At the bottom of "table game house edge" lies a single number: the share of each stake a game keeps on average, known as the house edge. At table games it follows straight from the rules. A change in one payout or one dealer rule moves it, sometimes by more than the gap between two whole games. Knowing which rules matter lets a player compare tables in a few seconds and see what an hour of play is likely to cost.
Roulette shows the effect of rules more plainly than any other game. A wheel with one green zero keeps about 2.7 percent of every bet, and adding a second zero raises that to about 5.3 percent without changing a single payout. Some tables with one zero return half of an even money bet when the ball lands on zero, which halves the edge on those bets. The layout looks alike in every version, so the number of zeros is worth checking before the first bet.
Baccarat offers three main bets, and their edges are far apart. The banker bet keeps a little over one percent after its commission, the player bet slightly more, and the tie bet, despite its generous payout, keeps around fourteen percent. Side bets at every table game work the same way: big payouts on unusual hands, funded by an edge that dwarfs the one on the main wager. Staying with the main bets is the simplest way to keep the cost of a session down.
Video poker is unusual because its edge can be read straight from the pay table on the screen. Two machines with identical cards and rules can differ only in what a full house and a flush pay, and that difference alone can move the return by two or three points. A full pay table, played with the correct holds, returns close to everything staked over time. Machines with trimmed payouts look the same from a distance, so the numbers in the table are what separates them.
Nearby, and usually asked together: