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.
(Note: this is a paid post because it’s not about philosophy at all! I’ll probably have my paid posts be more about random hobby stuff, so as a free subscriber you’ll get most of my fun and interesting hot takes.)
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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
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.