Years ago I read an article published by Michael Bluejay about how much better the odds of winning a million dollars in a casino was than playing the lottery.

Bluejay worked with Michael Shackleford, also known as the Wizard of Odds, for several years.

Mar 21, 2017  50/50 is simply 50/50. If you bet on a coin toss, and have tossed 100 tails in a row, you have a 50% chance next time of tossing a heads. No more, no less. You can’t change this immutable fact. Doubling your bet until you win is a sure way to lose.

His system was parlaying a $10 bet 17 times. In other words, you start with a bet of $10 and double up after each win. You have to win 17 straight bets to win a million.

Of course winning 17 bets in a row is an extreme long shot, but it turns out that it isn’t near as long as hitting the lottery, or even a big progressive jackpot slot machine.

The odds of doubling your way to a million starting with a $10 bet playing the player bet in baccarat or the don’t pass line bet in craps is less than 170,000 to 1.

But what if you only want to win $100,000?

What does this do to the odds?

If you use the Bluejay system the odds of doubling your way to $100,000 starting with a $10 bet playing baccarat or craps bets as described above improve to less than 20,000 to 1. If you start with a $20 bet they improve to less than 10,000 to 1.

Starting with a $100 bet reduces the odds to just over 1,000 to 1.

It’s clear that these are all long shots, but when you compare them to many lotteries that have odds of over 100 million to 1 to win the big prize they don’t look bad.

All of this made me start thinking about legitimate ways to make $100,000 gambling.

You can follow the method described above, or you can try one of ones I describe below.

Some of them are extreme long shots, taking a chance at one lucky break, and others have a better chance to work but may take longer.

The simplest way would be to bet $100,000 on a single event, like red or black at the roulette table, or on the player at baccarat, or on a sporting event.

But when I made the following list I made the assumption that you don’t already have $100,000 to gamble with.

1 – Slot Machines

Many slot machines have top jackpots that pay $100,000 or more. Some of the big progressives have a secondary prize that pays this much, and some of the machines that don’t even offer a progressive jackpot have top prizes this big.

The odds are long, but often you can risk $1 to have a chance at winning $100,000.

If you don’t get lucky and hit a big win the slots will consistently drain your bankroll.

2 – Keno

You can find keno games that offer a top prize of $100,000 or more for a bet of $1.

Keno has the worst house edge in most casinos so just like the slot machines it’s not a game where you’re going to grind out any profit. You need to get lucky and hit the big win in order to make any money.

3 – Win a Poker Tournament

Poker tournaments run around the world every day. Many of them have small buy in’s and small pay outs, but some have pay outs in the millions. Most of the WPT and WSOP events pay over a million to the first place finisher and many have final tables that all pay over $10,000.

It’s a challenge to win a poker tournament with hundreds or thousands of entrants, but if you’re a decent player your chances are much better than playing the lottery, slots, or keno.

If you enter a tournament with 1,000 players for $2,000 and the top 10 players all win at least $100,000 you have a one in 100 chance of hitting your goal. And if you win the tournament you’ll win considerably more than $100,000.

Poker tournaments are hard to win and it helps considerably if you’re a good player, but even as an average player you have a realistic chance to do well.

And even if you don’t make it to the final table and just sneak into the money you stand a great chance of doubling your buy in or more.

4 – Grind It Out at the Poker Tables

Everything I’ve talked about so far is based on longer odds. But if you can win on a consistent basis playing poker you can grind out $100,000. It just takes time.

A good poker player can win around one big bet per hour playing limit Teas holdem. So if you play $20 / $40 you just need to play 2,500 hours.

If you play 40 hours a week it’ll just take 63 weeks to reach $100,000.

If you play 50 hours a week it takes it down to just 50 weeks.

Of course many variables come into play. You may play at a different limit or play no limit holdem.

But the main point is if you can learn the skills and strategies needed to become a winning poker player all you have to do is play long enough and you’ll grind out $100,000.

5 – Sports Betting

Sports betting is another area that allows some bettors to consistently turn a profit. Just like poker it isn’t easy, but some punters do it.

The size of your bets and your ability to beat the sports book directly influence if you can make $100,000 betting on sports and how fast you can do it.

The keys are developing a winning system, managing your bankroll so you don’t run out of money on a down swing, and sticking with your system.

