In this sense wouldn't card games be a wiser bet than slot machines?
In this sense wouldn't card games be a wiser bet than slot machines?
If you can count cards, and they don't use a continuous shuffler you can get this to as good as 0.1% in your favour.
Baccarat is always a high stakes game not because it's "fancy" or "exotic", but because it is nearly the closest a casino will let you get to betting on a coin flip, for every player in the game.
Technically, additional decks reduce the expected edge of a card-counter who has only seen some number of cards. Which functions the same way...
For instance, playing black jack by the basic strategy is (from wizardofodds.com):
> the probability of an overall win in blackjack is 42.22%, a tie is 8.48%, and a loss is 49.10%. I'm going to assume you wish to ignore ties for purposes of the streak. In that case, the probability of a win, given a resolved bet, is 46.36%.
So yes, your best bet in the casino is probably blackjack, but it is still a losing proposition without counting cards. Face cards tend to favor the players (table), not the dealer. This is because a dealer hitting with a face card more frequently causes a bust than a player hitting a face card (because players don't have to hit when they might bust, dealers do). So a deck that is heavy with face cards is better for players.
Poker, by contrast, the house has no real interest in whether people win or lose - they just get a % cut of each hand played so they win a little every hand.