Best Payout Casino In Atlantic City
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As a blackjack fanatic and occasional visitor the Jersey Shore, I’ve found myself in my fair share of Atlantic City casinos hunting down blackjack games.
I guess I’m a minor-league expert on blackjack in AC.
Even after the tumultuous past few years of casino closings and projects that failed to launch, Atlantic City is a little Mecca of blackjack. When you compare the setting of my favorite AC casinos to Las Vegas, there’s really no comparison. In South Jersey, you’ve got miles of beaches, the beautiful boardwalk, and a countryside so pastoral that the area was once covered in health spas. In Vegas, you’ve got acres of desert and miserable weather pretty much year-round.
Well I’ve finally done it. I’ve played at or at least gathered details on every blackjack game in the city. In this post, I cut right to the chase and discuss the best blackjack games in AC.
The Best Blackjack Odds
When most people hear the phrase “the best blackjack,” they think of the game that gives the house the smallest advantage. That’s a totally reasonable assumption, but I don’t think it tells the whole story. I’ll start there, since that’s what most people want to know right off the bat.
The best blackjack game in Atlantic City (in terms of odds) is at the Golden Nugget. It’s a game played with a six-deck shoe, which gives the house a smaller edge than the standard eight-deck shoe. The other rules that make it favorable to players – dealers stand on soft seventeen, and players are allowed to make a late surrender. A late surrender is a common rule available in AC which gives the player the right to forfeit and retain half his wager after the dealer checks for blackjack.
Taken all together, these rules give the casino a 0.34% advantage over players following basic strategy. The late surrender rule is worth 0.8% all by itself. What’s the catch? You have to be willing to wager at least $50 per hand. It’s a high-roller game, though $50 per bet is not exactly out-of-this-world expensive. Tables requiring $1,000 wagers per hand are common in VIP rooms in Vegas. But I imagine it’s out of the reach of most casual blackjack players.
Every other casino in the city (besides Bally’s) has a six-deck game with similar rules, available for minimum bets of $25. The reason for the cheaper bets? They don’t allow late surrender. You can even find $10 minimum six-deck shoe games during the daytime at Borgata, but no late surrender is allowed in that game, either. The house edge for these games (without the benefit of the late surrender rule) is 0.42%.
The Best Budget Game
Part of the problem people have with blackjack in Atlantic City is that they think all the games follow the same rules. I’ll admit that the majority of blackjack games in the city’s casinos are identical. They look like this: played with an eight-deck shoe, allowing double down on any first two cards, dealer hits on soft 17, you can split up to three times, and doubling after splitting is allowed. That game gives the casino an edge of about 0.67% against basic strategy.
Here’s the thing – I don’t think this is such a bad game. Look, you knew going in that blackjack in AC isn’t nearly as good as blackjack in Las Vegas, right? So when you talk about a “budget” blackjack game, you have to know that you’re not going to get great odds.
The fact that every casino in Atlantic City (except for the Borgata) offers a blackjack game as described above makes it my favorite choice for bettors on a budget. The game at the Borgata is identical, except that dealers STAND on a soft total of 17, so the house edge against basic strategy is 0.44%, slightly better than at the other casinos up and down the boardwalk.
I’ve decided that the Borgata’s basic blackjack table, with minimum bets of $10 (or even $5 during the day off-peak season) and a decent house edge of 0.44%, it’s the type of game I’ll sit at and play for an hour without paying much attention. At $25 an hour, it’s cheaper than a night at the movies, and you meet the most interesting people. Don’t forget that AC casinos are on fire for customer service right now, with their profits in the toilet. I got good free drinks all night on my last game in the cheap seats at the Borgata even though I ended up losing about $10 an hour all told.
Try and avoid any extremely low-limit games you find in Atlantic City. In the year 2011 I started seeing games that allowed wagers of just $1. Of course, there’s a catch – you have to pay a $0.25 commission fee for each hand you join. This makes every hand a sucker bet, since the player starts out an extra quarter-point in the hole to the casino.
The Worst Game in Atlantic City
The only tables I’ll never go near are now available in every single open property in the city. The dreaded single-deck blackjack game.
You should always be suspicious when a casino deals a single deck game. More than likely, the rules are such that the game can’t be profitable for even a low-level card counter. That’s definitely the case in Atlantic City. There is not one single-deck game that pays 3-to-2 for a natural blackjack. I’ve looked and I can confirm that every single-deck game (even at my beloved Borgata) pays 6-to-5. That one rule gives the house a monstrous boost in its edge – 1.58% against basic strategy.
Any single-deck game you come across (that’s not in the high-roller or VIP section) is the worst game in the city.
Conclusion
Las Vegas tables tend to have the most liberal rules in the world of blackjack. In Atlantic City, the addition of features like late surrender or stand-on-soft-17 looks nice, but you have to pay for those privileges with an increased advantage to the casino. If you find yourself in South Jersey itching for a blackjack game, make sure you know the games available at the casino you’re headed to before you leave. Most of the casinos in AC aren’t great for blackjack players – unless you have a fat bankroll.
