House edge puts every casino game on the same scale: blackjack under basic strategy sits near 0.5%, baccarat’s banker bet near 1.06%, European roulette at 2.70% against American roulette’s 5.26%, craps’ pass line at 1.41%, typical slots between roughly 2% and 8%, and keno commonly above 25%. The explorer below lets you sort and compare these directly.
| Game / bet | House edge | RTP | Volatility | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blackjack, basic strategy (6 decks, S17, DAS) | 0.50% | 99.50% | Medium | Edge with perfect basic strategy; casual play runs 1.5–2%. |
| Blackjack, 6:5 payout on naturals | 1.90% | 98.10% | Medium | The 6:5 rule alone adds about 1.4% to the edge. |
| Baccarat, banker bet | 1.06% | 98.94% | Low | After the 5% commission on banker wins. |
| Baccarat, player bet | 1.24% | 98.76% | Low | No commission. |
| Baccarat, tie bet (8:1) | 14.36% | 85.64% | High | One of the worst bets on the floor. |
| Craps, pass line | 1.41% | 98.59% | Low | Free odds behind the line carry no edge at all. |
| Craps, don't pass | 1.36% | 98.64% | Low | |
| Craps, any seven | 16.67% | 83.33% | High | Single-roll proposition. |
| European roulette, any bet | 2.70% | 97.30% | Medium | One zero. La partage on even-money bets halves this to 1.35%. |
| American roulette, any bet | 5.26% | 94.74% | Medium | Two zeros. |
| American roulette, five-number bet | 7.89% | 92.11% | High | 0-00-1-2-3; the only bet with a different edge. |
| Pai gow poker | 2.50% | 97.50% | Low | Many pushes; slow bankroll movement. |
| Three card poker, ante/play | 3.37% | 96.63% | Medium | Optimal strategy: play Q-6-4 or better. |
| Caribbean stud | 5.22% | 94.78% | High | |
| Sic bo, big/small | 2.78% | 97.22% | Low | Triples lose. |
| Sic bo, specific triple | 30.09% | 69.91% | High | 180:1 payout against 215:1 odds. |
| Video poker, Jacks or Better 9/6 | 0.46% | 99.54% | Medium | Full-pay table with optimal play. |
| Video poker, Jacks or Better 8/5 | 2.70% | 97.30% | Medium | The common online pay table. |
| Online slot, 97% RTP | 3.00% | 97.00% | Medium | Upper end of common online slots. |
| Online slot, 96% RTP | 4.00% | 96.00% | Medium | The most common published figure. |
| Online slot, 94% RTP | 6.00% | 94.00% | High | Operators may select a lower RTP version of the same game. |
| Progressive jackpot slot | 8.00% | 92.00% | High | Part of the return sits in the rarely hit jackpot. |
| Keno | 25.00% | 75.00% | High | Varies 20–35% by pay table. |
| Live dealer blackjack | 0.60% | 99.40% | Medium | Same maths as RNG blackjack under the same rules. |
| Lightning roulette | 2.90% | 97.10% | High | Straight-up payout cut to 29:1 to fund multipliers. |
What house edge measures, and how it differs from RTP and volatility
A single number gets treated as gospel more often than it should be. The figures on this page describe the mathematics of a game as designed and correctly played; they don’t describe a promise about any individual’s own results, an operator’s specific implementation of every rule variant, or a guarantee that a table’s advertised rules match what’s actually being offered. Use this page to compare games against each other, and use the game-specific guides linked below for the mechanics behind any single figure.
House edge is the flip side of return-to-player: RTP states what a game gives back over the long run, house edge states what it keeps, and the two always add up to 100%. Neither one describes volatility, which is a separate axis covering how choppy or smooth the path to that long-run average actually is, a full explanation of that distinction sits in the slot RTP and volatility guide. A game can have a low house edge and still swing hard session to session, or a high house edge and stay comparatively flat.
What makes house edge useful for comparison is that it strips away everything specific to a game’s presentation, the theme, the pacing, the size of individual payouts, and reduces it to one number describing the mathematical cost of playing it. That’s also its limit: house edge alone can’t tell you how a session will feel, only what it costs on average over enough of them.
How to read the comparison
Blackjack stands out because its edge depends on the player’s decisions: play the mathematically correct move for every hand, as covered in Blackjack Basic Strategy, and the edge under common six-deck, dealer-stands-soft-17 rules narrows to roughly 0.5%. Baccarat’s banker bet, at around 1.06% with the standard commission, needs no strategy at all, the edge is fixed by the bet itself. Roulette splits sharply by wheel: 2.70% on a European single-zero wheel versus 5.26% on an American double-zero wheel, detailed bet by bet in Roulette Bets Explained. Craps’ pass line bet, one of the lowest-edge bets at the table at roughly 1.41%, but the payoff for understanding which side bets to avoid is large. Slots cover the widest range of any game type, commonly 2% to 8% depending on the specific title. Keno sits apart entirely, with a house edge frequently above 25%, the tradeoff for the long-odds, large-multiplier payouts the game is built around.
It’s worth noticing what these numbers don’t have in common. Blackjack and craps respond to specific knowledge, the correct decision at a given moment genuinely changes the outcome over time. Roulette and baccarat are fixed regardless of anything a player does; picking a different bet changes the odds and payout shape but not the underlying edge on that wheel or shoe. Slots and keno sit outside player control entirely, with the edge baked into the paytable before a single round is ever played. A single comparison table flattens these very different mechanisms onto one scale, which is convenient for comparing games but easy to over-read if the differences underneath get forgotten.
Limits and assumptions
The figures above describe common rule sets and correct play where skill applies; an individual table’s specific rules can move a number in either direction, and blackjack’s figure assumes basic strategy is actually being played rather than approximated. Slot house edge varies title to title within the stated range and is set by the specific game’s paytable, not by the casino hosting it, and as the slot RTP guide explains, the same title can even carry more than one certified edge depending on which configuration an operator has licensed. Craps’ figure applies specifically to the pass line; several of the game’s proposition and side bets carry a considerably higher edge, sometimes into double digits, and are excluded from the headline 1.41% figure entirely. Treat every figure here as a reference point for comparing games against each other, not as a guarantee for any specific table or machine. To see how a given edge plays out over many rounds, the RTP and Volatility Simulator runs a bankroll through it directly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is house edge, exactly?
House edge is the percentage of every unit wagered that a game is mathematically designed to keep for the house over a very large number of rounds. A 1% house edge means the house keeps $1 of every $100 wagered on average across that long run, not on any single bet.
Is house edge the same as RTP?
They describe the same underlying number from opposite directions. RTP is the percentage returned to the player; house edge is the percentage kept by the house. A 96% RTP slot and a 4% house-edge slot are describing the identical game.
Why does blackjack have such a low house edge compared to keno?
Blackjack rewards skill: playing correct basic strategy narrows the gap between the payouts offered and the true odds down to roughly 0.5% under common rules. Keno offers none of that adjustment, every outcome is pure chance against long odds, and operators price that into a house edge that commonly runs above 25%.
Does a lower house edge mean a game is less risky?
Not necessarily. House edge describes the average outcome over a long run, while volatility describes how much any individual session can swing above or below that average. A low-edge, high-volatility game can still produce large session swings; see the slot RTP and volatility guide for that distinction in detail.