House edge
The house edge is the share of every bet the casino keeps on average, over the long run. It is the casino's version of the vig, with one difference that matters: you can't shop it away, because the rules of the game set it.
Paying less than the odds
Every casino edge comes from the same trick. The game pays you less than the true odds of what you bet on.
Roulette shows it plainest. An American wheel has 38 pockets: 1 to 36, a zero and a double zero. A bet on one number pays 35 to 1. Put $1 on every number and you have bet $38. One of them wins, and you get $36 back, your dollar plus 35. The casino kept $2 of $38, which is 5.26 percent, and it does that on every spin whether anybody notices or not.
A sportsbook does the same thing with -110 on both sides of a game, where the cut is 4.55 percent (there is more on that in what the vig is). The difference is that a book has to set a line and hope the money splits evenly. A casino never has to hope. The wheel has 38 pockets this spin and the next, and the payout is printed on the layout.
What the common bets cost
Here are some of the edges you meet most, all worked out from the rules of the game. Where the rules change, the edge changes, so read these as the standard version.
| Bet | House edge |
|---|---|
| Blackjack, good rules, correct play | about 0.5% |
| Baccarat, banker (5% commission) | 1.06% |
| Baccarat, player | 1.24% |
| Craps, pass line | 1.41% |
| Roulette, single zero | 2.70% |
| Roulette, double zero | 5.26% |
| Baccarat, tie at 8 to 1 | 14.36% |
| Craps, any seven | 16.67% |
Two of those you can check on a napkin. Single-zero roulette has 37 pockets and still pays 35 to 1, so the casino keeps 1 of every 37 units, which is 2.70 percent. Any seven in craps wins 6 times in 36 rolls and pays 4 to 1, so for every 6 units you bet you win 4 once and lose 5 times, and the house keeps 1 in 6. The others take longer, and the game pages work them through: blackjack, baccarat, roulette and craps.
Look at how wide that table is. The best bet on it costs you about one-thirtieth of the worst, and both are on felt in the same room. I'd say that matters more than anything else on this page.
Per hour, not per bet
An edge of 5 percent sounds small because it is quoted per bet. You don't make one bet. Your cost is the edge times everything you put in action, and in a casino the action adds up fast.
Say you play $10 a decision and see 60 decisions an hour. That is $600 in action. On double-zero roulette the expected cost is $600 times 5.26 percent, about $32 an hour. On the banker at baccarat it is about $6. Same $10 bets, same hour, and one game costs five times what the other does.
So I'd look at three numbers, not one: the edge, the size of the bet and how fast the game moves. A slow game with a bad edge can cost less than a fast game with a good one, and the casino knows exactly how fast each game moves (it times them).
What the casino actually keeps
Here is the part the edge tables leave out. Nevada publishes what its casinos win, game by game, in the Gaming Control Board's monthly revenue report. For the twelve months to August 2026, statewide, it shows these win percentages.
| Game | Win percent |
|---|---|
| Twenty-one (blackjack) | 12.57% |
| Baccarat | 15.63% |
| Craps | 16.58% |
| Roulette | 18.44% |
No rule in roulette gives the house 18 percent. The table figures are not measured against every bet. They are measured against the money that comes to the table, the cash and markers changed into chips, and a player who buys in for $200 bets those chips over and over. Win a little, bet it again, lose a little, bet again. By the time he gets up he may have put $2,000 through the game on a $200 buy-in, and the edge has worked on all $2,000.
That is the honest way to think about it. The edge tells you the price per bet. The win percent tells you how much of what you bring to the table you should expect to leave there, and for most players it is a far bigger number.
Can it be beaten
Mostly no. A sharp bettor can beat the vig because the line is an opinion, and opinions are wrong. A casino edge is not an opinion. It is arithmetic on a fixed set of payouts, and no betting system changes it; the Martingale page shows what happens to the most famous one.
The exceptions are narrow. Card counting can tip blackjack the player's way for a while, which is why casinos watch for it and act against a player they think is doing it. A few video poker pay tables return close to or over 100 percent with perfect play, and the video poker page covers how to read them. Everything else is a cost.
In the short run, anything happens. You can win on a 16 percent bet tonight and lose on a 1 percent bet tomorrow, and that is what keeps people coming back. Over a year of weekends, the edge is what you pay. I'd choose the bets at the top of that first table, size them so the hourly cost is a number you are comfortable with, and keep responsible gambling in mind if the number keeps growing.