to place your bets.
Conclusion
If we visit a casino, we want to get entertained and win some money. Both can best be achieved by playing hard games. The games mentioned are hard to master, but in doing so you increase your chances of winning. Using a strategy on a game with a high house advantage and in turn a high payout, reduces the house edge percentage while the prize money remains the same.
If you are interested in winning money and being challenged at the same time, learning some of the many complex strategies for blackjack, baccarat, or games of craps is the right way to go.