European Roulette Offers Better Odds!
The house edge, also called the house average or expected value, is the jargon term used in gambling to refer to the amount of money that the player will potentially lose whenever they happen to make a bet. Please note that this figure is intended as an average figure only, and as such, there will be deviations. The following example should hopefully illustrate this example more clearly.
If a player should place a wager on any single digit to be found within an American game of roulette (i.e. a roulette game which features or makes use of the American wheel, which as an extra 0) then the win to lose ratio for the player is as follows.
The player has 37/38 or 97.6% chance of losing their bet, and a 1/38 or 2.4% chance of winning their bet.
If we wished to actually determine what the value of the house edge happens to be, then we use the following calculation.
−1×37⁄38 + 35×1⁄38 = −0.0526 (5.26% house edge)
Please note that if you are playing a game of roulette which is the European style of playing (i.e. there is only one zero as opposed to two for the US version) then the ratio is a little different.
The actual odds are 36/37 or 97.29% giving a reduced house edge of 1/37 or 2.7% for European Roulette.
Please note that roulette wheels will contain green squares which are present both on the wheel itself as well as the table and in the strictest sense, it is these that denote the house edge. Outside bets that have been made are guaranteed to lose without fail if either a zero or double zero should be reached.
It is worth noting that the casino manages to have a house edge on so called “inside bets” as well and the reason for this is due to the discrepancy between the payout they provide, versus the mathematical probability the player has of actually winning.
In order to more clearly define and explain this issue in a more easy to understand way, consider the following scenario.
Imagine wagering $1 on each and every of the single numbers that are on the roulette table (for the purposes of this scenario, we will be including the 0 and the 00 in the equation). In real terms, you would only receive 36 times the value of your original bet…..where you have just spent $38.
Please note: the house edge is an entirely different entity from the “hold” and the hold is the jargon term used to refer to the average percentage value of the amount of money owned by the player before they started playing, which the casino then “earns”.
If you ever decide to go gambling in Atlantic City then check out the Casino Control Commission because they release the hold amounts of each and every casino on a monthly basis. This will allow you to determine which casinos are actually worthwhile.
Statistics show that the average win/hold rate for a roulette table which makes use of 00 stands around 21-30% which as can be plainly seen, it is significantly higher than the 5.26% house edge that the casino enjoys over the player.
Let us use an example to help clarify this issue a little more clearly. A player who has a bankroll of $100 and who decides to place wagers at $10 per wager, on all red (or black) will enjoy an even split of probability and so it is approximately 50-50 he wins or loses. Assuming that he does not alter his wagering requirements or strategy, even after ten rounds, the chances of him exhausting his entire bankroll is fairly remote indeed.
On the other hand, a roulette player who has an equal bankroll but decides to wager using only a single digit will have a much lower chance of victory, which will be 1/38. Therefore, this type of player stands a much higher chance of losing the total value of his bankroll.
Based on this information, many people would automatically (and erroneously assume) that the casino’s average hold generated would be higher with the higher risk player. In actual fact, the casino would generate more from the even odds player because the single digit player will have less to wager as his bankroll gets steadily depleted.
In the Frontier West, the saloons would clearly set the odds for their roulette table at 27 to 1, nowadays however, the figure is capped at 34 or 35 to 1.
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