Blackjack versus poker, roulette and baccarat

Blackjack, poker, roulette and baccarat — four games casinos have kept on the floor for decades, and every regular has a favourite. But if you set feelings aside and ask flatly where a player has the better odds of finishing ahead, or at least of stretching a modest bankroll across a long session, the answer is calculated, not guessed. Below is an objective comparison of blackjack with roulette, poker and baccarat on three measurable criteria.

How to compare games: house edge, skill and speed

You can’t judge the classic casino games on a single trait — an objective answer comes from three criteria, and each one matters.

1. House edge — what share of the money in play the house keeps over the long run, i.e. how heavily it earns from the fans of each game.
2. The role of skill — whether the outcome comes down to luck alone or the player influences the odds themselves and has to sharpen their ability to get better results.
3. The pace of play, or the effective cost per hour — in some games a hand lasts half a minute, in others two. The hourly cost is hands per hour × bet × house edge: a slow pace trims it, but it only rescues a game when the gap in house edge is small — in a quick game you simply put more bets into action by the clock.

Each of these games usually has several rule variants, which makes the house edge fluctuate — that’s why the summary table above lists several figures for baccarat, roulette and poker. For blackjack the figure given is for basic strategy play under average (not best) rules: in theory the house edge can be pushed lower still, but step away from the strategy — and especially get tempted by side bets — and the RTP noticeably drops.

Poker stands apart. Where the other games have roughly the same house edge with a live dealer as with a random number generator (RNG), poker against other players (cash games and tournaments) pits the participants against each other rather than the house, and there’s simply no house edge there at all — the room earns from the rake instead. So we only factor in poker in its casino variants, where you play against the house.

If we compare only the games where the player is guaranteed to be playing against the casino, one more table clears the picture up.

Important: in poker against live opponents — cash games or tournaments — you can’t calculate a long-run edge — too much depends on the level of the competition.

Blackjack versus baccarat

Newcomers find it hard to choose between baccarat and blackjack, since at first glance the games look very similar. In reality they have at least one key difference that radically changes the whole process and its meaning.

Rules and the gist

The gist of blackjack is to make 21 on two cards (three or more at a pinch), or at least simply beat the dealer, without busting. In baccarat the two sides tackle a similar task, albeit with differences: you need to make 9 points, tens and face cards count as 0, and a total of 10 or more keeps only its last digit (15 counts as 5, 10 as 0). But the key difference lies elsewhere: a blackjack player plays their own hand and decides how to act in every situation, whereas in baccarat the cards are drawn by fixed rules and you simply bet on one of two hands — Banker or Player (the Banker is a betting side, not the dealer) — or on a tie. Put simply, a baccarat player has no influence on what happens — they’re just guessing who’ll win.

House edge and odds

On house edge the comparison clearly favours blackjack: if a player has bothered to learn basic strategy¹ and takes no side bets, they lose an average of just 0.5% of their wagers, and by practising card counting and choosing a table with strong conditions that figure can be reduced further. In baccarat, consistently betting the banker beats betting the player — 1.06% house edge against 1.24%. What you definitely shouldn’t do is bet the tie regularly: it’s a comparatively rare outcome, you might get lucky with it once or twice, but over the long run you hand over 14.36% of your wagers, which is catastrophic for a bankroll.

Important: the tie bet in baccarat is the most expensive on the table; steer clear of it, however tempting the rare big hit might look.

Who each one suits

Baccarat is a game for those who just want to guess the winner and lean on luck: you can’t learn to play it, but a complete beginner can get lucky even without understanding the rules at all. In blackjack you make the decisions yourself, and your win or loss partly depends on your actions; on top of that, to improve your own success you have to get to grips with how basic strategy — or even card counting — works. But in return, once you’ve put in the effort, you’re no longer drifting passively with the current.

Blackjack versus roulette

Roulette is probably the most recognizable gambling game: it’s so firmly associated with the casino that tourists who drop into a gaming floor just once out of curiosity usually ask about it specifically. But on the question of which is better — blackjack or roulette — the answer is the same: blackjack.

Rules and the gist

The roulette wheel is divided into pockets: after the spin the ball settles in one of them, and the player’s task is to guess the exact number or at least a group of numbers (say, red or black, odd or even). Guess the pocket and it’s a guaranteed win, and the tighter the call, the bigger the payout (the best being 35:1 for a correctly named number). Where the ball stops can only be guessed: no skill helps here — on a perfectly balanced wheel the probability of any number is always the same. In blackjack, as we covered above, both the player’s actions and — more importantly — a clear understanding of the smartest play, i.e. a trainable skill, play a huge role.

