Table games for Canadian players

House edge, game by game

Where the edge comes from

Every edge in that table comes from the gap between what a bet pays and its true odds, and roulette shows it most plainly. A straight-up bet on one number pays 35 to 1, but a single-zero wheel has 37 pockets. Bet C$1 on a number for 37 spins, win once and lose 36 times, and you have C$35 won against C$36 lost: a C$1 shortfall on C$37 staked, or 2.70%. The double-zero wheel adds a 38th pocket at the same payout, so the shortfall grows to C$2 on C$38, or 5.26%. French la partage hands back half of an even-money stake when the ball lands on zero, which is how it brings red, black, odd and even down to 1.35%.

Baccarat builds its edge through a commission instead. The banker hand wins slightly more often than the player hand, so the casino takes 5% of every banker win, and that commission is what turns the banker bet into a 1.06% house edge rather than a small player advantage. Craps does it through payouts on the centre bets: any seven comes up on one roll in six, pays 4 to 1 instead of the 5 to 1 those odds deserve, and so keeps one stake in six.

Rules that cost you

Blackjack is only cheap when the rules are good, and online tables print them on the felt or in the game's info panel. A 6:5 payout on a natural instead of 3:2 adds 1.39% to the edge, more than the entire edge of a good game. Eight decks instead of one add 0.59%, and a dealer who hits soft 17 adds 0.22%. Copying the dealer's play instead of using basic strategy hands the house about 8%, the biggest leak of all and the one entirely in your hands.

The C$3 looks small on one hand and adds up across a session, which is why the payout line on the felt is the first thing to read when you open a blackjack table. Our blackjack guide has the strategy chart.

Tables and bonuses don't mix

The bonus terms of four Canadian-facing casinos show how little credit tables earn. Jackpot City and Grizzly's Quest count roulette and blackjack at 8%, Classic Blackjack at 2% and baccarat at 0%. Casino Classic counts every table game at 2%, and V.Vegas leaves tables out of wagering altogether.

The expected cost is more than double the bonus, and the max bet makes the job slow as well: at Jackpot City's C$8 cap, C$43,750 means more than 5,400 hands, and with seven days to finish that is close to 780 hands every day. Even-money roulette bets and hedged bets, such as red and black on the same spin, are often flagged as irregular play and can void a bonus outright. If tables are your game, the cleaner route is to skip the welcome and play with cash, or take a cashback deal and check which games it covers.

A bonus that helps table players

Read the offer cards on this page with one question in mind: does the bonus do anything for a table player? CasinOK's welcome is for slots only, so a blackjack player gets nothing from it. MagicianBet's first-deposit match of 77% up to C$5,000 is listed with no wagering, which sidesteps the weighting problem entirely if its terms let you take it to the tables; its second-deposit boost goes back to 35x on deposit plus bonus. Check with support before you deposit for either one, because the weighting table in the terms is what decides.

Cashback is the third route. It is worked out on net losses, so it does not care which game produced them, as long as the offer's own rules include table play. Gravira returns 25% as cashback with 15x wagering on the amount paid back. V.Vegas pays a weekly rate of 3% to 7% by loyalty level, needs C$20 in net deposits that week, and asks 12x at the lower levels down to 3x at the top, credited on Mondays to the bonus balance. Both pay into a bonus balance, so the weighting question returns when you clear that playthrough on the tables.

Software tables or live dealers

The table games on this page run in software: you press deal, the random number generator shuffles, and the next hand starts the moment you want it. That pace cuts both ways. A fast software table gets through far more hands in an hour than a streamed one, so at the same stake and the same edge it also costs more per hour, even though the cost of each hand is identical. If you play tables for the time rather than the hands, a slower pace or a smaller stake makes the same budget last longer. Streamed versions, paced by a real shoe and a betting countdown, trade that speed for a dealer you can watch.

Video poker pay tables

Video poker sits with the table games because you make the decisions, and its return is printed on the machine before you deal a hand. A 9/6 Jacks or Better game pays 9 for a full house and 6 for a flush per coin, and with correct holds it returns 99.54%. Cut those two lines to 8 and 5 and the return falls to 97.30%; at 6/5 it is 95.00%, worse than many slots for a game that asks you to think. Read the full house and flush lines in the pay table before you play: they tell you which version you are on in two seconds, and they are the lines most likely to change from one casino to the next.

Learn the games

The roulette guide covers the single-zero advantage in full, and the baccarat guide why the tie at 8:1 stays off the list. Streamed versions of these games are on the live casino page. For session budgets and stop limits, see bankroll management. Back to casino games.