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RTP & House Edge: What They Cost Per Hour (2026)
RTP and house edge are the two most important numbers in gambling — and they are really just one number seen from two sides. RTP (return to player) is the percentage of all money wagered that a game pays back over the long run; the house edge is the casino's cut, whatever is left over. They always add to 100%: a slot with 96% RTP has a 4% house edge. But the edge alone tells you almost nothing about how fast you will actually lose money. The number that matters is expected loss per hour = bet × decisions per hour × house edge, and on that measure a fast 4% slot drains a bankroll far quicker than a slow 5.26% roulette table. This page runs that math in full.
RTP & house edge at a glance
- RTP = the share of wagers a game returns to players over time; house edge = 100% − RTP.
- A 96% RTP game has a 4% house edge — it keeps about $4 of every $100 wagered long-term.
- Formula: RTP = total won ÷ total wagered × 100.
- Expected hourly cost of a $1 slot bet at 600 spins/hour: $72 at 88% RTP, $48 at 92%, $24 at 96%, $12 at 98% (16Best analysis).
- A 92% slot costs exactly 2× as much per hour as a 96% slot — 8% edge versus 4% edge (16Best analysis).
- On a $5 bet, online slots cost about $120/hour versus $10.52/hour for American roulette — the slot has a lower edge but costs ~11× more because it is 15× faster (16Best analysis).
- A $500 bankroll lasts, on average, about 21 hours at 96% RTP but only 7 hours at 88% ($1 bet, 600 spins/hour) (16Best analysis).
- Best odds: blackjack ~99.5% RTP (0.5% edge), European roulette 97.30%, American roulette 94.74%; slots range ~85–98%.
- RTP is a long-run average, not a session promise — in one session the swing (standard deviation) is many times larger than the expected loss.
What is RTP (return to player)?
Return to player (RTP) is the percentage of all wagered money that a game is designed to pay back to players over a very large number of plays. A game with 96% RTP returns about $96 of every $100 wagered across its lifetime, keeping roughly $4. It is the single most useful figure for comparing games — the higher the RTP, the more of your money comes back on average. Reputable online games publish their RTP in the help file or rules. What RTP does not tell you is how quickly that 4% is extracted, which depends on how much you bet and how fast you play.
What is house edge, and how do they relate?
The house edge is the mirror image of RTP — the casino's built-in advantage, or the percentage of wagers it expects to keep, and the two always sum to 100%. Because every dollar wagered is either returned to players or kept by the house, if you know one you know the other.
16Best analysis: RTP + house edge = 100%, so a 94.74% RTP is a 5.26% house edge. Example: bet $500 across 100 spins of American roulette (RTP 94.74%) and you would expect about $473.70 back — the casino keeps ~$26.30, its 5.26% edge on the $500 wagered. Note the wording: the edge applies to every dollar wagered, not to your starting bankroll. If you recycle winnings back into more bets, the same edge bites again. For the full game-by-game breakdown, see our house edge by game guide.
How is RTP calculated?
The formula is RTP = total amount won by players ÷ total amount wagered × 100. But that is the actual RTP measured over real play. What games advertise is the theoretical RTP — the payout percentage baked into the game's math model, paytable and rules. Developers decide which outcomes exist, how often they appear and what each pays, then run millions of simulated rounds to confirm the game returns its target percentage before launch. Over enough real spins, actual RTP converges on that theoretical figure — the same law of large numbers that makes casinos profitable.
What counts as a good RTP?
98%+ is exceptional, 96–97% is high, 94–96% is average, and below 90% is poor. Most casino games are designed with an RTP between about 83% and 99.5%. Here is how to read the number:
| RTP | House edge | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 98%+ | <2% | Exceptional — video poker, blackjack, some classic slots |
| 96–97% | 3–4% | High — the benchmark good online slots aim for |
| 94–96% | 4–6% | Average — acceptable for most players |
| Below 90% | 10%+ | Poor — common in land-based and penny slots; avoid online |
For context, blackjack with basic strategy runs about 99.5% RTP, European roulette is 97.30%, American roulette 94.74%, and slots range from ~85% to 98% (see our slot statistics). Land-based slots typically pay back 91–93% versus about 96% for online slots. Always check the number before you play — but as the rest of this page shows, RTP is only half the story. Speed is the other half.
How much does RTP actually cost you per hour?
Your expected loss per hour is bet × decisions per hour × house edge — and at 600 online-slot spins an hour, a $1 bet costs $72/hour at 88% RTP, $48 at 92%, $24 at 96% and $12 at 98%. This is the calculation that turns an abstract percentage into a dollar figure you can feel. Online slots typically run around 600 spins per hour, so even a small per-spin bet moves a large amount of money through the edge.
Computed: bet x spins per hour x house edge = 1 x 600 x edge. 16Best analysis.