For decades, the majority of the advertising you may have seen for Atlantic City casinos has centered around how loose the slot machines are.
Slots are the most popular games in any casino and Atlantic City casinos have been trying to draw you in by promising the loosest slots in town. What they’re really saying is their slots pay out at a better rate than the competition. Some can even prove it using data from the New Jersey Department of Gaming Enforcement (NJDGE).
The NJDGE puts out the Atlantic City Casino Industry Casino Win Data report annually. It lists, by denomination, how much money the slots at every Atlantic City casino is taking in every year and how much of it they’re keeping. From there, it’s easy enough to extrapolate the Return To Player rates for slots at all nine Atlantic City casinos.
If you’re playing slots online you might not think this has much to do with you. That’s wrong. For the most part, the online slots you find at New Jersey online casinos are the very same ones you see on the gaming floor at Atlantic City casinos.
These days, almost 99% of slot machines are computerized. At Atlantic City casinos, the computer programs that run the slots are housed in the slot cabinets you find in banks all across the gaming floor. At NJ online casinos the very same computer programs run on servers you can access on the internet.
Since most of the games are the same, it would follow that the Return To Player rates for most of the slots at Atlantic City casinos are the same as the ones you’ll find at online casinos or in some cases, better.
Casinos with Better Paying Slots than Atlantic City Casinos
What Does Return to Player Mean?
The odds of winning at any casino game are often expressed in something called the Return To Player rate (RTP). It’s the opposite of the house edge the casinos enjoy on the games.
Essentially, return-to-player is the expected return a player can see, also referred to as payout percentage. The return is based around the life-expectance of the game, which in the case of online slots, is essentially infinity.
That means a game with a 90% RTP will pay back $90 for every $100 played on it.
The thing is, the payout percentage is based on long term performance of the slot machine. In other words, you’re not guaranteed to get $90 out of a game you just put $100 into.
It will take many, many sessions before you can estimate the RTP.
However, the slot machine payout percentage is a strong indicator of what you can expect from a casino game over the long haul. For slots in particular, RTP is far and away the best way to tell if a game is loose or tight.
Atlantic City Slot Machine Payouts
A look at the numbers in the 2018 Atlantic City Casino Industry Casino Win Data report tells us that Atlantic City casino slots had an overall average RTP of 92.11% in 2018. That’s a pretty good number for players because it means $92.11 of every $100 put into Atlantic City casino slots was paid back in prizes to those same players.
So, who really had the loosest slots in America’s playground in 2018? Here’s a look at the best Atlantic City slot machine payouts.
- Golden Nugget 93.15%
- Borgata 92.01%
- Harrah’s 91.97%
- Resorts 91.89%
- Tropicana 91.81%
- Bally’s 91.73%
- Caesars 91.67%
- Ocean Resort 91.45%
- Hard Rock 91.28%
Golden Nugget Atlantic City had the loosest slots in 2018. In fact, Golden Nugget’s $0.50 slots were the loosest in all of Atlantic City paying out a 98.5% RTP on the $2,750,730 they took in.
Penny slots might be the most attractive in Atlantic City casinos because they appear to cost the least to play. However, the average RTP of 88.7% for $0.01 and $0.02 slots in Atlantic City casinos in 2018 suggests they may not be the best bet. In fact, the $0.01 and $0.02 slots at Bally’s and Harrah’s offered the worst RTP in AC at 87.6%.
Ultimately, the data suggest if you can find a $.50 slot machine at an Atlantic City casino you should probably play it. The average RTP for $.50 slot machines at all Atlantic City casinos is 94.1%.
The next best bet is the high roller $25 slot machines, which posted an average RTP at all Atlantic City casinos of 93.4%.
AC Slots vs. Online Slots
Unfortunately, the NJDGE does not release this kind of specific Casino Win Data for NJ online casinos. That means we can’t tell you how online slot machines actually performed over that same period of time.
Best Slots In Atlantic City 2020
Fortunately, some real money casinos list the expected payout percentages for most slots in the description of the game. That means we can look at a selection of games you can find both at AC casinos and online and figure out an average expected RTP for those slots online.
Top 10 AC Slots Available Online
Here’s a look at the Top 10 AC Slots that are also available online and the RTP listed for the games at Golden Nugget Online Casino:
- Quick Hit Platinum:A retro Vegas classic five-reel and 30-payline slot with an RTP of 94.06%. Features include a progressive jackpot, free games, wild symbols, and the instant-win Quick Hit pays feature.
- Wolf Run: Forest-themed five-reel and 40-payline slot with an RTP of 94.98%. Features include an Auto Play function, bonus rounds, stacked wilds, free spins, and high quality wolf graphics.
- China Shores: A Chinese panda-themed five-reel and 30-payline slot with an RTP of 96.10%. Features include Asian-inspired symbols, a progressive jackpot, free games, and the ability to exchange free games for a random prize.
