House Edge by Game: What Slots, Blackjack, Roulette, Craps and Baccarat Actually Cost Per $100 Wagered
A baccarat tie bet carries a 14.36% house edge. A blackjack hand played with basic strategy carries roughly 0.40%. That's a 35 fold gap between two bets sitting on the same felt. House edge is the one number that makes bets across completely different games comparable, and most of what gets called "odds" in casual conversation isn't actually that number.
Concept: What House Edge Actually Measures
House edge is the casino's expected share of every dollar wagered over a large number of bets, not the probability of losing a single hand or spin. A game can have a high probability of winning individual rounds and still carry a meaningful house edge, because the size of the payout on a win matters as much as how often a win happens. Roulette's single number bet wins only 2.7% of the time on a European wheel, yet the house edge is a comparatively low 2.70%, because the payout on that rare win, 35 to 1, is calibrated close to fair odds. A coin flip proposition that wins half the time can carry a far worse edge if the payout on a win doesn't match the true 50/50 probability.
This is also where house edge and RTP describe the same underlying math from two directions. A slot machine quotes RTP, Return to Player, the share of wagered money the game is expected to pay back over time. A table game is more commonly quoted by house edge directly. Both numbers come from the identical calculation; one just states the casino's side and the other states the player's side of the same fraction.
The Formula
House edge equals 100% minus RTP, for any game where RTP is the published figure. Where a game doesn't publish an RTP, house edge is calculated directly as the casino's expected value per dollar wagered: multiply each possible outcome's payout by its probability, sum those products, and subtract that sum from 100%. The two paths arrive at the same number for the same bet; slots and table games just report from opposite ends of it.
Worked Example: Slots, From Our Own Catalogue
Applying that formula to actual recorded figures shows how wide the range runs within a single category of game. Book of 99 (Relax Gaming) carries a 99.00% RTP in our game database, the highest recorded here, which converts to a 1.00% house edge, better than every table game example below except blackjack under favorable rules. Blood Suckers (NetEnt) sits at 98.00% RTP, a 2.00% edge. A large cluster of Pragmatic Play titles, eleven of them, share an identical 96.50% RTP, a 3.50% edge. Mega Moolah (Microgaming), at the other extreme, carries an 88.12% RTP, an 11.88% edge, though that figure needs its own context: Mega Moolah is a progressive jackpot game, and a slice of every wager funds the pooled jackpot instead of returning through the base game, which is a structurally different reason for a low base RTP than a game simply being priced worse.
Two slots quoting RTP figures 0.6 points apart from each other are not necessarily close in edge to a table game quoting a house edge figure in a completely different notation, but the underlying math converts cleanly between them, which is the entire point of tracking both numbers on the same scale.
Worked Example: Table Games
Standard rule sets produce well established house edge figures, verified here against Wizard of Odds, the standard combinatorial-math reference for this kind of number.
European roulette, single zero, straight up bets: 2.70% edge. American roulette, double zero: 5.26%, nearly double, purely because of one added losing number on the wheel. Blackjack under a common six deck rule set, dealer stands on soft 17, double after split allowed, basic strategy played correctly: 0.40% edge, among the lowest of any widely offered casino game. The same six deck game with the dealer instead required to hit soft 17 runs a higher 0.55% edge; a single dealer-procedure rule shifts the number by more than a third.
Craps pass line, no odds taken: 1.41%. Adding 3 4 5x odds on top of that same pass line bet drops the blended edge to roughly 0.37%, because the odds bet itself carries a 0% house edge and dilutes the pass line's edge across the combined wager. The odds bet isn't a separate, better bet available on its own; it only exists as an addition to a pass line wager already placed.
Baccarat's three bets span the widest range of any single table game: banker, with the standard 5% commission on wins, at 1.06%; player at 1.24%; and tie, at 14.36% under the traditional 8 to 1 payout. Some casinos pay tie at 9 to 1 instead, which drops that edge to roughly 4.85% to 4.9%, still far worse than either of the game's other two bets. The specific payout posted at a given table changes the number meaningfully, and it's worth checking rather than assuming.