Because expected loss scales linearly with your bet, the table below extends the same formula across four bet sizes. Every cell is bet × 600 × house edge:
| Bet per spin | 88% RTP (12% edge) | 92% RTP (8% edge) | 96% RTP (4% edge) | 98% RTP (2% edge) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0.50 | $36/hr | $24/hr | $12/hr | $6/hr |
| $1.00 | $72/hr | $48/hr | $24/hr | $12/hr |
| $2.00 | $144/hr | $96/hr | $48/hr | $24/hr |
| $5.00 | $360/hr | $240/hr | $120/hr | $60/hr |
16Best analysis: at 600 spins an hour, every 1 percentage point of RTP is worth about $6 per hour on a $1 bet (1 × 600 × 0.01 = $6), or $12/hour on a $2 bet — a figure the casino industry itself quotes. That is why chasing a higher-RTP title is not trivia: moving from a 94% slot to a 96% slot at a $2 bet saves you about $24 an hour, or $24,000 over a thousand hours of play. The percentage looks small; the hourly bill does not.
At 600 spins/hour, a $1 slot bet burns about $24/hour at 96% RTP — and $72/hour at 88%.
Does a 92% slot really cost twice as much as a 96% one?
Yes — exactly twice as much. A 92% RTP is an 8% house edge; a 96% RTP is a 4% house edge. Since expected loss is directly proportional to the edge, doubling the edge doubles the cost: at $1 a spin and 600 spins an hour, the 92% slot costs $48/hour and the 96% slot costs $24/hour. The ratio is 8% ÷ 4% = 2.0×, and it holds at any bet size.
A 92% slot costs twice as much per hour as a 96% one.
This is the cleanest illustration of why the headline number matters. A player who thinks "92% and 96%, what's a few percent between friends" is choosing to lose money at double the rate. The gap between an average slot and a poor one (96% versus 88%) is a full 3×: 12% edge against 4%.
How long does a $500 bankroll last at each RTP?
On average, a $500 bankroll lasts about 21 hours at 96% RTP, 10 hours at 92%, and only 7 hours at 88% — at $1 a spin, 600 spins an hour. The math is bankroll ÷ expected loss per hour. This is an average burn rate, not a countdown timer; variance means any single session ends sooner or later than this (see below). But as a measure of how long your money survives the grind, it is exact.
| RTP | House edge | Expected loss/hr ($1 bet, 600 spins) | Hours $500 survives (avg) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 98% | 2% | $12 | ~41.7 hrs |
| 96% | 4% | $24 | ~20.8 hrs |
| 92% | 8% | $48 | ~10.4 hrs |
| 88% | 12% | $72 | ~6.9 hrs |
16Best analysis: switching from an 88% machine to a 98% machine makes the same $500 last about 6× longer on average (41.7 hrs ÷ 6.9 hrs = 6.0×) for identical bets and speed. Same entertainment, six times the play time, because you are handing the house 2% of each wager instead of 12%. RTP is, in effect, a dial on how fast the clock runs.
Why does bet speed matter more than house edge?
Because decisions per hour multiplies the edge — and slots deal 15× more decisions per hour than a roulette table, which swamps roulette's higher edge. Compare the two directly at a $5 bet: American roulette runs about 40 spins an hour at a 5.26% edge, costing 5 × 40 × 0.0526 = $10.52/hour. Online slots run about 600 spins an hour at a 4% edge, costing 5 × 600 × 0.04 = $120/hour. The slot has the lower house edge yet costs about 11× more per hour, because speed dominates.
Computed: bet x decisions per hour x house edge, at a $5 bet. The lowest-edge-looking slot costs the most. 16Best analysis.
| Game | Decisions/hr | House edge | $ through edge/hr ($5 bet) | Expected loss/hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blackjack (basic strategy) | ~70 | 0.5% | $350 | $1.75 |
| European roulette | ~40 | 2.70% | $200 | $5.40 |
| American roulette | ~40 | 5.26% | $200 | $10.52 |
| Online slots | ~600 | 4.0% | $3,000 | $120.00 |
16Best analysis: the slot's 4% edge is 24% lower than American roulette's 5.26% (4 ÷ 5.26 = 0.76), yet it costs 11.4× more per hour ($120 ÷ $10.52). The reason is exposure: at 600 spins an hour you push $3,000 through the edge versus $200 at the roulette table — 15× more money, only 1.32× less edge, so the net is 15 ÷ 1.32 = 11.4×. This is the single most misunderstood point in gambling: the edge sets the rate, but decisions per hour sets the volume, and volume wins. A patient blackjack player betting $5 loses under $2 an hour; a slots player betting the same $5 loses $120.
A 4% slot costs about 11x more per hour than a 5.26% roulette table — because it is 15x faster.
What is the difference between RTP and volatility?
