Roulette is super simple, right?
The famed casino game is only slightly harder to play than slots and is far easier than any other game to be found in your average casino. Surely of all the games out there. Roulette is the least likely to have hidden secrets?
As it turns out, though, on numerous levels, there is actually more to Roulette than you might assume. Here are four of the game’s biggest and best tips, weird facts, and hidden gems:
Online vs Real-World
Online Roulette games do their best to emulate the real experience of an in-casino game of Roulette, but however much they may look like the real thing, the mechanics at work are completely different. Unlike online slots, which are effectively identical to the real thing, online Roulette uses random number generators to come up with where the “ball” on the virtual wheel lands, which makes it more like a slot game than the real thing, which obviously involves an actual ball being spun on a real wheel. It doesn’t make much difference as both versions are pure games of chance, but online Roulette is more of a smokescreen for a generic slot machine than anything else.
Strange Origins
There’s nothing particularly auspicious about how Roulette as a game developed in 17th century France, except for one small detail: the Roulette wheel itself. The prototype for the ultimate gaming wheel actually had less than nothing to do with gambling and was instead created by famed French scientist, philosopher and theologian, Blase Pascal (he of “Pascal’s wager” fame), who accidentally created it when he was trying to come up with a perpetual motion machine – an infamously impossible machine that would run forever without any external energy being added to it. How many casino games can you say that about?
The Green Zero
There are 36 red and 36 black numbers on the Roulette wheel, but there is also one seemingly random addition to the wheel that seems out of place: the green zero. It’s purpose is crucial, though, for the casino to actually ensure that they always make a profit from their Roulette table – ie. ensuring the house always wins – and it completely messes up the seemingly foolproof strategy of always betting on red or black. How? By making sure that even the most even bet (red or black) doesn’t give you a 50/50 chance of winning but a 47/53 or 48/52 chance (depending on country). It’s a small difference, just a few percent but it means that the odds are always very slightly against the player, and the more they play the more likely they are to lose.
Completely Random – However…
There’s no such thing as a “winning strategy” in Roulette. Between the total randomness of the wheel itself and the house advantage, every strategy you’ve heard on how to maximize your chances of winning are, basically, useless as “sure things”. That said, there are strategies to keep you in the game longer, which should really be your ideal outcome (aside for outright winning, of course) if you practice responsible gambling and have both set your budget and gone in with the right attitude of being there for fun rather than to get rich quick.
In short, keep your bets consistent, play as close to the minimum as possible (according to your budget) and play outside rather than inside bets. These simple steps will keep you in the game longer and will keep your wins coming more consistently, if seldom flashily.
