You Lose Less from a $100 Blackjack Hand than a $5 Spin at Slots

DO NOT PLAY SLOTS. TELL YOUR FAMILY TO NOT PLAY SLOTS.

If you bet $100 at a single hand of blackjack, on average you’ll get $99.56 back¹. If you bet $5 on a single slots spin, on average you’ll get $4.50² back. With these bet sizes, you lose 44 cents from Blackjack on average, and 50 cents from slots on average. I know those two footnotes are ominous, but I promise that I’m taking very normal rules for both slots and blackjack.

This isn’t a pedantic point, where blackjack is actually only a little better than slots, or the statistics are misleading. No. It really is that much better of a deal. And I’ve got a little

Nate Silver

in me, so I’ll show how bad of a deal it is. This isn’t exactly my usual philosophy content but I love gambling and I cannot believe that Slots and Blackjack are offered at every casino. Imagine if you went to a store and there was a chair there for $20, and right next to it there was a chair that looked about as good that costed $400. Is slots really worth a 20x loss in value just for the pretty colors on the screens? Because I’m not exaggerating! Slots is a 20x loss in value! Do not play slots! If you ever catch a whiff of a casino or anyone you know is going to them, tell them to not play slots! You can also tell them to not do any gambling where they’re losing money on average, but failing that, tell them to not play slots.

“Average” in this case is how much you expect to get back. So if you bet $100 at blackjack for 10,000 hands, and bet $5 at slots for 10,000 spins, you’re most likely going to lose more money from slots. As you play more, the more likely it is that blackjack is the better deal; that’s the law of large numbers. It’s an important caveat that slots doesn’t tell you the amount of money you’ll get back on average every spin³, but it’s usually between 85% and 95%. I took 90% for these calculations. With some variation of the rules for either of the games, it can skew to where slots edges out blackjack barely in terms of value with these dollar amounts, but the fact that a $100 play and a $5 spin are even in the same ballpark of “value” is insanity. It’s even faster to spin slots than play a blackjack hand! Do not play slots!

This isn’t the full picture, though. What some players at the casino are buying is variance. They don’t want a 50% chance to double their money, they want a 0.000001% chance to get a billion trillion dollars. This is why the lottery is so alluring: you’re buying a short-lived dream of quitting your job and buying a mansion. And slots do, in fact, have a huge number listed at the top of them. I mean, imagine if you won! You can’t get that at Blackjack!

If you want this dream at a casino, please play video poker or Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em, and dream of getting a Royal Flush. The value of both of these games is right around blackjack⁴ (so, they’re both good values⁵) and a Royal Flush in either will get you quite rich. Note that for video poker, there are many different variations (you have to know what to look for!), but you can actually know what the exact house edge is and they’re all going to be better than slots. Ultimate Texas Hold Em is a great game that’s similar to regular Hold Em in rules, so if you already know the rules for that, you’re off to a good start.

Another reason people might want to play slots is you do need to know some basic strategy for blackjack, Ultimate Texas Hold Em, and video poker. This is usually as simple as memorizing a table or list, but Slots requires no skill, whatsoever. I encourage slots players to spend some time learning these strategies. That’s more time investing in gambling without actually gambling, which is good because less time on games where you’ll lose on average helps the ol’ wallet. Also, knowing the optimal strategy is easy and makes you feel awesome and strategic without needing any strategy or skill (it’s only memorization!).

Interestingly, there are very curious ways to have a positive house edge in both Blackjack and Slots. This means that as you keep betting, your money will tend toward infinity! Unfortunately, both of these strategies are going to be difficult to use. You can count cards in blackjack, and play machines with real progress bars at slots.

Counting cards in blackjack may sound like a crime if you don’t know what it is, but it’s really just remembering what cards have already been played in your head, and changing your strategy because of it. The reason casinos can kick people out over this is that the casinos can kick people out for any reason, and if you’re about to win all their money, you’re not going to be allowed back. Sports betting apps also ban people who consistently make good bets, and if they don’t ban you, they’ll limit you to $1 max bets or something. If you’re going to gamble on sports bets, I implore you to use Kalshi (legal in the US) or Polymarket, where you can actually win if you’re good, plus prediction markets are awesome. But the “do not bet on sports books, use prediction markets” post is for another time. Counting cards, like these examples, is purely making smart decisions.

Real progress bars⁶ in slots is more interesting. If you’ve ever been to a casino, you’ll see thousands of slot machines littered throughout the floor, and on them is a large picture of something that represents a progress bar that’s almost completed. Sometimes they’re lit up rockets, about to blast off. Sometimes they’re literal progress bars. Sometimes they’re overflowing pots, about to burst. Look at how full these pots are! They’re surely about to overflow and win you money!

…Well, these are fake progress bars, and have literally no effect on how much money you’ll get out of them. It doesn’t matter if they’re empty or almost full; literally no effect. It doesn’t matter if these pots have been at their max for 100 slots spins; literally no effect. These pots are deceivers! Slots manufacturers are allowed to bait you like this because they’re probably evil or something, I dunno. True progressives are different, rare additions to slot machines, and they usually come in the form of guaranteeing a “bonus” that will give you lots of money before you hit a certain number.

If somebody, for some reason, left this machine when it had 1799 buffalos out of 1800, it would be a very good idea to sit down at the machine and start gambling until it gives you the free bonus. It would be free money on average! Unfortunately, everyone else knows this too, and there’s like 10 people camping out watching machines that have real progress bars, waiting for the person to leave. And most people who are playing these machines know they need to hit this true progress bar, so they don’t get up. Still, it’s a way to spend an afternoon. And probably you won’t get kicked out like counting cards.

I’m making this post to tell you to not play slots at the casino. I happen to enjoy gambling, and am more than willing to spend my time and money on a negative EV game because it’s oh so fun, and it makes me feel like a baller. Sure, I’m a chump. But I’m a slightly richer chump than the guy next to me at the casino. Because I don’t play slots.

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This post is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or gambling advice.

1. American blackjack, basic strategy, dealer stands on soft 17, 3:2 blackjack odds, dealer peeks, 8 decks. This is most tables in Vegas (though the hit on soft 17 brigade is invading. It only raises the house edge by ~0.2% though, which isn’t horrible. It does make the value ~50% worse, though…).

2. In America, most slot machines give back between 85% to 95%. I took the average, 90%. If you bet on a higher denomination, usually you’ll get a better value, and vice versa. The difficult part is slots don’t tell you their house edge at slots, so unlike blackjack, you’re not guaranteed to get a good deal if you know what to look for.

3. I could have explained house edge and EV, but my friend once told me to stop using the words house edge and EV when I tried to explain this to her, so I’m rolling with pure English here baby.

4. It’s better to look at Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em in terms of element of risk, where it’s right around blackjack. This is because you’re probably going to put in additional money as a function of the game, and house edge is only on the original bet, but element of risk accounts for it. If none of that makes sense, trust me that if you put in an equivalent amount of money, it’s a pretty good deal. About 80% as good as blackjack, in fact, instead of 5% as good as blackjack like slots.

5. I mean, it’s still negative average value, but you’re at a casino. I hope you expected that. Unless you’re a poker whiz, of course. My respect to the normal Texas Hold ‘Em kings out there. Nate Silver my GOAT.

6. Usually called a progressive, but progress bars make more sense for people who don’t know what they are and that’s basically what they are. Also, “progressive jackpots” do affect house edge if the big numbers at the top are larger or smaller. Don’t think about it too hard.