Do you know someone who is crazy about hold percentage? Maybe you know someone who is just crazy? While hold percentage may be useful, it only tells part of the story and should be used as a tool in the arsenal that is used to manage a casino's profits. It should not be used as the ONLY tool to manage profits! Managers who do not understand casino games, do not understand hold percentage. Hold percentage is only an indicator of how well a game is performing and can be used as a metric in determining if Game Protection practices need to be examined. Hold percentage just is not an accurate enough metric to indicate how successful an operation is. In fact, too high a hold percentage may indicate that a casino is turning business away. It is human nature to respond positively to occasional positive reinforcement and to respond negatively to constant negative reinforcement.
Casinos would be greatly served by getting back to basics and understanding the games that they offer and trusting in the math behind those games and stop worrying about hold percentage. If the math says the game will be profitable, the game will be profitable as long as proper Game Protection measures are used. The only number that truly matters is the bottom line and hold percentage has no correlation to the bottom line. If casinos would spend more time dealing fair games efficiently and less time worrying about hold percentage and silly, time consuming procedures, they would see big improvements in their bottom lines.
In case you missed it, hold percentage isn't everything; In fact, it's almost nothing!