The Three Best Online Casino Games for New Players

The Three Best Online Casino Games for New Players

When you’re starting out in the online casino world, it can be really intimidating to try to figure out which games are the best to start with. Here we break down the three best casino games for online players (non-slots only) to help you get started off on the right foot.


Getting Started: How to Pick Casino Games as a New Player

People who are just starting out in Internet casinos have to face what’s often a really intimidating decision: Which games should they play first? Game selection will always be a point of contention in the industry as it is, but when you’re inexperienced, it becomes even more tricky.

Our goals for players who are looking for suggestions on what to play are to give them options that will fit a variety of play styles without much difficulty or chances to fall into trap bets.

Along these lines, we’re going to make a handful of suggestions (three in particular) that will give players some titles to play along with basic advice on how to go about playing them. We want to make it easy to find something that you’ll enjoy without having to worry about learning tons of strategy or trying to avoid the virtual landmines that can come along with trap bets, which are wagers that trap you with much higher house edges than usual.

How We Picked These Titles

There are a few things we’re looking for in picking out the best casino games for new players. They include the following criteria:

  1. We want a low house advantage of 2.5 percent at the most.
  2. We’re looking specifically for games that are easy to learn that do not have complicated strategies.
  3. We’re skipping over slots and only looking at table games.

We think that these three criteria will give players a really easy start without being stuck playing only slots, and that gives us a bit of variety in the process as well.

Game #1: European Roulette

There are different styles of roulette available, but if you stick to the European version of the game, then you’ll be in good hands. It’s the perfect game for beginners because the house edge is the same on every single available bet at a low 2.7 percent, and that means no trap bets for you to fall into.

With that said, make sure you avoid the American or mini versions since they have much higher house advantages despite looking very similar to the European version.

The basic idea behind European roulette is that a wheel is going to be spun with the numbers 0-36 on it, and a small ball will bounce around on the wheel to choose one of those numbers. If you pick correctly, then you win.

However, you don’t have to pick the exact number. There are plenty of other ways to play like betting on whether a number is even or odd. Other than the 0, half of the numbers are black while the other half are red, and you can bet if the ball will land on black or red as well.

This is a really straightforward game that’s easy to understand and simple to jump right into even if you’ve never played it, and that’s why it’s one of our top picks.

Game #2: Three Card Poker

If you want a card game to play, but you don’t want to have to deal with the strategic complexity of the different styles of blackjack, then Three Card Poker is a good place to start. There is a bit of strategy to this game, but it’s really easy to sum up, which we’ll do so below.

There are two different bets available. One is called the ante wager, and the other is the Pair Plus. Avoid the Pair Plus, and stick with the ante wager. When you play the ante, you’ll be dealt three cards, and you’ll have to face off against the dealer if you decide to put in more than your initial bet instead of folding.

When this happens, you have to decide which hands to play and which to fold. The best strategy is as follows:

Bet if you have Q-6-4 or higher, and fold if you have Q-6-3 or lower.

To simplify this a bit, always bet if you have a pair or higher. If you don’t have at least a pair, always bet if you have an ace or king in your hand. If you don’t have an ace or king, then you will usually fold except in certain cases when you hold a queen.

With a queen (but no pair or better), you should always bet if your second-highest card is a seven, and you should usually bet if your second-highest card is a six. The only two hands you’ll fold in this latter case is Q-6-3 and Q-6-2.

The house edge of this game is just slightly over 2 percent if you play with the strategy listed above, which is very good for games that do not require complex strategies.

Game #3: Baccarat

Baccarat is one of those games that has a reputation for being a much more difficult title than it actually is. A big part of this is that it looks like blackjack, but the gameplay is actually completely different. Here’s a basic overview of how this game works:

  • The dealer is going to deal out two hands called the banker and player hands.
  • Despite one of them being called the “player hand,” you can actually bet for or against whichever one you want to.
  • You can bet on either of the hands to win, or a tie, but the tie is a trap bet that should be avoided.
  • Each hand gets two cards to start with, but based on what the values are, a third card can be dealt as well.
  • The winner is the hand with the highest number in the “ones” digit of its total. This means that while 9 beats 7, it also means that 9 beats 17 or 27, both of which have the same base value of seven points.

What’s really awesome about Baccarat is that it’s easy to play, there are no strategies involved, and bets on either the banker or player hands both have a very low house advantage. It’s about 1.06 percent on the banker bet and just under 1.25 percent on the player hand, so both of these are obviously good bets that are easy to get started with.

Overview

These three games that we have suggested above with Baccarat, Three Card Poker and European Roulette all meet our criteria of not requiring complicated strategies and of being non-slot titles that are accessible to new players. These titles can form a solid foundation to start with for players who want to learn how to play a variety of games, or you can have any of them become your favorite that you stick with in the long run.

While chances are that you’ll want to expand your horizons as you get more comfortable and learn more about the games that are available, this group of games is a great start for people who are just starting to get their feet wet.