Casino Games in Malaysia

Casino games in Malaysia: what is on offer

If you walk into a licensed casino in Malaysia, you are walking into a Genting property. Genting Malaysia Berhad is the only licensed casino gaming services operator in the country, and its tables are concentrated at Resorts World Genting in the mountains of Pahang, about an hour from Kuala Lumpur¹. The full picture of the venues themselves, including how to get there and what entry costs, is on our casinos in Malaysia page.

The table game lineup at Malaysian casinos is the classic Asian mix. You will find:

• Pontoon, the local name for Spanish 21, a blackjack cousin played without tens
• Blackjack, in standard and live dealer forms
• Baccarat, by far the most popular table game in the region, often the only game in VIP rooms
• Roulette, on both European and American wheels
• Dragon Tiger, a fast two-card game that plays like baccarat stripped to its bones
• Sic Bo and other dice games, plus slot machines

Baccarat deserves special mention for anyone visiting Asia. It is especially popular among high-rollers and Asian gamblers, and in VIP rooms it is typically the only game offered³. If you are used to Las Vegas floors dominated by blackjack, a Malaysian floor flips that: baccarat tables outnumber everything else, and the energy sits around them.

Beyond the casino, Malaysia also has licensed lotteries, number forecast games and horse racing at turf clubs in Penang, Perak and Selangor¹. Those are covered on our gambling in Malaysia overview page. This page sticks to the table games themselves: how each one works, what it pays, and what it costs you over time.

One practical note on who may play: the licensed casino at Genting is open to visitors and foreign residents, while Malaysian citizens who are Muslim are not permitted to enter. The details are on our gambling in Malaysia as a visitor page.

Pontoon: Malaysia's name for Spanish 21

The game Malaysians call Pontoon is known almost everywhere else as Spanish 21. In Australia and Malaysia, Spanish 21 is called Pontoon, and the name has stuck so firmly that many players here have never heard the international one². Elsewhere the same game hides under other names too: Betsoft's online version is called Pirate 21, and a casino in Austria calls it Blackjack Exchange².

The core idea is blackjack with the tens removed and generous rules added in exchange. Spanish 21 uses six or eight Spanish decks, each consisting of 48 cards: the regular 52 cards less the four tens². Removing the tens hurts the player, so the game compensates with a stack of player-friendly rules:

• Late surrender is allowed
• Double after split is allowed
• Re-splitting aces is allowed
• A player 21 always wins, even against a dealer blackjack
• A player blackjack beats a dealer blackjack
• You may double on totals of 9 to 11 only²

The result is a game that looks like blackjack but plays differently enough that basic blackjack strategy will cost you money at a Pontoon table. The biggest single strategic difference: with 17 against an ace and three or more cards, hitting rather than standing saves about 2.8 percent of your initial wager².

Pontoon rules and payouts

Pontoon's payout structure is where it earns its keep. The headline bonuses reward you for building 21 out of many cards:

A player 21 or blackjack wins immediately, before the dealer even plays out the hand⁵. The multi-card bonuses are not honored after doubling, so if you double down and land a five-card 21, you get paid 1 to 1, not 3 to 2².

The Super Bonus is the jackpot moment of the game. A suited 7-7-7 in your hand when the dealer has a seven face up pays 1,000 dollars for bets of 5 to 24 dollars, and 5,000 dollars for bets of 25 dollars or over. Every other player who bet that round receives an Envy Bonus of 50 dollars⁶. The Super Bonus does not pay after doubling or splitting².

The Australian Pontoon ruleset, which is the one Malaysian tables follow, adds a few specifics:

• The dealer hits soft 17
• You may double on 9 to 11 only
• Late surrender is available
• After doubling, you may surrender, forfeiting an amount equal to your original bet; this is called "double down rescue"⁵

Double down rescue is worth knowing. If you double and then catch a bad card, you can pull the plug and take back half your total exposure rather than ride the hand to the end.

The house edge in Pontoon depends on the dealer's soft 17 rule. With the dealer standing on soft 17, the edge is 0.40 percent. With the dealer hitting soft 17 and redoubling allowed, it is 0.42 percent, and with hitting soft 17 but no redoubling, 0.76 percent². The Super Bonus itself trims a tiny extra slice off the edge, about 0.030 percent in a six-deck game².

Blackjack: how the game works

Standard blackjack needs less introduction, but the mechanics matter for what follows. The object of the game is to beat the dealer, not the other players, by getting a hand with a higher total, up to 21, than the dealer's, or by not busting before the dealer does⁷. You play against the dealer, not against anyone else at the table⁸.

