The casinos love to use euphemisms to make a bad deal seem slightly better, and using the word “ante” instead of “fee” is just an example of this. It would be more accurate to describe this so-called “ante” as a fee for playing a hand of blackjack or for betting on a spin of the roulette wheel. In the Native American casinos in Oklahoma, it’s an amount you put up in addition to your bet that the house keeps whether you win, lose, or push. What’s an Ante?Īn ante is a forced bet, usually in poker, that drives action to the game. Calculate the house edge for the table games I played at the Winstar Casino, accounting for the antes. I had a math teacher in high school who insisted that I “show my work.” But this was the first time I’d spent much time at the tables paying that ante on every hand of blackjack and every spin of the roulette wheel.īeing a gambling writer who’s especially interested in the math behind the games, I started thinking about how to quantify what this ante does to the house edge. I knew in a vague way that the Winstar ( like other Oklahoma casinos) charges an ante when you place a bet. We started with roulette and went on to play blackjack. We didn’t have much fun at the slots, which seemed tight, so we decided to try the table games. I’ve never really done much gambling there besides playing poker.

On Sunday night, I took a date to the Winstar Casino in Oklahoma to do some gambling.

Roulette table with odds