Casino News / Editor / 31 October 2007 / Leave a comment

Betfair's revolutionary Casino Zero Lounge, which offers "no house edge" gambling on four popular games has opened its virtual doors to smaller stakes punters.

The minimum stake in the Zero Lounge has been decreased by from GBP 5 to GBP 1 to make the concept more widely available.

Betfair Zero Roulette removes the zero from the roulette wheel to create no house advantage. Betfair also changed the rules of Baccarat, BlackJack and Jacks or Better in the Zero Lounge to create zero house edge gaming.

The online gaming company says its flagship Zero game is Roulette, but in 28 of the 130 countries where the product is available Betfair has been on the losing end of the casino vs. player "no casino edge" wagering.

Releasing details of the winning regions, a Betfair spokesman said that customers in Greece beat Betfair Zero Roulette to the tune of GBP 29 700 - an actual payback of 100.02 percent. Other significant winners over the year included customers from Spain at over GBP 25 400, Germany at GBP 3 400 and the Czech Republic at GBP 3 800.

Significant European winners also included customers from Poland, Georgia and Lithuania, whilst canny punters from Malaysia performed the best in Asia - beating the Betfair Casino out of GBP 10 100 at Zero Roulette.

"While most casino operators are looking for clever ways to increase the edge they have over their customers we aim to offer our customers more value," said Betfair's Head of Casino Sam Hobcraft. "The results prove that Zero Roulette pays more back to customers per stake made than any other casino product on the market - we have taken a loss in some countries."

Betfair entered the online casino market in October 2006 launching the revolutionary Zero Lounge - an area where the customary house-edge is removed for "Zero" games of Baccarat, BlackJack, Jacks or Better and Roulette.

In one year of operation the Malta-licensed Betfair Casino has catered for more than 75 000 individuals placing over 90 million individual bets. Zero Roulette has proven to be the most popular game, catering for 25 percent of all bets made. Whilst the roulette consistently offers zero edge action regardless of strategy, the Blackjack, Baccarat and Jacks or Better offerings require expert application of the correct strategy in order to gain optimum "no edge" advantage.

Alongside the Zero-Edge Casino Betfair also offers over 40 classic online casino games in its Main Lounge section, including slots, ten different card games, craps, video poker and soft games.

Blackjack tables pay out 2 - 1 on a suited natural Blackjack instead of 1.5 - 1 and the Jacks or Better video poker game pays out 22 percent more for a Royal Flush than competitors.