“No one can possibly win at roulette unless he steals money from the table while the croupier isn’t looking.”  - Albert Einstein 

Casinos are in the business to make money!  You won’t see a sign advertising this when you enter a brick and mortar or online gambling casino but it should be obvious that casinos, or most other businesses for that matter, are not charitable organizations.    Every game in a casino has a “house edge,” which means the inherent advantage of the casino.  

If you flip a coin that is fairly balanced, you would find that half the time it would land on heads and the other half of the time on tails.  Betting on heads or tails would be an even bet, with a 50 percent probability of winning or losing.   Statistically, betting on heads or tails over time would lead to an equal amount of wins and losses.  Let’s examine the odds of roulette, one the most popular land based and online gambling games.  This is easy to do because of the visual nature of a roulette table.   A roulette table has numbers from 1-36.    At the top of a roulette table there is a “zero.”  Some roulette tables have a “double zero” in addition.  The dealer spins a wheel with a ball and after several seconds the ball lands on one of the numbered slots that correspond to the numbers and zeros on the table.  If you place a chip (bet) on a single number from 0-36 you will be paid 35 times your wager, if the ball in the wheel is the same as the number you bet on.  In a table with 36 numbers and one zero you have a 1 in 37 chance of winning 35 times your money.  For a table with an additional double zero, you have a 1 in 38 chance of winning 35 times your money.  (Playing on a table with a single zero, gives a player better odds). Put another way, on a table with a single zero, if a player placed a one unit bet on all 36 numbers and the zero, it would cost 37 units.  The player would get 35 units back after the spin.  The house would keep 2 units.  You can calculate the odds of the casino winning as 2.7 percent (-1x 36/37 = 35x 1/37= - .027).   For every 100 units bet by players, the casino would make 2.7 units, on average.