House Edge Calculator: Expected Loss by Casino Game 2026
Turn any house edge into real money. Pick a table game or enter a custom edge and see your expected loss per bet, per hour, per session, and the long-term cost of where you choose to play.
Calculator Settings
Table games run far slower than slots. Blackjack is roughly 80 hands an hour, roulette near 40 spins, slots 600 plus.
Used to project the long-term cost of this edge over a month and a year.
Powered by the toolsgambling.com RTP Database
This calculator reads the real, stated RTP of thousands of slots straight from our open database and converts it to a house edge. Search a game above, or browse the full database.
Open the RTP database →Your Results
0.5%
RTP: 99.5%
$800
160
$796.00
-$2.00
-$0.0250
-$2.50
Long-Term Cost of This Edge
-$52
-$624
Based on 3 sessions per week at this exact setup. This is the quiet, compounding cost of choosing a higher-edge game.
Expected Loss by House Edge
How your expected loss grows as the edge rises, at your current bet size and session length
The lime bar marks your selected edge. Every extra percentage point of house edge is real money handed to the casino over a full session.
Compare Several Games Side by Side
Add the games or edges you are choosing between. The calculator uses the bet size and session length above and shows what each one really costs.
| Label | House Edge | Expected Loss | Loss / Hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| European Roulette | 2.7% | -$21.60 | -$10.80 |
| American Roulette | 5.26% | -$42.08 | -$21.04 |
Bottom line: Over this session, European Roulette is the cheapest option. The gap between the best and worst choice here is $20.48 in expected loss, for the exact same playtime.
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Embed the House Edge Calculator on your own website for free. It is a single snippet, works on any page, and includes a link back to toolsgambling.com.
How the House Edge Calculator Works
Pick the game or edge
Choose a table game preset, type a custom house edge, or pull a slot's real RTP from the toolsgambling database.
Add your bet and playtime
Set your stake per round and how long you play, in rounds or hours, plus your weekly habit.
Read the real cost
See expected loss per round, per hour, per session, and the projected monthly and yearly cost of that edge.
The Math Behind the House Edge Calculator
Four simple formulas turn an edge into real money
House Edge
A 96% RTP game carries a 4% house edge.
Expected Loss
$600 wagered × 4% = $24 expected loss.
Total Wagered
$5 × 120 hands = $600 cycled through.
Loss per Hour
$5 × 80 × 0.5% = $2 per hour at blackjack.
House Edge by Casino Game Reference Table
A quick reference for what each game costs over an hour at a $5 bet, using typical rounds per hour.
| Game | House Edge | Loss / Hour ($5) | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blackjack (basic strategy) | 0.5% | $2.00 | Excellent |
| Video Poker (9/6 Jacks or Better) | 0.46% | $9.20 | Excellent |
| Baccarat (banker bet) | 1.06% | $3.71 | Good |
| Baccarat (player bet) | 1.24% | $4.34 | Good |
| Craps (pass line) | 1.41% | $7.05 | Good |
| Blackjack (casual play) | 2% | $8.00 | Average |
| Roulette (European, single zero) | 2.7% | $5.40 | Average |
| Casino War | 2.88% | $8.64 | Average |
| Three Card Poker (ante-play) | 3.37% | $8.43 | Below Average |
| Online Slots (average) | 4% | $120.00 | Below Average |
| Caribbean Stud Poker | 5.22% | $13.05 | Poor |
| Roulette (American, double zero) | 5.26% | $10.52 | Poor |
Loss per hour assumes a $5 bet at each game's typical pace. Lower-edge games at a slower pace cost far less per hour.
Three Ways to Use Your House Edge Numbers
Trade a Slow Pace for a Low Edge
Cost per hour is edge times bet times rounds per hour. A 0.5% blackjack table at 80 hands beats a 4% slot at 600 spins by a wide margin, even before you touch the edge itself.
Compare Before You Sit Down
European and American roulette look identical on the felt and differ by nearly double the edge. Run both through the compare table and pick the cheaper game before you buy in.
