Blackjack and baccarat on the rise, but pokies still top the Australian casino charts. Image credit: AdobeStock
That’s not to say gambling is any less popular. On the contrary, the continuing strategies of offshore gambling websites to target Australian players has prompted a wider variety of games to try than ever before.
It’s something of a high-risk strategy as far as the casino sites are concerned, as the IGA has made its position clear on the topic and online casinos are not supposed to market their wares to Australian players. However, the players themselves can play to their hearts’ content without breaking any rules – providing online gambling games for others might be illegal, but playing such games is not.
While the Australian regulators maintain something of a King Canute attitude to what’s going on around them, the global iGaming industry continues to grow and develop. It would be disingenuous to suppose Australian gambling habits are unaffected by what is going on in the wider world. Here, we take a look at the games that Australian gambling enthusiasts have been playing most in 2022.
Pokies have been part of Australian bar culture since time immemorial. The shift towards online play might have brought new choices of other games, but it has also opened the door to hundreds of new pokies. Resources like GambleOnline help players to navigate the dozens of websites out there, some of which have thousands of pokies.
The addition of jackpot slots to the mix adds an extra dimension to gameplay. These are games that have a progressive jackpot that grows every time someone plays the game, and eventually triggers, sometime paying out a sum in the millions. The odds of winning are slim, and can be compared with winning the lotto – but even that outside chance is enough to tempt people to try a dollar or two, just in case.
Outside Australia, blackjack is the most popular casino game, both in physical casinos and online. There’s no huge jackpot here, but with the right strategy, you can reduce the house edge to less than one percent.
Players feel more in control when they are making decisions on whether to hit, stand or split a pair, and blackjack’s popularity is on the rise – especially when players can play the game in a live casino setting with a human dealer on a webcam.
20 years ago, barely anyone knew how to play baccarat. The online age has led to something of a baccarat craze, especially for the simplest version of the game, punto banco. Volatility and house edge are both low, meaning this is a game where you can sit down with $20 and stand a good chance of at least breaking even after an hour’s play.
Baccarat lends itself to betting progressions, so players feel they are in control, but really, it is all down to luck. That’s good news for novice players, who stand as good a chance of winning as those who have been playing for years.