No more house edge for online casinos?
The earnings model of casinos has been fairly simple for centuries: you offer games where the casino is a few percent in favor. Of course people win big amounts, but in the long run the casino makes a profit because of this house edge. With roulette this is about 2.7%, with Blackjack 0.5% if you know what you are doing as a player and with slot machines it varies between 2% and up to 20%, so make sure you know the Return To Player (RTP) of a slot machine before you start playing.
Land based casinos need this edge to make a profit, because they have costs for the building, staff and countless other costs. Online casinos often have a somewhat lower edge on the slot machines because the costs are lower, but they also have to pay for marketing to stand out from the ever growing competition.
Future casinos without house edge?
So, what if the house edge would disappear in the future? A casino with 0% house edge. Undoubtedly people will play there; We know we would! But how will the casino make profit with zero house edge? First, the costs are getting lower and lower. Payments via cryptocurrency cost a fraction of what the banks or external payment systems require. And is also much safer! There is simply less money needed to make a profit. In addition, there is a difference between 0% house advantage on paper and 0% house advantage in practice. Certainly in games where some strategy is applicable (blackjack), only the best players will profit maximally from the 0%. Players who do not know what they are doing are, as it were, responsible for their own loss percentage. Or look at sports betting: if you bet optimally and spread your risk, you have indeed managed to put the casino at 0%. Only how many people simply bet on the high odds and hope for the best? Right, a lot! People like to take a risk for a chance to win big, even if the odds are clearly against them.
Player versus player instead of player versus casino
Finally, casinos can let players play against each other, without the players themselves noticing anything of course. When the zero disappears on the roulette wheel, the house edge is actually 0%, but when the casino bets the stake of player X against the bet of player Y on black, the casino ensures that this risk is covered. Mutually players can trade their bets and there the casino picks up a small margin; smart right? This is what you see already with poker. Players play for money and a very small percentage goes to the casino, this small percentage is not related to the outcome of the hand.
So eventually we will most certainly see (online) casinos that will offer a zero house edge for players in order to attract new players. It could be an interesting change to the ever growing offer in different kind of bonus and free spin offers.