A wee question about min bet sizes.

[richie]

Sorry if this has been covered before.

Was wondering why some casinos/
software providers don't allow small bet sizes?

Some places have high minimum bet sizes on table games. Particularly Cryptologic & Microgaming casinos. Other casino software are happy for players to bet low like 3dice, some Playtech casinos(but not all) & Grand Virtual.

Just wondering what the harm is in having games like keno, video poker, roulette, blackjack & other table games set at a minimum of 1p, 5p or even 10p.

Are the overheads to run an online casino a lot higher now than a bricks & mortar. I can imagine it gets expensive to run, with bandwidth, lots of paid staff in different departments, software provider, licensing costs, tax etc?

However if slots can go as low as a penny a line, why not games like Keno, video poker & table games as well. What's the big deal? The player will lose eventually because of house edge, it may take them longer to lose but at least they're happy playing & comfortable with the bet sizes they're making & don't feel stressed with placing bets higher than they would like to. What's wrong with them making their bankroll stretch & have a bit of fun, rather than a wham bang thankyou man vibe of deposit & 10 minutes later it's gone.

I don't mean to come across hostile or anything, I'm not casino or software bashing, just genuinely curious. Gambling isn't essential to life like food & heating, so casinos can set whatever prices for their games they want. That's entirely up to them & their choice.

However if I owned a casino, I would allow people to bet as low as they wanted, as it would attract players with lower bankrolls to come and play, which is money coming in, & which over time, would add up to build a profit, millions of pennies coming in is better than them not coming in.

Isn't setting such high min bets on games a lost business opportunity?

 

[Vegasbum]

I have always wondered about MG keno especially. The minimum bet is $1.00 which is sick in itself. However have you ever looked at the paytables at MG keno? They are the worst I have ever seen. They are beyond pathetic. I can't really believe anyone would play reguarless of the coin valus. RTG casinos have the best keno on the net. But even RTG casinos have different paytables so you have to beware. RTG also have a 1 cent minimum keno bet as well.

I also agree that lowering the bet on some slots would entice people to play more. But the bigger the bet the sooner you loose. So maybe it is just greed on the casinos part to have higher min bets

 

[richie]

The MG Keno is different, it pays out more for low numbers, which actually lowers the house edge & makes your bankroll last longer. Playtech & RTG pay out more for getting all your numbers. I agree MG Keno is too expensive to play at £1 a go. I wish there was an option to play a lower stake. Although 3dice seem to use a similar Keno paytable as MG but on 3dice you can bet as little as 2p a game, which makes it a good place to play Keno. I wish 3dice had a mobile casino. 32Red have Keno on the j2me mobile casino, still expensive but cheaper than on the PC as it will let you bet 50p a game on mobile.

I used to play Keno a while ago on Bodog & loved the payout if you got 5 numbers. One time on Playtech I got 7/7 numbers & won £1500 on a 25p bet

 

[Simmo!]

A long time ago, I remember having a conversation with a well known casino about costs of player acquisition. One of the things that was a significant factor was the processing costs which are levied on the operator on every withdrawal and deposit. After UIGEA came in and processors took a huge hit on business, I was told many processors increased charges and I even heard of some that were > 10%.

The amount levied obviously varies according to the processing method, but the bottom line was that this particular casino said that, taking into account backoffice costs like customer servicing and bonuses, coupled with processing costs, they actually made a net loss on some low-rolling players.

3Dice created a feature called "The Safe" to help try and reduce the in/out transaction costs (they also charge for withdrawals over $2k to Neteller aswell I think), some casinos started charging for making a deposit or withdrawal, others implemented higher minimum withdrawal limits. But I would imagine preventing processing transactions could save a casino significant amounts of money and I guess this is also a factor (clearly not the only one!) in the "reverse" inducements we sometimes hear about.

I would *guess* therefore that higher minimum bet limits might be another way to keep costs lower, especially where games are low variance, because essentially low rollers (and probably advantage players) that make lots of in/out transactions can be lossleaders.

 

[richie]

That makes sense. Sounds like the payment processors are the greedy ones wanting their cut on each transaction. If the costs of running the casino are so high then fair play, can understand now why some of the table limits on games are so high.

I wonder if running an online casino is still cheaper than running a bricks & mortar one these days.

 

[dionysus]

That makes sense. Sounds like the payment processors are the greedy ones wanting their cut on each transaction. If the costs of running the casino are so high then fair play, can understand now why some of the table limits on games are so high.

I wonder if running an online casino is still cheaper than running a bricks & mortar one these days.

I couldnt say for sure, bet id bet by the hundreds of thousands it is

 

[Simmo!]

That makes sense. Sounds like the payment processors are the greedy ones wanting their cut on each transaction. If the costs of running the casino are so high then fair play, can understand now why some of the table limits on games are so high.

I wonder if running an online casino is still cheaper than running a bricks & mortar one these days.

I'm sure the number of different things you have in B&M are a right headache but another conversation I had, this time with a different casino with an MG licence shed some more light on that. The question I had asked was how some casinos could afford to offer affiliates silly percentages.

The guy in charge (who has now moved on) listed all the overheads of running an online casino and it was quite enlightening. From software licence fees and progressive contributions, support outsourcing, salaries, jurisdictional licensing fees, headoffice rent and rates, marketing & expense overheads etc etc. He too said that without high rollers, they wouldn't have been able to operate.

He also pointed out that with most B&M's you have natural "footfall" whereas online you have to actively go find each customer and consequently acquisition costs are higher plus, in general he thought that player "lifetime value" was probably lower because you don't have the benefit of a constant stream of "locals" and you have to fight to retain custom. Some B&M's obviously have competition too though so I guess that statement is not necessarily a global assessment, merely an observation re. online operators.

 

[Balthazar]

The MG Keno is different, it pays out more for low numbers, which actually lowers the house edge & makes your bankroll last longer. Playtech & RTG pay out more for getting all your numbers. I agree MG Keno is too expensive to play at £1 a go.

MG's Keno is ridiculous and has never been updated since the very beginning of MG. Minimum bet is bad, bet increment is awful and it's way too slow. They also have the absolute worst paytable of every single Keno I've ever seen, online and offline.

Keno's chances of hitting your numbers are always the same, it's like lottery.

Now hitting 8/10 on MG gives you 30x stake while the usual payout for this same 8/10 elsewhere is in the 100x-300x stake range.

30x for a 8/10 Microgaming? While the odds are 1 in 7,384? Seriously? ALL their paytable is this bad. ALL OF IT.


Edit:
For the records, the odds of hitting 6/6 is 1 in 7,752.

6/6 at the local pub (IGT machine) is 400x stake. On MG? 75x stake
5/6 is 90x stake vs 30x on MG
4/6 is 18x vs 3x
3/6 is 1x vs 2x
2/6 is 0x vs 1x
1/6 is 0x vs 0.5x

The extreme low variance of MG makes it much harder to get any decent winning. By design, Keno is a high variance game and there's no point of doing it low variance. I can't believe they still have such crappy Keno even though they have all these good slots. Shameful.