Category Archives: Roulette

As of 2020, roulette is theoretically over 365 years old, but it could be even older than that in reality. The ancient casino games origin is not totally understood or established, but in this article we will follow the most popular and widely accepted beginning of roulette, and its progress through the many centuries.

There could be older origins, but the most convincing theory is that French scientist Blaise Pascal (yes, the same person after which the unit of internal pressure is named) accidentally invented a crude form of the casino game in 1655, while he was trying to build a machine of perpetual motion.

Other than the Pascal theory, there are also suggestions that the idea in its crudest form might have originated at separate times in separate cultures which are thousands of years older. While Greek and Roman soldiers might have been only playing a betting game on their shields and chariot wheels, ancient Chinese civilizations may very well have been playing a more standardized and advanced variant of roulette that closely resembles the modern-day casino game. Either way, none of these theories have more credence or proof than the Pascal theory.

It was not until the mid-1790s that roulette managed to gain enough popularity in Europe. Once it did gain popularity as one of the more interesting casino games, it became so popular that we can find mention of roulette in European literature of the time.

It wasnt until the year 1842 that the roulette wheel received a major rehaul. Before the new wheels came into being and managed to become even more popular than their predecessors, all roulette wheels in Europe had two zeros on them.

In 1842, Francois and Louis Blanc changed the history of casino games forever by making a single, game changing modification to the old roulette wheel. They simply removed the double zero from old wheels and that was pretty much all it took for European roulette to become more popular across the continent than even before.

They brought the new wheels and the game of roulette to Humbug from France, then to all of Germany and later on, pretty much the whole of Europe. The fact that these new wheels decreased the house edge in roulette down to 2.7%, as compared to 5.26% with the old wheels, only fuelled the popularity of roulette amidst European gamblers even more.

It was, of course, the French settlers that brought roulette to Louisiana first, but American roulette wheels are not the same ones that we see in European casinos. Two differences in the American gambling communitys attitude should be noted here as these explain the reasons why American roulette wheels are different.

As a result of these attitudes, American roulette players continue to use the ancient double zero roulette wheel, which is now known only as the American roulette wheel. It should be noted that this is why roulette is not as popular in America as it is in Europe.

The introduction of online roulette came in roughly around the beginning of the 21st Century, which was quite a few years after the first online casino was launched in 1996. Online roulette changed everything and for the better. While there were some initial issues with fair play, that has been sorted out now. If you have never played roulette online, or you are looking to learn the rules that govern the game, get to know all the rules on this site.

Players can not only play any version of the game that they want today, but they can practically play anywhere they want to. Smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops and even some smart TVs are now capable of streaming live casino roulette games, or letting the player try their luck in a virtual version of American/European roulette. Wherever you might be located, if its legal to gamble online in your country, we suggest playing European roulette for a significantly higher chance of winning.

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A Brief Look Through the History of Roulette - Euro Weekly News

Forecasting the weather involves a lot of science, a little intuition, and, honestly, a touch of luck. This weekend may require more luck than usual. I'd typically look to weather events upstream of the overall flow pattern over central North America and figure out how things will evolve when they hit the Sault region. However, the features that will(might) hit the Sault region this weekend have yet to develop - making it more challenging.

I suspect that a cold front crosses the region early Saturday morning, then a warm front arrives in the evening, followed by a cold front Sunday morning and then possibly a Texas Low on Tuesday. Any or all of these features could change intensity and timing(or not develop at all!) to make a mess of the forecast. The best weather forecast this weekend might be the view from the kitchen window. If you are the gambling type, you could move all your chips onto my prediction below and spin the weather roulette wheel.

Friday morning brings a 30-40% chance of an isolated shower, and then cloudy skies linger for the middle of the day before partially clearing later in the afternoon. Temperatures climb back into the low 20s on a southerly breeze.

Scattered thunderstorms should move through the region early Saturday morning with cloudy skies for the rest of the day.Daytime highs should reach 20C with a weak southerly wind. Scattered showers and storms move in sometime around sunset and linger overnight.

Sunday will bring a mix of sun and cloud with temperatures close to the 18C mark.Periods of light rain are likely in the afternoon. Watch for a change in the weather pattern for next week as colder air returns to the region.

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Weekend Outlook: Join me at the weather roulette table - SooToday

Roulette isnt the first game that people envision when they think of beating the casino. Instead, blackjack (card counting), video poker (skill), and poker (also skill) come to mind.

Nevertheless, gamblers used to beat roulette through a technique called wheel bias. The latter enables gamblers to more-accurately predict where the ball lands and bet accordingly.

Wheel bias was once a valid way to beat the house. However, its no longer practical thanks to the work of John Huxley.

Who is John Huxley and how did he render advantage play useless? Ill discuss more on wheel bias, how it works, and why Huxleys invention has made it all but obsolete.

Roulette games used to run on basic wooden wheels. Manufacturers did their best to make these wheels looked polished and elegant.

However, they didnt take many precautions to make the wheels last. As a result, the wheels experienced wear and tear fairly quickly.

The fretsdividers in between the pocketswere often the first parts to break down. Theyd gradually become looser and allow the ball to drop into the corresponding pockets more easily.

The wheel shaft was another part that could become worn down. When a shaft is loose, it causes the wheel to tilt and favor certain pockets.

Usually, these imperfections are impossible to spot with the naked eye. But one can detect wheel bias by observing and recording results.

The vast majority of gamblers back then didnt realize that roulette games could show bias. However, a few wise players figured this out over time.

Joseph Jager gets credit for being the first gambler to uncover wheel bias. The English engineer travelled to Monte Carlo and made what amounts to several million dollars by finding defective wheels.

Ever since Jagger, several other players have become rich and famous by beating roulette. They all benefited from certain conditions that allowed them to win serious profits.

Even when armed with knowledge of wheel bias, people need to put lots of work into beating the game. Here are a few individuals who put this work in and won fortunes as a result.

Born in Germany in 1931, Richard Jarecki spent the early part of his life running from Nazis. His Jewish family moved from Germany to the United States to escape persecution.

Jarecki attended Duke University, got married, and moved back to Germany. Here, he continued studying in the medical field en route to becoming a doctor.

While pursuing a medical degree, Jarecki also found time to gamble at European casinos. Throughout the 1960s, Jarecki and his wife began recording results on roulette wheels.

After recording tens of thousands of spins and analyzing the results, Richard Jareckis and his wife discovered some biased wheels. They then proceeded to earn big profits from casinos.

They particularly targeted Sanremo Casino in Italy. Sanremo management would eventually ban Jarecki and describe him as a menace to casinos.

They networked with other European casinos to get the word out on Richard Jarecki. But by this time, he had already won $1.2 million, which amounts to $9 million when adjusted for inflation.

Bill Walters is known first and foremost as a great professional sports bettor. Before he became a betting legend, though, he was a wheel bias master.

Walters worked with other gamblers who were collectively known as the Computer Team. In 1986, they started recording roulette results in Atlantic City.

Billy Walters and his team discovered a biased wheel at the Atlantic Club Casino. They put down a $2 million deposit and began playing for high stakes on that specific wheel.

Based on previous research, they knew that the wheel favored 7, 10, 20, 27, and 36. The Computer Team spent the next 38 hours betting on these numbers and winning $3.8 million.

By this point, the Atlantic Club decided to ban the gamblers. However, Walters had already earned enough money to increase his sports gambling bankroll and later become a betting guru.

