General Question

AstroChuck's avatar

Why do casinos have a maximum bet limit?

Asked by AstroChuck (37609points) April 11th, 2009
18 responses
“Great Question” (0points)

Fact: Casinos are in the business of making money, and lots of it.
Fact: The odds are always in the casino’s favor.
Fact: The more you gamble, the larger the odds are you’ll eventually lose. Play long enough and in the end they’ll get it all.
They want your money, so why the upper limit on bets?

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Answers

upholstry's avatar

So you don’t bankrupt them

kevbo's avatar

If you go double or nothing ad infinitum, you eventually get your money back.

Sakata's avatar

It’s so the casino can cover any and all bets. If a person dropped $100 on the roulette table and let it ride on 23. If that hit 3 times in a row you would win $3,276,800. The casino doesn’t want that and can’t cover it.

If the max bet is $200 and that won on 23 three times in a row you would win $19,200 since you can’t bet more than the $200 max.

upholstry's avatar

@kevbo if you’re Bill Gates

ABoyNamedBoobs03's avatar

sakata pretty much covered it. if you bet big and by chance win, the casino is out a ton of money. people will also end up spending a higher percentage of their winnings if they make numerous small bets over a few big bets. And the casino has to be able to pay out everyone on the time of request, if you have two 20 million dollar winners at the same time, it puts a huge strain on their reserves.

AstroChuck's avatar

So basically it’s an insurance policy for the casinos. Makes sense.

Sakata's avatar

I worked at a casino for a while and it’s true… the house ALWAYS wins. The max bet is just another tool in their arsenal.

flameboi's avatar

they must be sure that in the case the big fish wins (has happened), they will have the money so settles the loss at the end of the night, if they can’t, they will lose their license…

Drahmee's avatar

I have worked in a casino for a number of years. The casinos have to consider standard deviation and how risk-averse they are. The more risk-averse they are the lower the maximum bets will be, or the smaller the ratio between minimum and maximum bets will be. The first option lessens major losses while still allowing moderate profit, while the second limits people’s ability to double up until they win. Extremely risk averse casinos like the one I work in do both. Doing both can also limit losses due to cheating by staff and customers.

kruger_d's avatar

Is it true that casino have to hold enough cash to cover all bets on the floor?

Sakata's avatar

Yes

Drahmee's avatar

Where I am in Canada they don’t have to, but considering the small probability of everyone winning, there only needs to be a certain amount of money available, with the ability to have more delivered. They have never had to, since they use standard deviation (odds) to calculate what the correct amount to keep on hand is.

soumenpaul's avatar

i agree AstroChuck, it’s like an insurance policy to them.

Casinos have the maximum limit, so that you wouldn’t be able to win.
you are bound to win before you reach it.

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