Casino Games in India

The casino games you will find in India

Walk into a large Indian casino, whether a ship on the Mandovi River in Goa or a resort property in Sikkim, and you will find a smaller and more focused menu than a Las Vegas floor. The staples are baccarat, blackjack and roulette, and around them sit the fast, simple games that Asian floors are known for: Dragon Tiger, Casino War, Sic Bo, 7 Up 7 Down, the Money Wheel, and poker variants played against the dealer rather than against other players¹.

Deltin, the biggest operator in the country, lists baccarat, blackjack, roulette, Dragon Tiger, Sic Bo, 7 Up 7 Down, Casino War, Money Wheel, 3 Card Poker, 5 Card Poker and Mini Flush across its properties, along with Texas House Poker at venues licensed for it¹. The same games dominate online. Live dealer studios stream roulette, blackjack, baccarat and game shows in real time with human dealers and HD video, alongside Asian favorites such as Dragon Tiger and Sic Bo⁴.

If you already know Teen Patti or Andar Bahar, you will recognize the style: most of these games resolve in seconds, need no skill, and pay even money on the main bets. Baccarat in particular is the game of choice for high-stakes players across Asia, and in VIP rooms in the region it is often the only game offered⁷.

Baccarat: rules, payouts and house edge

Baccarat, also called punto banco, is a guessing game. You bet on which of two hands, Player or Banker, will end up closer to 9, or on a Tie. All bets go down before any cards are dealt, and then four cards come out: two for the Player box and two for the Banker⁸.

Card values are simple. Aces count 1, cards 2 through 9 count face value, and 10, jack, queen and king count 0. If a hand totals more than 9, only the rightmost digit counts: a 7 and a 5 make 12, which scores 2¹⁰.

The payouts:

• Player wins: paid 1 to 1, no commission. A 20 bet returns 40, your stake plus 20 in winnings¹⁰
• Banker wins: paid 1 to 1 minus a 5 percent commission, so a 20 bet wins 19¹⁰
• Tie: paid 8 to 1¹⁰

The third card rule is where new players get lost, but you never make a decision; the dealer follows a fixed table. If either hand starts with 8 or 9, that is a natural, and the round ends with all bets settled. Otherwise the Player hand draws a third card on totals of 0 to 5 and always stands on 6 or 7. The Banker then acts according to its own total and the Player's third card: on 0, 1 or 2 the Banker draws; on 3 it draws unless the Player's third card is an 8; on 4 it draws against a Player third card of 2 through 7; on 5 it draws against 4 through 7; on 6 it draws only against a 6 or 7; and on 7 it always stands⁸.

Classic baccarat in Indian casinos is dealt from a shoe of eight decks of 52 cards, 416 cards in total². Six-deck and single-deck versions exist online, and the deck count shifts the edges slightly: in a six-deck game the house edge is 1.06 percent on Banker, 1.24 percent on Player and 14.44 percent on Tie, while in a single-deck game it is 1.01 percent, 1.29 percent and 15.75 percent respectively¹³.

That makes the Banker bet one of the best value bets in the casino, and the Tie bet one of the worst. Baccarat is pure chance; there is no playing skill that improves your odds, and side bets such as Player Pair, Banker Pair, Either Pair and Perfect Pair, or the Dragon Bonus family, add variety at a higher house edge¹⁰.

Blackjack: rules, payouts and house edge

Blackjack is the one game on the Indian floor where your decisions matter. You are playing against the dealer, not the other players, and the goal is a hand total closer to 21 than the dealer's without going over. Numbered cards 2 through 10 are worth face value, and your first two cards are dealt before you act¹⁵.

The payouts are standard:

• A natural blackjack, an ace plus a ten-value card, typically pays 3 to 2, though some tables pay only 6 to 5, so check before you sit¹⁷
• Any other winning hand pays 1 to 1¹⁷
• A push, where you and the dealer tie, returns your bet with no win or loss¹⁷
• A successful double down pays 1 to 1 on the increased wager, and each split hand pays 1 to 1 if it wins¹⁷

The dealer plays by fixed rules, typically drawing on 16 or less and standing on 17 or more, so the game is about whether you hit, stand, double or split¹². Your hand value drives your chances: a total of 20 wins about 92 percent of the time, 19 about 85 percent, 17 about 70 percent, while awkward totals of 12 to 15 are close to coin flips or worse¹⁷.

Blackjack runs on anywhere from one to eight decks; eight-deck shoes are common in live games¹². Played with correct decisions, blackjack carries one of the lowest house edges in the casino, roughly 0.4 to 0.5 percent at good tables, though careless play hands that edge back quickly¹⁵. Specific live variants have been measured as low as 0.43 to 0.46 percent¹⁸.

Roulette: European and American wheels

Roulette needs no decisions at all. A spinning wheel carries red and black slots numbered 1 to 36 plus a green zero slot, and you bet on where the ball lands¹⁹. The table has two areas: an inside area for bets on individual numbers or small groups, and an outside area for outcomes like red or black, odd or even, and high or low¹⁹.

The version matters. The European wheel has a single zero, giving 37 slots and a 1 in 37 chance of hitting any one number, and it is still offered in many casinos as an alternative to the American game²⁰. The American wheel adds a double zero, making 38 slots and a 1 in 38 chance on a single number²⁰. That extra slot nearly doubles the house edge: European roulette runs about 2.7 percent, American about 5.3 percent²⁰. If both are available, the single-zero wheel is the better deal.

Some venues also run Rapid Roulette, which speeds up the traditional game with scheduled spins and interactive video terminals: you place bets on your own screen while a big screen shows the wheel spin¹⁹.

