As soon as land-based roulette was invented in the 1790s, it became a favorite among gamblers. Chances are you’re already familiar with video roulette.
Roulette is a popular gambling game. The croupier drops a ball into a wheel with numbered compartments. And you bet on which number the ball will land on.
Today, you can play video roulette online (as opposed to traditional roulette at a land-based casino) at various casinos. So, what is video roulette?
Video roulette is a video game version of traditional roulette. It’s still a game of chance. Instead of sitting at a roulette table with other gamblers, when you play video roulette, you sit at your own video roulette machine. It looks like a slot machine, but the game’s betting and odds duplicate the betting and odds you’d find at a traditional roulette table.
I’ll cover additional details about video roulette, online or off, in the rest of this post.
How Do You Play Video Roulette?
Video roulette intimidates some gamblers at first, but it’s a simple game. You can play different variation, but the basic concept is the same. So, how do you play video roulette?
You play video roulette by first depositing money into a video roulette machine (or online). Once you’ve deposited your money, you choose a bet. Then you click on the spin button. The animated roulette spins, the virtual ball lands on a number, and you either win or lose money based on your bet and the outcome of the spin.
You can deposit money in video roulette in multiple ways depending on whether you choose to play at an online casino or a land-based casino. At a land-based casino, you insert a cash note into the machine and the machine displays your credits onscreen.
At an online casino, you deposit funds from your credit card, e-wallet or Bitcoin account. The credits display on your computer screen. You then select your standard wager denomination by clicking on the corresponding button. And you place your bet on the number (or numbers) you think the ball might land on.
It’s basically the same as placing chips on a roulette table. It’s different because you cannot just grab a stack as you do in a regular roulette game, so you must repeatedly tap the spot.
Other than those minor differences, playing video roulette is really no different from playing standard roulette — unless you’re playing some unusual variation of the game. In that case, the rules changes are posted onscreen on the game.
If you don’t already know how to play traditional roulette, you can find an excellent tutorial here.
Are Video Roulette Machines Rigged?
Sometimes certain wins and losses can be unbelievable for both players and the observers. It’s no surprise that this is one of the most common questions about video roulette:
Are video roulette machines rigged?
No, video roulette machines are not rigged. Safeguards protect players from cheating casinos and rigged gambling games. Casinos resorting to rigged games lose their gambling licenses. Cheating also destroys a casino’s reputation. These games use legitimate random number generators that are frequently audited to ensure they’re offering the same math and odds as you’d find on a traditional roulette wheel.
That isn’t to say that some unscrupulous casino operators might try to cheat players. It’s unlikely. But it’s possible, especially with online casinos. Play at a licensed casino with a good reputation to minimize your odds of getting cheated.. Licensing authorities protect players and ensure fair games and payouts.
Online casinos lease casino games from developers like Microgaming, NetEnt, Playtech, and Realtime Gaming. These companies run ethical operations. It’s in their best interest to offer fair games, in fact. Their stakeholders face risk if such companies rig games.
Besides, casino games make money from the mathematical edge they already have over their players. They don’t need to rig the system to make money. It doesn’t take long to analyze the risk/reward in this situation.
What Is the Most Profitable Strategy for Video Roulette?
I have a friend I used go to Vegas with. He loves roulette. I’ve seen him sit with cocktail napkins and papers trying to map out a profitable roulette strategy. He’s never failed to lose his entire stake before coming back home. He should read legitimate answers to the following question:
What is the most profitable strategy for video roulette?
The sad truth is that there is no “most profitable strategy” for video roulette. No strategy or betting system for roulette can overcome the casino’s mathematical edge in the long run. Some people like progressive betting strategies like the Martingale System, but those strategies aren’t profitable in the long run.
Think of a roulette bet as a negative number. After all, that’s what we’re talking about when we discuss a bet with a negative mathematical expectation. In most roulette systems, you change the size of your bet based on previous results. With the Martingale System, for example, you double the size of your next bet if you lose the previous bet.
What happens when you double a negative number, though?