Project the Real Cost
A few dollars per session feels harmless. Multiply it by your weekly habit and the yearly figure is the honest number worth knowing before you commit.
Expert Guide to House Edge and Expected Loss
House edge is the single number that decides what a casino game costs you over time, and it is quietly the most useful figure on the floor. This guide explains exactly what it measures, how rules and pace change it, and how to turn it into decisions that protect your bankroll.
What House Edge Actually Measures
The house edge is the share of every wager the casino expects to keep over the long run. A 1% edge means that for every $100 you cycle through the game, the math says you lose $1 on average. It is the mirror image of RTP: a 99% RTP is a 1% house edge, a 95% RTP is a 5% edge. The trap is reading it as a session promise. The edge is an average over thousands of rounds, and variance can hand you a winning night or a brutal one long before that average ever shows up.
Why Game Rules Move the Edge More Than You Think
Two games with the same name can carry wildly different edges. European roulette has a single zero and a 2.7% edge, while American roulette adds a second zero and nearly doubles it to 5.26%. Blackjack swings from about 0.5% under good rules and basic strategy to over 2% with casual play and poor rules like 6:5 blackjack payouts. Before you sit down, the rules on the table tell you the price of admission, and this calculator lets you plug in the exact edge those rules produce.
Pace Is the Hidden Multiplier
Edge alone does not set your hourly cost, pace does too. Slots run 600 or more spins an hour, blackjack around 80 hands, roulette closer to 40 spins. A low-edge game played fast can cost more per hour than a higher-edge game played slowly. That is why this calculator asks for rounds per hour: your real cost is edge times bet times rounds per hour, and pace is the lever most players never think to pull.
House Edge Versus Expected Loss
House edge is a percentage, expected loss is the dollars that percentage actually removes from your wallet. The link is total wagered, which is your bet multiplied by every round you play, not your starting bankroll. Because winnings get re-bet, you cycle far more than you deposit, and the edge is applied to all of it. That is why the calculator works from total wagered, and why its per-session figure is usually higher than players expect.
Using House Edge Responsibly
A lower house edge slows your losses, it never reverses them. Every game on the casino floor carries a positive edge for the house by design, and no amount of game selection changes that direction over time. Use this calculator to play more efficiently and to set honest expectations, never to convince yourself that a low-edge game is a way to make money. The only winning move against a built-in edge is to treat the cost as the price of entertainment.
What a House Edge Calculator Is and Why You Should Use One
The short version: a house edge calculator converts a casino game's built-in advantage into the figure that actually matters, the money it costs you to play. You pick a game or enter an edge, add a bet size and how long you play, and the tool turns that into your expected loss per round, per hour, and per session, plus the long-term cost of choosing a higher-edge game. Below we cover what this tool does, why the house edge is the number that decides your real cost, how the math works, and how to use the house edge calculator on toolsgambling.com. Updated for 2026.
What This Tool Does
A house edge calculator takes an abstract percentage and makes it concrete. Everyone has heard that roulette favors the house or that blackjack has a low edge, but very few players translate that into dollars before they sit down. This tool does the translation instantly. It works out your expected loss, breaks it down per round, per hour, and per full session, and shows the long-term cost across a month and a year, so the edge stops being trivia and becomes a budgeting tool you can actually act on.
The point is decisions, not decoration. Knowing that an hour at single-zero roulette costs roughly half what double-zero costs is the difference between two real games on the same casino floor. The calculator also lets you compare several games at once, project the cost across your normal play frequency, and pull the real stated RTP of a specific slot straight from the toolsgambling.com database so the edge you plug in is accurate rather than a guess.
The first time I ran my regular Friday blackjack session through this calculator, I realised the table I liked had switched to 6:5 payouts, pushing the edge from around 0.5% to nearly 2%. At my stakes and play frequency the calculator put the difference at several hundred dollars a year for the exact same game. I moved to a 3:2 table down the strip that night. That single check has paid for itself many times over, which is exactly why I keep the tool free on toolsgambling.com.
Why You Need a House Edge Calculator
The house edge is the single most important number for the long-run cost of a game, and yet it is almost always left as an abstract percentage. Turning it into money changes how you choose games. Here are four concrete reasons to run the numbers before you play.
