Which Australian casinos run which table game

What you will find everywhere, and what you will not

Australian casino floors are built around pokies first and table games second, with one or two exceptions. That ordering sets what is reliably available. The games with the broadest appeal and the lowest staffing cost per table run constantly; the specialist games run when there is a crowd.

Two properties are worth naming as exceptions to the pokies-first pattern, because they change what a table-games trip looks like. Casino Canberra has historically operated without poker machines, which makes its floor table-games and electronic-terminal territory. Crown Sydney's New South Wales restricted gaming licence does not permit poker machines either, though its gaming is membership-based rather than open to walk-in patrons. If tables are the whole reason for the trip, those two are structurally different from the rest.

Blackjack: available everywhere, different everywhere

Blackjack is the most widely available table game in Australia and the one where the detail differs most between venues and between tables in the same venue. The variation is not cosmetic: the rule set printed on the table changes the house edge, and two tables ten metres apart can be materially different propositions.

• How many decks are in the shoe, and whether it is shuffled continuously
• Whether the dealer peeks for blackjack, and what happens to your doubles if they have it
• Whether blackjack pays 3:2 or 6:5 — this one matters more than all the others combined
• Whether you may double after a split, and on which totals
• Whether surrender is offered, and whether it is early or late
• Which side bets sit on the layout, and what the minimum for them is

Venues also run proprietary variants alongside the standard game, and those variants have their own rule cards and their own edges. Crown Melbourne's published table-games listing is a good example of how many named variants a large Australian floor carries at once. Read the plaque and the rule card rather than assuming the game is the one you learned, and if you want the mechanics first, our blackjack guide covers them. For where the game is most reliably running, blackjack by venue goes property by property.

Roulette: single zero or double zero, and how to tell before you bet

This is the most consequential thirty-second check on an Australian casino floor and almost nobody does it. A single-zero wheel has 37 pockets and a house edge of about 2.7 per cent. A double-zero wheel has 38 and an edge of about 5.26 per cent — roughly double the cost for an identical-looking game. Both appear in Australian casinos, sometimes in the same room, and the signage does not announce the difference.

1. 1Look at the wheel itself. Count the green pockets. One green pocket is single zero; two is double zero. This takes five seconds and is not open to interpretation.
2. 2Look at the betting layout. A double-zero layout has a 00 box next to the 0 box at the top of the grid.
3. 3Read the plaque for the minimum and the maximum. Outside bets and inside bets often have different minimums on the same table.
4. 4Check the electronic terminals too. Terminals linked to a live wheel inherit that wheel; standalone terminals use their own configuration, which may not match the live tables in the room.

Australia also runs its own variants in places, and roulette-style games with extra pockets or bonus segments carry a higher edge than either standard wheel. If the wheel has anything on it beyond numbers and two colours, treat it as a different game and find the rule card. Our roulette guide sets out the bet types; game odds compares the edges side by side.

Craps: harder to find in Australia than visitors expect

Craps is the game Australian casino floors are least likely to have open, and the reason is operational rather than legal. A craps table is large, it needs a crew of several staff rather than one dealer, and it needs a crowd to feel worth running. On a quiet weekday a venue that owns a craps table will simply not open it.

What we can state from venue sources: Crown Melbourne publishes a craps page in its own table-games listing, so the game is part of its floor. The Star Sydney is also widely listed as carrying dice games among its table offering. For the smaller properties the honest answer is that we cannot confirm craps without a venue statement, and we are not going to assert it — which is exactly why the step below matters more here than on any other game.

If you arrive and the table is closed, the usual substitute is a sic bo table or an electronic terminal — both dice-based, neither the same game. Our craps guide covers the bets and which of them are worth making.

Sic bo: the live table against the terminal

Sic bo is better represented in Australia than craps, partly because it needs less space and a smaller crew, and partly because it has a long-established following at the larger metropolitan properties. Crown Melbourne publishes a sic bo page in its table-games listing, and the game appears on other major floors as well.

The distinction to understand is between a live sic bo table and an electronic sic bo terminal. The live table has a dealer, a shaker and a minimum printed on a plaque. The terminal has a lower minimum, runs faster, and is available when the live table is closed — which, for sic bo, is most of the time at smaller venues. Faster rounds at a lower minimum can cost more per hour than slower rounds at a higher one, which is the point our table minimums page is built around.

One thing to check on any sic bo layout, live or electronic: the paytable. Sic bo payouts for the same bet differ between venues and between machines, and the edge on individual bets ranges from reasonable to severe. The specific bets to avoid are covered in our sic bo guide.

Baccarat and the poker room: separate rooms, separate hours

Baccarat is well represented across Australian casinos and is frequently in its own room rather than on the main floor, often with higher minimums and its own atmosphere. Expect it to be available at the major properties and expect the room's hours to be shorter than the floor's. Our baccarat guide covers the three bets and which one to ignore.

Poker rooms are the most variable thing in any Australian casino. A room may run tournaments on fixed nights and cash games only when enough players are present, and both schedules change seasonally. A property that advertises a poker room is not advertising a game you can walk into at any hour.

• !Check the room's own schedule for the week you are travelling, not the venue's general page
• !Ask whether cash games are running or only tournaments, and at what stakes
• !Ask about registration cut-off times if you are coming for a tournament
• !Expect the poker room to close earlier than the gaming floor

Our poker room guide covers what to expect on arrival, and opening hours by venue covers the floor hours a room sits inside.

Electronic table terminals: what is open when the live tables are not

Every large Australian casino now runs electronic table games alongside the live floor — terminals for roulette, blackjack, sic bo and baccarat, sometimes linked to a live wheel or dealer and sometimes fully automated. Crown Melbourne publishes a dedicated electronic-tables section, and the same category exists at the other major properties under various names.

They solve the availability problem this whole page is about: a terminal is open when no live table is, the minimum is usually lower, and nobody is waiting for a seat. They introduce two problems in exchange.

If you are using terminals because the live table you wanted is closed, set a time limit as well as a money limit before you start. The cost of an hour on a terminal is a function of rounds played, not of the minimum on the screen.

The same speed problem is the central feature of playing online, where there is no dealer, no shoe change and no queue at all — so it is worth knowing what else changes with it. An operator's own terms page names the overseas regulator that would hear a complaint, the wagering multiple and the withdrawal caps, which is the comparison worth making before anything else.

Availability at a glance, and what to check on site

How reliably each game is open across the fourteen Australian properties, and the single thing worth checking once you are standing in front of it.

The house edge decides more than the venue does

Which casino you walk into changes what is open. Which game you sit down at changes what the evening costs, and by a far wider margin. The gap between a single-zero roulette wheel and a double-zero one is larger than the gap between any two Australian venues, and the gap between a main-game bet and a side bet is larger again.

We are not going to restate the numbers here, because they belong on one page and are easier to compare in one table: casino game odds in Australia sets out the house edge by game and bet type, and pokies RTP and house edge does the same for machines. What belongs on this page is the practical consequence: decide the game before you decide the venue, then ring the venue to confirm that game is running.

And set the budget before either decision. Our budget guide includes a worksheet for a whole visit, and table minimums explains why the number on the plaque is not the number that matters.