Since all bets return either 0% or 100% of the player's bet, how is there a house edge?
Or do they only make money from players' losses? That wouldn't be a house edge would it?
Take the 2x payout game for instance. You have a 49.5% chance of winning.
If you play it 1000 times, you can expect to win 495 times and lose 505 times (on average, of course).
Each time you win, you profit 1 unit, and each time you lose, you lose 1 unit.
Over your 1000 plays you risk 1000 units and lose 505-495 = 10 units.
You've bet 1000 and lost 10. That's 1%. That's the house edge.
All the different chances to win work out the same way. In the long run you lose 1% of everything you risk. But in the short term you tend to do much better or much worse than that.
Just another example: the 1-in-a-million game pays out 990,000x.
Play it a million times, win once.
You bet a million units, lost 1 unit 999,999 times and profited by 989,999 units once, for a net loss of 10,000 units.
10,000 is 1% of a million. House edge: 1% again.