Casino War

About Casino War

Casino War is a very simple coin flip type of a casino card game offered by almost all online casino softwares.

Casino War Rules and Gameplay

The player and dealer are dealt a single card. If player’s card is higher, player wins, if it is lower, player loses. Aces have the highest value and 2s the lowest. If the two cards are tied, player has two options: either surrender and lose half of his bet or go to war and double his bet. If player goes to war, both player and dealer are dealt another card and the winner is the one who has the higher card. However, if player loses at the war, he loses the whole doubled bet, but if he wins, he only wins the original bet and the remaining part of the bet is returned. Another tie during war is a player win. Both Microgaming and Boss Media softwares have additional payout for the second tie so that in this situation player wins 1:1 on the whole doubled bet.

House Edge and Optimal Strategy

The optimal strategy is to always go to war on ties. This reduces the house edge by ~1% compared to surrendering on ties. With the standard rules explained above the house edge is 2.68%. RTG and Chartwell softwares use a single deck which reduces the house edge to 2.28%. The reason for this is reduced occurrence of ties. The house edge under Microgaming and Boss Media softwares (increased payout on second tie) is 2.17%.

Variance and Results Over Bonus Wagering Requirement

The standard deviation per round in Casino War is 1.01 which is almost equal to a coin flip. The following table shows Chance of Gain, Risk of Busting and the Bonus EV for different wagering requirements and bet sizes with the standard paytable. See the return and variance calculator for other bet sizes and WRs.