Which NJ Online Casino Games Offer The Best Returns To The Player?
These days, New Jersey online gambling websites offer such an abundance of similar games, that it can be difficult to gauge which variants provide the best player returns.
Seemingly inconsequential rule tweaks or even a change in betting denomination can often mean the difference between a game that affords players a great chance to win and one where the player, sans a lot of luck, will be at the mercy of the house.
Skill-based or luck-based casino games?
The hard and fast rule is that games that require a measure of player skill typically offer better returns than luck-based games like slots and roulette.
However, if played poorly, good games like Jacks Or Better and Blackjack can eat up a player’s bankroll faster than even the tightest slot machine.
Luckily, there are plenty of resources available on the internet that run down optimal strategies for these games. And there’s no rule preventing players from using a cheat sheet while playing these games online.
If played perfectly, the best skill-based games at NJ online casinos offer returns that exceed 99.5 percent. Tropicana Casino gets the nod for boasting more of these virtually break even games than most other NJ online casinos.
Do good luck-based games exist?
All of this is not to say that all luck-based games are bad plays; but finding good deals might require a bit more homework.
For roulette players, the task is simple — look for games where the wheel only has one zero. The difference between a single (European) and double zero (American) game is tremendous — 5.26 percent vs. 2.70 percent.
The good news is that whereas most land-based casinos only offer European Roulette to high-stakes players, the game can be found at virtually every NJ online gambling website — at stakes that won’t require players to dig deep.
Finding a loose slot game can be a bit more research intensive, but some sites do offer shortcuts. Golden Nugget Casino players can clink on the info tab of any slot game to see pertinent information like min and max wagers, max payouts, volatility and most importantly, the RTP or return-to-player.
Generally speaking, players will want to seek slot games with an RTP of at least 97 percent. A few good examples are Blood Suckers, Jack Hammer, and StarMania.
It’s certainly worth noting, that a slot’s RTP sometimes varies based on select circumstances. For instance, a Spin Sorceress player who sets the game’s Super Bet setting to the maximum will receive a much better RTP (97.06 percent) compared to a player who doesn’t enable the feature. The catch is that players will have to invest more money per spin.
Same deal for Monopoly: Big Event, which offers players Big Bet Games that return 99 percent.
What are the best games in the New Jersey online gambling market?
As suggested earlier, the very best games in New Jersey possess at least some skill elements, and must be played optimally to achieve the best results. On top of that, they offer favorable rule sets, such as 9/6 payout tables for Jacks Or Better or stand on soft 17 for Blackjack.
With that in mind, here’s a glance at the top echelon of NJ online casino games:
- Single Deck Blackjack — 99.74 percent return game found at Tropicana Casino and Virgin Casino. Single deck games are superior to shoe games, even if the other rules aren’t as favorable.
- Deuces Wild — 99.73 percent return game found within the Triple/Five Play video poker terminal at Trop/Virgin.
- Jacks Or Better — 99.54 percent return game found at most NJ online casinos. Play the single line Game King version only.
- Baccarat — 98.94 return on banker bets. Play EZ Baccarat at Betfair Casino or Live Dealer Baccarat at Golden Nugget Casino.
Are NJ Online Casino Sweepstakes Drawings Worth Participating In?
While just about every NJ gambling website promotion increases the value of playing real-money games, some promotional vehicles are perceived as more valuable than others.
Sweepstakes drawings typically rank near the bottom of the list, mainly because players don’t see themselves having a realistic chance of winning.
It’s difficult to fault that logic. By design, sweepstakes typically pay out one or two massive prizes, a few slightly smaller ones, and a moderate number of tiny awards. Everyone else goes home empty-handed.
But there’s a huge difference between a sweepstakes drawing held at an Atlantic City or Las Vegas strip casino, and one held online at Tropicana Casino, for a few reasons:
- Land-based casinos are more heavily trafficked than New Jersey online casinos, by a wide margin. In 2015, Atlantic City’s eight casinos generated $2.24 billion, versus $125 million for NJ online casino sites.
- Online casinos typically place a cap on the number of entries a player can earn per day, which gives casual gamblers a fighting chance.
- On most sites, the promotional period is only a few days. Land-based sweepstakes promos often last a calendar month, or more.
In short, NJ online casinos will generate far fewer entries than those held at brick and mortar venues. Fewer entries, better chance to win.
So, if there’s any market where sweepstakes promos are worth participating in, it’s in New Jersey.
How do you estimate the value of a NJ online casino sweepstakes promotion?
There’s no quick and completely accurate way of estimating the average player value of a sweepstakes promotion, but making a rough guess isn’t all that difficult.
Let’s say a Virgin Casino sweepstakes guarantees $10,000 and pays 100 players, which is about par for the course. If we knew how many total entries there were, we could easily assess the promotion’s worth by dividing the prize pool over total entries. For instance, if there were 5,000 entries, then the average value of the promotion would be $2 ($10,000 prize pool/5,000 entries).
Predicting total entries might initially seem impossible, but it’s not.
Revenue charts provide a big clue, so let’s start there. Together, Tropicana and Virgin Casino rake in approximately $3 million a month in gross gaming revenue, which breaks down to roughly $50,000 per site, per day. Assuming Virgin holds $0.05 per every dollar wagered — a fair estimate — then $1 million ($50,000/0.05) is being wagered on the site daily.
Now, we need to guess how much the average player wagers per day. This is impossible to know for sure, but given the tendency of the state’s many high-rollers to wager $1,000 per day or more, $500 feels about right. So, if $1 million is wagered per day, and the average player wagers $500, that means there are 2,000 active players per day. Actives players is not synonymous with total entries, but close enough.
Great. Now just plug in $10,000 for prize pool, and 2,000 for total entries in the following equation.
- Average player value = prize pool / total entries
The average player value in this example is therefore $5. In reality, there are other variables to consider, such as the length of a sweepstakes, whether the entries are capped at a certain number, and what percentage of players actually opt-in. But again, for our the average gambler’s purposes this is good enough.
Once players have estimated the number entries, determining their odds of winning a prize of any sort is easy. Just divide the number of winners, in this case 100, over the number of entries (2,000).
- Odds of winning = # of prizes awarded / total entries
In this instance, 5 percent of players will walk away with something.
How do sweepstakes stack up against match bonus offers?
Pretty favorably.
Outside of the initial welcome match, the monetary value of match bonuses tend toward the smallish side. Caps between $50 and $100 are the norm, so let’s use a number in this range as a guideline.
If players receive a 100 percent match up to $100, but must wager the bonus 20 times on slots before it clears to their cash wallet, the effective cashback rate is 5 percent.
By comparison, a sweepstakes promotion might task a player with wagering $50 per entry, capped at three entries. At an average return of $5 (as per the example above), the effective cashback rate is 3.33 percent — lower, but certainly not that much lower, than the cashback rate of the average match bonus.