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A 5% House Edge Explained

A house edge of 5% means the casino keeps 5% of every amount wagered, on average: 50 of every 1,000 you stake, with 95% coming back to you.

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What a 5% edge costs

Wagered	Expected loss	Expected return
100	5	95
1,000	50	950
10,000	500	9,500
100,000	5,000	95,000

These are averages over a long run of bets. Any single session can end well above or well below them, but the more you wager, the closer the result sits to these figures.

What it does to the payout

A fair game pays exactly the reciprocal of the win chance, so a 50% chance pays 2 for 1. A house edge shaves every payout by 5%.

Win chance	Fair payout	Pays at a 5% edge
50%	2x	1.9x
25%	4x	3.8x
10%	10x	9.5x
1%	100x	95x

Are you ahead after a lot of bets?

Take an even-money bet at this edge: it wins 47.5% of the time. This is the chance of being ahead, meaning more wins than losses, after a number of bets, which is the best case for the player.

Bets	Chance you are ahead
10	31.72%
100	27.38%
1,000	5.325%
10,000	2.68 × 10^-5%

The more you play, the closer your result gets to the expected loss and the less likely it is that you are ahead. A house edge feels harmless over ten bets and decisive over ten thousand.

Which games have a 5% edge?

On Cryptoflip a game of Original is a straight 50/50 where the winner takes the pot minus a 5% fee, so the edge is 5%.

How to check a site’s house edge

Look for a stated return-to-player (RTP) or house edge on every game, and check that the payouts match it: win chance multiplied by payout should equal the return. If the figure is missing, or the payouts do not add up to it, you cannot compare that game with anything. On Cryptoflip the Wheel states its chance as a formula and every result can be verified on the provably fair page.

Other house edges

Every spin can be checked. The roll for each Wheel spin comes from an HMAC of a server seed committed in advance, your client seed and a nonce, so the result cannot be chosen after you bet. How to check one is on the provably fair page.