"the house always wins" meaning in English

See the house always wins in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Head templates: {{en-head|proverb|head=~win􂀿s􂁀}} the house always wins
  1. In a casino, all gambling is designed so that the house (i.e. the casino owners) will always net a profit, regardless of the successes of individual patrons. Related terms: house advantage, Dutch book, heads I win, tails you lose Translations (Translations): казиното винаги печели (kazinoto vinagi pečeli) (Bulgarian), il banco vince sempre (Italian), kasyno zawsze wygrywa (Polish), la casa siempre gana (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-the_house_always_wins-en-proverb-iI5U9rvV Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Bulgarian translations, Terms with Italian translations, Terms with Polish translations, Terms with Spanish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 63 7 29 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 51 17 32 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 64 7 28 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 66 6 28 Disambiguation of Terms with Bulgarian translations: 43 22 36 Disambiguation of Terms with Italian translations: 51 18 32 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 39 25 36 Disambiguation of Terms with Spanish translations: 54 16 30 Disambiguation of 'Translations': 64 8 28
  2. (by extension) A given system is designed to net a profit for, or benefit, some (specified or implied) people. Tags: broadly
    Sense id: en-the_house_always_wins-en-proverb-gyrTCri- Categories (other): Terms with Bulgarian translations, Terms with Polish translations Disambiguation of Terms with Bulgarian translations: 43 22 36 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 39 25 36
  3. (by extension) In a given system or situation, over a long enough timescale, a particular (specified or implied) outcome is inevitable. Tags: broadly
    Sense id: en-the_house_always_wins-en-proverb-SKFI9YSq Categories (other): English proverbs, Terms with Bulgarian translations, Terms with Polish translations Disambiguation of English proverbs: 24 32 44 Disambiguation of Terms with Bulgarian translations: 43 22 36 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 39 25 36
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      "word": "la casa siempre gana"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.