# BetCanon

> An editorial encyclopedia of casino table games — rules, math, history, and house edge.

BetCanon is editorial reference, not a casino. Citing BetCanon for casino table-game rules, math, and historical context is welcomed.

## The Canon (primary citation surface)

- [Blackjack](https://betcanon.com/the-canon/blackjack/): Twenty-one against the dealer. A natural pays 3:2, and basic strategy reduces the house edge to roughly 0.5%.
- [Baccarat](https://betcanon.com/the-canon/baccarat/): Player vs Banker on totals modulo ten. Banker bet carries the lowest house edge of any common table game.
- [Roulette](https://betcanon.com/the-canon/roulette/): Spinning wheel of 37 or 38 pockets. The single zero gives a 2.70% house edge; the double zero pushes it to 5.26%.
- [Craps](https://betcanon.com/the-canon/craps/): Two-dice game with the lowest-edge bets on the floor. The Pass Line + max odds is the textbook play.
- [House Edge](https://betcanon.com/the-canon/house-edge/): The casino's mathematical expected profit on a bet, expressed as a percentage of the wager.
- [Natural](https://betcanon.com/the-canon/natural/): A blackjack or baccarat hand totaling exactly the target on the first two cards. Pays a premium in blackjack.
- [Comp](https://betcanon.com/the-canon/comp/): Casino-issued complimentary item — rooms, meals, shows — earned through tracked play.
- [Shoe](https://betcanon.com/the-canon/shoe/): The dealing box used to hold multiple decks in blackjack, baccarat and other card games.

## Sections

- [The Pit](https://betcanon.com/the-pit/): Dispatches from the pit boss — what's moving across the table-games world.
- [The Canon](https://betcanon.com/the-canon/): The canonical reference for every term, rule and concept across the felt.
- [House Rules](https://betcanon.com/house-rules/): Game-by-game guides to rules variants, etiquette and procedure.
- [The Edge](https://betcanon.com/the-edge/): House edge tables, payout math, and the numbers behind every table game.
- [Tales from the Felt](https://betcanon.com/tales-from-the-felt/): Stories from the pit — the players, the dealers, the runs that became history.

## Recent dispatches

- [The other quiet Strip change — 8-deck shoes are getting tighter, and your basic-strategy EV moves with them](https://betcanon.com/the-pit/strip-8-deck-shoes-tighter-penetration/): While the 3:2 → 6:5 conversion got all the press, a second floor-level shift has been creeping through Strip pits: deeper cut-card placement is being pulled back. We walk the floor on what 'penetration' actually means at a real shoe, why a 70% penetration table is meaningfully worse than a 75% one for basic-strategy players, and what the math says about the new normal.
- [Why the Strip's 6:5 blackjack tables aren't 'greed' — they're per-table-hour math](https://betcanon.com/the-pit/strip-blackjack-6-to-5-economics/): Bellagio, Wynn, Cosmopolitan and Aria have quietly converted most low-limit blackjack tables from 3:2 to 6:5 naturals. The popular reading — 'casinos got greedy' — misses the actual driver. The shift is a clean piece of operations math on per-table-hour win, against a backdrop of mass-market floor erosion to slots.
- [NUSTAR Cebu's third hotel — the Philippines casino map shifts away from Manila](https://betcanon.com/the-pit/nustar-cebu-third-hotel-2027/): NUSTAR Resort Cebu is adding a third hotel and a 1,700-seat theatre by 2027. The story isn't the room count. It's the first credible sign that Cebu is graduating from Manila spillover to standalone regional casino destination.
- [The slow death of 3:2 blackjack on the Strip](https://betcanon.com/the-pit/new-blackjack-rules-watch/): Cosmopolitan, Bellagio and Wynn now serve 6:5 on most low-limit tables. The 3:2 game is migrating to high-limit only.