Gonzalo Garcia Pelayo is a Spanish music producer. While hes attained some fame through his music career, Pelayo is more notable for what hes done in gambling.

The Spaniard gambled quite a bit in the 1990s as a hobby. He especially liked playing roulette for real money at Casino Gran Madrid.

While playing at Casino Gran Madrid, he began speculating that some wheels werent completely impartial. So, he recruited his family members to help him record spins.

The family proceeded to win a fortune from Casino Gran Madrid before being banned. Afterward, they took their act on the road and hit other casinos throughout Europe.

All of these casinos gradually identified and banned the Pelayos from their properties. However, Gonzalo and family won 1.5 million before being essentially blacklisted from European casinos.

Not much information is available on John Huxleys life. What is known, though, is that he started a gaming supply company in 1979.

Located in Stoke-on-Trent, TSC Huxley started by supplying card tables, card shufflers, and more to local casinos.

Huxley was the brains behind this operation when it opened. Apparently, he lives a rather private life due to the lack of available info on him.

But his company continues to be one of the most-notable in terms of gaming supply. They not only serve UK casinos, but also many other gambling establishments worldwide.

In the 1980s, British casinos realized that they were getting decimated by certain roulette players. They looked into the matter and learned that gamblers were using wheel bias against them.

Many of the same casinos would move wheels around at night and/or ban suspected advantage gamblers. These moves proved mildly successful.

However, wheel bias experts still continued to make money. They often identified small marks or other imperfections in a wheel so they could recognize it later.

This way, they didnt need to worry if wheels switched places at night.

Casinos began to realize that they needed a more-permanent method of dealing with their problem. Some gambling establishments went to TSC Huxley in search of sturdier roulette wheels. The company granted their wishes by releasing the Starburst wheel.

Unlike the common all-wooden wheels at the time, Starburst wheels feature metal frets and pockets. These two changes reduce wear and tear on wheels and minimized bias.

TSC Huxleys designs have only gotten better since then. This company continues upgrading roulette wheels to make them last longer and be more resistant to bias.

Gonzalo Garcia Pelayo is the last person to become famous by beating roulette. If anybody has successfully used wheel bias since Pelayo did in the 1990s, then theyve done so discreetly.

Huxleys Starburst wheel marked the beginning of the end for roulette advantage players. Wheels are now much less likely to wear down thanks to the metal pockets and frets.

Im sure that somebody, somewhere effectively used wheel bias since Pelayo. If they did, though, then they either werent as successful or kept a low profile when doing so.

If you had a time machine, you could easily go back and beat roulette. Up until the 1980s and 90s, wheels were much more susceptible to bias.

However, this situation began changing when British casinos commissioned TCS John Huxley to design better roulette wheels.

The company came up with the Starburst wheel, which doesnt break down as easily as wooden wheels. Starburst and other variations are now common at many roulette tables worldwide.

Given the prevalence of Starburst wheels, youre unlikely to beat roulette today. Your only chance to win involves finding the rare casinos that still offer all-wooden wheels.

Of course, you could also try using a roulette computer. These wearable devices help you determine where the ball will land based on the balls and wheels velocity.

The big problem, though, is that roulette computers are outlawed in every gaming jurisdiction and you could get busted by the casinos for cheating.

Realistically, roulette is no longer beatable by legal means. The number of wheels that are susceptible to bias have been reduced drastically.

You could always wear a mini computer under your clothes to clock the wheels and balls velocity. Some companies even sell these computers online.

However, every jurisdiction has outlawed such devices. This means that you need to break the law to win with a computer.

Your only legal route for winning long-term roulette profits is to find an old wooden wheel. Unfortunately, such wheels are extremely rare these days.

You still have a decent chance to win with European roulette (2.70% house edge) or French roulette (1.35%). All you need is a little luck on your side. But the days of you being able to win millions of dollars with wheel bias appear to be gone.

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The Fall of Roulette Wheel Bias - John Huxley and Advantage Play - BestUSCasinos.org

Almost all gamblers believe that there is a system of signs that may show the way to the prize. They try to outsmart the casino by monitoring the games and making calculations whether their bet will be successful or not. If the player wants to win, he or she makes a prediction about the lucky number in roulette, slot machine, or dice game. Many players believe that there exists a lucky slot machine, roulette wheel, poker table or specific ritual that helps to win. In this article, we will discuss the problem of calculations and rituals aimed at predicting game outcomes in casinos.

Casinos cannot allow the players to take all the money they bet. Otherwise, they will not be able to pay their employees and cover the bills. It makes them introduce a house edge, which is an advantage that the casino takes of you in a long-term run. The house edge is established by the casino, making its complete bankruptcy impossible. Every time you win a prize, the establishment receives a certain percent back. The house edge is also relevant when it comes to digital casinos. Its size usually differs throughout various digital gambling platforms.

Surely, the existence of the house edge does not mean that you cannot win money while gambling at digital platforms. If you choose a casino properly, no house edge will spoil your experience. It is difficult to predict the amounts of money taken from you with the house edge, but you should definitely read relevant reviews about the chosen casino and its house edge practices. It will prepare you for either pleasant or unpleasant surprises. If you have certain expectations on the house edge, you will play much more conveniently.

Physical casinos apply mathematical calculations in order to ensure that the winnings will be distributed randomly. For example, slot machines have an inbuilt computer programmed to make random combinations. The casino achieves such a result due to the Random Number Generator, which provides the results of each bet. The program chooses the symbols and presents them on the screen. The casinos use the computer to generate random numbers, both winning and losing. In this way, they guarantee that one player will not take all the money, and everyone will get equal chances of winning.

Many experienced gamblers believe in different rituals that will help them to place a successful bet or choose a winning slot machine. They try to predict the future by relying on the signs that, according to their calculations, matter much. For example, the players who want to win in blackjack search for the dealers who fail several times in a row. Online players can choose a specific combination of symbols that they consider as winning. The most devoted enthusiasts even try to conduct mathematical calculations while observing the game.

Those who managed to win with the help of such an approach or probably with a mere luck may face the problem of withdrawing money or paying big fees. It is hard to choose a good online casino, but Fukurocasinos.com will help you by providing the best reviews of online gambling platforms that apply Venus Point Casino ( ) payment system. You will find useful information about the online casinos that use Venus Point, which as an important indicator of a casinos credibility. The reviews give you a chance to withdraw more money after you win in online games.

Those who prefer slot machines choose the one which provides frequent wins. It may seem that winning in such attractions completely depends on luck, but some payers have a different opinion. They spend time while other users play and observe the behavior of the device. People believe that if the machine lets the player win, then it is a lucky one. Some players developed a different approach. They think that if the machine is greedy for long time, it will soon give the user a desired jackpot. Such an approach is especially popular among some users of online casinos.

Each player has a different opinion based on his or her experience. In reality, their manipulations do not influence the way of the game. Nobody can make an accurate prediction because people dont know when they will have a lucky moment in life. Players think that fate gives them signs of future success, but casinos show that only a random mathematical principle measures losses and winnings. A program installed on the slot machine can either offer ten prizes in a row or do not allow the player to win money for dozens of minutes.

All our gambling predictions are often ruined by the rules of casinos. While making predictions on prizes, mind the house edge that works for physical and online casinos. When you are betting, the computer generates the numbers or symbols which are winning or losing, Everything depends on a random principle instead of specific winning schedules. If you are lucky, you have to be secure about the withdrawal of the prize, which means that you have to read reviews of online casinos that use Venus Point. Just remember that luck and rational betting strategies mean much more than predictions in gambling!

