The house edge is a rule, not a setting
A slot decides its return through its reel weightings — the studio picks a target and builds the maths to hit it. A table game does not work that way: its return falls out of the rules themselves. European roulette pays 35 to 1 on a number that lands once in 37, and that single gap is the whole edge.
Because the edge comes from the rules, it does not move. A studio cannot ship a roulette at 94% without changing the game — it would have to alter the payouts or add a pocket, and the player would see it on the layout.
Which is why the numbers cluster
Look at any catalogue of table games and the returns bunch together: roughly 97.3% for European roulette, near 98.9% for baccarat on the banker bet, and higher still for blackjack played correctly. The variation between studios is small because they are all implementing the same rules.
Slots are the opposite. Two games from the same studio, released the same month, can sit two points apart — and the same game can ship in three configurations at once.
Blackjack’s number assumes you play it right
A published blackjack return is calculated on optimal play. Every hand played differently costs something, and the cost is real: standing on a soft 17 or refusing to split eights moves the number down by a measurable amount.
That makes blackjack the one table game where the advertised figure is a ceiling rather than an expectation. Roulette and baccarat have no such gap — there is no way to play a roulette number badly.
Side bets are a different game
The headline return covers the main bet only. Side bets — perfect pairs, 21+3, lightning multipliers — carry their own maths, and it is usually far worse than the base game.
This is not a trap so much as a separate product sold on the same table. The number you read applies to the bet it was calculated for, and to no other.
What we verify, and what we do not
Every figure in our catalogue carries the level of proof behind it. A number read in the game’s own rules panel is marked as studio-sourced; one taken from a secondary source says so.
On live table games we are honest about the state of it: most of our figures are not yet confirmed at the source, and they are labelled that way rather than dressed up. A guide is not the place to launder an unverified number.