See the Real Cost, Not a Reputation
Casino games come with vague reputations: blackjack is good, slots are bad, roulette is somewhere in between. Reputations are not numbers. The calculator replaces them with your actual expected loss for your bet and your playtime, so you compare games on real cost rather than on folklore picked up at the table.
Compare Games Before You Buy In
The same game often exists in several rule sets, and two completely different games can sit side by side with a three-point edge gap you would never notice. The built-in compare table puts them next to each other with the same bet and session length, so the cheaper game is obvious before any money moves across the felt.
Understand the Long-Term Cost of Your Habit
A loss of a few dollars per session feels like nothing, which is exactly why it adds up unnoticed. The calculator projects your expected loss across a month and a year of your normal play frequency. Seeing the yearly figure is sobering in a useful way, and it makes the case for lower-edge games far better than any percentage ever could.
Run It Free on toolsgambling.com Before You Play
The house edge calculator on toolsgambling.com is free, instant, and runs in your browser with no sign-up. Checking a game takes ten seconds: pick the game or type the edge, add your bet, and read the cost. That tiny habit is one of the few things fully inside your control that measurably lowers what gambling costs you over time.
How the House Edge Calculation Works
The math is refreshingly simple, which is part of why understanding it matters. The house edge is just 100% minus the RTP, so a 96% return is a 4% edge. Your total wagered is your bet size multiplied by the number of rounds you play, and crucially that is the full amount cycled through the game, not just your starting bankroll. Your expected loss is the total wagered multiplied by the house edge.
That last point is where most people underestimate the cost. If you bring $200 and bet $5 a hand for 120 hands of blackjack, you have wagered $600, because winnings get re-bet over and over. At a 0.5% edge your expected loss is 0.5% of $600, which is $3, not 0.5% of your $200 bankroll. The calculator handles this correctly, which is why its per-session figure traces back to total wagered rather than to your deposit.
From there the breakdowns are straightforward division. Loss per hour is your expected loss divided by hours played, loss per round divides it across every hand or spin, and loss per 100 rounds is a handy unit for comparing games at a glance. The projection multiplies your per-session loss by your weekly sessions to estimate monthly and yearly cost. Every figure traces back to two inputs: the house edge and the total amount wagered.
How to Use the House Edge Calculator on toolsgambling.com
The calculator runs entirely in your browser on toolsgambling.com, it is free and needs no account. You can pull a real slot's RTP from our database, copy a shareable link that reproduces the exact scenario for a friend, or embed the whole tool on your own site. Here is the step-by-step process from setup to verdict.
- 01
Pick a Game or Enter the Edge
Tap a table game preset to load its standard house edge and pace, type a custom edge if you know the exact figure for your rules, or search a slot in the RTP database field and the calculator converts its stated RTP into an edge for you.
- 02
Set Your Bet Size
Enter the stake you place on each round. This is the figure the house edge is applied to over and over, so an honest average bet gives you an honest cost estimate.
- 03
Choose How Long You Play
Switch between counting by rounds or by hours, and set your rounds per hour if you want precision. Blackjack runs near 80 hands an hour, roulette around 40 spins, slots 600 or more, so the default adjusts to the game you picked.
- 04
Add Your Weekly Habit
Tell the calculator how many sessions you play in a typical week. This is what powers the monthly and yearly cost projection, which is usually the most eye-opening number on the page.
- 05
Read the Results and Share Them
Review the expected loss, hourly cost, and projected long-term figure. Use the compare table to weigh several games at once, copy the link to share the exact scenario, or grab the embed code to put the calculator on your own page.
How Game Rules Change the House Edge
The biggest mistake players make is treating a game as if it has one fixed edge. It does not. Blackjack alone swings from roughly 0.5% under liberal rules and perfect basic strategy to well over 2% when the table pays 6:5 on a natural, hits soft 17, or bans doubling after splits. Each rule tweak nudges the edge, and they stack. The calculator lets you enter the exact edge your table produces so you price the real game in front of you, not the textbook version.