Excerpt from:

The problem of prediction in casino - fingerlakes1.com

This article is written and contributed by Justine Shaw and published in accordance with our disclosure policy.

As recently as twenty-five years ago, the concept of the iGaming was a relatively novel one. The thought that you could play casino games like roulette, blackjack, poker and even slots from the comfort of your own home was genuinely mold-breaking and extraordinary.But fast forward to 2020 and the online casino is now intrinsically woven into the fabric of many nations and cultures and it seems like its here to stay.

Of all the countries in the world, its arguably the UK that has embraced the online casino more closely than any other. The figures speak for themselves. According to the Gambling Commission, the body that has overseen the UK industry since 2007, between April 2018 and March 2019 the total gaming revenue was 14.4 billion ($17.5 billion). Of this 5.3 billion ($6.5 billion) was generated by the remote sector, the largest part of which consists of online casinos.

In terms of numbers, around 340 casinos are licensed in the UK. And if you add many more that operate under licenses from different gambling authorities including in Malta and the Channel Island of Jersey, the figure rises to well over 500.

The secrets of the UKs success

When it comes to exactly what has made online casinos so very popular in the UK, several factors have played a part. The first is that the British have a long tradition of being fans of gambling in all its forms. For example, the first horseraces took place as long ago as the 17th century under the rule of Charles II. Today, horseracing is a huge multi-million-pound industry in the UK with showpiece races like the Grand National and the Cheltenham Gold Cup attracting millions of pounds worth of bets from people drawn from all works of life.

Around a century after the first horserace, the first casinos started to appear, mainly as exclusive gentlemens clubs. But, into the 20th century, casinos became a form of entertainment open to all and today youll find the there are many in the major cities that are enjoyed by a wide range of people.

So, with a natural propensity for enjoying sports and games of chance, as well as having a strong casino culture, its no wonder that the online equivalent has proved to be so very popular.

The operators of the online casinos have also had a major role to play in their huge popularity. They have consistently used the very latest technology to offer new games and playing experiences, as well as making very generous welcome bonus offers to attract new players.

Tech leads to success

A good example of the sort of technological innovation that has been used in the UK is the so-called live casino. Instead of playing against a computer program, live roulette and blackjack action is streamed to the players PC or mobile device. The action of the roulette wheel or the dealing of the cards is then digitized to allow the games to be played online. By capturing some of the excitement of a real casino experience, including the chance to chat with live dealers, with the convenience of online play it has proved to be a winning combination.

Another major contributing factor that has elevated the success of UK online casinos to the level they have reached today has been the rise of mobile gaming. In line with the general trend towards mobile internet use, now more people play at online casinos through this medium than through PCs and laptops.

Turning to the US, its a country that undeniably has an equally strong culture of gambling as the UK and many States boast casinos, with Nevada and New Jersey leading the way. There is no question that online gambling is on the rise in the US, particularly in New Jersey, where online casinos are the preferred choice for many due to the convenience and quality of games on offer.

But whether online casinos ever become quite as successful in the US as they are in the UK is open to debate. There are points to be made on both sides of the argument and the most obvious one to suggest a bright future is that Americans like technology. For evidence of this, you only have to look at the excitement that the arrival of a new iPhone or long-awaited video game generates.

The fact that a large proportion of the population, away from the big cities, may live a considerable distance from a bricks and mortar casino also means that the ability to visit one remotely could prove to be a very good alternative. This will become especially true if the live online casino starts to take off in the big way that it has in the UK.

Going mobile

As already discussed, smartphone usage has also been key to the increasing popularity of online casinos in the UK and this could also prove to be critical in the US. With 5G now upon us, connection speeds will only get faster, and with an estimated 81% of all Americans owning smartphones a vast majority have potential access to online casinos.

On the other side of the debate, the online casino industry is at a very different stage of its development compared with the UK. There are far fewer operators to choose from and the marketing behind them is far less overt than in the UK. Over there, they are frequently advertised on TV and they are also heavily involved in sports sponsorship too. For example, the majority of soccer teams in the top two divisions of the league have online gambling companies as their shirt sponsors. Theres no denying that this level of exposure must surely have an effect.

So, looking ahead, theres a great prize in store for any online casino operators who can make it big in the US. If the UK model could be emulated, it would mean that a generous proportion of the $80 billion + that is raised by gambling revenue each year would be heading in their direction. And, with a figure like this to consider, there really is everything to play for.

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Will iGaming in the US ever hit the heights they have in the UK? | GWW - Geeks World Wide

DraftKings built their reputation on sports first as daily fantasy, then as a sportsbook. With the growth of DraftKings Casino, it only seems logical to have some sports-themed online table games as well.

Since launching its online casino in New Jersey in late 2018, DraftKings Sportsbook has expanded its product to other states and gone public. Online casino revenue has fueled a huge chunk of the companys growth, despite the coronavirus-induced stoppage of major sports.

And a lot of the DraftKings-branded casino games are exclusive to the site, which means only DraftKings will have a football blackjack game.

With most of the major sports in action in September, including some that usually arent, it seems fitting that a sportsbook like DraftKings should have a selection of sports-themed games.

And by that, we mean the games are based on traditional casino play but with a sports twist.

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Cross-selling gives DraftKings online casino an edge now that sports are back in play. But, are the sports-themed games as unique as they claim?

To answer that question, NJ Gambling Sites decided to give some of those games a test run. And since the NFL is back, well start with a few touchdowns.

Click on a game image below to jump to the details and gameplay.

Touchdown Blackjack combines blackjack and football, with NFL franchises as the teams involved. Start on your 20-yard-line and drive down the field with wins, helped by doubling down and splits. Yardage is added somewhat randomly from hands.

Without downs, players dont have to punt. Yardage will only be lost if the dealer hits blackjack.

The game runs on standard blackjack rules, with an eight-deck shuffle, 3:2 payout on blackjack with 2:1 on insurance. Players can bet $1 to $5,000 on the cash version, and there is a demo version to try out first.

After scoring the touchdown, players can kick extra points and restart another drive. This creates a unique spin on blackjack and, yes, will likely help distract players from the money being lost. So watch your cash flow.

This is a similarly formatted game to blackjack but on a 00 roulette board. Players can make multiple bets to move down the field.

Touchdown Roulette does have first down yardage markers. Higher payoff bets such as single numbers yield bigger gains. Players can bet between 10 cents and $5,000. Bets can be undone before the ball starts to roll.

There are graphics to show progress with a score, down and distance, and time.

Roulette is not as straightforward in terms of gameplay as blackjack as possession will change to the opposition.

Hey, were at the NHL Stanley Cup Finalsso might as well do some hockey.

This game has the same format as the touchdown blackjack, with eight-deck shuffles, 3:2 blackjack playoff, and 2:1 insurance. Like most casinos, dealer hits on 16, hard or soft, and stays on 17.

Players are allotted one hand per deal. The sports games do not allow multi-hand play, at least in the demo.

The user interface on the DraftKings casino games are easy to operate. With a touch, bets can be doubled, changed, or renewed for the next hand. During play, its easy to hit, stand, double down, or split pairs.

Unlike Touchdown Blackjack, the main focus of hockey blackjack is the players balance. With the cash game, the amount focuses on the account balance.

Hows this for a unique opener? Basketball Roulette on DraftKings Casino greets you with a welcome voiced by longtime NBA broadcaster Dick Stockton (or a very good facsimile).

