How Easy Is It To Win Money Playing Online Games? : Success Rates You Can Expect
It’s not easy winning money playing games online. The most straightforward ways are those with the least risk and little to no financial investment. Playing free games on mobile apps offering cash rewards is a good example.
Win rates through other real money games vary.
However, making the attempt can be great fun. It’s always possible to win and sometimes those wins will come easily. Many options come with risks, though.
To truly explore how easy is it, we need to consider it from different perspectives. Namely how easy it is to try, and how easy it is to win.
Those are, of course, two different – but related – questions.
The reality is that for each perspective there are multiple factors involved. So, let’s investigate the detail and come to some conclusions that will help us understand the ease or the difficulty levels concerned.
By RealMoneyGames – Steve Cross : Published 28th February 2025
How Easy Is It To Attempt To Win?
Making the attempt to win cash with online gaming is easy as long as you have a broadband connection and a device able to access the internet. The reality is there are thousands of sites online that open up options for either playing games that pay real money or betting on those games.
Indeed, those options are pretty much endless, with every type of game available covered in one way or another.
The websites and platforms offering these gaming opportunities range from actual providers – the companies that deliver the service such as well known online bookmakers, bingo halls, casino operators, or poker rooms – to affiliate type sites which work to present all of these options in one place.
You can find somewhere to play video game tournaments for money, get advice on how to enter cash prize competitions, or try to win cash prizes by using your skills at a number of different websites. It’s easy to find a service.
Some of them give free ways to try and win, some involve a risk of losing money in the form of betting stakes, some will involve paying to play in the way that play-to-earn games operate.
And what about using those sites to place bets?
That’s easy too. Registration processes are deliberately made simple by the providers to avoid losing prospective Customers. They want your money, and they want you to have a good experience and revisit regularly.
As long as it’s legal for you to play, all you usually need to do to begin playing or betting is to fill out straightforward registration forms and either accept any betting bonuses available or make a deposit and start betting.
How Easy Is It To Actually Win Money Online?
It’s definitely not as easy to win as it is to try. There is no magic formula to winning by playing any of the game options you’ll find throughout RealMoney.games, excepting rewards from mobile apps where the cost of entry is low but returns will typically be low, too.
So, to fully understand the potential we need to explore a combination of factors.
Gambling Games of Chance vs Skill-Based Games
We can broadly categorize real money games into two types: games of chance and games of skill.
Games of chance, such as online slots and roulette, are normally classed as gambling games. They rely on luck and have a fixed house edge which is notorious for effectively ensuring the casinos have a winning advantage over time.
Games of skill, such as poker and esports where cash prize tournaments often offer an avenue for skilfull players to win, require strategy, knowledge, and ability.
The emphasis is on skilful and rewards may be difficult to come by. As an example, platforms like Players’ Lounge let users wager on challenges such as “Get 15 kills in Warzone.” Top players may win $50–$100, but most challenges pay ≤$10 for high-skill tasks. A Marvel Rivals challenge requiring 20 kills paid $8.50, demanding elite gameplay for minimal returns.
Long Term or Short Term Winnings
In theory, it’s easy to win money in the short term. As a example, you could deposit money with an online casino, play 3 spins on a slot machine, and get a win line paying $100 for the few dollars you’ve spent. But, if you keep playing, the odds are set via the house edge so that ultimately the casino will win it back. With this example you can see it’s easy to win short term, but not so easy long term.
In fact, casinos want you to win, especially at the beginning. The reason for this is that it changes your approach. Many people can become addicted by winning rather than by losing.
Imagine you start off by regarding betting as a bit of fun and go into it prepared to lose a few dollars. Then you have a nice win and it all begins to look easy. You’re hooked, and the ensuing losing streaks interspersed with the odd win all begin to become an accepted part of the game.
With games of luck, there’s always the chance you could win in the next few seconds, but it’s just luck. With games of skill, there is statistically more chance you can win – providing you have the knowledge, experience, and that little bit of luck too.
Poker is a perfect example of a game where skill can get you in a strong winning position over time. Games like blackjack give some advantages to a certain extent – there are optimal strategies to follow with games like Blackjack which reduce the odds against you -but still, in the long run, the house edge is likely to ensure the casino comes out on top.
Other skill-based games – like some board games, competitive gaming tournaments, and puzzle games – all offer good chances of experiencing some wins if you’re a strong enough player.
Does Increased Playing Time Equal Easier Winning Propects?
Studies have shown that there is a concentration of losses among a minority of gamblers, suggesting that increased amounts of betting are unlikely to lead to easier wins. If you think about it, this does tie in with what we know – pure gambling games are always favourable to the house because of the house edge.
But the study I’m referring to was an interesting one. Performed in the UK, it was a groundbreaking effort back in 2018/2019 looking at 140,000 UK online gambling accounts which revealed stark disparities in spending patterns. In figures, it showed that 85% of betting accounts spent less than £200 annually, while 7% lost over £5,000.
In gaming (e.g., slots, casinos), 1.2% of accounts lost ≥£5,000 annually, contributing 70% of operator revenue.
