House edge question

[picasso]

The house advantage is expressed in percentage, for example:

.18%

Does that mean the casino stands to win only 18 cents out of every 100$ you spend? That sounds very low to me; can someone explain?

 

[johndoe]

That's correct, but more accurate to think about it "per hand", rather than action.

This obviously implies perfect basic strategy. 0.18% is also not all that common these days; most games are in the 0.25%-0.5% range.