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[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by skippy3481

Craps is really your best bet in all gambling. You have to basically nothing. but 10 on the past line and 20 behind it and the house holds a whole .6 edge against you. Horses and poker you actually have to be intelligent in the long run to win.

skippy, "Craps is really your best bet" is true only if the following two statements are true:

1. You are smart enough to just bet the pass line and to always take 2x odds.
2. You are not smart enough to learn blackjack basic strategy. (or, alternatively, the correct strategy for several common video poker games.)

Blackjack at casinos like Bellagio, Wynn, and MGM can be played with less than 0.3% against you. (I'm just talking basic strategy, not card counting.) A person of average intelligence can learn the basic strategy in 2-3 hours.

You can find the popular Jacks-or-Better version of video poker at most casinos. If the pay table is the one that pays 9 for a full house and 6 for a flush, then playing with the proper strategy puts you at a 0.5% disadvantage. That's already better than your "best bet" craps, but it doesn't take into account cashback. Wynn for example gives you back 0.25% of your action as cashback, making the total expected loss less than 0.3%.

There are some versions of video poker that are even better than Jacks or Better. For example, the full pay version of PickEm has just 0.05% against you.

Learning a correct video poker strategy probably takes longer than learning the correct blackjack basic strategy.

--Dunbar