It’s still negative.
Here’s how the Martingale System works:
You place an even money bet. If it wins, great. If it loses, you double the size of your next bet. This recoups your loss from the previous bet and leaves you with a one-bet profit.
If you lose twice in a row, you still double the size of your previous bet. So, the progression looks like this if you’re on a losing streak: 1-2-4-8-16-32 and so on.
Notice how quickly the size of your bet becomes really large.
The Martingale System’s first flaw is its assumption that long losing streaks are very unlikely. The second flaw is that most gamblers can’t weather the hit to their bankroll when they eventually do go on a big losing streak.
You can book some small winning sessions using the Martingale, but you’ll inevitably make up for it (and then some) with a much bigger losing session.
You can find a list of roulette systems here along with some opinions about their strengths and weaknesses.
Where Can You Play Video Roulette Online for Free?
Online casinos almost always offer free playable versions of their games so that new players can try out the software. The hope is that they’ll upgrade to a real money account at some point. Where can you play video roulette online for free?
Basically, you can play video roulette online for free at almost any online casino that offers the game. The only thing you really need to do is read through the list of the casino’s games on their website before creating a free player account. Some online casinos only offer slot machine games, but most offer both online slots and video game versions of popular casino table games.
Here’s my only caveat:
The online casinos’ goal is always the same. They want you to deposit real money and gamble. They want your money. If you’re at all weak-willed, playing video roulette online for free is probably going to lead you to losing money.
Also, you can even find versions of online roulette at companies which mostly focus on sports betting traffic, like BetUS does. (And BetUS is primarily aimed at an American market, by the way.)
Video Roulette in Las Vegas
I prefer a crowded roulette table to hours spent in front of a video game. But I know plenty of gamblers who don’t enjoy crowds or socializing — even though they enjoy roulette. Video roulette in Las Vegas caters to those gamblers.
In fact, most casinos in Las Vegas offer video roulette in addition to their traditional roulette games.
Some of the best video roulette experiences in the world take place at these casinos. The 5 Las Vegas casinos below, all have some of the best video roulette machines:
- Best Western Plus Casino Royale Center Strip
- Aria Resort and Casino
- The Venetian Resort Las Vegas
- Caesars Palace
- Hilton Grand Vacations Club Paradise Las Vegas
My #1 pick for video roulette in Las Vegas, though, is Ellis Island. They offer standard payouts with a minimum bet of just 25 cents per spin.
You can find more details about where to play roulette (and for what stakes) at Vegas Advantage.
Video Roulette at Foxwoods
Foxwoods is famous for being one of the largest casinos in the world with some of the biggest selections of games in the various sections. Standard roulette is available in the table games section of their various casino gaming areas.
Foxwoods has also recently started offering online roulette with live dealers on the internet. You can visit their website for details.
Video Roulette in Oklahoma
Most of the 60 Native American casinos in Oklahoma are slot machine only casinos. But video roulette is available at the larger casinos in the state, like Choctaw, Riverwind, and Winstar. Some of these casinos even offer traditional roulette, although they charge a fee per bet. (They call it an “ante,” but it’s not an ante — it’s just a fee. If you can’t win anything, it’s not a bet, and an ante is supposed to be a bet.)
Many casinos in Oklahoma used to offer roulette using playing cards to determine their outcomes. That’s because state laws made it illegal to use a spinning wheel to determine outcomes. Laws have changes and gotten more flexible recently, though.
Conclusion
Video roulette is just a phrase that describes virtual or video game versions of the traditional casino game of roulette. You play video roulette as a hybrid of a slot machine and a traditional roulette game.
Online casinos almost all offer video roulette by default. Land-based casinos offer video roulette in machines that look like slot machines. These generally cater to low rollers who want to bet less than the table minimums at the traditional tables.
Roulette is a casino game with a mathematical edge for the house. No strategy can overcome this house edge in the long run. If you want to play video roulette, treat it just like a slot machine game. Have fun, but don’t think you’re going to find a way to overcome the house edge in the long run.