What are the Odds of Winning?

What are the odds of winning?

The game is almost always rigged so that the house wins. The primary goal of gambling operators is to make as much money as possible from people.

New Zealanders lose $2.4 billion dollars every year to pokie machines, casinos, TABs and Lotto products. This does not include overseas online gambling.

Once you know the odds of winning, you will be able to accurately put your chances of winning into perspective. In most conventional games there is a winner and a loser. Also, when you play a game of chance among friends the odds of winning are more even.

But when you gamble through a business such as in a casino or on pokie machines, the odds are almost never in your favour to win.

The game is almost always rigged so that the house wins. The primary goal of gambling operators is to make as much money as possible from people.

The odds of a 5 line jackpot win on a pokie machine: 1 in 9.7 million

A good tip to remember: You have a much higher chance of being struck by lightning than winning the jackpot on the pokies.

Is it possible to improve the odds?

It might seem as though playing on the same machine will boost the likelihood of that machine giving you some money. But this isn’t the case.

These factors do not improve odds of winning:

Time of day.
How often you have won or lost in recent times.
How many other people have played on a particular machine.
How long you play on one machine.
Other people losing on a particular machine.

No external factors influence the likelihood of having a win on the pokies. It is controlled by an algorithm within the machine that almost always lets the house win.

Roulette and other games of chance

Each spin is a completely separate event. No matter what occurred on previous rolls or spins the outcome of the next roll or spin is totally independent of this.

There is no way to improve the odds of winning on roulette or any other game of chance.

'Skill-based' games

Sports betting or card playing may be affected by skill level in the short term.

However, many random events can influence these games. This includes changes to the game’s parameters and margins, as well as a gambler’s emotional state at the time of playing.

For horse-racing – there are other factors that influence the chances of winning, including the horse’s form, other horses’ form, the jockey having a big night the night before the race, weather, track conditions, and so on. It is not possible to control the odds of winning or predict with any accuracy the likelihood of a win in such a complex game.

Wishful thinking and gambling

It’s important to remember that superstition, wishful thinking and gambling are a bad combination.

Many people have warped and false thinking around gambling. In the moment of playing games, they overestimate their odds of winning and forget that they are far more likely to lose.

Do an experiment

If you have doubts about the way odds work, try this experiment to test the theory.

Before each bet, make a note about what you think will happen.
Write down what actually happened.
Do this at least 10 times to test if your predictions were accurate.
Look back on these results from your notes. This will give you a realistic perspective on your chances of winning versus losing while gambling.

The chances of developing a problem

The more often a person gambles, the greater the risk of them becoming an unsafe gambler.

The chances of developing a problem with regular gambling are vastly higher than your chances of having a big win.

Face-to-face support and advice from Oasis is proven to be effective in minimising the harm of gambling for individuals concerned about their gambling, along with other people in their lives.

Oasis can help:

If gambling is affecting your relationships, work or study.

If you’re in debt as a result of gambling.

If your gambling is making you feel depressed, anxious or worried.

If you want to know more about the harm that gambling causes.

If you’re spending a lot of time gambling.

If you’d like help with quitting or reducing your gambling.

If you are worried about someone you know who is gambling.

A gambling problem can be difficult to admit. Some people who have a problem with gambling often lie about their gambling or betting habits, or they will attempt to conceal their gambling from others.

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