House edge and odds

To recap: in blackjack, with basic strategy and no side bets, a typical table gives the house an edge of around 0.5%. In roulette a lot depends on the rule variant: European gives 2.70%, American 5.26%². There’s also French roulette, considered the most favourable: it’s credited with the lowest house edge (1.35% — also worse than blackjack), while people forget to add that this figure is only achievable on even-money (1:1) bets³. A curious reader will easily find various roulette betting strategies, including ones that cover most of the wheel (so almost every spin ends in a win), but they have no effect whatsoever on roulette’s long-run RTP⁴.

Important: the “favourable” French roulette only gives its 1.35% on even-money (1:1) bets — and that’s still worse than basic-strategy blackjack.

Who each one suits

That’s exactly why roulette appeals to those who aren’t casino regulars: the odds are identical for someone who’s on the floor every weekend and someone who bets at random. Lose, and you understand you just weren’t lucky this time, and there’s nothing to be done about it. Blackjack, on the other hand, is chosen by those who want to feel in control of what’s happening: the element of chance remains, but the player’s decisions and actions directly affect the outcome.

Blackjack versus poker

These two games differ fundamentally from baccarat and roulette in that you can’t rely on luck alone: you need to understand the rules, and here you can learn to play. An experienced player is still at the mercy of the cards that fall, but skill helps put them to good use. That said, there are more differences between blackjack and poker than similarities.

The key difference: who you’re playing against

In blackjack, as in roulette or baccarat, the casino visitor always plays against the house: several participants may sit at one table, but you don’t need to beat the people next to you. Poker in a poker room, however — cash games and tournaments alike — is played between the participants: you have to beat not the dealer but your fellow players, who’ve become your rivals. In that case the room earns not from wins in its favour (there’s no house edge) but from a commission — a percentage of each pot, usually capped, called the rake — or from a tournament entry fee. That said, there’s also casino poker, from table games to video poker: there the opponent is the house or a machine’s paytable, which means the player is now playing against the casino itself — and RTP can be calculated.

Skill and variance

Skill at poker helps you build the right line with the cards you’re dealt, but it still doesn’t guarantee a win: an experienced player can be dealt bad cards, and a beginner can get lucky. The element of chance produces high variance⁵, but broadly a skilled player is noticeably better off over the long run than a beginner, especially if the opponents are weaker. All the same, in a poker room you play against other live players: pots and tournament prize pools are made up of their money, and the room takes its rake. In casino poker — both table games and video poker — you play against the house or a fixed paytable, placing a bet to either lose it or collect a payout on a win.

The house edge of casino poker

Since casino poker has no volatile opponent-skill factor, the house’s edge here isn’t hard to calculate. It varies wildly from table to table and rule to rule, but here are a few examples for reference:

• Three Card Poker — ≈ 3.37%;
• Caribbean Stud — 5.22%;
• Pai Gow Poker — 1.46%.

Clearly, on house edge all these variants are worse than the 0.5% a player can expect after learning basic blackjack strategy and choosing that card game instead. Video poker stands apart: it’s a machine game against a fixed paytable, where full-pay 9/6 Jacks or Better gives the house ≈ 0.46% with optimal strategy, and the common 8/5 version ≈ 2.7%.

Pace of play and cost per hour

The house edge shows what share of your bankroll you lose over the long run — say over 1,000 spins or hands; another question is how quickly you get through them. House edge alone doesn’t protect you from losing all your money in one particular session, but a lower edge gives you a better chance of stretching even a small sum — of spending time playing rather than quickly handing it all over. And although pace varies not just from game to game but from table to table, an average number of hands can still be estimated, after which it all comes down to the size of your bet.

So roulette’s slower pace doesn’t make up for its higher edge: per hour it still costs about three times as much as basic-strategy blackjack, and even fast baccarat on the Banker costs more than blackjack. Poker is missing from this table for a reason: if you’re playing against a real opponent, or several, there can be no talk of a stable pace.

The verdict: what to choose

There are so many gambling games precisely because each has its own strengths and its own target audience. You can choose “on feel”, but broadly it comes down to your priorities:

• if you don’t want to lose much and you’re counting on the minimum house edge — the best choice is blackjack with basic strategy, with baccarat a close second, but strictly without tie bets;
• if you don’t want to dig into complex rules and just want to play right away with the win down to luck alone — try your hand at roulette or baccarat;
• if you want to play against real people and to know your win depends substantially on your own skill — the ideal choice is poker against other players in a poker room.

And if your priorities shift with your mood, just play the game that best answers your wants right now. To hone your blackjack decisions without risking a single loonie, the rules of the game and a free demo version will help.