What you're actually playing

Slots

You choose a stake, press spin, and symbols land across a set of reels. Matching symbols along a payline (or across adjacent reels, in "ways to win" games) pay out according to a fixed table shown in the game's rules. There's no skill involved in the spin itself — the only decisions are how much to stake and which game to play.

Blackjack

You're dealt two cards and try to get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over. Number cards count at face value, face cards count as ten, and an ace counts as either one or eleven, whichever helps your hand. You can "hit" for another card, "stand" to keep your total, "double" your stake for one more forced card, or "split" a matching pair into two hands. Basic strategy — a set of well-established mathematical guidelines for when to hit, stand or double — can reduce the house edge, but doesn't remove it.

Roulette

A ball is spun around a wheel numbered 0 to 36 (or 0 and 00 on American wheels), and you bet on where it will land — a single number, a colour, odd or even, or various groupings. Single-number bets pay the highest odds because they're the least likely to land; colour or odd/even bets pay close to even money because they're close to a coin-flip chance, minus the house edge built in by the zero.

Baccarat

Two hands are dealt — "Player" and "Banker" — and you bet on which will finish closer to nine, or on a tie. Cards are drawn according to fixed rules rather than player decisions, which makes baccarat one of the simplest table games to follow: once you've placed your bet, there's nothing left to decide.

A common thread

Every one of these games is built with a mathematical edge in the house's favour, which is how casinos operate as a business over the long run. That edge varies by game and by bet type, but it never disappears — no betting pattern or system changes the underlying odds of an individual spin, hand or wheel result.