Las Vegas: Roulette
Roulette, a game of pure chance, revolves around guessing which of the numbered compartments of a rotating wheel will be the eventual resting place of a ball released by the dealer. Players use the adjoining baize table to bet not only on the precise number, but also on whether it is odd or even, or "black" or "red," or falls within various specified ranges.The oldest of the regular casino games, roulette was introduced to the casinos of Paris in 1765 with official police blessing, on the grounds that it was impossible to cheat. That doesn't mean, however, that your chances of winning are especially good.
All roulette wheels hold the numbers 1 to 36, of which half are colored red and half black, plus a green 0; almost all the wheels in Las Vegas also feature a green 00. On this "double-zero" layout, the wheel has 38 compartments, so gamblers have a 1 in 38 chance of choosing the right number (it's possible to bet on 0 or 00, although neither counts as red or black, or odd or even). When there's only one zero, the true odds are 1 in 37. However, the odds for successful bets are always the same, set as if there were no zeroes at all. A correct number is paid off at 35 to 1, guessing the correct pair of numbers pays 17 to 1, the correct block of three pays 11 to 1, and so on.
Roulette means "little wheel" in French.
Thus it's the zeroes that give the house its advantage, and the addition of the double zero doubles that advantage from the standard 2.7 percent in Europe to 5.26 percent in Las Vegas. That may sound like a small difference, but it means that you'll lose your money twice as fast on a double-zero table as on a single-zero one, and it explains why only one in fifty of Las Vegas gamblers bothers to play roulette at all.
Three strategies can improve your chances. The first is to play only single-zero tables. On the Strip, the Monte Carlo and the Stratosphere always offer at least one single-zero game, but during quiet periods it's quite possible to come across single-zero roulette in places like the Venetian , the MGM Grand , or Caesars Palace as well. (Strangely enough, single- and double-zero tables can often be found in action side by side, with equal numbers of gamblers at each.) The second is to avoid the bet that covers 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3, which pays at 5 to 1 - a house advantage of 7.89 percent - and therefore offers the worst odds on the table. The third is the most boring of all; the fewer spins you take part in, the better, so you should stake all you can afford to risk just once, on one of the (almost) even-money bets - such as red/black, or odd/even - and then walk away, win or lose.
Nonetheless, roulette ranks second only to blackjack for the number of elaborate "systems" devised by hopeful gamblers. Most are variants of the "martingale," which requires you to keep doubling (or trebling, or whatever) your stake on red or black until your first win, and then stop. The trouble is, you need to have a large reserve of cash to cover even a short sequence of losses, so your initial stake can only be a small proportion of your total cash - and yet all you can ever hope to win is that initial stake. On top of that, each game has a maximum bet, so you can't keep doubling your stake anyway. Other systems, which predict which numbers are "due" to fall, are so sure to fail that most casinos provide electronic boards listing the last twenty or so successful numbers. In a nutshell, in the words of blackjack guru Edward Thorp, "there is no 'mathematical' winning system for roulette and it is impossible ever to discover one."
As for the etiquette of the game, only players seated at the table are supposed to play, although in practice dealers usually allow passers-by to stake a bill or two on a straightforward bet. Each player starts by buying a pile of uniquely colored chips, valid only for roulette, so the dealer can keep track of who owns which chips. After each spin, all losing chips are swept from the table, and the winners are paid off. The actual winning stakes, however, remain in place, so unless you remove successful chips yourself you're betting them again on the next spin.
The value of the chips used at each table varies, and is always displayed together with the size of the minimum bet accepted. These aren't necessarily the same; a table using $1 chips (the typical denomination on the Strip) may well require gamblers to bet at least $5 in total on each spin.
Finally, don't be tempted by roulette tables that offer "Back to Back" betting. With rewards of 1000 to 1 for naming two consecutive winners, and 10,000 to 1 for three, these give the house an advantage of an abysmal 27 percent and an outrageous eighty percent respectively
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