There are excellent graphics and exciting sounds with the bright layout around a halfcourt with a bucket and three-point line. Each turn starts with a basketball shot, which begins the spinning wheel.

The board is a standard 00 roulette grid. Players can bet 10 cents and up on each square or possibility. Select a chip denomination to get started.

The easiest way to make new selections after each turn is to click or tap the board. That clears all previous bets and allows for new wagers.

Selecting an option again will multiply the amount bet. Computer players can click on the arrows in the top-right corner for full-screen play.

The traditional green felt of a blackjack table has been replaced once again. Basketball Blackjack features a parquet-style hardwood.

The players spot occupies the center court tipoff circle, while the dealer occupies inside the three-point arc. Very nice touches.

Like the other branded DraftKings blackjack games, this has shuffled eight decks, one hand per turn, and blackjack pays 3:2 with insurance paying 2:1. The dealer must hit on 16 and stand on 17.

Read the original here:

Five DraftKings Casino Games That Score Big With Sports Fans - NJGamblingSites.com

Executive Summary

Sometimes during a crisis we dont know how bad the situation really is.Consider the following scenario involving a data privacy violations: A company discovers that sensitive data about a user is exposed in an unencrypted database for 24 hours. Has anyone accessed it? If so, what, if anything, can they glean from it? Firms facing the question of whether and how to communicate risk often err too far in either direction. When organizations alert their customers to every potential risk, they create notification fatigue. When firms wait too long to communicate in an effort to shield users from unnecessary worry customers interpret time lags as incompetence, or worse, as obfuscation. The answer is to trust that customers can process uncertainty, as long as its framed in the right way. Using techniques from behavioral science, the authors suggest better ways to communicate uncertain risks in way that will protect customers and foster trust.

Most organizations can cope with straightforward bad news, and so can most people. We absorb the shock, and move on. But what happens when we dont know how bad the news actually is?

When it comes to crises, the news companies must deliver is often potential bad news. How should a technology company react when it learns that it might have suffered a breach of your data, or a supermarket discovers it might have sold you contaminated lettuce, or a medical device maker learns that patients may have a defective hip replacement? Communicating about uncertainty what people call risk communications in practice has become one of the most important challenges faced by anyone who needs to convey or consume information.

Risk communications are more important than ever during the current pandemic. Scientists, policy-makers, and companies alike are uncertain of many basic facts about Covid-19 with crucial implications for personal and societal decisions. How infectious is this new virus? How likely is it to kill people? What will be its long-term economic, social, and cultural consequences?

Even before Covid-19 hit, communications were increasingly becoming an important part of corporate and organizational management. Consider the following scenario involving a data privacy violations: A company discovers that sensitive data about a user is exposed in an unencrypted database for 24 hours. Has anyone accessed it? If so, what can they do with it right now? What will they be able to do with it five years from now, with machine learning techniques that will be available at that time? The answers are typically, we dont really know.That is not an assessment that most organizations or individuals know how to deliver in an effective way. This has major consequences for individual firms and for firms collectively. The tech sector, in particular, has suffered a large and growing trust deficit with users, customers, and regulators, in part because tech companies struggle to communicate what they do and do not know about the side effects of their products in ways that are transparent and meaningful.

When we talked to experts across eight industry sectors, we uncovered a common dilemma: firms facing the question of whether and how to communicate risk often err too far in either direction. When organizations alert their customers to every potential risk, they create notification fatigue. Customers tend to tune out after a short while, and firms lose an opportunity to strengthen a trust relationship with the subset of customers who really might have been at most risk.

When firms do the opposite for example by waiting too long to communicate in an effort to shield users from unnecessary worry there is also a price. Customers interpret time lags as incompetence, or worse, as obfuscation and protection of corporate reputations at the expense of protecting customers. The more mis-steps firms make in either direction, the greater the trust deficit becomes, and the harder it is to thread the needle and get the communications right.

To make matters worse, individual firms have a collective effect when they communicate about uncertainty with customers and other stakeholders. The average citizen and customer is the target of many such communications coming from a variety of sources with a cumulative impact on notification fatigue and ultimately the level of ambient trust between firms and the public. Its an ugly bundle of negative externalities that compound an already difficult problem.

We believe it doesnt have to continue this way. Decision science and cognitive psychology have produced some reliable insights about how people on both sides of an uncertainty communication can do better.

The inherent challenge for risk communicators is peoples natural desire for certainty and closure. An experimental Russian roulette game illustrates this most poignantly: forced to play Russian roulette with a 6-chamber revolver containing either 1 bullet or 4 bullets, most people would pay a lot more to remove the single bullet in the first instance than to remove a single bullet in the second instance (even though the risk reduction is the same). Kahneman and Tversky called this the certainty effect, and it explains why zero-deductible insurance policies are over-priced and yet people still buy them.

But while they dont like it, people can process uncertainty, especially if they are armed with some standard tools for decision making. Consider the Drug Facts Box, developed by researchers at Dartmouth.

As far back as the late 1970s, behavioral scientists criticized the patient package inserts that were included with prescription drugs as absurdly dense and full of jargon. The drug facts box (developed in the 1990s) reversed the script. It built on a familiar template from peoples common experience (the nutrition fact box that appears on food packaging) and was designed to focus attention on the information that would directly inform decision-making under uncertainty. It uses numbers, rather than adjectives like rare, common, or positive results. It addresses risks and benefits, and in many cases compares a particular drug to known alternatives. Importantly, it also indicates the quality of the evidence to-date. Its not perfect, but research suggests that it works pretty well, both in extensive testing with potential users through randomized trials and in practice where it has been shown to improve decision making by patients.

So why arent basic principles from the science of risk communications being applied more widely in technology, finance, transportation, and other sectors? Imagine an Equifax data breach fact box created to situate the 2017 data-breach incident and the risks for customers. The fact box could indicate whether the Equifax breach was among the 10 largest breaches of the last 5 years. It would provide a quantitative assessment of the consequences that follow from such breaches, helping people assess what to expect in this case. For example: In the last five data breaches of over 100 million records, on average 3% of people whose records were stolen reported identity theft within a year.

Or, imagine a Deepwater Horizon fact box, that listed for the public the most important potential side effects of oil spills on marine and land ecosystems, and a range for estimating their severity. Weve come to the view that these two examples and countless others didnt happen that way, largely because most people working in communications functions dont believe that users and customers can deal reasonably with uncertainty and risk.

Of course, the Equifax breach and Deepwater Horizon oil spills are extreme examples of crisis-level incidents, and in the Equifax case, disclosure was legally mandated. But firms make decisions everyday about whether and how to communicate about less severe incidents, many of which do not have mandated disclosure requirements. In the moment, its easy for companies to default to a narrow response of damage control, instead of understanding risk communications as a collective problem, which, when done well, can enhance trust with stakeholders.

To start to repair the trust deficit will require a significant retrofit of existing communications practices. Here are three places to start.

Stop improvising. Firms will never be able to reduce uncertainty to zero, but they can commit to engaging with customers around uncertainty in systematic, predictable ways. A standard framework would provide an empirically proven, field-tested playbook for the next incident or crisis. Over time, it would set reasonable expectations among users and customers for what meaningful and transparent communication looks like under uncertainty, help increase the publics risk fluency, and limit the damage inflicted by nefarious actors who prey on the publics anxieties about risk. Ideally, this standard would be created by a consortium of firms across different sectors. Widespread adoption by organizations would level the playing field for all firms, and raise the bar for smaller firms that lack the required competencies in-house.

