Key Messages for Clients about Games and Systems

Casinos, bingo halls, lotteries and racetracks are designed to make money.
Las Vegas was not built on winners—it was built on losers.
It is possible to win, but all commercial games are designed to guarantee that the house (e.g., the casino) will make money in the long term.

Lotteries

The chance of winning the grand prize in Lotto 6/49 is 1 in 14 million.
If a person bought 1 ticket every day, he/she would have a 50% chance of winning the grand prize within the next 26,000 years.
When a lottery advertises that the odds of winning are 1 in 7, it is referring to the small prizes, not the large prizes..
The payback percentage on most lotteries ranges from 20% to 80%, with an average payback of about 60%.
A payback of 60% is like paying a credit card interest rate of 40%, compounded per bet.

Casino games (e.g., craps, roulette and slot machines) have a higher payback percentage than lotteries (e.g., from 90% to 99%).
Don’t be fooled by the higher payback, the casino would not offer these games if it was not making money from them.
These games make money because people play fast and continuously until their money is all gone.
In the long run, people tend to lose money faster on a slot machine or at a blackjack table than by buying lottery tickets.
Your chances of turning $1 into $8 million by playing roulette, for example, is about 1 in 29 million, worse odds than some lotteries.

Games of skill (e.g., poker, horse race betting, and sports betting) are games at which some skilled players can make money in the long term.
Casinos and bookies make money from skilled games; most players lose money at games of skill.
If a game has a skill element, it means that the players not only have to beat the casino, but they also have to beat the other players.
A player who is less skilled than the others will lose more than he/she would in a game of pure chance.
If all the players in a poker game are equally skilled, the outcome becomes a product of pure chance.
In horse racing, the payback percentage is about 83%, so even fairly skilled players will lose money.