Though it isn’t quite the same thing, some bettors are able to develop winning systems betting on horses and dogs as well. The way to reach $100,000 is basically the same.

6 – Counting Cards

Just as some poker players are able to grind out $100,000 at the tables over time, some blackjack players who learn how to count cards can grind out a consistent profit over time.

Learning how to count cards isn’t as difficult as many believe. Anyone with average intelligence can learn fairly quickly, but using it effectively at the tables and getting away with it are also skills that you need to develop.

Even if you’re able to learn how to count cards and get away with it the profit is slow and the swings are still big.

At best you work with an edge of less than 2% and most of the time it’s closer to a half percent.

This means if your average edge is a half percent and your average bet is $100 and you play 100 hands per hour you make $50 an hour on average.

But one problem card counters face is they usually can’t play for hour after hour at the same table, or even in the same casino, like poker players can do. So it’s hard to play 40 or more hours per week. It’s possible, but it’s a challenge.

7 – Win the Lottery

I talked a little bit about the lottery in the first part of the post, and the odds are the worst you can find on this page. But for a small investment of a dollar or two you have the chance to win millions.

Some of the big lotteries have second place prizes of $100,000 or more, so the odds aren’t quite as bad if that’s your goal.

8 – Roulette

If you place a bet of $2,857.14 on a single number on the roulette table and win you’re up a cool $100,000. And the odds are only 37 to 1 against you, so it’s not out of the question for it to happen.

If you don’t have that much to risk you can bet $81.64 on a single number and let it ride if you win. If you win twice in a row you win just over $100,000.

9 – Video Poker

Jacks or Better video poker machines pay 4,000 coins for a royal flush, so if you play max coins on a $25 machines, making a bet of $125, if you hit the royal you walk away with $100,000.

The odds are long, but they’re considerably better than most slot machines and the lottery.

Conclusion

Now you know at least 9 ways to win $100,000 gambling. Some of them are long shots like playing the lottery, keno, or slot machines. But a few of them are more realistic like poker, blackjack, and sports betting. They just take more time.

The games you choose to play and the way you go about shooting for $100,000 depends on how you want to play. If you get a thrill out of the chance at a big return for a small investment you can find plenty of opportunities.

But if you enjoy grinding out a small edge over time you can do that too. Once you decide how you want to try to win $100,000 gambling you can get started any time.

Gambling is taking a risk of losing something of value on an unpredictable outcome. When you gamble at either an online or land based casino both you and the casino take a risk in losing something of value. The risk is greater for you because the casino only offers games that provide a statistical advantage to the casino.

However, much statutory and some case law has been devoted to ensuring that casinos and players don’t cheat each other by subtly altering the conditions of gambling games without each other’s knowledge and permission. You can, though, change the terms of the game. The casino often provides a way for you to do this.

But should you take the offer?

There are two things you need to understand before you can start improving your chances of winning when you gamble. First, you can change the outcome of a gambling game. Second, you will almost always confuse yourself if you try to do the math. These two most common of gambling mistakes help the casinos earn tens of billions of dollars every year.

How You Change the Outcome in a Gambling Game

Many casino gambling games allow and even encourage players to change the stakes, the odds, and even the percentage chances of winning. Here are a few examples of how you can change the outcome of a gambling game (almost always for the worst).

Say you are playing a slot machine game and you win a prize on a spin. A special “Gamble” button lights up. You are now prompted to play a secondary game, maybe betting on the outcome of a virtual coin toss, using the prize you just won as the stake in your new bet. This is an exciting feature. It also means you are risking the loss of what you just won on a game with a better “edge” for the casino.

Most slot games have a theoretical return to player above 75%. Games developed after 2010 usually have better than a 90% theoretical return. The RTP is an estimate of how much money would be retained by a hypothetical player who spun the reels continually for a period of several years. It’s not a realistic estimate of how much money you will win, lose, or hold on to. It’s a statistical measurement used to gauge how friendly the game is to the gambler.

In a coin toss the theoretical return to player is 50% or 1 in 2. So let’s assume you just gambled $5 on a spin in the basic slot game and that you won $10. You have doubled your money. Now the “Gamble” light activates and you are invited to take your $10 and bet it on the outcome of a coin toss. And suppose the “Gamble” feature allows you to wager on the outcome of two concurrent coin tosses. Now you have a choice: bet on 1 coin toss for a chance to double your $10 to $20 or bet on 2 concurrent coin tosses for a chance to quadruple your money.