Conversion Table: House Edge, Cost Per $100 Wagered, and Equivalent RTP
Slot figures from our game database. Table game figures verified against Wizard of Odds under the rule sets stated above.
| Game / bet | House edge | Cost per $100 wagered | RTP equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Book of 99 (slot) | 1.00% | $1.00 | 99.00% |
| Blackjack, 6-deck S17 DAS, basic strategy | 0.40% | $0.40 | 99.60% |
| Craps pass line, 3-4-5x odds | 0.37% (blended) | $0.37 | 99.63% |
| Blood Suckers (slot) | 2.00% | $2.00 | 98.00% |
| Craps pass line, no odds | 1.41% | $1.41 | 98.59% |
| Baccarat banker | 1.06% | $1.06 | 98.94% |
| Baccarat player | 1.24% | $1.24 | 98.76% |
| European roulette, straight up | 2.70% | $2.70 | 97.30% |
| Pragmatic Play cluster, 96.50% RTP titles (slot) | 3.50% | $3.50 | 96.50% |
| American roulette, straight up | 5.26% | $5.26 | 94.74% |
| Baccarat tie (8:1 payout) | 14.36% | $14.36 | 85.64% |
| Mega Moolah (slot, progressive) | 11.88% | $11.88 | 88.12% |
Reading the table by "RTP equivalent" rather than by category is the useful move here: a well chosen table game bet can sit closer to this site's best recorded slot RTP than to its worst, and a poorly chosen side bet like tie can sit worse than every slot in this list except one progressive jackpot game with a fundamentally different payout structure.
Common Error: Treating Two Numbers on Different Scales as Directly Comparable Without Converting First
The most common mistake isn't picking a bad bet outright, it's comparing an RTP figure to a house edge figure without doing the subtraction first, and concluding a slot at 96.50% "sounds worse" than a table game with no RTP quoted at all, when the table game's actual edge might be higher. The fix is mechanical: convert everything to one notation, house edge or RTP, before comparing anything.
A second, subtler error is comparing an odds bet's edge in isolation from the wager it's attached to. Craps odds carry a 0% edge on their own, but they can only be placed as an addition to a pass line bet that already carries its own edge; there's no way to place odds by themselves and no such thing as an odds-only wager. Reading 0% as "this specific bet on the table has no house edge, full stop" misreads what's actually being measured, the same kind of notation error covered in this blog's guide to converting American, decimal, and fractional odds: a number only means what it claims to mean once you know exactly what it's a number of.
State Availability Note
Game availability, specific rule variants, and which side bets a table offers all vary by state and by individual casino, even where the underlying math above doesn't change. A blackjack table's house edge depends on whether the dealer hits or stands on soft 17, how many decks are in play, and whether doubling after a split is allowed, and those rules are set by the operator and the state's gaming regulator, not by this article. Confirm the exact rule set posted at a specific table before assuming any figure above applies to it directly.
What This Math Does Not Tell You
House edge describes an average outcome across a very large number of bets, not what happens on any specific hand, spin, or session. A 0.40% edge blackjack table can still produce a losing night, and an 11.88% edge slot can still pay out on a single spin. None of the figures in this piece predict an outcome, rank a game as more or less likely to hit on the next bet, or identify a bet worth increasing size on. They describe the long run cost of playing, and nothing about any single round of it.
Responsible Gambling
Every figure in this piece describes an average cost over a very large number of bets, not a prediction about any specific hand or spin, and no comparison here should be read as guidance to chase a lower-edge game as a way to come out ahead. Confirm your state's licensed, regulated operators and available game rules before betting, since both vary by state. The National Council on Problem Gambling operates a free, confidential helpline at 1-800-522-4700 for anyone who wants support.