Change the metric for success, and measure results. Avoiding negative press should not be the primary objective for firms that are faced with communicating uncertainty. In the short term, the primary goal should be to equip customers with the information they need to interpret uncertainty and act to manage their risk. In the long term, the goal should be to increase levels of ambient trust and to reduce risks where possible. Communicators need to demonstrate that what they are doing is working, by creating yardsticks that rigorously measure the effectiveness of communications against both these short and long term goals.

Design for risk communications from the beginning. Consider what it would mean if every product were built from the start with the need to communicate uncertainty about how it will perform when released into the wild that is, risk communication by design. If risk communications were pushed down through organizations into product development, wed see innovation in user experience and user interface design for communicating about uncertainty with customers. Wed see cognitive psychology and decision science skills integrated into product teams. And wed see feedback loops built directly into products as part of the design process, telling firms whether they are meaningfully improving customers ability to make informed choices.

People are naturally inclined to prefer certainty and closure, but in a world where both are in short supply, trust deficits arent an inevitable fact of nature. Were optimistic that organizations can do better collectively by making disciplined use of the existing science.

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The Art of Communicating Risk - Harvard Business Review

Ocean Casino Resort was voted by Casino Player magazine readers as Atlantic Citys best overall gaming resort. Last years winner, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, took second place, and Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa remained in third place for the second year, after years as No. 1.

Ocean also received first-place awards for best hotel, hotel lobby and rooms, as well as best comps and best pool. Ocean took second-place for VIP services and third-place awards for best hotel staff and suites, best casino, video slots, high limit room and non-smoking casino area.

In addition, Ocean was deemed Casino Where You Feel The Luckiest, followed by Golden Nugget Casino, Hotel & Marina and Tropicana Atlantic City.

Voters also recognized Hard Rock with first-place awards for best suites, spa, casino, players club, promotions, video poker, bingo, slot tournaments; second-place awards for best hotel rooms, hosts, comps, video slots and high limit room; and third-place awards for best hotel and craps.

In addition, Hard Rock was judged Favorite Casino Resort To Vacation At, followed by Ocean and Golden Nugget.

Among Borgatas other honors were best VIP services, table game and poker tournaments, high limit room, blackjack, and non-smoking area. Borgatas second-place awards were for best hotel and hotel lobby, and spa (Immersion), and third place for best hotel rooms, pool, carnival games, bingo and live poker.

Golden Nugget received four first-place awards: best hosts, roulette, carnival games and video slots. Among its second-place awards were best hotel staff, slot and poker tournaments, video poker, craps, bingo and non-smoking area. Third-place awards included best hotel lobby, spa, players club, VIP services, promotions, dealers, reel slots, blackjack and live poker.

See more here:

Ocean Casino Resort named best of the best | Mr. AC Casino - Atlantic City Weekly

Editor's note: Shortly after this editorial was first published, major news outlets began reporting that President Trump was expected to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

This week, as much of the country mourned the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Trump promised to nominate her replacement promptly. (His pick is expected to be announced tomorrow.) Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader who refused for nine months to consider President Barack Obamas nominee after Justice Antonin Scalias death in 2016, has promised a floor vote on this nomination by the end of the year.

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This nomination battle will be as contentious as any in history because it is the final payoff of the gamble large parts of the pro-life movement made in supporting Mr. Trump. It is yet more proof that Americans deep moral divisions over abortion cannot be addressed under the shadow cast by Roe v. Wade.

Last week, the editors of Americawarned that Mr. Trumps disdain for both implicit norms and explicit rules represents a unique danger to the constitutional order, as it subverts the very conditions necessary for debate, decision-making and public accountability in this republic, replacing them instead with a purely transactional politics of self-interest and advantage. The rush to push through a nominee on a party-line vote before the electionin the same week when Mr. Trump has twice refused to affirm that he would abide by the conventions that guarantee a peaceful transfer of power after a national electionfurther underlines this thesis.

Even though this nomination's outcome is not in much doubt, the way the fight is developing shows how deep this erosion of respect for constitutional order goes. Mr. Trumps presidency is a constitutional threat not because he is the sole cause of this erosion but because he is uniquely eager and indiscriminate in the way he exploits it, and because the Republican Party has proven itself unwilling to put any brakes on his efforts to do so, while their Democratic counterparts appeal to respect for norms can seem just as self-interested, though far less effective.

Rather than being clearly the fault of one party, the hypocrisy on display in fights over nominations to the Supreme Court is like a series of nesting dolls. It is about Mr. McConnells transparent abandonment of the principle he invented when he refused to consider Mr. Obamas nomination of Merrick Garland. But that invention was a response to the then-unique stakes, now being repeated, of replacing a justice who would tip the ideological balance of the court. Going further back, the Democrats nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominations can be blamed, but that break with precedent itself responded to Republicans dedicated obstruction of a large number of Mr. Obamas nominees across two terms. And the conversation does not need to go on for very long before the argument turns to Democratic senators opposition, led by Joe Biden, to the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987.

What all of these concentric accusations of hypocrisy have in common is that they are largely, if not entirely, about abortion and support for or opposition to Roe v. Wade. Of course, many other important issues come before the court, but its resolutions of other epochal constitutional issuesfrom rejecting racial segregation to requiring the recognition of same-sex marriagehave helped usher in widespread societal acceptance of major changes. On the other hand, Roe v. Wade ignited a debate that has dominated American politics and deranged the process of Supreme Court appointments for more than 40 years.

[Want to discuss politics with other America readers? Join our Facebook discussion group, moderated by Americas writers and editors.]

The reason this editorial can be published even before Mr. Trump has made his nomination is that the one thing certain about the eventual nominee is that she will likely be a well-qualified jurist and also, as much as anyone can be certain, a reliable vote to oppose and overturn Roe v. Wade. (She will also, in the tradition of nominees during confirmation hearings since Mr. Bork, profess a formal adherence to settled precedent regarding Roe v. Wade that will neither satisfy those who want it preserved nor concern those who want it overturned.)

Depending on who is nominated and what schedule Senate Republicans adopt, the next weeks may be dominated by arguments over the nominees religious views or position on voting rights or proposals for court-packing. What these debates will have in common is that they will be largely beside the point. The fact remains that a critical moral issue about which Americans profoundly disagree has been reserved to the court, which has proven unable to find any resolution. The Supreme Court nomination process, therefore, has become an exercise in abortion policy by other means, a task for which the court is uniquely ill-suited.

Much of the pro-life movement has committed itself to a decades-long partnership with the Republican Party designed to reach this exact moment, where the court can be decisively tipped and Roe v. Wade at least hollowed out, if not overruled. Insofar as Roe has always been bad law and has utterly failed to settle the abortion debate, removing it as an obstacle and returning decisions regarding the legality of abortion to the states and to voters is a result to be welcomed.

But the costs of that strategic alliance, itself a consequence of the courts failure in Roe, will be felt for years if not decades to come. The pitched battle for the court has also incentivized political parties to pursue policy changes through the courts rather than legislation on a range of issues, furthering the dysfunction of Congress, as seen in the endless court battles over the Affordable Care Act.

This same dynamic has tended to increase the power of the executive branch, a kind of free-rider effect of the ideological filters applied to select judges ready to overturn Roe. Culturally, the willingness of some Christians to support the Republican Party at any cost in order to win pro-life victories at the court has subjected even basic evangelization to partisan division, at a significant cost to the credibility of Christian witness. When and if Roe is overturned, these obstacles will be more keenly felt in subsequent efforts to pass pro-life legislation at the state level.

