Gambling games have featured throughout human history all around the world. Whether you look to the ancient tile games in China or the origins of roulette in Italy and France, people have always found a way to create gambling games.
As a result, so many casino staples are universal in their appeal, from more skill-based games like poker to the entirely randomised slots.
Yet, cultural and national preferences will always have their say. In some countries, certain casino games dominate the conversation, from revenue to active players.
Taking a quick jaunt around the world – or rather, close to the Pacific Ocean – these are the casino games that boast near-unprecedented levels of popularity in their pockets of the globe.
Baccarat is a hot favorite among the massive Asia Pacific gambling crowd – particularly when it comes to players hailing from China.
With Macau now teeming with Vegas-style super casino resorts, many Chinese bettors simply head south, instead of across the globe. It’s become such a draw that Macau’s new secretary for economy and finance is trying to find ways of diversifying the special administrative region’s economy away from gambling.
A huge wedge of tax income is produced by gambling here, and much of that is owed to baccarat. In fact, of the $4.3bn in gross gambling revenue generated in Macau casinos in Q3 2024, over 61% was derived from mass baccarat. This is even with VIP baccarat – the real big-money games – seeing lesser returns when compared to 2019 figures.
The popularity of the card game is seen as a result of it touching on several cultural ideas of luck in China. For one, it’s a luck-based game with a low house edge and a simple, quick game loop. Plus, the target number in baccarat is nine, which represents maximum happiness and good luck in Chinese numerology. As well as this, casinos will deck their baccarat tables with red felt, which is also seen as lucky in Chinese culture.
American gambling culture has often been propelled by the underdog story – especially in entertainment media. Further, with casino gaming outlawed across much of the country for so long, there’s that additional element of taking it to the house whenever anyone plays, even if casino games are widely accessible in the US these days.
Games with a low house edge have the most appeal – with the odd exception of American roulette being picked over European roulette – and those that allow for skill to be deployed are even more popular. This is why poker has long been a hit. However, for casino gambling, it’s all about blackjack.
Popularised further by the exploits in several films, blackjack is a game that you can learn and make optimised plays in by getting to grips with basic strategy. It’s all about making sound calls based on probability.
The house edge gets cut down even further with refined play to close to one percent, which is why it’s beloved in Las Vegas. With over 2,600 total tables run per month, over 1,000 are dedicated to blackjack, generating over $7bn in wagers each year for Sin City.
In the casino halls of Macau and Las Vegas, you can guarantee that there’ll be hundreds of slot machines. They’ve long been popular for their big-win potential – especially when tied to jackpots. But, the explosion of interest in recent years has been driven by online games.
Not needing to worry about hardware and floor space, online casinos welcome several new online slot games every month, which drives competition and the development of better games.
Anyone who has played a classic one-armed bandit might not even recognise modern online slots. Some offer hundreds of thousands of paylines, feature ten or more reels, can expand in any direction, and even have fishing features. So, it makes sense that in the UK, slots drive 81.8% of online casino gross gambling yield and over 80 percent in the French market.
Even with the UK and France being examples, the online slot as its own gambling game boasts tremendous global appeal.
As more markets open up, like in New Zealand, where the collection of online casinos is already teeming with hit slot games, more countries will find that online slots are their most popular games. The hit pokies, as they’re known in New Zealand, are perpetual favorites. Games such as Starburst, Book of Dead, and Gonzo’s Quest draw particular favor.
Whether they’re traditional pokies, progressive jackpot slots, fixed jackpot slots, Megaways slots, or any of the other new, inventive formats, online slots find huge audiences around the world. This is very much helped by the creativity of the developers. With the development process being relatively fast, meaning leading providers are able to explore all the hit themes, trends, and features.
Online slots offer a diverse and colorful landscape filled with enough options to appease just about any passerby. Yet, in Las Vegas and Macau, it’s classic card games that remain the biggest hitters of them all.