The top 5% of accounts by losses generated 90% of gross gambling yield (GGY) in verticals like slots and live casinos.
These findings underscore a “heavy tail” distribution, where profitability for operators relies on a small cohort of high-spending users. For the average player, infrequent participation may yield occasional wins, but sustained engagement amplifies exposure to statistically inevitable losses.
Those losses can be exacerbated by other impacting factors.
What Else Impacts The Chances Of Winning?
The Role of RTP and Volatility
Return to Player (RTP) and volatility are two crucial factors that affect your chances of winning. They’re game factors most often seen in casino gaming but don’t typically apply to contests where you’re up against other players or in casual games like those delivered by mobile apps.
RTP refers to the percentage of money that a game pays back to players over time. A casino game with a 95% RTP returns $95 for every $100 wagered over time. Short-term wins occur, but the 5% house edge ensures consistent losses for the player. Slots and roulette have lower RTPs, impacting frequent players more.
Volatility, on the other hand, measures the frequency and magnitude of payouts. Games with high RTP rates and low volatility offer more frequent and smaller payouts, while games with low RTP rates and high volatility levels offer less frequent but larger payouts. All volatility levels are still impacted by the house edge, though, so still you’ll lose over time unless luck plays a strong hand.
The Impact Of Player Psychology
Perhaps surprisingly, your own psychological makeup can have an impact on results, affecting the easiness or difficulty of winning.
In fact, player psychology plays a crucial role in online gaming, with factors like motivation, anxiety, and decision-making affecting player behavior. Your behaviours – driven by these emotional factors and biases – can affect game outcomes and impact winning prospects.
Monetization Options
You could take the route of trying to make money by, for example, streaming your gaming efforts rather than playing competitively for prizes or by placing wagers.
Even here, it’s not easy. Twitch and YouTube are examples of where you can monetize gaming through ads and sponsoreships, but success demands exceptional skill, charisma, and marketing. Less than 0.1% of streamers earn livable wages, with median monthly earnings below $100 for mid-tier creators.
We can see there’s plenty of data and evidence suggesting that winning cash from betting or gambling isn’t easy. You either need luck or skill, and both can be elusive. So, it’s not so much about an easy route to winning we need to look for, but the option that gives us the best potential with the least effort and risk.
What’s The Best Easy Route To Winning Money Playing Games?
We’ve seen that skill gaming gives players the highest chances of longer term success. But it takes knowledge, experience, and, of course, well-honed skills.
Although it’s not strictly gaming in the strict sense of the word, the best example of betting to win money where knowledge, information, and experience can help you is in sports betting.
Here it’s possible for the knowledgeable bettor, with a good understanding of his or her chosen sport, to place bets that while they will not always win, could return good profits in the long term.
Don’t be fooled here though. Experience has a huge input. If you win with your first bets or by guessing on results, that’s just going to be pure luck. Eventually you’ll lose that money back.
And the way to bet on sports that gives the best potential long term profit is to place bets on outcomes that have (from your experience) a good chance of occurring, but they’ve either been overlooked by the majority of other punters or the odds are higher than you expect given the probability of the result. This is what’s known as ‘searching for value’ in your bets.
A great example could be that your favorite football team wins one game in every 5, and has done for the last twenty years. Let’s assume you’re the only one who knows that and for some reason the odds on your team winning are 6-1 every week. Theoretically you could bet the same amount on every game, win one in five, and make a long term profit.
Of course it’s not that simple. Things happen and things change. Your best goalkeeper may be sick, the team are less defensively strong for a few weeks, other teams find unexpected improvement – or you hit what’s known as the bankroll busting streak. Your team lose more than 5 games on the trot and ultimately you run out of betting money. There are ways to handle or lessen the impact of this which we’ll cover another time.
There are dozens of similar examples, sports betting – if undertaken carefully – does offer the best opportunities for longer term profit. Not necessarily the highest profit or the big one off win we all dream about, but long term profit nonetheless.
One of the best ways to profit from soccer betting is by getting involved in Asian Handicaps or by seeking out arbitrage bets where you can’t lose.
The best easy way to make money strictly from playing games is to play on mobile rewards apps, as I mentioned earlier. However, the returns won’t be high and, in many cases, may not be worth the time and effort you have to put in.
Summary
Winning significant sums through online gaming is statistically unlikely. Gambling platforms favor operators, play-to-earn models require unsustainable investments, and skill-based rewards rarely justify effort.
Outlier success stories are exceptions, not the norm.
As protection for players who may be misled into thinking that making gaming-related money online is easy, future research should examine gaming-related debt over time and assess regulatory measures like deposit limits.
Players must understand probability, set strict budgets, and recognize behavioral traps to navigate this high-risk pursuit.
All of this reinforces something we already know, namely the best way to approach real money gaming is to treat it as entertainment with a manageable cost associated to enjoy that entertainment. Achieve that and, alongside the potential of wins, you’re best positioned as a player to avoid the pitfalls of problem gambling and avoid gambling-related harms.