Dragon Tiger and Casino War: the simple card games

These two are the fastest card games on the floor, and both resolve with a single card.

Dragon Tiger is played with a standard deck⁶. There are two betting spots, Dragon and Tiger; the dealer deals one card to each, and the higher card wins. You have three bets: Dragon, Tiger or Tie. King is the highest card and ace is the lowest¹². It is essentially baccarat stripped to one card per side, and it is a fixture of live dealer casinos serving Asian players⁶.

Casino War is the casino version of the card game you played as a child. It is always played against the dealer, from a shoe of eight pre-shuffled decks. Each player gets one card and the house gets one; if your card is higher, you win even money. The lowest card is a 2 and the highest is an ace, with King, Queen, Jack in descending order among the face cards²¹.

The twist is the tie. If your card matches the dealer's, you have two choices: fold and lose half your original bet, or go to War by doubling your bet. If you win the War, your doubled bet pays even money and your original bet pushes to the next round. So on a doubled bet of 10, you pocket 20 and the original 10 stays in place. If you tie again during War, you keep the War bet and the original bet carries over; you cannot go to War twice in the same round. There is also an optional Tie side bet²².

Sic Bo and 7 Up 7 Down: the dice games

Sic Bo is an ancient Chinese dice game, and it is a game of pure luck played with three dice on a table covered with betting options. You win if the symbol you bet on matches the result of the throw. Once all bets are down, the dealer calls no more bets and gives the dice box a gentle shake²³.

The betting menu is wide. You can bet on a specific total, on a specific triple (all three dice showing the same specific number), on any triple, on specific pairs, on single numbers, or on Big and Small ranges of totals. Placing several small bets on different sections of the table spreads your risk and gives you more chances to collect something on each shake²³. Regulated versions of the game specify three dice, no more, thrown at every throw, each marked 1 to 6 with opposite faces summing to 7²⁵.

7 Up 7 Down is the simplest dice game in the house. Two dice are thrown, and you guess whether the total will be above 7, below 7, or exactly 7³. The exactly 7 bet is the hardest to hit and pays the most, while above and below pay even money. It is a Deltin staple and a common live dealer game online³.

Poker against the dealer: 3 Card, 5 Card and Mini Flush

These are not the poker you may know from online poker rooms. There is no bluffing and no betting against other players; you are paid according to a paytable if your hand beats the dealer's.

3 Card Poker is played against the dealer with a standard deck. The dealer gives three cards to each player and to themselves, all face down, and the objective is simply a better three-card hand²⁶. A single 52-card pack is shuffled before each hand²⁵.

5 Card Poker works the same way with five cards: you need a better five-card hand combination than the dealer, using only the cards you are dealt¹.

Mini Flush is the Indian favorite, a close cousin of Teen Patti. Players and dealer are both dealt three cards, and you need a higher-ranked Flush combination, by Flush rules, to beat the dealer's hand¹. If you enjoy traditional Indian card games, Mini Flush is the table where that background pays off.

Money Wheel: bets and payouts

The Money Wheel is one of the easiest games in the casino: a giant spinning wheel divided into sections with numbers and symbols. You predict which symbol the wheel will stop at, and you can place bets on one symbol or on several at once to spread your chances³.

The odds are printed both on the table and on the wheel itself, and they depend on how many times each symbol appears on the wheel: symbols that appear rarely pay more. Payouts range from even money, 1 times your bet, up to 40 times your betting amount³. Once all players have placed their bets, the dealer calls no more bets and spins the wheel; if it stops on your symbol, you are paid³.

Live dealer tables and game limits

Online, the same games arrive as live dealer tables: real human dealers, real cards and dice, streamed in HD and played in real time. Live casino blackjack comes in tables with lower limits, which suit new players, and VIP tables with increased betting limits for high rollers⁴. Big live casinos run well over a hundred live dealer tables at once, including more than 50 live baccarat tables, European Roulette at 97.3 percent RTP, Dragon Tiger at 96.7 percent RTP, and multiplier versions such as Lightning Roulette, with bonus multipliers up to 500x, and Super Sic Bo, with random multipliers up to 1000x per round²⁷.

At a physical Indian casino, table limits and chip rules are set by the house. Deltin's table rules, for example, allow promotional chips only on the initial bet in blackjack, only on even-chance bets in roulette, only on Dragon or Tiger but not both in Dragon Tiger, only on the Big option in Sic Bo, and only on the No. 1 option in Money Wheel; in Casino War a cash chip is required to continue after a tie²⁸. Ask the floor manager about minimums before you buy in, since they vary by table and by ship.

House edge and RTP compared

The house edge is the built-in slice the casino keeps over time. Flip it around and you get the return to player: a game showing 96 percent RTP has a 4 percent house edge²⁹. Here is how the main games compare:

Two patterns are worth noticing. First, the simple even-money bets, Banker in baccarat, the main bets in blackjack, are the cheapest ways to play; the flashy side bets, Tie, pairs, bonus bets, carry edges several times higher. Second, the games with no decisions at all, roulette, Sic Bo, Money Wheel, Dragon Tiger, sit in the middle: worse than well-played blackjack or baccarat, far better than the side bets. Baccarat's low edge on Banker is exactly why it dominates VIP play across Asia⁷.

Whatever the game, the edge never disappears. Blackjack played with correct decisions has one of the lowest house edges in the casino, but no skill level eliminates it entirely¹⁶. Choose the game you enjoy, know its paytable before you sit down, and treat the edge as the price of the evening.