Casino Games With the Best Odds: The House Edge of Everything, Ranked
Every casino game has a house edge: the percentage of each bet the house expects to keep over the long run. A 1% edge means that for every $100 wagered, the house expects to keep $1 — you might be up or down enormously on the night, but that's the long-run average.
The spread across a casino floor is wide. The best bets keep about 0.3% of your money; the worst keep over 25%. Knowing which is which is the single most useful piece of casino knowledge there is, and it takes about four minutes to learn.
The ranking
| Game / bet | House edge | Skill required? |
|---|---|---|
| Blackjack (good rules, perfect basic strategy) | 0.3–0.5% | Yes — substantial |
| Video poker (9/6 Jacks or Better, perfect play) | 0.46% | Yes — substantial |
| Craps — pass line with full odds | 0.4–0.8% | No |
| Baccarat — banker bet | 1.06% | None |
| Baccarat — player bet | 1.24% | None |
| Craps — pass / don't pass, no odds | 1.36–1.41% | No |
| Ultimate Texas Hold'em (optimal play) | 2.19% | Yes |
| Three Card Poker — ante/play, optimal | 3.37% | Minimal |
| Pai Gow Poker (house way) | ~2.8% | Moderate |
| Let It Ride (optimal) | 3.5% | Yes |
| Mississippi Stud (optimal) | 4.9% | Yes — a lot |
| Caribbean Stud (optimal) | 5.2% | Yes |
| Roulette — European (single zero) | 2.70% | None |
| Roulette — American (double zero) | 5.26% | None |
| Slots | 2–15%, usually undisclosed | None |
| Keno | 25–30% | None |
| Baccarat — tie bet | 14.4% | None |
Reading the table properly
Skill is not optional in the top rows. Blackjack is only 0.5% if you play basic strategy correctly on a good table. An average player, guessing on the hard hands and taking insurance, faces closer to 2% — worse than European roulette, where no skill is required at all. The top of this list is only the top of the list for someone who has done the work.
The best no-skill bet on the floor is the baccarat banker bet at 1.06%. Nothing to learn, no decisions to make, and better odds than roulette. It's the answer to "what should I play if I don't want to learn anything", and it is under-appreciated relative to how good it is.
American roulette is exactly twice as expensive as European. Same game, same bets, one extra green pocket. If both wheels are on the floor, playing the American one is throwing away half your expected money for nothing. Always check for the double zero.
The three bets that quietly cost the most
1. 6:5 blackjack. A blackjack paying 6:5 instead of 3:2 adds about 1.4% to the house edge — which takes a 0.5% game to 1.9% and undoes every correct decision you'll make all night. Tables are usually marked. Check before you sit.
2. Side bets. All of them. Perfect Pairs, 21+3, Lucky Ladies, insurance, the baccarat tie, Three Card Poker's Pair Plus at some paytables. They run 4% to 15% house edge, sit next to a game with a 0.5% edge, and are placed by the same hand. Insurance is the classic: about a 7% edge, offered at exactly the moment you feel most like you need it.
3. Playing under max coins in video poker. Costs roughly 1.5% flat, because the royal flush bonus at max coins is where a large slice of the machine's return sits. Play a lower denomination at max coins instead.
What the house edge doesn't tell you
Two things it hides, and both matter for how a session actually feels.
Variance. Two games with the same house edge feel completely different if one pays small and often and the other pays large and rarely. Video poker has high variance — the 99.54% return assumes you eventually hit a royal flush, roughly once every 40,000 hands. Most sessions are below average, with the average restored by rare enormous hands. Baccarat has low variance: close to even money, resolved constantly.
Hands per hour. House edge applies to each bet, so the money you actually lose is
edge × bet size × hands per hour. A slot machine at 6% and 600 spins an hour costs far more per
hour than a blackjack table at 2% and 60 hands an hour, despite the worse-sounding number being
elsewhere. Speed is the multiplier nobody mentions.
The practical answer
If you're willing to learn one thing: blackjack basic strategy. It's the biggest single improvement available anywhere in a casino, and it's a chart you can learn in an afternoon.
If you're willing to learn a lot: video poker on a full-pay machine. The lowest edge on the floor for someone who plays perfectly, and the only game where "perfectly" is exactly defined.
If you want to learn nothing: the baccarat banker bet, at 1.06%. Better odds than roulette, zero decisions.
Avoid regardless: keno, the baccarat tie, American roulette when European is available, and 6:5 blackjack.
Practising the skill games
The three lowest-edge games all require skill you have to build somewhere, and building it at a real table with real money is the expensive way.
Casino Trainer covers eleven casino card games with an exact solver behind each one — not a strategy chart, an actual computation. Blackjack solves the dealer and player trees recursively and composition-dependently; video poker enumerates every hold against every draw; baccarat enumerates the full coup over an eight-deck shoe; Three Card Poker solves against all 18,424 possible dealer hands. After each decision it names the correct play in plain language and prices your mistake in expected value, and it tracks your recurring errors as patterns rather than as isolated corrections.
Virtual credits only. There is no real-money play anywhere in it.
Want to learn the correct play in every game on this list? Get Casino Trainer — virtual credits only.
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