House Edge, Hit Rate and Variance

02 / PROBABILITY

HOUSE EDGE,
HIT RATE & VARIANCE.

These measures answer different questions. Learning the difference makes paytables easier to compare and bonus bets easier to understand.

House edge is the long-run cost

House edge is the average portion of the original wager the rules expect to retain over many trials. It does not predict what will happen in the next hand, shoe, roll, or spin. A low-edge wager can lose tonight; a high-edge wager can win quickly.

Hit rate is not value

A wager can hit often yet pay too little, or hit rarely with a large prize. Neither frequency nor headline payout alone tells you the value. Read the entire paytable and include every losing outcome. Bonus wagers usually create more dramatic results and larger swings than their main games.

Variance describes the ride

Roulette straight-ups, jackpot-style bonuses, and long-shot dice propositions have more volatile result patterns than even-money wagers. Flat betting and a fixed practice budget make that volatility visible. Progressions change bet size after outcomes; they do not change independent probabilities or the underlying edge.