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Gambling in Saskatchewan

What’s there to know?

Gambling is the act of betting, wagering, or risking something of value on an activity with uncertain outcomes.

Saskatchewan has some of the highest participation rates for gambling across Canada. Every form of gambling has different rates of payouts, odds and probabilities, and house advantages.

Odds and Probability

Odds are the likelihood of something happening compared to all possible outcomes and are represented by a ratio (ex: 1:35). Probability is the same as odds, but represented as a percentage (ex: 46%). When it comes to gambling, the odds are set ahead of time and reset each time you play. Our brains can’t actually fathom large odds and makes it challenging to understand how odds and probabilities really work, instead, we think in terms of frequency or how positive the experience was.

To guarantee the gambling operator will make profit long term, certain rules are built into each game such as minimum bets and maximum payouts. As an example, if a VLT player played a machine for an hour, there would be likely wins and losses in the short term. However, over the consistent long term play, the player can expect to lose more than they win. A common belief is that if we play more we should win more. The small and frequent enough wins are what fuels this belief.  

 

House Advantage

The House Advantage (or House Edge) is a mathematical formula that a gambling operator (ex: casino, lottery company, VLT, etc) uses to ensure over a long period of time the business is making money.

Over the short term there is more volatility, or in simple terms, more wins and losses, making the game more exciting for the player. The house advantage is achieved in a few different ways: rules of the game, true odds vs payout odds, or by the theoretical hold. What is important to understand is that even though a player may experience some wins, over time and over many games played, they can expect to lose.

Randomness

Randomness is found in all forms of gambling and means that something happens by chance, with no plan or purpose and holds no memory of past results. In gambling, no one can accurately predict what will happen or what results will occur next. Thus, winning and losing results are random – 100% of the time. In slot machines and VLT’s random results are achieved by the Random Number Generator (RNG), a specialized computer chip that works behind the scenes to generate random outcomes. Random results are also achieved by shuffling a deck of cards, rolling dice, or by spinning a wheel.