RTP tells you how much comes back over time; volatility (or variance) tells you how it comes back. A low-volatility game pays small wins often; a high-volatility game pays rarely but big. Two slots can share a 96% RTP yet feel completely different — one drips steady small wins, the other swallows your bankroll then, occasionally, hits a huge payout. RTP is about the long-run average; volatility is about the ride to get there, and it is the reason your actual results almost never look like the RTP over a single evening.
If the edge is only 4%, why do I sometimes win?
Because in the short run the random swing is far larger than the expected loss — the noise drowns out the signal. Here is the underlying math. Over N bets your expected loss grows in a straight line: N × bet × edge. But the random spread of outcomes — the standard deviation — grows only with the square root of N. So the ratio of swing to expected loss scales as √N ÷ N = 1 ÷ √N, which shrinks as you play longer.
16Best analysis — why the short run hides the edge. Take a 96% slot ($1 bet). After 100 spins your expected loss is just 100 × 0.04 = $4, but the random swing over those spins is many multiples of that — so a winning night is entirely normal. After 10,000 spins your expected loss is $400, and because the swing has grown only 10× (√10,000 ÷ √100) while the loss grew 100×, the edge now clearly shows through. The edge does not change; what changes is that the √N noise stops being able to hide the N-sized loss. That is the mathematical engine behind every casino: they are not betting on any one player losing tonight — they are betting on all players collectively playing enough spins that the average asserts itself.
Does RTP mean you will get that back?
No — RTP is a lifetime average across millions of plays, not a session guarantee, and it always favours the house. A 96% RTP does not mean you leave with 96% of your money tonight. Over one session you might double your money or lose it all — that is variance. Two limits worth stating plainly: (1) RTP is a percentage of total wagered, not of your deposit — recycling winnings into new bets exposes them to the edge again, which is why measured losses often exceed the naive "4% of my deposit" estimate; and (2) the theoretical RTP assumes correct play. Blackjack only reaches ~99.5% with perfect basic strategy; mistakes hand the house extra edge the published number never shows. Taken to the extreme, this is how high rollers have lost hundreds of millions — see the biggest gambling losses in history, and for the real-world harm, our gambling losses and addiction data.
Key takeaways
- RTP and house edge are one number: house edge = 100% − RTP. 96% RTP = 4% edge.
- The number that matters is expected loss per hour: bet × decisions per hour × house edge.
- A 92% slot costs exactly 2× as much per hour as a 96% one — 8% edge versus 4%.
- Every 1% of RTP is worth ~$6/hour on a $1 bet at 600 spins/hour ($12 on a $2 bet).
- Speed beats edge: a 4% online slot costs ~11× more per hour than a 5.26% roulette table because it deals 15× more decisions.
- A $500 bankroll lasts ~6× longer at 98% RTP than at 88% (~42 vs ~7 hours) for the same bet and speed.
- Short-run wins are normal: the random swing grows with √N while expected loss grows with N, so the edge only surfaces over the long run.
Frequently asked questions
What does RTP mean?
RTP (return to player) is the percentage of all wagered money a game pays back to players over the long run. A 96% RTP game returns about $96 of every $100 wagered over its lifetime and keeps about $4.
What is the difference between RTP and house edge?
They are two sides of the same number and always add to 100%. RTP is the share returned to players; house edge is the share the casino keeps. A 96% RTP equals a 4% house edge.
How much does a slot cost me per hour?
Multiply your bet by decisions per hour by the house edge. At 600 spins an hour on a $1 bet, a 96% RTP slot (4% edge) costs about $24 an hour on average, a 92% slot about $48, and an 88% slot about $72.
Does a 92% slot cost twice as much as a 96% slot?
Yes, exactly twice as much. A 92% RTP is an 8% house edge and a 96% RTP is a 4% edge, and expected loss is proportional to the edge, so the 92% slot drains your bankroll at double the rate at any bet size.
Why do slots cost more than roulette if slots have a lower house edge?
Because slots are far faster. Online slots run about 600 spins an hour versus about 40 for roulette. On a $5 bet, a 4% slot costs about $120 an hour while a 5.26% American roulette table costs about $10.52 — the slot costs roughly 11 times more despite the lower edge, because speed multiplies the edge.
What is a good RTP?
98% or higher is exceptional, 96 to 97% is high and the benchmark for good slots, 94 to 96% is average, and below 90% is poor and best avoided. Blackjack and video poker offer the highest RTPs.
Does a high RTP mean I will win?
No. RTP is a long-run average over millions of plays, not a session promise. In a single session you can win big or lose everything, because the random swing is larger than the expected loss in the short run. Over time, results trend toward the house edge.
Sources
- Wizard of Odds — House Edge of Casino Games Compared
- VegasInsider — What Is House Edge and RTP?
- Easy Vegas — Expected Loss — Gambling Concepts
- BettingUSA — Return To Player (RTP) & Volatility Explained
- Casino.org — RTP Decoded: The Smart Player's Guide to Slot RTP