by Zach Malmgren

Created on: February 15, 2007   Last Updated: November 29, 2011

Gambling is generally broken down in to two types of games: non-interactive and interactive. Non-interactive games are those played against "The House". The House can be a casino, a state entity or municipality, or any organization that is responsible for organizing the event or game. Example games where a casino is typically "The House" are Black-Jack, Roulette, Slot Machines, and Video Poker. State or municipality "House Games" are usually things like scratch lottery tickets, or lotto drawings.

Any "House Game" or non-interactive game is a game where you will lose money in the long run. House Games are set to give the house a certain expectation of profit. Games like Keno and Craps are the worst for players (where the house sees anywhere around a 10% - 25% advantage) where games like Blackjack and some video poker games are better for players (where the house advantage is closer to 1%). The problems with these games is that if you are looking to make a profit (vs. using these games for entertainment purposes) is that in the long run, you will lose. If you are looking to consistently make money at gambling, stay away from non-interactive games.

Interactive games are those where you do not play against the house, but against other players. Typically (in the casino or online setting) these types of games will be some variation of poker. The house "hosts" the games, and helps to ensure fairness and impartiality, but they are not concerned with the outcome of the game, and so do not stack the advantage to their favor like they do with non-interactive games. The potential drawback here to being a winning player is that you will have to practice, study, and develop your game. Poker is a game of skill, and you will have to work at it. This means that you will have to dedicate a certain amount of time to studying poker theory, game theory, decide which poker variations are best suited for you and then study those specific games, and then you will have to play them. Now comes the difficult part. In order to be a winning poker player, one hast to master a myriad of skills: Reading opponents, putting them on hands, playing unpredictably while still playing correctly, knowing the mathematical odds, and then sometimes throwing the odds out the window. Poker is a very situational game. What you do one time under a certain set of situations might not be the best thing to do the next time you come across similar circumstances. It takes lots of practice, study, and confidence

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