Casino Bonuses 
22 August 2026
0 shares
If you’re comparing casino games, house edge is one of the few numbers that deserves your attention. It’s the casino’s long-term mathematical advantage under a defined set of rules, expressed as a percentage of the amount wagered.
A lower house edge doesn’t make a game profitable, and it tells you nothing whatsoever about the next ten minutes. What it does let you do is compare the underlying long-run cost of one game against another, which is more than most casino content bothers to explain.
The figures below are representative values for common rule sets, and where strategy affects the outcome they assume correct or near-optimal play. Online versions vary. Always check the rules and paytable of the exact game you open, because the industry has a well-developed talent for making two apparently identical games mathematically different through small changes nobody advertises.
| # | Game or bet | Typical house edge | Condition that matters |
| 1 | 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker | ≈0.46% | Full-pay table and optimal strategy required |
| 2 | Blackjack, favourable rules | ≈0.5% | Basic strategy required; rules change this a lot |
| 3 | Baccarat, Banker bet | ≈1.06% | Assumes the standard 5% commission |
| 4 | Baccarat, Player bet | ≈1.24% | No commission charged on wins |
| 5 | French roulette, even-money with La Partage | ≈1.35% | Only where La Partage is offered |
| 6 | Craps, Don’t Pass / Don’t Come | ≈1.36% | Standard rules |
| 7 | Craps, Pass / Come | ≈1.41% | Standard rules |
| 8 | Ultimate Texas Hold’em | ≈2.19% of the ante | Roughly 0.5% measured against total action |
| 9 | Pai Gow Poker | ≈2.5% | Rules and the banking option change this |
| 10 | European roulette, any bet | 2.70% | Single-zero wheel |
| 11 | Sic Bo, Small / Big | ≈2.78% | These two bets only; others are far worse |
| 12 | Casino War | ≈2.9% | Rule-dependent |
| 13 | Slot with 97% RTP | 3.00% | RTP is long-term and version-specific |
| 14 | Three Card Poker, Ante/Play | ≈3.37% | Assumes correct qualifying decisions |
| 15 | Caribbean Stud Poker | ≈5.2% | Paytable and strategy both matter |
*Ordered by house edge, lowest first. Some entries are specific bets rather than whole games, because that’s where the meaningful mathematical difference sits. The Banker bet in baccarat and a random side bet on the same table are not remotely comparable.*
House edge is the proportion of each wager the casino expects to keep across a very large number of plays. A 1% edge means that over, say, a million rounds, the casino expects to retain about £1 of every £100 staked.
The critical word is *expects*. Over one session, or a hundred sessions, results scatter widely around that figure. The edge describes a long-run average, not your evening.
Return to player, or RTP, is the percentage a game is expected to pay back over the long term. House edge is whatever is left. A slot with 96% RTP has a 4% house edge; one with 97% RTP has a 3% edge. Two ways of stating one fact.
Slots tend to be described by RTP and table games by house edge, which is a convention rather than a real distinction. Converting between them takes one subtraction.
The lowest edge on this list, and the one with the strictest conditions attached. “9/6” refers to the paytable: nine coins for a full house and six for a flush, per coin bet. Change those numbers and the edge climbs sharply. An 8/5 machine is a substantially worse game wearing the same name.
The figure also assumes optimal strategy, which in video poker means the mathematically correct discard on every single hand. It’s learnable. It isn’t intuitive, and casual play hands back a good deal of the advantage.
Blackjack’s house edge is unusually sensitive to rules. Dealer standing on soft 17, doubling allowed after splitting, blackjack paying 3:2, and a smaller number of decks all push the edge down. The single most damaging variation is blackjack paying 6:5 instead of 3:2, which adds well over a percentage point on its own.
This figure assumes basic strategy, the standard chart of correct decisions for every hand against every dealer upcard. Playing on instinct instead typically costs more than every rule variation combined.
The best bet on a baccarat table under the usual 5% commission model. Baccarat requires no decisions at all, which means the stated edge is what you actually face, rather than a best case you have to earn through correct play. For most players that makes it the most reliable low-edge game here.
Marginally worse than Banker, but with no commission deducted from wins, which some players prefer for simplicity. Both are far better than the Tie bet on the same table, which carries a house edge many times higher and is best understood as a different game entirely.
La Partage returns half your even-money stake when the ball lands on zero. On a single-zero wheel that halves the effective house edge on red/black, odd/even and high/low, from 2.70% down to about 1.35%.
The catch is availability. The rule applies only on tables that offer it, only to even-money bets, and it turns up far more often in French roulette variants than in the standard European game. Check the table rules rather than assuming.
Betting against the shooter carries a slightly lower edge than betting with them. In a live casino this makes you unpopular at the table. Online, nobody minds. The difference is small but real.
The standard craps bets, and among the best available on the layout. Craps also allows the odds bet behind a Pass or Come wager, which pays at true odds and carries no house edge at all. It doesn’t lower the edge on your original bet, but it does lower the average edge across your total action.
Most other bets on a craps layout are considerably worse. The proposition bets in the centre are among the worst wagers in any casino.
This game is awkward to place in a ranking because there are two legitimate ways to measure it. Against the ante alone the edge is roughly 2.19%. Measured against the total amount wagered across a hand, which is usually several times the ante, it falls to around 0.5%.
