What is the house edge

March 14, 2026 by Casino Opinion

Casinos are places of fun and games, and winnings, of course, but also enterprizes that have the duty to generate income for their respective owners. As running a casino is pure business, it can't be based only on income from losing bets – casinos need a way to generate steady income, or they would simply go bankrupt after a high roller's winning streak.

For card games like poker, casinos usually charge a certain percentage of the winnings. This is called 'rake', and usually represents 5% of the pot. In case of other games, like table games, this doesn't work. This is where the 'house edge' comes in.

House edge is, simply put, casino profit built into every bet you make. To understand house edge, we have to clear some other terms, as well.

Let's take an example, say flipping a coin.

When flipping a coin, you have a 50% chance of getting heads or tails. If you bet a dollar on heads, and you win, you will be paid 'true odds', meaning one dollar. Casinos in turn don't pay you one dollar as your 'Casino flip-a-coin' winning, but only 95 cents, keeping 5 cents for themselves. The difference between the true odds and the odds the casino pays you is called the 'house edge'.

Let's move on to a more complicated game of chance, usually played at offline and online casinos alike – roulette. In roulette, the highest payout in a double zero game is 35 to 1. If you bet one dollar on a single number, and win, the casino will pay you 35 dollars, plus your original $1 back, so the total amount of money you get is $36. This is where the house edge comes in: the number of possible single bets on a double zero roulette table is 38 – 36 numbers, 0 and 00. The true odds of a game of roulette would be $38. The difference between the true odds and the real odds is $2, which is divided by the possible winning numbers, and gives a house edge of 5.26%.

House edge is fixed for most casino and table games, except for blackjack. In Blackjack, dealing each card changed the make up of cards remaining in the shoe. During a game of blackjack the advantage can shift from the house to the player, depending on the cards that have been played and the strategy followed by the player.