- Fu Dao Le: An Asian-inspired five-reel and 243-ways-to win slot with an RTP of 96%. Features include clumped wilds, mystery symbols, a free games bonus feature, a Red Envelope Jackpot, and a jackpot bonus feature with three jackpots.
- DaVinci Diamonds: An old-world Italian artistry themed five-reel and 20-payline slot with an RTP of 94.94%. Features include tumbling reels, free spins, scatters, and a bonus round.
- Hot Roll Super Times Pay: A classic Vegas dice game-themed five-reel and 20-payline slot with an RTP of 93.4%. Features include wilds, Hot Roll symbols and bonuses, and wild multipliers.
- Siberian Storm: An Siberian winter and white tiger-themed five-reel and 720-ways-to win slot with an RTP of 95%. Features include free spins and wild symbols. There’s also a Dual Play version of the game with 1440 / 2880 lines and an RTP of 94.22%. It’s features include the MultiWay Xtra feature with 1440 ways to win, a stacked wilds feature, and free spins bonus.
- 88 Fortunes: A classic Chinese-themed five-reel and 243-ways-to win slot with an RTP of 96%. Features include a free games feature, Fu Bat pick win bonus round, and Fu Bat Jackpot symbols giving you a chance to win one of four progressive jackpots.
- Dancing Drums: Another Asian-inspired five-reel and 243-ways-to win slot with an RTP of 96%. Features include wilds, free spins, scatters, the FU BABIES Jackpot Bonus and Free Spins Bonus.
- Zeus: A greek mythology-themed five-reel and 30-payline slot with an RTP of 95.97%. Features include free spins and a free games feature offering up to 100 free games.
RTP online versus live
The 10 slot machines listed above have an average payout percentage of 95.15%, which is even better than the AC best 93.15% RTP average of all slots on the Golden Nugget Atlantic City casino floor posted in 2018.
Best Odds Casino In Atlantic City
This suggests you’d be better off playing the games online than at a land-based casino. That may very well be the case, but before we declare that the slots at online casinos are looser than the same games at land-based casinos in AC, we should remind you of some important distinctions between the numbers.
First of all, the land-based casino RTP numbers are based on real data over the course of a year provided to the NJDGE by Atlantic City casinos. The online casino RTP numbers are basically theoretical and could take longer than a year to be realized.
Plus, the land-based casino RTP numbers are formed using actual data from every slot on the floor of an Atlantic City casino in 2018. The online casino numbers are theoretical RTP figures for just 10 games found at both land-based and online casinos in New Jersey.
Best Payout Casinos In Atlantic City
Can I earn comps at AC casinos for playing online?
If you play slots online instead of at an Atlantic City casino you might think you’ll miss out on all kinds of comps, bonuses, and player loyalty rewards you’d otherwise earn. That’s wrong. Several online casinos offer the same comps, bonuses, and player loyalty rewards you earn on the gaming floor at Atlantic City casinos.
In fact, many online casinos will provide loyalty programs that allow you to earn points at their land-based locations or earn credits for the land-based program, thereby allowing you to both earn and redeem at the online casino or retail location.
Here’s a list of the online casinos where players can earn comps at Atlantic City casinos when they play online:
Caesars Casino & Sports – Caesars Rewards Card
Caesars Rewards offers the Tier and Reward Credits for betting online at the Caesars Online Casino. Caesars Rewards properties in Atlantic City include Bally’s Atlantic City, Caesars Atlantic City, and Harrah’s Atlantic City.
BetMGM – iRewards Loyalty
BetMGM offers two rewards programs, one for online players, called iRewards Loyalty Program and the other for brick-and-mortar players. You can exchange your iRewards Points into Express Comps and use it at any MGM Resorts destination in the US, including Borgata in Atlantic City.
Golden Nugget Online Casino – Golden Rewards Program
Golden Nugget offers its own proprietary Golden Rewards program online. However, Golden Rewards members enjoy benefits and perks at Golden Nugget Atlantic City.
Harrah’s Online Casino – Caesars Rewards Card
You can earn comp points at Harrah’s online casino and convert them to your standard Caesars Rewards account.
SugarHouse Online Casino – iRush Rewards Program
SugarHouse provides a unique rewards program called iRush Rewards program. The rewards program is available at both both NJ and PA casinos. You can use these comp points at the Philadelphia SugarHouse Casino.
The online slots advantage
The truth is that online casinos are a lot more convenient for most people than their land-based partners.
If you want to play slots at an Atlantic City casino you must go out of pocket for transportation costs and unless you live next door to one, it’s going to take some time to travel there.
In contrast, you can login and start spinning online in a matter of minutes with no additional travel costs.
Since the slots are mostly the same at AC casinos and NJ online casinos, the fact online is more convenient and less costly makes NJ online casinos the obvious choice between the two. Plus, even though it’s theoretical, the fact you might enjoy a better RTP online than live makes the decision between the two a no brainer.
Casino With Best Slot Payout In Atlantic City
With RTPs over 90%, we recommend doing both. But if you have to choose one or the other there’s simply too many advantages to playing slots online over AC casinos to ignore.