Card values are simple: cards 2 through 10 count at face value, 10s, Jacks, Queens and Kings are worth 10, and an Ace can count as 1 or 11, whichever helps you⁹. A two-card hand of an Ace plus a 10-value card is a blackjack, worth 21⁹. Go over 21 and you bust, automatically losing the hand and forfeiting your bets⁹.

The deal: each player gets two cards face up, and the dealer gets two cards, one face up and one face down⁷. Blackjack runs on anywhere from one to eight decks⁸.

On your turn you have several decisions available: Hit, Stand, Double, Split Pairs, surrender if the table offers it, and Insurance against a dealer blackjack⁹. In plain terms:

• Hit: take another card
• Stand: keep your total
• Double down: double your bet and take exactly one more card
• Split: with two cards of the same value, separate them into two hands and place a second bet equal to the original⁷
• Insurance: a side bet offered when the dealer shows an Ace¹⁰

The dealer follows fixed rules, typically standing on 17 and drawing on 16 or lower¹¹. The dealer has no choices to make, which is why the game is beatable in the sense that you can play your own hands well or badly.

A push occurs when you and the dealer finish with the same total. Your original bet is returned, with no win or loss¹¹.

Blackjack payouts and house edge

Blackjack payouts are straightforward. A natural blackjack, an Ace plus a 10-value card, typically pays 3 to 2, though some tables offer 6 to 5, which is a much worse deal and worth checking before you sit down¹¹. A winning standard hand pays 1 to 1, a successful double down returns 1 to 1 on the increased wager, and each split hand pays 1 to 1 if it wins¹¹.

The house edge in blackjack is roughly 0.4 percent with correct play¹², and online blackjack RTP runs from 98 to 99.5 percent¹³. That figure assumes you play every hand by basic strategy. Ignoring basic strategy can push the house edge up to 4 percent¹⁴, which is the difference between one of the cheapest games in the casino and one of the more expensive ones.

The odds themselves are instructive. In a standard eight-deck game where the dealer stands on soft 17 and blackjack pays 3 to 2, players win about 42 percent of hands, the dealer wins about 49 percent, and hands are tied about 9 percent¹⁴. The chance of being dealt a natural blackjack is about 4.8 percent¹⁴.

Your winning chances swing hard with your hand total. Holding 20, you win about 92 percent of the time. Holding 18, you win about 77 percent. Down at 15, you win only about half the time¹¹. The dealer's upcard matters just as much: if you hold 10 and King against a dealer's 6, your odds of winning swing to 77 percent, but against a dealer's Ace they drop to 63 percent¹⁴.

Card counting, in live casinos, can lower the house edge by a further 1 to 2 percent¹⁵. Online, it is a different story: games shuffle after every hand or use continuous shuffling machines, so the count never builds, and counting is effectively dead. Online blackjack is a game of playing each hand correctly, nothing more.

Baccarat: the game and its bets

Baccarat, also known as punto banco, is one of the oldest and most popular games in casinos all over the world, and it is especially popular among high-rollers and Asian gamblers³. It is a game of chance with no skills you can develop to improve your odds of winning³. That is not a knock: it is precisely why it is relaxing. You place a bet, the cards play themselves, and the round resolves.

The setup: two cards are dealt to each side, the Player hand and the Banker hand, and the side whose point total is closest to 9 wins, since 9 is the highest point total in baccarat¹⁶. Card values: Ace counts as 1, cards 2 through 9 count at face value, and 10, Jack, Queen and King count as 0³. If a hand's total exceeds 9, the first digit is dropped: a 12 becomes 2, a 25 becomes 5¹⁶.

If the first two cards of either hand total 8 or 9, that is a natural, no more cards are dealt, and all bets are paid out³.

Otherwise the third-card rules apply, and they are fixed:

• The Player hand draws a third card if its first two cards total 0 to 5, and stands on 6 or 7³
• The Banker receives a card if its total is 0 to 5, and stands on 6 or 7, when the Player hand stood³
• When the Player draws, the Banker's action depends on the Player's third card: with a Banker total of 3, the Banker draws against any Player third card except 8; with 4, against 2 to 7; with 5, against 4 to 7; with 6, against 6 or 7; with 7 or higher, the Banker always stands¹⁷

You do not need to memorize any of this. The dealer runs it, and the rules are the same at every table. All bets must be placed before the cards are dealt; there is no betting after the first two cards¹⁶.

The three main bets are Player, Banker and Tie. Beyond those, many tables offer side bets: Player Pair, Banker Pair, Either Pair, or Perfect Pair, plus additional bonus bets¹⁸. The pairs bets pay out when the first two cards of the relevant hand form a pair, with Perfect Pair requiring the same suit as well.