Neither figure is wrong. They answer different questions, and comparing the lower one against the single-bet edges elsewhere on this list wouldn’t be fair. Both assume near-optimal strategy, which for this game is genuinely complex.
A slow game with a large number of pushes, which makes bankroll swings unusually gentle. The edge depends on the house way used to set the dealer’s hand and on whether banking is available to players. Its main appeal is time: you get a lot of play per pound compared with faster games.
The single-zero wheel gives a flat 2.70% on every bet on the layout. Red or black, a single number, a corner: the edge is identical, which is why roulette systems that switch between bet types can’t change anything.
Worth knowing the comparison. American roulette, with its extra double-zero pocket, runs at 5.26%. If both are available, there’s no reason to play the American version.
Sic Bo has an enormous range of bets and most of them are poor. Small and Big are the exceptions at around 2.78%. Some of the specific triple bets on the same table carry house edges above 15%, a spread wider than almost any other casino game.
Mechanically the simplest game in the building: high card wins. The edge sits mainly in what happens on a tie, and in whether the tie bet is offered. That one carries a much higher edge and should be left alone.
The best-returning slots sit around 97% RTP, giving a 3% house edge. That’s competitive with several table games here, with two important caveats.
First, plenty of popular slots run at 94 to 96%, and some considerably lower. Second, and much less well known, the same slot can be supplied at several different RTP settings, with the operator choosing which one to run. A game listed at 96.5% on one site may be running at 94% on another. Check the RTP shown inside the game’s own information panel rather than trusting a third-party figure.
Then there’s speed. Slots resolve far faster than table games, so a 3% edge applied to many more rounds per hour produces a larger expected cost per hour than the percentage alone suggests. UK licensed slots must maintain a minimum 2.5-second gap between spins, a standard the Commission has enforced with a financial penalty as recently as June 2026.
The Ante and Play combination is the main wager. Pair Plus is a separate side bet with its own, generally higher, edge, and combining the two changes the maths of your session considerably.
Included at the bottom because it’s often grouped with the low-edge table games and doesn’t belong there. At roughly 5.2% it’s worse than European roulette and comparable to the American wheel. The progressive side bet is generally worse still, occasionally becoming favourable only when the jackpot has grown very large.
No, and this is the most important paragraph on the page.
Every game listed here has a positive house edge, which means the expected long-run result of playing any of them is a loss. A lower edge means the expected loss accumulates more slowly for a given amount wagered. It does not turn a losing proposition into a winning one, and no betting pattern, staking system or session length changes that.
What the number is genuinely useful for is deciding how to spend an entertainment budget. Playing baccarat Banker rather than a 92% slot means the same £50 lasts substantially longer on average. That’s a real benefit, and it’s the only one on offer.
Read the table from top to bottom and the spread is the striking part. Between 9/6 Jacks or Better at 0.46% and Caribbean Stud at 5.2% there’s more than a tenfold difference in long-run cost, for games that sit on the same casino floor and look about equally entertaining from the outside. Almost nobody comparing casinos knows this, which is odd, because it’s the one number that reliably separates them.
The practical version is simpler than the maths suggests. Two of the four lowest-edge entries here demand near-perfect strategy to deliver their headline figure, so for most people the honest answer is baccarat Banker at around 1.06%, or European roulette at 2.70% if you want something with more happening. Both give you the stated edge without homework.
And check the specific game rather than the category. A blackjack table paying 6:5, an American wheel sitting next to a European one, a slot running a lower RTP configuration than the same title does elsewhere: each of those quietly costs you more than choosing a different game altogether would have. The number is on the paytable or in the info panel. It takes ten seconds to find.
Which casino game has the lowest house edge?
Full-pay 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker, at roughly 0.46% with optimal strategy and the correct paytable. Among games requiring no strategy at all, the baccarat Banker bet at around 1.06% is the lowest.
Is a 96% RTP slot good?
It’s around the industry average, giving a 4% house edge. Slots at 97% exist and are better; a substantial number of popular games sit below 96%.
Does house edge tell me how much I will lose?
Only as a long-run average across a very large number of rounds. Over a single session, results vary widely in both directions.
Why is European roulette better than American roulette?
The American wheel has an extra double-zero pocket, raising the house edge from 2.70% to 5.26% for identical bets and identical gameplay.
Can the same slot have different RTPs?
Yes. Some games are supplied in multiple RTP configurations and the operator selects which to run. Check the RTP displayed inside the game itself.
Does a low house edge make gambling profitable?
No. Every game here has a positive house edge, so the expected long-run outcome of playing is a loss regardless of which you choose.
Understanding house edge is useful for deciding how to spend an entertainment budget. It isn’t a strategy for making money, and no game on this page can be played at a long-term profit.
Set deposit and loss limits before you play rather than during a session. If gambling is affecting your finances, relationships or wellbeing, free and confidential support is available through BeGambleAware.org and the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133. GAMSTOP allows self-exclusion from all UK licensed online operators at once.
*Information verified: 16 August 2026. House edge figures are long-term mathematical estimates for the rule sets stated and are not a prediction of short-term results.*
22 August 2026
24 August 2026
24 August 2026
24 August 2026