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Your chances of winning the double concurrent coin toss are 25% or 1 in 4.

You would have a better chance to keep your $10 prize and just spin again on the basic game. By taking the “Gamble” challenge you improve the casino’s chances of winning your next bet. It’s like paying $5 for a quarter of pie at one restaurant and then paying another $10 for an eighth of a pie at a different restaurant. Are you really getting a better piece of pie at the second restaurant?

In the game of blackjack if the dealer offers you insurance most experts tell you not to take it. Why? Because you are betting that you will lose your basic wager. The chances of being correct (that the dealer has a blackjack) on your insurance bet are worse than the chances that you can beat the dealer’s hand (your original wager).

The bottom line here is that casinos will sometimes offer you ways to change your stakes and your chances of winning to their own benefit. If you want to win at gambling, don’t take the deal behind door number 2. Stick to your original game and be consistent. Let someone else win the goat.

How to Confuse Yourself at Any Gambling Game

There is a certain idea among gambling experts that comparing the “house edge” in various gambling games helps you to make informed choices. The edge is a theoretical return to the casino, the complementary percentage for the theoretical return to player. In other words, in every form of gambling, there is only a 100% allocation of money. Gambling does not generate new wealth; all gambling does is pool wealth between the bettors and redistribute that wealth between the bettors (and sometimes also a middle man).

In the 1-on-1 game of blackjack there are only 2 bettors in your game: you and the casino. The casino is willing to pay up to the full amount of your bet if you win. It’s an even money match up, and that is really what makes blackjack so profitable for a casino. They risk less per round than they do with, say, roulette or a slot game. But if you have been reading blackjack tutorials you should know by now that the house edge is lower in blackjack than in other games, and therefore you have the best chance of winning in blackjack.

In fact, the dealer has a better chance of coming out ahead because at a busy table the dealer is playing multiple hands at once by the most conservative of rules. In other words, the casino is taking less risk per round in blackjack than the players while at the same time multiplying its chances of winning.

Players make mistakes when playing blackjack. Blackjack dealers don’t have to make hard decisions. In fact, by always going last the dealer often doesn’t have to make any choices at all. The players make most of the decisions in blackjack. And yet blackjack remains profitable for the casinos. The casinos are profiting from player mistakes.

Players make several types of gambling mistakes. One of the most common mistakes is to confuse the probability of winning with the theoretical return to player. The probability of winning is limited to the next round of play. The theoretical return to player is an estimate of what all the players of a game will collectively receive over the life of a specific game (or an arbitrarily large number of rounds in the game).

The rule of thumb is that the more rounds played for a given game the more the actual results of that game will average out close to the theoretical return to player (or the house edge).

But what are the chances of your drawing a natural blackjack on the next deal? What are the chances that the dealer will not win against you on the next deal? These are probabilities that can be computed on the basis of how many cards are left in the shoe, less the cards that have already been played. Those probabilities change as more cards are played but they rarely if ever line up with the theoretical return to player.

The mistake players make is assuming that the house only has a 2.5% chance of winning the next round. The dealer’s chance of winning that next hand can be as high as 100% and as low as 0%. The house edge is always irrelevant with respect to any individual round played on any gambling game from keno to slots to blackjack to baccarat.

When you gamble, it’s nice to know how much money the house is expected to retain over the next 30 days but that won’t help you predict how much you win or lose in any of the next 10 rounds of play.

Expert gamblers like to calculate probabilities but probabilities do not predict the next round’s outcome. The roulette wheel always has a 1 in 37 or 1 in 38 chance of landing on any given number. The chance that the ball will land on number “7” 100 times in a row remains 1 in 37 or 1 in 38. That never changes (allowing for truly random spins, although the laws of physics mandate that the spins won’t be completely random).

On the other hand, what is the expected probability of a random spin of the roulette wheel producing “7” 100 times in a row? This is where you multiply your individual spin probability (1/3x) by itself the number of times in a row (100 in this case). The expected probability of the wheel hitting “7” 100 times in a row is 1.51296e-157 (a very, very small number). But that low probability has no bearing on the probability of the next spin.