Given the manifest failure of Roe and the ongoing reduction of U.S. politics to transactional advantage, perhaps the best that can be hoped for at this juncture is a relatively calm party-line confirmation of a nominee over understandable and justifiable protest from those who have lost in this round of Supreme Court nomination roulette. The eventual removal of Roe as an obstacle to legislative action on abortion may also be a necessarythough by no means sufficientcondition if the country is ever going to be able to walk away from the roulette table. If so, that will be something to be grateful for, though Americans will be paying off that gambling debt for decades to come.

[Read this next:Electing Republicans has not reversed Roe v. Wade. Its time to change our strategy.]

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The Editors: Abortion is the real reason the Supreme Court is broken. - America Magazine

Game of chance

Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning little wheel. In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a single number, various groupings of numbers, the colors red or black, whether the number is odd or even, or if the numbers are high (1936) or low (118).

To determine the winning number, a croupier spins a wheel in one direction, then spins a ball in the opposite direction around a tilted circular track running around the outer edge of the wheel. The ball eventually loses momentum, passes through an area of deflectors, and falls onto the wheel and into one of 37 (single zero French/European style roulette) or 38 (double zero American style roulette) colored and numbered pockets on the wheel. The winnings are then paid to anyone who has placed a successful bet.

The first form of roulette was devised in 18th century France. Many historians believe Blaise Pascal introduced a primitive form of roulette in the 17th century in his search for a perpetual motion machine.[1] The roulette mechanism is a hybrid of a gaming wheel invented in 1720 and the Italian game Biribi.[2]

The game has been played in its present form since as early as 1796 in Paris. An early description of the roulette game in its current form is found in a French novel La Roulette, ou le Jour by Jaques Lablee, which describes a roulette wheel in the Palais Royal in Paris in 1796. The description included the house pockets, "There are exactly two slots reserved for the bank, whence it derives its sole mathematical advantage." It then goes on to describe the layout with, "...two betting spaces containing the bank's two numbers, zero and double zero". The book was published in 1801. An even earlier reference to a game of this name was published in regulations for New France (Qubec) in 1758, which banned the games of "dice, hoca, faro, and roulette".[3]

The roulette wheels used in the casinos of Paris in the late 1790s had red for the single zero and black for the double zero. To avoid confusion, the color green was selected for the zeros in roulette wheels starting in the 1800s.

In 1843, in the German spa casino town of Bad Homburg, fellow Frenchmen Franois and Louis Blanc introduced the single 0 style roulette wheel in order to compete against other casinos offering the traditional wheel with single and double zero house pockets.[citation needed]

In some forms of early American roulette wheels, there were numbers 1 through 28, plus a single zero, a double zero, and an American Eagle. The Eagle slot, which was a symbol of American liberty, was a house slot that brought the casino extra edge. Soon, the tradition vanished and since then the wheel features only numbered slots. According to Hoyle "the single 0, the double 0, and eagle are never bars; but when the ball falls into either of them, the banker sweeps every thing upon the table, except what may happen to be bet on either one of them, when he pays twenty-seven for one, which is the amount paid for all sums bet upon any single figure".[4]

In the 19th century, roulette spread all over Europe and the US, becoming one of the most famous and most popular casino games. When the German government abolished gambling in the 1860s, the Blanc family moved to the last legal remaining casino operation in Europe at Monte Carlo, where they established a gambling mecca for the elite of Europe. It was here that the single zero roulette wheel became the premier game, and over the years was exported around the world, except in the United States where the double zero wheel had remained dominant.

In the United States, the French double zero wheel made its way up the Mississippi from New Orleans, and then westward. It was here, because of rampant cheating by both operators and gamblers, that the wheel was eventually placed on top of the table to prevent devices being hidden in the table or wheel, and the betting layout was simplified. This eventually evolved into the American-style roulette game. The American game was developed in the gambling dens across the new territories where makeshift games had been set up, whereas the French game evolved with style and leisure in Monte Carlo.

During the first part of the 20th century, the only casino towns of note were Monte Carlo with the traditional single zero French wheel, and Las Vegas with the American double zero wheel. In the 1970s, casinos began to flourish around the world. By 2008, there were several hundred casinos worldwide offering roulette games. The double zero wheel is found in the U.S., Canada, South America, and the Caribbean, while the single zero wheel is predominant elsewhere.

The sum of all the numbers on the roulette wheel (from 0 to 36) is 666, which is the "Number of the Beast".[5]

Roulette players have a variety of betting options. Placing inside bets is either selecting the exact number of the pocket the ball will land in, or a small range of pockets based on their proximity on the layout. Players wishing to bet on the 'outside' will select bets on larger positional groupings of pockets, the pocket color, or whether the winning number is odd or even[citation needed]The payout odds for each type of bet are based on its probability.

The roulette table usually imposes minimum and maximum bets, and these rules usually apply separately for all of a player's inside and outside bets for each spin. For inside bets at roulette tables, some casinos may use separate roulette table chips of various colors to distinguish players at the table. Players can continue to place bets as the ball spins around the wheel until the dealer announces no more bets or rien ne va plus.

When a winning number and color is determined by the roulette wheel, the dealer will place a marker, also known as a dolly, on that winning number on the roulette table layout. When the dolly is on the table, no players may place bets, collect bets, or remove any bets from the table. The dealer will then sweep away all other losing bets either by hand or rake, and determine all of the payouts to the remaining inside and outside winning bets. When the dealer is finished making payouts, the marker is removed from the board where players collect their winnings and make new bets. The winning chips remain on the board.

In 2004, California legalized a form of roulette known as California Roulette.[6] By law, the game must use cards and not slots on the roulette wheel to pick the winning number.

The pockets of the roulette wheel are numbered from 0 to 36.

In number ranges from 1 to 10 and 19 to 28, odd numbers are red and even are black. In ranges from 11 to 18 and 29 to 36, odd numbers are black and even are red.

There is a green pocket numbered 0 (zero). In American roulette, there is a second green pocket marked 00. Pocket number order on the roulette wheel adheres to the following clockwise sequence in most casinos:[citation needed]

The cloth-covered betting area on a roulette table is known as the layout. The layout is either single-zero or double-zero. The European-style layout has a single zero, and the American style layout is usually a double-zero. The American-style roulette table with a wheel at one end is now used in most casinos. The French style table with a wheel in the centre and a layout on either side is rarely found outside of Monte Carlo.[citation needed]

In roulette, bets can either be inside or outside bets.

Outside bets typically have smaller payouts with better odds at winning. Except as noted, all of these bets lose if a zero comes up.

In the United Kingdom, the farthest outside bets (low/high, red/black, even/odd) result in the player losing only half of his/her bet if a zero comes up.

The expected value of a $1 bet (except for the special case of Top line bets), for American and European roulette, can be calculated as

where n is the number of pockets in the wheel. The initial bet is returned in addition to the mentioned payout. It can be easily demonstrated that this payout formula would lead to a zero expected value of profit if there were only 36 numbers. Having 37 or more numbers gives the casino its edge.

Top line (0, 00, 1, 2, 3) has a different expected value because of approximation of the correct 615-to-1 payout obtained by the formula to 6-to-1. The values 0 and 00 are not odd or even, or high or low.

En prison rules, when used, reduce the house advantage.