Roulette is the cleanest example of rules as price. A single-zero European wheel carries a 2.7% edge, the double-zero American wheel jumps to 5.26%, and a French wheel with la partage on even-money bets drops to just 1.35%. Same spinning ball, three very different prices. Baccarat, craps, and three card poker all carry the same lesson: read the rules and the paytable first, then plug the resulting edge into this tool before you commit a single chip.
Why Pace Decides Your Hourly Cost
House edge gets all the attention, but your hourly cost is edge times bet times rounds per hour, and that middle term hides in plain sight. A 4% slot played at 600 spins an hour churns through far more money than a 2.7% roulette wheel at 40 spins, so the lower-edge game on paper can be the cheaper game in practice depending on pace. This is the insight that separates players who track cost per hour from players who only look at the headline edge.
That is exactly why the calculator asks for rounds per hour and adjusts the default to the game you pick. Slowing down is a real, free lever: take breaks, play fewer hands, skip the fast side bets. Cutting your rounds per hour in half cuts your expected hourly loss in half at any edge, with no change to the game itself. The chart on toolsgambling.com makes this relationship easy to feel once you see it drawn out.
How to Read the Expected Loss by House Edge Chart
The chart plots your expected loss across a range of house edges at your current bet size and session length, with your selected edge marked in the brand lime colour. The shape tells the story: as the edge climbs from left to right, the bars rise in a straight line, because expected loss is simply the edge multiplied across everything you wager. There is nothing curved or mysterious about it.
Use it to sanity-check a choice. If your game sits on a tall bar to the right, a small move left, a lower-edge game or better rules, lops a visible chunk off the cost. The chart is deliberately blunt about this, because the relationship between edge and money is linear and easy to grasp once you see it as bars rather than as a percentage buried in a rulebook.
House Edge Calculator vs RTP Calculator on toolsgambling.com
The house edge calculator and the RTP calculator are two doors into the same room. House edge and RTP are mirror images: a 4% edge is a 96% RTP. This tool leads with the edge, which is the natural language of table games like blackjack, roulette, and baccarat, and asks for rounds per hour to handle their slower pace. The RTP calculator leads with the return percentage, which is how slots are advertised, and thinks in spins. Pick the one that matches how your game is described, then for variance and bust odds around the average, run the session simulator alongside either one.
Three Real Scenarios Run Through the House Edge Calculator
Numbers land harder than theory. Here are three setups you can recreate on toolsgambling.com in seconds, and what the calculator reveals about each.
The Blackjack Player: 0.5% Edge, $10 Hands, Two Hours
At 80 hands an hour you play 160 hands and cycle $1,600 through a 0.5% game, for about $8 in expected loss across two hours. The calculator confirms what blackjack's reputation promises: with good rules and basic strategy, it is one of the cheapest games on the floor per hour. The catch is that it only holds at that edge, which is why checking the table rules matters.
The Roulette Regular: 5.26% Edge, $5 Bets, Three Hours, Twice a Week
American roulette at 40 spins an hour cycles $600 per hour, and a 5.26% edge means about $32 an hour, or close to $95 a session. Twice a week pushes the yearly expected loss near $10,000. The calculator makes the case for finding a single-zero European wheel, which would roughly halve that figure for the exact same game.
The Slot Player: 4% Edge, $1 Spins, One Hour
A 96% slot at 600 spins an hour cycles $600 and costs about $24 for the hour, more than triple the blackjack player above despite the smaller bet, because pace and edge both run higher. The lesson the calculator drives home is that the friendly-sounding 96% slot is not automatically the cheap option once you account for how fast it plays.
Common House Edge Mistakes the Calculator Helps You Avoid
Most house edge confusion comes from a handful of predictable errors. Here are the six worst, and how running the numbers fixes each.
Reading the Edge as a Session Guarantee
A 2% edge does not mean you lose exactly 2% tonight. It is a long-run average over thousands of rounds. In one session you can win big or lose your whole buy-in. The calculator gives you the expected cost, but always pair it with the understanding that variance dominates any single sitting.