This is the dichotomy of probability theory, where you are dealing with large sequences of independent events. The expected probability does not mean you cannot or will not see the unlikely outcome. In this hypothetical example, we are simply computing how many possible outcomes there are and assuming the chances of producing the same result 100 times in a row are equivalent to a certain percentage of those possible outcomes.

Unfortunately (even semi-) random events have a way of defying the probabilities. But if someone offers you 100-to-1 odds that a roulette wheel will land on “7” 100 times in a row, verify their ability to pay and take the wager. They lose as soon as a different result turns up before the 100^TH spin.

The bottom line here is simple: don’t try to do the math like an expert. Random chance will always eventually prove the experts wrong.

What You Must Do to Improve Your Chances of Winning

Here are a few basic rules for improving your chances of winning when you gamble.

1. Stop second-guessing yourself.

Every casino game offers you a fair chance of winning. The games, when played fairly and legally, pay prizes that correspond to the expected probabilities of given outcomes, although casinos will hold back a little bit extra in most games to ensure they make some money. Hence, in roulette, the most you can win is 36-to-1 instead of 37-to-1 or 38-to-1.

The odds are always stacked against you. But random chance favors the fool, as the old saying goes. You just cannot guarantee you are the fool upon whom random chance showers its favors.

2. Take the least possible risk.

In a hypothetical game where you win 100 rounds out of 100 rounds, you will kick yourself if you only wager $5 on each round for the chance to win $5 instead of wagering $100 on each round for the chance to win $10,000 on each round.

In reality, positive thinking doesn’t work when you gamble. The more you assume you could win the more you are likely to lose when you do lose.

Risking less does mean you win less per round but that’s okay.

3. Manage your money so that you play as many rounds as possible.

You are more likely to win back $100 in wagers if you divide them into twenty $5 wagers than if you divide them into five $20 wagers.

Instead of playing numbers games (which is second guessing yourself) or assuming you will win a certain number of times (which is taking more than the least possible risk) you should assume you are going to lose more rounds than you win. When you play slots or even a modest keno game (like a 5-pick) you can still come out ahead when you play more rounds with small wagers than fewer rounds with large wagers.

But how does playing conservatively work in blackjack, when the average prize is an even money bet? If you lose only 49% of the rounds in blackjack you lose. Okay, smart guy, you know you need to double down a few times. Instead of playing numbers games and assuming you can lose X number of hands and double down on Y hands, just accept that once in a while you’ll have to double down to improve your chances in blackjack.

When should you double down? The experts agree that if the dealer is showing a 5 or 6 and you have an ace and anything less than a 7.

You don’t need to double a lot as long as you can double enough to come out ahead.

4. Don’t try to win big.

That’s the real fun in gambling, though, isn’t it? You want to win the jackpot, hit the long odds, and outwit the dealer at every hand.

Going for the big win is the worst possible way to gamble. You may not be playing all-or-nothing but you are playing too much.

Still, you can adjust the amount of your wagers upward if you are doing well. Just keep them proportionate to your bankroll.

5. Use a consistent percentage ceiling in your wager to bankroll ratio.

Although it is prudent to limit your initial wagers to 5% of your original bankroll, at some point you may double or triple your money. Does it make sense to continue playing by the original 5% measure?

Most gamblers will feel confident enough to increase their wagers. But while it’s usually good advice to ignore all betting systems when you gamble (because each has its flaws), you can set a limit of “5% of your current bankroll down to half”, meaning you gamble with $5 bets until you lose half the money you came in with.

If you double your money then you can double your wagers as long as you don’t go above 5%.

Five percent is not a magic number. You can set the percentage at 1%, 5%, 15%, or even 20%. You should be consistent about not going above your percentage. You still have the flexibility of making larger wagers if you roll up your money.

6. Divide Your Bankroll At Certain Split Points.

This technique works best in land-based casinos, especially when you can put your money into tickets that are easy to carry around. A split point is a multiple of your bankroll. Say you begin gambling with $200 and you roll that up to $400 at the craps table. Now take half your money and put $200 of it into a ticket.

You can continue playing craps with the remaining $200 or you can try another game. When you roll up your second $200 to $400 again you split the money into another ticket plus money to play with.

