by Steve Bourie
 
When visiting the southern Mississippi casinos that are located along the state’s gulf coast, there will be a lot of different casinos to choose from. 
 
For those players looking to find the casinos offering the best odds on their games we offer the below information
 
Roulette – The house edge on a single-zero wheel cuts the house edge from 5.26% down to a more reasonable 2.70%. Unfortunately, there are no casinos on the Gulf Coast that offer single-zero roulette.
 
Craps– IP is the most liberal of all gulf coast casinos by offering 20X odds on their craps games. All other casinos offer 10X odds.
 
Blackjack – All recommendations in this section apply to basic strategy players. You should always look for casinos that pay the standard 3-to-2 for blackjacks. Some casinos might only pay 6-to-5 for blackjack and this increases the casino edge to around 1.5% and they should be avoided. 
 
Gulf Coast casinos offer some decent blackjack games with liberal rules, but all of the casinos hit soft 17, except for Scarlet Pearl, Treasure Bay and $100 tables at Beau Rivage. Hitting soft 17 results in an extra mathematical advantage of .20% for the house. 
 

The Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi offers some good blackjack games for higher-limit players.

 
Treasure Bay offers the best double-deck game, with the following rules: stand on soft 17, double down on any first two cards, re-split any pair (including aces) and doubling allowed after splitting. This works out to a casino edge of just .14%. The minimum bet is $10. Scarlet Pearl and Beau Rivage offer a similar game, with the exception of resplitting aces and the casino edge on these games is .19%. The minimum bet is $50 at Scarlet Pearl and $100 at Beau Rivage. 
 
Hard Rock and the Palace both have the same game as Treasure Bay, except they hit soft 17. which brings the casino edge up to .35%.
 
Boomtown, Golden Nugget, Harrah’s, Scarlet Pearl, IP and Island View have the same rules as Hard Rock and Palace, but they do not allow re-splitting of aces and that game has a casino edge of .40%.
 
For six-deck shoe games the best places to play are Scarlet Pearl and Treasure Bay where they stand on soft 17, allow doubling down on any first two cards, doubling after splitting and re-splitting of aces. The casino advantage in this game is .34%.
 
Beau Rivage has an identical game as above but they don’t allow resplitting of aces and the edge here is .41% with a $100 minimum bet.
 
Hard Rock, Island View, the Palace and Scarlet Pearl all offer a similar game, except they hit soft 17 and allow resplitting of aces that brings the casino edge up to .56%. 
 
Video Poker – Some of the best video poker games on the Gulf Coast for lower limit players are 9/7 Double Bonus (99.11%), 9/6 Double Double Bonus (98.98%), 9/6 Jacks or Better (99.54%), 8/5 Bonus Poker (99.17%) and a version of Deuces Wild called Illinois Deuces (98.91%).
 
Beau Rivage has Illinois Deuces and 9/7 DB for $1.
 
The Golden Nugget offers a $1 version of Illinois Deuces, plus $1 9/6 Double Double Bonus.
 
Harrah’s has 9/6 Double Double Bonus for 50-cents through $25, plus Illinois Deuces for 50-cents and $25.
 
The IP offers 9/6 Jacks for quarters, 50 cents and $1. There is also 9/6 Double Double Bonus in denominations from $2 to $100. Illinois Deuces is also offered in denominations from 25-cents through $25.
     
The Palace has 8/5 Bonus for quarters in 10-play, plus $1 and $2 Illinois Deuces.   
     
Treasure Bay has 50-cent and $1 Bonus Poker, 9/6 Double Double Bonus for 50-cents and $1, 9/7 Double Bonus for 50-cents and $1. They also offer Illinois Deuces for 50-cents and $1.