How We Calculate House Edge & Payouts
Every house-edge and payout figure on Felt Trainer is computed from the same open game engines that run the trainer. The numbers you read in our guides are the numbers the games actually use. They are not copied from another site, and they cannot quietly drift out of sync.
What "house edge" means
The house edge is the casino's long-run expected profit, expressed as a percentage of each bet. A 1.41% edge means that, averaged over many bets, the casino keeps about 1.41 cents of every dollar wagered. It is the single most useful number for comparing bets: lower edge means your money lasts longer and your odds of walking away ahead are better.
How we compute it
For a single-roll or single-hand bet, the edge is calculated directly from first principles:
- Enumerate every possible outcome of the bet and its exact probability from the game's true odds (for craps, the 36 dice combinations; for roulette, the 38 pockets; for baccarat and blackjack, the card distributions and drawing rules).
- For each outcome, multiply its probability by the player's net return at the payout the game actually pays.
- Sum those products. The negative of that sum, as a percentage of the stake, is the house edge.
Because the payouts in that calculation are the same constants the trainer pays out during play, the published edge is always consistent with the game itself.
How we keep it honest
Two safeguards keep the figures trustworthy:
- Single source of truth. Our guides and bet pages pull their odds and payouts from the engine constants, not from hand-typed tables, so a content page can't show a number the game doesn't honor.
- Automated edge checks. Our test suite simulates large volumes of play and confirms that the realized house edge reproduces each documented constant. If a payout were ever wrong, the test fails before it ships.
The key house edges
| Bet | Game | House edge |
|---|---|---|
| Pass Line + full odds | Craps | under 1% |
| Basic strategy | Blackjack | ~0.5% |
| Banker | Baccarat | 1.06% |
| Nearly any bet | Roulette (American) | 5.26% |
| Tie | Baccarat | 14.36% |
| Any Seven | Craps | 16.67% |
Want the full breakdown bet by bet? See the worst bets and best-odds guides, or check any wager yourself in the house-edge calculator.
Responsible practice
Felt Trainer is a free learning tool. There is no real-money gambling, no account, and nothing to buy. Practice money has no cash value. We teach the math so you understand the true cost of every bet before you ever play for real. If gambling stops being fun, take a break, or reach 1-800-GAMBLER.
No signup, no download. A coach explains every bet.