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How to Read Payout Percentages of Online Casino Games
By Sage Kalmus
Each online casino rewards players differently and moreover, each online casino does as well. You might have heard, for example, that craps has the best payouts of all while the payout percentages for video poker may be less than ideal (this is not a hard fast rule, merely an example). So what does this mean? What are payout percentages, how much do they matter to you, the player, when searching for a new online casino to enter or online casino to play, and how can you use this knowledge to rake in as much money as possible? This article will answer all of these questions, and a few others.

The payout percentage of any online casino is the portion of players’ wagers that is paid out in winnings. That’s right -- if you thought that all of the money bet at the online casino is paid out to somebody (hopefully you as much as possible), you thought wrong. The “house”; (or the online casino itself) keeps a small percentage of every bet coming in as part of their “fee” for providing the online gambling venue in the first place.

Now, before you go pouting in a corner, vowing never to set cyber-foot near an online casino again, let us assure you -- not only is it the same way with land-based casinos, but the payout percentages at those brick-and-mortar casinos is lower (or worse for you, the player) than at the online casino.

The primary reason, of course, is the lower cost of operating an online casino as compared with a land-based one. The secondary reason is competition -- there are so many online casinos, and more cropping up every day, that one of the only ways to compete in this cutthroat industry is to offer you, the player, better chances of walking away from your computer with money in your account than the competition can promise.

This is why most online casinos will hire a reputed third-party auditing company (like Price Waterhouse Coopers) to audit their games monthly and produce a payout report detailing the percentages of money coming into each online casino at that casino (slots, craps, roulette, video poker, keno, etc.) that is paid out to players in the form of winnings and bonuses. So if you see something like this -- Slots 98.7% - you know that the house keeps 1.3% of each penny bet at the slots. The closer the payout percentages of an online casino to 100%, the better it is for you, the player. So if we saw -- Craps 99.8% - we’d probably brave

a few rolls of the dice.

And incidentally, most jurisdictions that regulate gambling require casinos online and off to pay out a minimum of 75% of all incoming monies. Though in some cases this number may be slightly lower, it’s unlikely you’ll ever find it too much lower than that.

These payout reports are generally published openly on the online casino’s website with a complete archive of previous months’ reports all readily available for anyone wishing to view them. If, perchance, you’re considering a site that does not publicly display their payout percentages of each online casino directly on their site, it is complete reasonable for you to write to the site (see their Contact Info) to inquire about it. They should be more than happy to email that information to you. If they’re not, we’d raise an eyebrow and seriously consider not depositing any of our hard-earned money into such a place.

Now you know how to better evaluate online casinos and each online casino that they offer in order to learn not only which have the best odds of winning any amount of money at all, but also which have the largest payouts. Armed with this information, you’re now better prepared to venture out into the jungle of online casino games and emerge with a bounty to be proud of!
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