Casino table games, ranked by house edge

Both you and the dealer start with two cards. The aim is to finish nearer 21 than the dealer without going bust. Cards 2 to 10 are worth their number, jacks, queens and kings are worth 10, and an ace is 1 or 11, whichever helps. On your turn you hit, stand, double down or split a pair. An ace with a ten-value card is a blackjack, which usually pays 3:2.

Look at that blackjack payout before sitting down. Some tables pay 6:5 instead, and that change alone adds more than 1% to the house edge, wiping out most of what basic strategy saves you.

The dealer spins the wheel, sends the ball the other way and you bet on the pocket it drops into. You can cover one number, a group of them, a colour, odd or even, or the low or high half. European and French wheels have 37 pockets including a single zero. American wheels add a double zero, and that nearly doubles the edge.

French tables also use La Partage. If the ball lands on zero, half of each even-money bet comes back to you, which lowers the edge on those bets to 1.35%. The chances shown here are for a single-zero wheel.

The dealer lays out two hands, Player and Banker. You pick the one you think will total closer to 9, or back a Tie. A total only keeps its last digit, so a 7 and an 8 make 5, not 15. Whether a third card is drawn follows fixed rules, so once your chips are down there's nothing more to decide.

Because Banker comes out on top slightly more often, a winning Banker bet pays 0.95 to 1 once the 5% commission is taken. A Tie pays 8 to 1, but the edge on it is about 14%.

It's Texas Hold'em where you only play the dealer. Your best five-card hand has to beat theirs, and the dealer needs at least a pair of fours to qualify.

When the dealer fails to qualify, your Ante is paid from the paytable and your Call is handed back. Folding forfeits the Ante, which is why most players call with any pair, any draw and most high cards.

Your three cards go up against the dealer's three. After the Ante you look at your hand and either fold or put in a Play bet the same size as the Ante. The dealer qualifies with queen high or better. Pair Plus is a separate wager that pays on your own hand, whatever the dealer holds.

Players who know Teen Pattishould watch the order at the top. Here a straight flush outranks three of a kind, whereas Teen Patti puts the trail first. How often each hand turns up is the same in both games.

Three dice are shaken inside a covered shaker, and you bet on what they'll show. Small wins on a total of 4 to 10 and Big on 11 to 17, unless all three dice match, in which case both lose. Other bets cover a single number, an exact total, a double or a particular triple. The less likely the result, the more it pays.

Small and Big have a 2.78% edge. A particular triple can pay 150:1 or more, but on average it turns up once every 216 rolls.