Footballers are no stranger to the gambling world with David Bentley the latest in a line of luminaries, both past and present, to have admitted a penchant for having a wager, or two, or three…..
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Roulette is certainly the oldest and possibly the most popular of all the casino games and it is its simplicity that has made it the number one choice for most gamers.
The name roulette is of French origin and is translated as ‘small wheel’. The object is to predict where the ball will land once the wheel stops.
There are three main versions of the game French Roulette, American Roulette, and British Roulette.
In the game, a casino employee, known as a croupier, spins a wheel in one direction, then releases a ball in the opposite direction around a tilted spherical surface running around the edge of the wheel. The ball eventually falls onto the wheel and into one of 37 (for European Roulette) or 38 (for American Roulette) black or red and numbered chambers on the wheel.
The game is one of the most social and exciting to play and contrary to popular belief the rules are very simple.
The main pockets are numbered from 1 to 36 alternating between red and black, but the chambers are not in the proper numerical order around the wheel, and there are some instances of consecutive numbers being the same colour. There is a green chamber numbered 0, and in American Roulette there is also a second green pocket marked 00 or double zero.
Players can place a variety of ‘outside’ bets and ‘inside’ bets. The payout odds for each type of bet is based on its probability. An outside bet includes guessing the colour of the chamber the ball will fall into, whether it will be odds or evens and on which particular cluster the ball will come to rest.
In playing the Roulette game, your objective is to pick the winning number that will appear on the Roulette wheel.
Always check the rules regarding minimum bets either for outside bets and inside bets. Usually there is a higher minimum for outside bets – your bet will be void if it is below the minimum for outside bets.
United States Roulette Rules
Bet Pays Probability (Implied percentage chance)
Red 1:1 47.37
Black 1:1 47.37
Odd 1:1 47.37
Even 1:1 47.37
1 to 18 1:1 47.37
19 to 36 1:1 47.37
1 to 12 2:1 31.58
13 to 24 2:1 31.58
25 to 36 2:1 31.58
Any one number 35:1 2.63
Probability
Red
1:1
47.37%
Black
1:1
47.37%
Odd
1:1
47.37%
Even
1:1
47.37%
1 to 18
1:1
47.37%
19 to 36
1:1
47.37%
1 to 12
2:1
31.58%
13 to 24
2:1
31.58%
25 to 36
2:1
31.58%
Any one number
35:1
2.63%
Two number combination
17:1
5.26%
Three number combination
11:1
7.89%
Four number combination
8:1
10.53%
Six number combination
5:1
15.79%
0,00,1,2,3 combination
6:1
13.16%
It’s quite possible that the term roulette is the most common analogy used by sub-editors striving for a catchy headline for the usually dull pieces they have to enliven.
A quick search recently brought forth an array of subjects, none of which had the slightest thing to do with casinos, roulette or indeed gambling.
Smokers play roulette with ingredients in contraband cigs
No, it’s not possible to swap your ciggies for roulette chips. This is an article from a Canadian website warning of the dangers of buying under-the-counter tobacco. Apparently insect eggs, dead flies, mould, even human faeces has been found in these illegal products. If you are a non-smoker then you are probably saying ‘serves them right’, if you are a smoker then it may alarm you a little bit. There’s a wonderful quote in this story from a Canadian mountie. “You never know what you’re smoking, people think cigarettes are cigarettes are cigarettes. That’s not true.” It turns out later in the article that the main thrust of his complaints is not about people’s health but the loss of revenue to the government. “The lost tax revenues from the sales of illegally obtained and sold cigarettes have a significant impact on our Canadian and provincial social programs and infrastructures,” he said.
Finding a cottage…without web-search roulette
Is searching the web so much like roulette? Perhaps to the inexperienced but this article from the Telegraph made little sense in relation to the headline. The writer mentioned a family-run business that provides holiday cottages in Cornwall for rent. A well-written piece though let down by the pompous phrase: “The guest book, typically the repository for whingers, was nothing short of ecstatic.”
So what about the web search roulette? “I’ll just take the odds numbered results.” Not a mention. The website address of the company the writer was talking about was given. However, if anyone doing an internet search for say “holiday cottages in Cornwall” would have found the company sitting at number 3 in the listings in the largest search engine. So much for web search roulette.
Russian roulette? No, London should be proud to be a casino
Hope at last that this could be a genuine article about casinos, roulette or at least something related to gambling. Not a chance. The topic of this high brow offering from the Business Online was the London Stock Exchange. With the recent news that some companies are withdrawing from the Aim (the junior LSE) because of a lack of regulation and monitoring, the article argued that any company should be allowed to float on this market as long as they had the money to do so. “London shouldn’t allow a business built on stolen assets and controlled by the Russian government to list, it was alleged.” - the articles says referring to the flotation of a Russian oil company last year The fact that the share price had increased seems all well and good for the writer. The fact the article had nothing to do with roulette seemed ok for the sub-editor as well.
