Types of Casino Table Games: A Beginner’s Overview

As casinos made the leap to the digital world, casino table games also found their footing. Many of these games stayed true to their roots, but rules and variants also popped up to capitalize on new opportunities offered by digital play, creating games that are only possible online. Nowadays, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, poker, and more make up the backbone of any online casino’s table game collection.

There’s a table game out there for every player and every play style. This guide will introduce the most popular casino table games and their common variants, with details on the different odds and bets available across variants.

Table Games vs Other Casino Games

Table games evolved from simpler forms of gambling that have been played throughout history. Taking popular implements like cards or dice, these games refined their rules over centuries until the modern day, where they stand alongside slots or arcade-style casino games. Table games remain popular because of their strategic depth, especially compared to slots, and for their low house edge that offers decent odds of winning.

Another big feature of table games is the social element. Playing alongside other people is trickier to pull off online, which leads to many single-player random number generator (RNG) table games, where players try to beat the virtual dealer running on an RNG. That said, live table games are a great alternative. These casino table game variants use live streaming to place players at a casino table run by a human dealer and populated by other real life players.

There are dozens of table games in the world, each with their own variants, but new players can take the time to familiarize themselves with some of the most popular table games at BetMGM Canada: blackjack, baccarat, roulette, and poker.

Blackjack

To win a round of blackjack, players need to build a hand of cards where specific conditions must be met. Firstly, their hand needs to be worth a higher value than the dealer’s, and secondly, it must be worth 21 or less. Blackjack can involve tense decision-making, but even new players can see success with a bit of luck, while veterans can hone their strategy to optimize their chances.

A blackjack hand starts as two cards, but players can request as many extra cards as they like until they go bust (higher than 21). The trick is that the dealer’s hand consists of one face-up and one face-down card. Players are challenged to guess what the dealer has in hand while also calculating the odds of being dealt a favourable next card.

Blackjack offers a house edge of approximately 2.48%, but some experts can reduce the house edge down to 0.36%. Blackjack is commonly found as both RNG games and live dealer games.

Blackjack Variants

• Blackjack Fortune Spinner Pro: Offers a new side bet to wager on a natural blackjack, which boosts the final payout value.
• Blackjack X-Change: Gives players the option to trade cards in hand with a new one from the deck.

Baccarat

Unlike blackjack, the aim of baccarat is to bet on the winning hand, which might be the player’s hand or the dealer’s hand. In the most common baccarat ruleset — Punto Banco — players have a near-equal chance of winning by betting on either hand, but the banker’s hand has a slight edge that’s offset by a commission. A tie bet is also available, but offers significantly worse odds. These simple bets make baccarat very approachable for new players.

Each round, the winning hand is whichever gets closest to a total value of nine. Most cards are worth their printed pip value. Aces are worth one, and both 10s and face cards are worth zero. All the cards in a hand are added up, then the tens digit is dropped for the final value. For example, a hand of 15 would be valued at five.

Baccarat is well-regarded for its low house edge of 1.06% with optimal play, and is commonly found as both RNG games and live dealer games.

Baccarat Variants

• First Person Baccarat: An immersive RNG title using high-quality graphics.
• Lightning Baccarat: A live dealer variant that introduces random payout multipliers.

Roulette

Roulette has two defining features: the range of betting options, and the lack of any way to influence the game’s outcome. The first gives players endless combinations of bets to entertain themselves with, each offering different odds and payouts. The second means players can’t “solve” roulette and can sit back, enjoy the game, and not stress about strategy.

In each round of roulette, a croupier spins the roulette wheel and drops a ball inside. The wheel holds dozens of numbered pockets. Players bet on which pocket the ball will drop into. Some bets are on single numbers, others are on sets of numbers or sets of characteristics (even/odd, red/black, and more). There’s no limit on the number of bets, so players can mix-and-match several bets at once.

Roulette comes with a 2.70% house edge in its common European ruleset, but many variations of roulette are found as both RNG games and live dealer games.

Roulette Variants

• American Roulette: A common variant that adds more betting options thanks to double zero (00) and also has a higher house edge.
• French Roulette: A rare variant with new rules that lets some lost bets stay on the betting table for a chance to get the bet back.

Poker

Poker can be a single-player game in online casinos where the focus is on facing down the house and beating the dealer, because there are no other players to bluff off the pot. But the exciting part of casino poker is the wide number of rule variants that add new extreme rules that upend classic poker gameplay.

Poker’s house edge varies wildly depending on the ruleset in play, but rarely dips below 2.0%. Poker titles are typically RNG games, with live dealer games being rarer.

Poker Variants

• Caribbean Stud: Players hope to be dealt a winning hand of five cards
• Three Card Poker: Three-card hands make straights and flushes easier to accomplish

Craps

One of the most popular dice table games is craps. The aim of craps is to wager on the roll of two dice, with many overlapping win conditions depending on the chosen bets.

Craps is also famous for a special bet called “odds,” which builds on one of several basic bets. The odds bet has a house edge of 0%, meaning the payout is exactly equal to the chance of winning.

The house edge in craps varies between bets, with 0% on odds bets all the way up to a 16.67% house edge in some cases. Craps is seen in both RNG titles and live dealer titles.

Craps Variants

• First Person Craps: Immersive graphics plus the option of simplified betting options
• Craps Live: live croupier talks players through the game in a sleek studio setting.