Craps vs. Roulette vs. Blackjack

Craps, Roulette, and Blackjack are three of the most popular table games in any casino. Which game offers you the best odds? Which is the most fun for your buck? Which game might gamblers be smart to stay away from? What about playability – which game will be the most difficult to play while holding a cocktail, or entertaining a date? These three Vegas greats go head to head in several categories. Three games go in, one game comes out.

Game History

All three of these games will offer plenty of good times. That's why they're in the casino to begin with. These are the tried and true methods the casino has of taking customer's money – apart from any activity involving a vise grip. Conventional wisdom holds that any game that hangs around for a number of years must be fun.

Blackjack Game History

Blackjack is at a clear disadvantage, having appeared on American soil for the first time around 1890 – however, the roots of the game go as far back as late 17th century France making this at least a three hundred year old game.

Tracing Roulette History

Roulette is a trickier game to trace. Some say the mathematician Blaise Pascal invented Roulette (or EO as it was then called) after his work on a perpetual motion machine. Truth is, humans have been betting on wheel games since the time of ancient Rome, when soldiers would turn wagon wheels on their side and gamble with stones. Either way, roulette is at least as old as blackjack, perhaps a bit older.

Historical Background of Craps

In terms of a game's longevity, craps is the clear winner. Some form of the popular dice shooting game has existed, some say, since around 2600 BC in an area of the world we now call Egypt. However, craps takes the cake for now.

WINNER: Craps

Stretch Your Dollar

This category is where things get sticky, and math comes into play. Any roll of the dice in craps or spin of the wheel at a roulette table is completely independent of all previous rolls or spins, eliminating the possibility of forming a long term strategy. With blackjack, cards are dealt from a known set, increasing the possibilities for strategy and even cheating. In blackjack, cards can be marked, counted, held, altered, etc. Also, in blackjack, once you see your cards, you know what the other players and dealer cannot have. This is not to imply that craps and roulette are "pure chance games" – plenty has been written and there is much to learn about these games' strategy, and plenty of people have tried (with varying degrees of success) to cheat the roulette wheel or load dice at the craps field. Let's take a look at pure house odds and get some idea of what games offer you the best return on your hard earned money.

Crap Odds

The final word on which of the three games is the most lucrative is, perhaps unfortunately, left up to the player. Craps offers the best "approved" odds in the house if you play the most favorable bets. In other words, if you stick to the best possible bets and play over a period of time without cheating or getting too drunk and getting tossed out of the building, you stand to lose the least amount of money playing craps. Also in craps there is an element known as "human fallibility". When a shooter thinks he is on a hot streak, his head swells to an unmanageable size and his thinking may be way off – it is then that you have the option of betting against the shooter, and it is also then that the odds turn more in the bettor's favor.

Blackjack Game Odds

Blackjack generally offers worse odds than the best bets in craps, but if you have that uncanny ability to count cards, it is possible to raise game odds to "even" or maybe a slight house disadvantage. That's right – the house stands to lose money to you on every hand if you're a trained card counter. An important side note to all this -- counting cards is legal, but is of course frowned upon, and if the casino so much as suspects that you are doing it, usually by examining your bet history, they will kick you out. It is also very difficult to learn this particular hobby. In short, if you are just looking for the game that will hurt you the least on your next trip to Vegas, the odds in blackjack aren't significantly worse than craps. The key feature is how you, the gambler, play the game.

Roulette House Edge

Unfortunately for Blaise Pascal, roulette is the out and out loser in this category. With a standard US house edge of 5.26%, a bet placed on a roulette wheel is generally considered a sucker bet by those gamers who prefer table games. If you luck out and find so called European roulette (featuring one less space for betting) you decrease the house edge to an average of just 2.7%. Either way, the wheel and ball game removes the player from the final game decision in a way that craps and blackjack do not.

WINNER: Tie between Craps/Blackjack

"Cool" Factor

For what it's worth, the coolest table game in the casino these days is Texas Hold 'em, simply because of the game's presence on ESPN and other television stations, and the myths surrounding the game's invention and meteoric rise to fame. However, that game is off the table in this discussion – which of the big three table games is most likely to get you laid?

Blackjack Card Counting

Blackjack is infamously cool because of card counting, the MIT blackjack team, and the cutthroat nature of the game. In blackjack, every player is playing against everyone else. If 16th century Caribbean pirates found their way into a modern casino, blackjack would most likely be their game. But how cool can a game played by students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology be? Horn rimmed glasses and fancy electrical engineering degrees aren't exactly anyone's idea of cool. Blackjack can't be our winner here.

Cool Craps

Craps is cool. A game of dice shooting, multiple dealers, and a specific area set aside for the storage of your cocktail – what more could you ask for? Any film set in Las Vegas will almost assuredly feature at least one scene around a craps table . . . there is just something about a felt table and clanking dice and scantily clad cocktail waitresses that begs to be filmed. Also, as we've already established, you probably have the best chance winning money in any casino playing craps. And isn't winning money always cool? Unfortunately, even these factors don't push craps over the edge. There is still one game cooler . . .

Roulette & James Bond

Roulette was James Bond's game. I'm not just talking about the many films made over the last few decades. In the original James Bond books Moonraker and Casino Royale, Bond plays three or four really gripping games of roulette. In one scene, for instance, a beautiful and bosomy female character begs Bond to give her his lucky number. Cool as he is, Bond shoots back "I have no lucky numbers". If there's a cooler game in the casino, you go play it. I'm sticking with roulette.

WINNER: Roulette

Overall Game Analysis

Adding up the wins and losses, we have a clear overall winner. Craps is perhaps the most entertaining of all three table games, and certainly one of the most lucrative. While it takes a hit in the cool department, those two early wins are enough to push it over the edge. If you have one chip to lay down in a casino, head for the craps table.

Blackjack is a close second – the odds are fair, especially when considered against the crackerjack odds found at an American style roulette table, and there is a mysteriously cool feel to the tables.

I hate to say it, but roulette is the last game I would play. I don't like the odds, especially if both the 0 and 00 spots are intact as they are in America, and there is no way a player can truly impact gameplay. Besides that, I don't even get to handle the roulette wheel or the ball. At least in craps I have the chance of becoming the shooter and attracting the attention of gorgeous women. Roulette, I'm keeping an eye on you.

Any trip to a casino is likely to be fun. Any place where I have a chance to earn a free drink, a free hotel room, or piles of cash – you can count me in. And I know will get email from people for weeks over this article. Diehard roulette fans can be vicious. But when you strip things down to bare fact, it is difficult to deny that craps is the finest table game available, at least for now. Who knows what little mathematician is, at this very moment, inventing the next great game. Stay tuned.

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