The house average or house edge or house advantage (also called the expected value) is the amount the player loses relative for any bet made, on average. If a player bets on a single number in the American game there is a probability of 138 that the player wins 35 times the bet, and a 3738 chance that the player loses his bet. The expected value is:

For European roulette, a single number wins 137 and loses 3637:

For triple-zero wheels, a single number wins 139 and loses 3839:

The presence of the green squares on the roulette wheel and on the table is technically the only house edge. Outside bets will always lose when a single or double zero comes up. However, the house also has an edge on inside bets because the pay outs (including the original player's bet) are always set at 36 to 1 when you mathematically have a 1 out of 38 (1 out of 37 for French/European roulette) chance at winning a straight bet on a single number. To demonstrate the house edge on inside bets, imagine placing straight $1 wagers on all inside numbers (including 0 and 00) to assure a win: you would only get back $36, having spent $38. The only exceptions are the five numbers bet where the house edge is considerably higher (7.89% on an American wheel), and the "even money" bets in some European games (French Roulette) where the house edge is halved because only half the stake is lost when a zero comes up. This is commonly called the "la partage" rule, and it is considered the main difference between European and French roulette. There is also a modification of this rule, which is called the "en prison" rule. These rules cut the house edge into half (1.35%) in French roulette, when playing even-money bets, as half of the even-money bets are given back to the player if the zero is drawn in the wheel.

The house edge should not be confused with the "hold". The hold is the average percentage of the money originally brought to the table that the player loses before he leavesthe actual "win" amount for the casino. The Casino Control Commission in Atlantic City releases a monthly report showing the win/hold amounts for each casino. The average win/hold for double zero wheels is between 21% to 30%, significantly more than the 5.26% house edge. This reflects the fact that the player is churning the same money over and over again. A 23.6% hold, for example, would imply that, on average, the player bets the total he brought to the table five times, as 23.6% is approximately equal to 100% (100% 5.26%)5. For example, a player with $100 making $10 bets on red (which has a near 50/50 chance of winning) is highly unlikely to lose all his money after only 10 bets, and will most likely continue to bet until he has lost all of his money or decides to leave. A player making $10 bets on a single number (with only 1/38 chance of success) with a $100 bankroll is far more likely to lose all of his money after only 10 bets.

In the early frontier gambling saloons, the house would set the odds on roulette tables at 27 for 1. This meant that on a $1 bet you would get $27 and the house would keep your initial dollar. Today most casino odds are set by law, and they have to be either 34 to 1 or 35 to 1. This means that the house pays you $34 or $35 and you get to keep your original $1 bet.

As an example, we can examine the European roulette model, that is, roulette with only one zero. Since this roulette has 37 cells with equal odds of hitting, this is a final model of field probability ( , 2 , P ) {displaystyle (Omega ,2^{Omega },mathbb {P} )} , where = { 0 , , 36 } {displaystyle Omega ={0,ldots ,36}} , P ( A ) = | A | 37 {displaystyle mathbb {P} (A)={frac {|A|}{37}}} for all A 2 {displaystyle Ain 2^{Omega }} .

Call the bet S {displaystyle S} a triple ( A , r , ) {displaystyle (A,r,xi )} , where A {displaystyle A} is the set of chosen numbers, r R + {displaystyle rin mathbb {R} _{+}} is the size of the bet, and : R {displaystyle xi :Omega to mathbb {R} } determines the return of the bet.

The rules of European roulette have 10 types of bets. First we can examine the 'Straight Up' bet. In this case, S = ( { 0 } , r , ) {displaystyle S=({omega _{0}},r,xi )} , for some 0 {displaystyle omega _{0}in Omega } , and {displaystyle xi } is determined by

The bet's expected net return, or profitability, is equal to

Without details, for a bet, black (or red), the rule is determined as

and the profitability

For similar reasons it is simple to see that the profitability is also equal for all remaining types of bets. r 37 {displaystyle -{frac {r}{37}}} .[7]

In reality this means that, the more bets a player makes, the more he is going to lose independent of the strategies (combinations of bet types or size of bets) that he employs:

Here, the profit margin for the roulette owner is equal to approximately 2.7%. Nevertheless, several roulette strategy systems have been developed despite the losing odds. These systems can not change the odds of the game in favor of the player.

It is worth noting that the odds for the player in American roulette are even worse, as the bet profitability is at worst 3 38 r 0.0789 r {displaystyle -{frac {3}{38}}rapprox -0.0789r} , and never better than r 19 0.0526 r {displaystyle -{frac {r}{19}}approx -0.0526r} .

For a roulette wheel with n {displaystyle n} green numbers and 36 other unique numbers the chance of the ball landing on a given number is 1 ( 36 + n ) {displaystyle {frac {1}{(36+n)}}} . For a betting option with p {displaystyle p} numbers that define a win, the chance of winning a bet is p ( 36 + n ) {displaystyle {frac {p}{(36+n)}}}

For example, betting on "red", there are 18 red numbers, p = 18 {displaystyle p=18} , the chance of winning is 18 ( 36 + n ) {displaystyle {frac {18}{(36+n)}}} .

The payout given by the casino for a win is based on the roulette wheel having 36 outcomes and the payout for a bet is given by 36 p {displaystyle {frac {36}{p}}} .

For example, betting on 1-12 there are 12 numbers that define a win, p = 12 {displaystyle p=12} , the payout is 36 12 = 3 {displaystyle {frac {36}{12}}=3} , so the better wins 3 times their bet.

The average return on a player's bet is given by p ( 36 + n ) 36 p = 36 ( 36 + n ) {displaystyle {frac {p}{(36+n)}}times {frac {36}{p}}={frac {36}{(36+n)}}}

For n > 0 {displaystyle n>0} the average return is always lower than 1 so on average a player will lose money.With 1 green number n = 1 {displaystyle n=1} the average return is 36 37 {displaystyle {frac {36}{37}}} , that is, after a bet the player will on average have 36 37 {displaystyle {frac {36}{37}}} of their original bet returned to them.With 2 green numbers n = 2 {displaystyle n=2} the average return is 36 38 {displaystyle {frac {36}{38}}} .

This shows that the expected return is independent of the choice of bet.

Although most often named "call bets" technically these bets are more accurately referred to as "announced bets". The legal distinction between a "call bet" and an "announced bet" is that a "call bet" is a bet called by the player without him placing any money on the table to cover the cost of the bet. In many jurisdictions (most notably the United Kingdom) this is considered gambling on credit and is illegal. An "announced bet" is a bet called by the player for which he immediately places enough money to cover the amount of the bet on the table, prior to the outcome of the spin or hand in progress being known.

There are different number series in roulette that have special names attached to them. Most commonly these bets are known as "the French bets" and each covers a section of the wheel. For the sake of accuracy, zero spiel, although explained below, is not a French bet, it is more accurately "the German bet". Players at a table may bet a set amount per series (or multiples of that amount). The series are based on the way certain numbers lie next to each other on the roulette wheel. Not all casinos offer these bets, and some may offer additional bets or variations on these.[citation needed]

This is a name, more accurately "grands voisins du zro", for the 17 numbers that lie between 22 and 25 on the wheel, including 22 and 25 themselves. The series is 22-18-29-7-28-12-35-3-26-0-32-15-19-4-21-2-25 (on a single-zero wheel).

Nine chips or multiples thereof are bet. Two chips are placed on the 0-2-3 trio; one on the 4-7 split; one on 12-15; one on 18-21; one on 19-22; two on the 25-26-28-29 corner; and one on 32-35.