After you have 3 or 4 tickets you can rotate them. Never play a ticket all the way down. Leave at least a few dollars on it so you can leave the casino with some money (and a little dignity).

When you gamble online it makes some sense to shift money from the game balance back to your main account. As long as you have money in your game account you should be good. It helps you to stay focused on conservative betting if you take money out of the game when you get ahead of your original bankroll.

7. Play with Casino Bonus Money Whenever Possible

Land-based casinos may not offer you signup bonuses but many online casinos do. Play conservatively with the casino bonus money to increase your chances of fulfilling your wagering requirement with just the bonus money. While that won’t always happen the longer you can delay putting your own money into the game the better the chances you’ll start winning.

You can try this strategy with the “no deposit” welcome bonuses some casinos offer but they do limit how much credit they extend to you. You have more bonus money to work with when you accept a deposit match bonus.

8. Stick to the Basic Game.

Whether you play slots, craps, roulette, or blackjack the less complicated you make your game the less likely you’ll place dumb bets.

The casino is counting you to make dumb bets. You should count on the casino to be less than generous with its odds on the best most likely to pay off.

There are few progressive wagers that are worth the money. The more you throw into a round the harder it will be to recover from a loss.

In craps bet on Pass or Don’t Pass and play the odds but keep it simple.

In blackjack bide your time and don’t split every time you get a pair of cards of the same value. Should you really split two 5 cards when you’re showing 10 on the table? Should you split two tens? Two nines? You have three options: play the basic game, double down, or split. On some tables you may be able to surrender if you don’t like the dealer’s cards but look at the strength of your cards first and your options for splitting second.

9. Assume the free games are more generous than the paid games.

When you have a chance to “try before you buy” at an online casino the free game just may be slightly more generous than the paid version. There are several reasons why this might happen. If you can check the theoretical return to player for a free game and the paid version, look for differences.

Does the free game run on a different server? The different server may be using a different random number generator, a different random seed number, or a different estimated percentage for the theoretical return to player. Variations in all these things can affect the randomness of the outcome of the game.

10. Play low variance games.

Sad to say, but the less volatility there is in the prize to wager ratio of a game the more likely it will pay you prizes. Volatility is an important measure for a casino because it needs to know how much cash to keep on hand. But you need to know how long you may have to play a game before you win a nice prize. That is where the variance comes into play.

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Think of variance as “how much any random outcome of a game varies from the average expected outcome”. There is a relationship between variance and volatility (in fact, some gambling writers use these terms interchangeably). The casino cares more about the volatility and the player cares more about the variance.

How do you judge variance? It comes down to how long you can play the game with your initial bankroll. A low variance game has a tendency to take less of your money.

Hence, as noted above, you can affect the variance of the game in a limited way by playing conservatively and ignoring the extra bets the house offers.

Conclusion

Think of gambling as an endurance race between the bettors. Whoever can go more rounds wins the most money, unless random chance steps in and hands a big win to the individual gambler. Then gambling is more about who has the most self-discipline. The casino is playing a numbers game and just has to be there with enough cash on hand to keep the games going. The player has to have the wisdom and the self-discipline to walk away with the cash.

Harvard Medical School published a trove of data about online gamblers that was collected from 2005 to 2007 by an online casino (Bwin). Researchers who studied the data concluded that about 11% of gamblers were likely to win and that winners were more likely to play less frequently. Subsequently, researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Connecticut compared that analysis to their own analysis of data from a Native American casino’s database. The second study found that about 13.5% of the land-based gamblers were winners.

The good news for most gamblers is that fewer than 5% of them contribute about 50% of the casino’s net revenue, and about 10% contribute 80% of the casino’s revenue, so most gamblers are not big losers. That means approximately 80% of gamblers share the burden of about 20% of the casino’s net revenue between themselves. Given that most people cannot lose enough money (for lack of wealth) to drop into the lower 10% (the Big Losers) changing how one gambles increases an individual’s chances of moving into the upper 10%.

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Gamblers with little wealth to lose should still learn to make better choices. You cannot guarantee you will win but you can always cut your losses short or take fewer risks. Gambling is more fun when it is just entertainment. If your losses amount to no more than what you would spend on other types of entertainment such as concerts and travel, then have fun.

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