Las Vegas Wheels

The default wheel

Roulette arrived in the United States with both zeroswheelZeroThe single green pocket that no even-money, dozen or column bet covers; the source of the house edge. Also: single zero, 0.Read full → before Blanc removed one in Europe, and no American operator ever had a reason to follow. Nevada’s casinos run the 38-pocketequipmentPocketOne of the 37 numbered compartments on the rotor. Also: slot, cup.Read full → wheel as standard: 5.26% on every bet, 7.89% on the five-number bet. The American wheel order differs from the European and call betstableCall betA bet announced to the dealer rather than placed by hand, usually a wheel-sector bet such as voisins or tiers. Also “announced bet”.Read full → are rare; the racetracktableRacetrackThe oval strip on live and electronic layouts showing the numbers in wheel order, used to place neighbors and sector bets in one tap.Read full → appears mostly on electronic terminals.

Roulette TableRoulette Wheel

Single zero, for a price

Most Strip casinos offer a single-zero wheel somewhere, usually in a high-limit salon with a minimum of $50 to $100. The arithmetic says a $100 single-zero bet costs $2.70 a spin and a $25 double-zero bet costs $1.32; the better table is cheaper per dollar and dearer per spin. A player with a small bankrollmoneyBankrollThe total amount set aside for play. Bankroll management is deciding how much of it to risk per bet and per session.Read full → is priced out of the better odds, which is the design.

Triple zero

In 2016 a Strip casino introduced a 39-pocket wheel with 0, 00 and a 000 marked with a logo, at a low minimum. Others followed. At 7.69% it is the most expensive standard roulette in the world, and it has spread precisely because the players who sit at $5 tables compare minimums rather than pockets. It has not spread to markets where a single-zero table is a click away.

The Eudaemons and the Ritz, Nevada edition

Las Vegas is also where the Eudaemons used their hidden computers in 1978, where their shoe computers failed in 1981, and where Thorp and Shannon tested theirs in 1961. Nevada responded in 1985 with a law making possession of a device to predict game outcomes a felony, the first of its kind and the model for others. Casinos here rotate wheel headsequipmentWheel headSynonym for rotor: the spinning part carrying the numbers.Read full → and measure pockets as routinely as anywhere.

Famous Roulette PlayersThe Eudaemons

Electronic roulette

Terminal banks around a single physical wheel (or an air-launched auto wheel) are common on the Strip and let a player bet $1 on a wheel that would cost $25 at the table. The odds are those of the wheel: usually double zerovariantDouble zeroThe 00 pocket of the American wheel. Its presence raises the house edge from 2.70% to 5.26%.Read full →, sometimes single. The racetrack and call bets are more available on the screen than at the felt.

Electronic Roulette Terminals

Promotions and a zero-free wheel

Las Vegas casinos have occasionally cut the price. For a short time in 1991 the Four Queens downtown paid 36 to 1 on single numbers at its double-zero tables, which halved the straight-up edge to 2.63%; other bets were unchanged. In the 1980s Bob Stupak’s Vegas World ran “Polish Roulette”, in which bets of $5 or less simply carried over when 0 or 00 came up. With the zeros out of play it was a fair gamemathFair gameA game in which neither side has an edge: every bet has an expected value of zero.Read full →. The catch was the $5 limit: a MartingalestrategyMartingaleProgression that doubles the bet after each loss. See the Strategy section for what it does and does not do.Read full → player starting at $1 could lose only three times ($1, $2, $4) before the next bet broke it. The limit did not make the game unfair; it made the Martingale pointless. With the zeros carried over, each bet was an exact 50-50, so losing three in a row ($7 gone) was exactly as likely as winning three in a row at $1 ($3 earned), and a Martingale capped at three steps, which wins $1 seven times in eight and loses $7 once in eight, averaged exactly nothing.

Casino Promotions and Rebates

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