Baccarat payouts, commission and house edge

The payouts are simple to learn in one sitting:

A winning Player bet pays 1 to 1, so a 20 dollar bet wins 20 dollars without reductions¹⁸. A winning Banker bet also pays 1 to 1, but the house charges a 5 percent commission on any winning Banker bets, which the dealer collects³. So that same 20 dollar bet on the Banker wins 20 dollars minus the commission¹⁸. A winning bet on a tie pays 8 to 1¹⁹.

The house edge figures come from the six-deck game: 1.06 percent on the Banker bet, 1.24 percent on the Player bet, and 14.44 percent on the Tie²⁰. In a single-deck game the numbers shift slightly, to 1.01 percent on the Banker, 1.29 percent on the Player, and 15.75 percent on the Tie²⁰.

The lesson in that table is blunt. The Banker bet, even after the commission, is one of the cheapest regular bets in the entire casino³. The Tie bet, despite the tempting 8 to 1 payout, is one of the most expensive, costing you more than ten times as much per bet as the Banker. The 5 percent commission feels annoying, but it is the price of the best bet on the table.

Expressed as RTP, online baccarat returns 98.94 percent on the Banker bet, 98.76 percent on the Player bet, and 85.64 percent on the Tie bet¹³.

Roulette: European and American wheels

Roulette in Malaysia comes in the two worldwide varieties, and the difference between them is a single pocket. The European wheel has one zero; the American wheel adds a double zero. That extra pocket nearly doubles the house edge, from 2.7 percent on the European wheel to 5.3 percent on the American one⁴. If both tables are available, the European wheel is the cheaper game, and it is still offered in many casinos as an alternative to the American version²¹.

The betting layout splits into inside bets, placed on specific numbers or small groups, and outside bets, placed on broader categories like red or black, odd or even, and high or low. Inside bets have lower odds but much higher payouts, as high as 35 to 1²¹. Outside bets pay even money: Red pays 1 to 1, High pays 1 to 1¹⁰.

The payout ladder for the main bets:

The single number payout is the headline: the casino's payout odds are 35 to 1²², which sounds rich until you remember a European wheel has 37 pockets. That gap between the true odds and the payout is the entire house edge.

Live dealer roulette online follows the same structure. European versions carry all the usual betting options like straight-up, odds or evens, red or black²³, and automated versions spin a European-style single-zero wheel at a fast pace²³. European Roulette runs at an RTP of 97.3 percent²⁴.

Dragon Tiger: the two-card game

Dragon Tiger is the fastest game on the floor and the easiest to learn. It is similar to baccarat, and each round takes seconds²⁵. The objective is simple: predict whether the Dragon card or the Tiger card will have the higher value²⁵.

After bets are placed, one card is dealt to the Dragon position and one card to the Tiger position, and the higher card wins²⁵. King is the highest card and Ace is the lowest²⁶. There are two betting sections, Dragon and Tiger, and three betting options: Dragon, Tiger, or Tie²⁵. That is the whole game. No drawing rules, no decisions, no strategy.

Dragon Tiger is played with a standard deck of cards²⁵, and most rounds are completed within a few minutes²⁵, though the actual reveal is near-instant once bets close. In practice you place a chip, watch two cards hit the table, and either get paid or not.

The game's RTP is 96.7 percent²⁴, which puts it between baccarat's main bets and roulette. Compared with baccarat, you give up a little edge for a lot of speed. It is a good game for a first-timer who wants to feel the rhythm of a table game without learning anything, and it appears in live dealer lobbies alongside blackjack, baccarat, roulette and Sic Bo¹⁸.

House edge compared: which games cost least

House edge is the cleanest way to compare games, because it tells you what each game costs per bet over time. A 1 percent edge means the game takes, on average, one unit for every hundred you wager. Here is how the Malaysian table lineup stacks up, using the figures from the sections above:

A few patterns stand out. The card games where your decisions matter, blackjack and Pontoon, sit at the top of the table, but only if you play them correctly. Careless blackjack play can run to a 4 percent edge¹⁴, still below the 5.3 percent the American roulette wheel charges. Pontoon played with blackjack strategy is similarly costly, because the two games need different play.

Baccarat's Banker bet is the best no-skill bet in the casino at 1.06 percent³. You do not need to know anything beyond which box to put your chips in, and the game plays itself from there.

Roulette's two versions are really two different prices for the same entertainment. The European wheel at 2.7 percent costs roughly half of what the American wheel at 5.3 percent costs⁴.

And the Tie bet in baccarat is the outlier: at 14.44 percent²⁰, it costs more than any regular bet on this list, close to three times what the American roulette wheel takes. The 8 to 1 payout is what draws people to it, but the price of that payout is steep.

Slots, for comparison, are less favorable than table games like blackjack and roulette in terms of return to player²⁷, so the table games on this page are where the money lasts longest.