House edge
The house edge is the share of each bet a casino expects to keep on average over the long run, equal to 100% minus the game's RTP.
Also called house advantage, casino edge
The house edge is the casino's built-in advantage, written as a percentage of your stake. It is the other half of RTP: for most games, a game with a 99% RTP has a 1% house edge.
Example. A dice game has a 1% edge. You make 200 bets of 5 each, so you stake 1,000 in total. Expected loss = 1,000 × 1% = 10. The house edge calculator does the same sum for any game.
What people get wrong. The edge is charged on everything you stake, not on what you deposit. If you deposit 100 and keep betting your winnings again, you might stake 2,000 in an evening. At 1% that is an expected loss of 20, which is 20% of your deposit. A small edge over a lot of bets still adds up.
The edge is an average, so a single session can end well ahead or well behind. No staking plan changes it. In games with choices, such as blackjack, the quoted edge assumes you play every hand the best way. Mistakes make it bigger.
Related terms
- Return to player (RTP)
RTP (return to player) is the share of all money bet on a game that it is built to pay back to players over a very large number of bets, shown as a percentage.
- Expected value (EV)
Expected value (EV) is the average result of a bet if you could repeat it a huge number of times, found by weighting each possible outcome by its chance.
- Rakeback
Rakeback is a reward that usually pays back a small part of the house edge on every bet you place, whether the bet wins or loses.
- Wagering requirement
A wagering requirement is the total amount you must bet, usually a multiple of the bonus, before bonus money and its winnings can be withdrawn.
- Volatility
Volatility is how much a game's results swing around its average, from small frequent wins at the low end to rare large wins at the high end.