Casino table games provide players with plenty of choice

Online casinos try to make it easier to find your favourite casino game by placing them into categories such as slots, video slots, table games, jackpot games etc. but the difference between the categories is often a little unclear. For example when does a slot become a video slot? It is not a question of five reels or three reels as there are plenty of five reel slots in the slots section as well as the video slots section so maybe it is the use of characters from video games or movies instead of fruit symbols that define video slots. It seems to casinos.ie that there is no definitive answer and it certainly seems to vary from online casino to online casino. One thing that is constant however is the category of table games where you should find all of the card games and dice games as well as the ever popular roulette. Some of these may have jackpots and if they do they will reappear in the jackpots section. The table games section probably contains the greatest variety of casino games although in number the slots and video slots are far greater.

Of the table games the two most popular are without doubt roulette and blackjack although the generally appeal to different types of online casino player. Roulette for example is a game of pure luck; you place your chips anywhere and if one of your numbers come up you get paid in accordance with the odds. The unique thing about roulette is that there are no good or bad bets meaning that whether you choose to back several single numbers or pairs of numbers or rows or columns a win always results in the same number of chips being available. This is possibly more difficult to explain than it is in reality but let’s give it a go. Let’s say for example that you want to bet on three single numbers and one of them comes up. You have placed three chips on the table but two of them have lost so they are removed by the croupier. The one remaining is paid at 35:1 so the croupier gives you 35 chips which leaves you with 36 because the winning stake always remains.  Now let’s suppose that the three numbers you want to bet on are all in one row on the table. In this case you place the same three chips at the end of the row as your bet. Once again, one of the numbers comes up but in this case a bet on a row pays at 11:1. You have placed a bet of three chips so the croupier gives you 33 chips. In this case however you have no losing bets so your original stake of three chips remains on the table so you end up with the exact same 36 chips. All casinos and online casinos have the same odds when playing roulette so the only thing to watch for is American roulette where there is an additional zero called double zero. This does not affect the odds paid but there are now 38 numbers where the ball can and instead of 37 on European or French roulette which clearly reduces your odds of winning.

Blackjack is probably the second most popular of the table games played at online casinos as many people know how to play or at least they think they do. One of the most popular definitions of the game of blackjack is to get as close as possible to 21 without exceeding that number or in other words busting. Casinos.ie thinks that this definition gives rise to many players losing unnecessarily and prefers players to think simply in terms of beating the dealer. This is important for the simple reason that the only advantage that the dealer has in this casino game is that as the player you play first. There is clearly an even chance of the player or the dealer having a better hand and in the case of a tie your money is returned so it seems to be a 50/50 game but it isn’t. Playing what is called the classic strategy which is what is followed by the dealer means drawing cards up to 17 or above and standing on 17 or greater will result in the hand busting on numerous occasions. Once you have bust in blackjack you have lost no matter what happens or might have happened later with the dealer’s hand. If you are playing multi hand blackjack which is possible at every online casino it is more likely that you will see the dealer’s hand played out and you will see that the dealer busts on several occasions but if you have already bust your own hand  you have lost regardless. The secret to good blackjack therefore is to know when the dealer will bust and still be in the game when that happens. To still be in the game is easy as there are no rules saying when you can stand and when you cannot so even if you have 13 or 14 you can still choose to stand and if the dealer busts you will win. Knowing when the dealer will bust is however a little more difficult, in fact impossible to know for sure. There is however one clue and that is the one card that is showing in the dealer’s hand. Everybody knows that out of every 13 cards in a suit 5 of them are valued at 9 or above which is approaching 40 % of the cards. If the dealer is showing a 5 or a 6, therefore, there is an increased chance of them busting. No guarantees but an increased chance. If you have 15 or 16 in your hand you also know that your chances of busting when drawing a card are quite high so that is the time to consider whether drawing a card is the better option or whether simply standing and hoping that the dealer busts might produce a better result.