Applying the Edge to Your Bankroll Instead of Total Wagered
The most common math error is taking 2% of your starting buy-in. The house edge applies to everything you wager, and winnings get re-bet many times over. The calculator works from total wagered, which is why its numbers are higher and more honest than the back-of-the-envelope version.
Ignoring That Rules Change the Edge
The same game can carry very different edges depending on the rules and paytable. A 6:5 blackjack table or a double-zero roulette wheel quietly charges far more than its 3:2 or single-zero cousin. Check the rules at the table and enter the real edge before you commit.
Forgetting Pace Scales the Cost
Edge gets all the attention, but hourly cost is edge and pace together. A slow low-edge game can be cheaper per hour than a fast one with a similar edge. The calculator lets you see both levers at once, so you can trade a faster pace for a lower edge and keep your hourly cost flat.
Only Looking at the Single-Session Number
A $24 session feels harmless in isolation, which is precisely the trap. The yearly projection is the figure that should drive your game selection. Skipping it is how small, regular losses quietly become a large annual number you never decided to spend.
Believing a Low Edge Makes a Game Profitable
No standard casino game with a positive house edge is a winning bet, and they all carry one by design. A 0.5% blackjack table still costs you money over time, just slowly. The calculator is a tool for playing efficiently and setting expectations, never for finding a game that pays you to play it.
House Edge and Casino Math Glossary
To read the calculator and the rules at the table without confusion, keep these key terms handy. Each one feeds directly into what a game costs you.
Key Concepts
- The casino's built-in advantage, equal to 100% minus the RTP. A 96% RTP is a 4% house edge. It is the slice of every wager the casino expects to keep over time, and it is the number that determines your long-run cost.
- The mirror image of the house edge: the percentage of all wagered money a game returns over the long run. A 99% RTP is a 1% edge. Slots are advertised in RTP, table games are usually discussed in edge, but they describe the same thing.
- The full amount cycled through a game, equal to bet size times number of rounds. Because winnings are re-bet, this is far larger than your starting bankroll, and it is what the house edge is applied to.
- Your total wagered multiplied by the house edge. It is the statistically average amount you lose over a session, though any individual session will land above or below it due to variance.
- How many hands, spins, or rolls you play in an hour. It multiplies the edge into your hourly cost, so a slow game with a higher edge can still cost less per hour than a fast game with a lower one.
- How wildly results swing around the expected loss. It is separate from the edge: two games with the same edge can feel completely different. Variance shapes a single session but does not change the long-run cost.
- A convenient unit for comparing games, equal to 100 times your bet times the house edge. It strips out session length so you can line up games on equal footing at a glance.
- The mathematically optimal way to play each hand in games like blackjack. Following it pulls the edge down to its lowest published figure. Deviating from it quietly raises the edge, which is why casual play costs more than the textbook number.
House Edge
RTP (Return to Player)
Total Wagered
Expected Loss
Rounds per Hour
Variance (Volatility)
Loss per 100 Rounds
Basic Strategy
Important
This calculator uses the standard house edge and expected loss formulas, which are exact for the long-run average. It does not model variance, side bets, or progressive jackpots, which can shift the experience of any single session. Treat the output as an honest estimate of long-run cost, and always confirm the rules and paytable at your actual table for its true, current edge.
Free Casino Math Tools on toolsgambling.com
On toolsgambling.com you can use the House Edge Calculator for free, just like all our other tools, with no sign-up required. They work well together: check a slot's real RTP in our database, work out its cost here, simulate the variance of a full session in the session simulator, and calculate bonus playthrough in the wagering calculator right next door.
Gamble Responsibly
A house edge calculator helps you play more efficiently, but every standard casino game carries a positive edge for the house. It wins over time, on every game. Only ever play with money you can afford to lose, never chase losses, set a budget and a time limit before you start, and treat any win as luck rather than skill. 18+. If gambling stops being fun, get free support at BeGambleAware.org.
Evgeny Volkov
Verified ExpertOver 10 years developing software for the gaming industry. Advanced degree in Mathematics. Specializing in probability analysis, RNG algorithms, and mathematical gambling models.