Dice and Draw Side Bets

Dice and cards on the side

Roul 8, played in Brussels, tosses three dice with an 8 on one face each: 888 for 1 when the ballequipmentBallThe small ball launched along the track against the rotor. Modern balls are ivorine or Teflon, 18–21 mm.Read full → lands on 8 and all three dice show 8. At 5.46% on a single-zerowheelZeroThe single green pocket that no even-money, dozen or column bet covers; the source of the house edge. Also: single zero, 0.Read full → wheel it is one of the least expensive side betsbetSide betAn optional extra wager attached to the main game, usually on a streak, a bonus event or a jackpot. Almost always dearer than the standard bets.Read full → on record. Jackpot StreetsbetStreetThree numbers in a row of the layout, pays 11:1. French: transversale.Read full → cuts a street’s payoutmoneyPayoutWhat a winning bet returns, quoted as “X to 1” on top of the returned stake.Read full → from 11 to 1 to 5 to 1, then pays 17 to 1 with one six on two dice and 90 to 1 with two: 5.18%, against 2.70% for the plain street. Flush Roulette, by Stephen Au-Yeung, draws two suits a spin with suit dice or cards, and pays a straight upbetStraight upA single number, pays 35:1.Read full → 17, 50 or 100 to 1 as none, one or both match yours. The average winning payout is 34 9/16 to 1, just short of 35, so the edge is 3.89%; paying 51 and 101 to 1 would restore 2.70%.

Roul 8: three dice and a lucky number

Roul 8, at the Grand Casino in Brussels, adds three dice, each blank except for one face showing an 8 (an ∞, an 8 on its side, in some accounts). The bet pays “for 1” on the ball landing on 8, on the dice showing 8s, or both. The 888 for 1 top prize needs the ball on 8 and all three dice on 8: a chance of 1 in 7,992, worth 11 cents of every dollar staked. Nine times in ten the bet returns nothing. The edge is 5.46% on a single-zero wheel and 6.51% on a double-zero wheel, low for a side bet.

Lucky Colour Chips: dice in your color

Lucky Colour ChipsmoneyChipA token representing a fixed amount, placed on the layout to make a bet. Also: check.Read full →, at the Macau Casino Complex in Cork, Ireland, in 2022, is a straight-up side bet for up to six players, each with their own chip color. When your number wins, three dice are rolled, each with the six chip colors on its faces. All three in your color pay 300 to 1; all three in one other color, or two in yours, 70 to 1; two alike in another color 40 to 1; three different colors 22 to 1. Every win pays at least 22 to 1, and still the bet costs 5.46% on a single-zero wheel, twice a plain straight up.

Lucky Ball: four drawn numbers

Lucky Ball is an electronic single-zero game. After bets close, four numbers are drawn at random, one each for redbetRedEven-money bet on the 18 red numbers. French: rouge.Read full →, green, blue and yellow, and one of the four colors is picked for a bonus. A bet on a color wins when the spin lands on that color’s number, 1 time in 37, and pays the bonus rate if that color was the one picked. For a color paying A to 1, or B to 1 with the bonus, the edge is (144 − 3A − B)/148; the exercises below show where that comes from. The most modest pay tablemoneyPay tableThe list of what each bet or result pays. On machines and side bets, it is where the house edge is set.Read full →, red, is the cheapest.

A newer Lucky Ball

Interblock’s rules for Washington state, filed in 2024, describe a different bet under the same name. You pick a lucky number. At random, on average once in 5 to 30 spins depending on the pay table, the ball in play becomes the lucky ball. The bet pays a small prize, from 2 to 1 up to 11 to 1, whenever the lucky ball comes, and a large one, from 40 to 1 up to 575 to 1, if it lands on your number; only the larger prize is paid. The casino chooses one of fifteen pay tables, which return from 80.00% to 91.35% of what is staked: an edge of 8.65% to 20.00%, two to five times the old red line.

Blazing 7s: three sevens drawn

Blazing 7s, from Scientific Games, wins when the ball lands on 7, 17 or 27. Then three numbers are drawn from the 38 on the wheel, with no repeats, and the prize depends on how many of the three are 7, 17 or 27: 1,000 to 1 for all three, 100 to 1 for two, 17 to 1 for one, 7 to 1 for none. The bet costs 10.07%. Had repeats been allowed in the draw, the same prizes would cost only 4.48%: a seven that has been drawn cannot be drawn again, which makes the big prizes rarer.

Richer Spin: a wheel inside the wheel

Richer Spin, from TCS John Huxley, was shown at the Global Gaming Expo in 2021 and was dealt at the El Cortez in Las Vegas by 2023. An inner ring of 38 stops turns the other way from the numbers and stops when the ball does. At the El Cortez it had 1 gold stop, 9 silver, 4 blue, 4 purple and 20 blank. The bet is on one number. If the ball lands there, the inner stop sets the prize: 299 to 1 on gold, 99 to 1 on silver, 7 to 1 on blue or purple, nothing on a blank. Separate bets on blue or purple pay 7 to 1 whatever the number.

Four balls, one number: Lightning Launch

Lightning Launch Roulette (Scientific Games, 2018) is a video game with four seats and four virtual balls on a double-zero wheel, one ball per player. The $1 Bonus bet goes on one number and is settled on all four balls: 5 for 1 if one ball lands there, 75 for 1 for two, 1,000 for 1 for three and 10,000 for 1 for four. About one Bonus bet in ten wins something, nearly always the 5 for 1, which is 4 to 1 in ordinary terms, against 35 to 1 for the same number on a single ball. The edge is 14.29%.

Spread-Bet: two rings added up

Spread-Bet Roulette, from the British wheel maker Cammegh, shows two rings of numbers on the table’s display, each holding every number of the wheel once. They turn in opposite directions and stop when the dealer closes betting; Cammegh says no random number generator is involved. The two numbers they show are added, giving a total from 0 to 72, with 00 counted as 0. Seven bets on the layoutequipmentLayoutThe printed betting grid on the table. Also: table, felt, cloth.Read full → each cover a range of totals. As with two dice, the middle totals are the commonest: on a single-zero wheel a total of 36 can be made 37 ways, 0 and 72 one way each. The casino picks one of four pay tables for a single-zero wheel or one of five for a double-zero wheel; New Jersey approved all nine in 2017. On a single-zero wheel every bet costs 8.69% to 12.34%, three to four and a half times the main game.

Lucky Symbols: a reel on the display

Lucky Symbols, another Cammegh side bet, adds seven symbol boxes to the layout. On each spin a slot-machine reel on the table’s display stops on one symbol, and the bets on it are paid; the game’s literature says the symbol is set by the speeds of the ball and the wheel. The casino chooses both the chances and the payouts, and Cammegh sells the bet with a tool for tuning them. The pay table the Wizard of Odds found at the Casino at the Empire in London in 2014, and at Montecasino in South Africa, ran from even money on Prosperity, which comes up nearly half the time, to 80 to 1 on Dragon and Tiger. Every line cost more than 10%, twice the 5.26% of the double-zero wheel beside it.

What these bets show

One way of pricing all of them: list the results, multiply each payout by its chance, add.

• A second random device, an inner wheel or dice, adds prizes but no fairness: the price is still the count of results against the payouts.
• The same bet can carry several pay tables at different prices. On Lucky Ball, red is the cheapest line.
• Drawing without repeats changes the odds: Blazing 7s costs twice what it would with repeats allowed.

Questions