Evergreen notes
Facts about tables, wheels and UK rules that still hold tomorrow
Nothing here is a "latest" headline. Each point is a durable mechanic or a dated law you can look up. If we cannot stand behind a number, it is not on this page.
Roulette: one extra pocket changes the maths
French and European wheels use a single zero. American wheels add a double zero. That extra pocket raises the house edge on even-money bets from 2.7 percent to 5.26 percent. The wheel is older than online casinos; Blaise Pascal's seventeenth-century work on a perpetual motion machine is the usual origin story for the device, later standardised in Paris casinos.
Live roulette on a UKGC-licensed site is still that physical (or studio) wheel, filmed. The house edge does not improve because a dealer is visible.
Dice are older than any brand on this site
Cubical dice appear in archaeological records across the ancient Near East, the Indus Valley and the Roman world. Knucklebones predate the cube. Online dice games still use a certified random number generator to mimic a fair throw. The object is ancient; the remote licence is not.
Blackjack, baccarat and a 52-card pack
- The standard French-suited pack has 52 cards and four suits. Face cards and aces are later conventions of European playing-card history, not a casino invention.
- Blackjack as played in licensed casinos descends from vingt-et-un. Hitting 21 with an ace and a ten-value card is the named "blackjack" combination in the American ruleset that spread globally.
- Baccarat takes its name from the Italian baccara, "zero": face cards and tens count as zero. Player and Banker are betting positions, not a staff job title on your screen.
- A dealing shoe exists to hold multiple shuffled decks. Seeing a shoe on a live stream does not change the combinatorial odds of the remaining cards in a way you can usefully "system".
UK rules that actually changed the market
The Gaming Act 1845 treated most gaming contracts as unenforceable. The Betting and Gaming Act 1960 opened a path to licensed land-based gaming. The Gambling Act 2005 created the modern UK Gambling Commission (operating from 2007). The Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 required remote operators that serve Great Britain to hold a UKGC licence, which is why every outbound link on Chip and Felt points at a licensed domain.
GAMSTOP is the national online self-exclusion scheme. A completed exclusion binds UKGC-licensed remote operators for the period chosen. It is not a worldwide block.
RTP is a long-run average, not a session promise
Return to player is a theoretical percentage over a very large number of rounds. A slot advertised with a 96 percent RTP can still return nothing in an evening. Live blackjack with basic strategy has a low house edge compared with many game shows; that is maths, not a reason to chase losses. If you want help to stop, use the responsible gambling page.