Tables · South Africa
Pull Up a Seat. Play to Win.
Blackjack and roulette variants explained — the rules, the odds and the bets worth making.
Play tables at ScorebetTable Games
Table games are the casino’s games of real rules and real decisions — blackjack, roulette, baccarat and casino poker — and they hold a secret the slots floor doesn’t: the house edge here is the lowest in the building, and on some games your own choices push it lower still. That’s why a serious player who wants more than a one-tap spin lives at the tables. This is the map of the four worth knowing, what each one is, the odds behind it, and the bets actually worth your rand.
What a table game is, and why the edge varies
A table game is built around a fixed set of rules and a set of bets, each with its own payout. The house edge — the long-run slice the casino keeps — isn’t one number across the floor; it changes by game, by which bet you pick, and on blackjack by how well you play the hand.
That last part is what sets tables apart from slots. A slot’s RTP is fixed the moment you spin; you can’t play it better. At a table you can. Choose the banker bet over the tie in baccarat, the even-money outside bets over a single number in roulette, the correct hit-or-stand in blackjack, and the edge against you shrinks from “punishing” to “about as fair as a casino gets”.
Here’s the floor at a glance, lowest edge first:
| Game | The bet | Typical house edge |
|---|---|---|
| Blackjack | Any hand, basic strategy | Around 0.5%–1% |
| Baccarat | Banker | About 1.06% |
| Roulette | Even-money, European wheel | 2.7% |
| Casino poker | Ante plus play | Roughly 2%–3.5% |
Those edges assume you’re making the right bet. Pick the tie in baccarat (about 14%) or back a single number on an American roulette wheel (5.26%) and you’ve handed the casino several times the margin for no extra fun.
The four games worth your time
Each of these has its own full guide — start with the one that fits how you like to play.
- Blackjack — beat the dealer to 21 without busting. The only common table game where your decisions genuinely change the odds, which is exactly why its edge is the lowest on the floor when you play it right.
- Roulette — bet where the ball lands. Simple to play, but the single biggest decision is the wheel: a European (single-zero) wheel halves the house edge of an American (double-zero) one.
- Baccarat — bet on the player hand, the banker hand or a tie. No decisions to get wrong, one clearly best bet, and a low edge that makes it a quiet favourite of people who know the maths.
- Casino poker — Casino Hold’em and Three Card Poker, where you play your hand against the dealer’s, not against other punters. The poker shape with none of the bluffing.
New to all of it? Start with how to play table games — chips, placing a bet, reading the spread of payouts and choosing a low-edge game before you stake a cent.
A worked example, in rand
Say you’ve got R200 to play with on a quiet evening. On a European roulette wheel, backing red at even money, the 2.7% edge means that across a long run of R50 bets you’d expect to give back roughly R1.35 of every R50 staked — slow bleed, lots of near-even swings, your money lasts.
Put that same R200 through a single-number bet on an American wheel and the edge nearly doubles to 5.26%, so the expected loss per R50 jumps to about R2.63 and the busts come thick and fast. Same game, same room, same R200 — the bet you choose decides how long the night lasts. That’s the whole argument for learning the tables before you sit down.
The live-dealer versions
Every game here also runs with a real human dealer, streamed in HD to your phone, in the live casino section. The rules and the odds are identical — what you’re paying for is the atmosphere and the pace of a genuine table rather than software. If you like the social feel of a real casino floor, that’s where to go; if you just want the cleanest odds at your own speed, the software tables here do the job.
Where the tables sit in the bigger picture
Table games are one floor of the whole online casino — the low-edge, decision-led corner of it, sitting alongside slots, game shows and crash games. They run on the same single wallet and login as everything else, so you can move from a blackjack hand to a slot spin without shifting a cent between accounts. Whichever game pulls you in, the guides above go as deep as you want, and the tables are open at Scorebet. Set a budget you’re happy to spend, pick the low-edge bet, and play the right way. 18+.
In this section
Online Blackjack
Beat the dealer to 21 and keep the house edge under 1% with basic strategy
Read the guide → Tables · RouletteOnline Roulette
The bets, the payouts, and why a single-zero wheel halves the house edge
Read the guide → Tables · BaccaratBaccarat
Player, banker or tie — the best bet, the commission, and the real edge
Read the guide → Tables · Casino pokerCasino Poker
Casino Hold'em and Three Card explained — the ante, the play bet, the edge
Read the guide → Tables · How to playHow to Play Table Games
Chips, the bet, the payouts, and choosing a low-edge game to start
Read the guide →Frequently asked
Which table game has the lowest house edge?
Blackjack played with correct basic strategy carries the lowest edge of the lot, often under 1%. Baccarat's banker bet is close behind at roughly 1.06%. Both beat slots and game shows by a wide margin, because your bet choice and your decisions move the maths.
Do table games have better odds than slots?
Yes, comfortably. A well-played blackjack hand or a banker bet in baccarat keeps the house edge around 1% or under, while slots typically run a 3%–8% edge baked into the RTP. The trade-off is that table games ask you to learn a few rules first.
Can I beat the house at table games?
Over a single session, easily — variance swings both ways. Over thousands of hands the built-in edge wins, on every game. The skill is picking the low-edge bets and making the right play, which shrinks the gap as far as it will go without erasing it.
Which table game is best for beginners?
Roulette and baccarat are the easiest to start with because there's almost nothing to get wrong — you just pick a bet. Roulette means betting where the ball lands; baccarat means choosing player, banker or tie. Blackjack rewards a little learning but repays it with the lowest edge of all.
Are online table games rigged?
No, when you play at a licensed operator. The software runs on a certified random number generator that's independently tested, so cards and spins can't be steered against you mid-hand. The house edge is built into the rules in the open — that's how the casino profits, not by cheating.
Why does 'la partage' or 'en prison' make a roulette wheel cheaper to play?
Both are rules on single-zero roulette that soften the blow when the ball lands on zero: with la partage you lose only half your even-money stake, and with en prison the bet is held over for the next spin. Either roughly halves the house edge on even-money bets, taking it from 2.7 percent down towards 1.35. They aren't offered on every table, so a player who checks the rules before sitting down can pick the cheaper version of the same game.
Why is the tie bet in baccarat the worst on the table despite paying 8 to 1?
The big 8-to-1 headline payout hides the maths: a tie is rare enough that the true odds are longer than the payout offered, which leaves a house edge often around 14 percent — many times steeper than the banker or player bet. The banker bet, even after the commission the casino takes on a win, sits near 1.06 percent. Chasing the tie's flashy multiple is how a low-edge game gets turned into one of the most expensive bets on the floor.