Zero game, also known as zero spiel (Spiel is German for game or play), is the name for the numbers closest to zero. All numbers in the zero game are included in the voisins, but are placed differently. The numbers bet on are 12-35-3-26-0-32-15.

The bet consists of four chips or multiples thereof. Three chips are bet on splits and one chip straight-up: one chip on 0-3 split, one on 12-15 split, one on 32-35 split and one straight-up on number 26.

This type of bet is popular in Germany and many European casinos. It is also offered as a 5-chip bet in many Eastern European casinos. As a 5-chip bet, it is known as "zero spiel naca" and includes, in addition to the chips placed as noted above, a straight-up on number 19.

This is the name for the 12 numbers that lie on the opposite side of the wheel between 27 and 33, including 27 and 33 themselves. On a single-zero wheel, the series is 27-13-36-11-30-8-23-10-5-24-16-33. The full name (although very rarely used, most players refer to it as "tiers") for this bet is "le tiers du cylindre" (translated from French into English meaning one third of the wheel) because it covers 12 numbers (placed as 6 splits), which is as close to 13 of the wheel as one can get.

Very popular in British casinos, tiers bets outnumber voisins and orphelins bets by a massive margin.

Six chips or multiples thereof are bet. One chip is placed on each of the following splits: 5-8, 10-11, 13-16, 23-24, 27-30, and 33-36.

The tiers bet is also called the "small series" and in some casinos (most notably in South Africa) "series 5-8".

A variant known as "tiers 5-8-10-11" has an additional chip placed straight up on 5, 8, 10, and 11m and so is a 10-piece bet. In some places the variant is called "gioco Ferrari" with a straight up on 8, 11, 23 and 30, the bet is marked with a red G on the racetrack.

These numbers make up the two slices of the wheel outside the tiers and voisins. They contain a total of 8 numbers, comprising 17-34-6 and 1-20-14-31-9.

Five chips or multiples thereof are bet on four splits and a straight-up: one chip is placed straight-up on 1 and one chip on each of the splits: 6-9, 14-17, 17-20, and 31-34.

A number may be backed along with the two numbers on the either side of it in a 5-chip bet. For example, "0 and the neighbors" is a 5-chip bet with one piece straight-up on 3, 26, 0, 32, and 15. Neighbors bets are often put on in combinations, for example "1, 9, 14, and the neighbors" is a 15-chip bet covering 18, 22, 33, 16 with one chip, 9, 31, 20, 1 with two chips and 14 with three chips.

Any of the above bets may be combined, e.g. "orphelins by 1 and zero and the neighbors by 1". The "...and the neighbors" is often assumed by the croupier.

Another bet offered on the single-zero game is "final", "finale" or "finals".

Final 4, for example, is a 4-chip bet and consists of one chip placed on each of the numbers ending in 4, that is 4, 14, 24, and 34. Final 7 is a 3-chip bet, one chip each on 7, 17, and 27. Final bets from final 0 (zero) to final 6 cost four chips. Final bets 7, 8 and 9 cost three chips.

Some casinos also offer split-final bets, for example final 5-8 would be a 4-chip bet, one chip each on the splits 5-8, 15-18, 25-28, and one on 35.

A complete bet places all of the inside bets on a certain number. Full complete bets are most often bet by high rollers as maximum bets.

The maximum amount allowed to be wagered on a single bet in European roulette is based on a progressive betting model. If the casino allows a maximum bet of $1,000 on a 35-to-1 straight-up, then on each 17-to-1 split connected to that straight-up, $2,000 may be wagered. Each 8-to-1 corner that covers four numbers) may have $4,000 wagered on it. Each 11-to-1 street that covers three numbers may have $3,000 wagered on it. Each 5-to-1 six-line may have $6,000 wagered on it. Each $1,000 incremental bet would be represented by a marker that is used to specifically identify the player and the amount bet.

For instance, if a patron wished to place a full complete bet on 17, the player would call "17 to the maximum". This bet would require a total of 40 chips, or $40,000. To manually place the same wager, the player would need to bet:

The player calls his bet to the croupier (most often after the ball has been spun) and places enough chips to cover the bet on the table within reach of the croupier. The croupier will immediately announce the bet (repeat what the player has just said), ensure that the correct monetary amount has been given while simultaneously placing a matching marker on the number on the table and the amount wagered.

The payout for this bet if the chosen number wins is 392 chips, in the case of a $1000 straight-up maximum, $40,000 bet, a payout of $392,000. The player's wagered 40 chips, as with all winning bets in roulette, are still his property and in the absence of a request to the contrary are left up to possibly win again on the next spin.

Based on the location of the numbers on the layout, the number of chips required to "complete" a number can be determined.

Most typically (Mayfair casinos in London and other top-class European casinos) with these maximum or full complete bets, nothing (except the aforementioned maximum button) is ever placed on the layout even in the case of a win. Experienced gaming staff, and the type of customers playing such bets, are fully aware of the payouts and so the croupier simply makes up the correct payout, announces its value to the table inspector (floor person in the U.S.) and the customer, and then passes it to the customer, but only after a verbal authorization from the inspector has been received.

Also typically at this level of play (house rules allowing) the experienced croupier caters to the needs of the customer and will most often add the customer's winning bet to the payout, as the type of player playing these bets very rarely bets the same number two spins in succession. For example, the winning 40-chip / $40,000 bet on "17 to the maximum" pays 392 chips / $392,000. The experienced croupier would pay the player 432 chips / $432,000, that is 392 + 40, with the announcement that the payout "is with your bet down".

There are also several methods to determine the payout when a number adjacent to a chosen number is the winner, for example, player bets 40 chips on "23 to the maximum" and number 26 is the winning number. The most notable method is known as the "station" system or method. When paying in stations, the dealer counts the number of ways or stations that the winning number hits the complete bet. In the example above, 26 hits 4 stations - 2 different corners, 1 split and 1 six-line. The dealer takes the number 4, multiplies it by 30 and adds the remaining 8 to the payout: 4 30 = 120, 120 + 8 = 128. If calculated as stations, they would just multiply 4 by 36, making 144 with the players bet down.

In some casinos, a player may bet full complete for less than the table straight-up maximum, for example, "number 17 full complete by $25" would cost $1000, that is 40 chips each at $25 value.

Over the years, many people have tried to beat the casino, and turn roulettea game designed to turn a profit for the houseinto one on which the player expects to win. Most of the time this comes down to the use of betting systems, strategies which say that the house edge can be beaten by simply employing a special pattern of bets, often relying on the "Gambler's fallacy", the idea that past results are any guide to the future (for example, if a roulette wheel has come up 10 times in a row on red, that red on the next spin is any more or less likely than if the last spin was black).

All betting systems that rely on patterns, when employed on casino edge games will result, on average, in the player losing money.[citation needed] In practice, players employing betting systems may win, and may indeed win very large sums of money, but the losses (which, depending on the design of the betting system, may occur quite rarely) will outweigh the wins. Certain systems, such as the Martingale, described below, are extremely risky, because the worst-case scenario (which is mathematically certain to happen, at some point) may see the player chasing losses with ever-bigger bets until he runs out of money.

The American mathematician Patrick Billingsley said[8] that no betting system can convert a subfair game into a profitable enterprise.At least in the 1930s, some professional gamblers were able to consistently gain an edge in roulette by seeking out rigged wheels (not difficult to find at that time) and betting opposite the largest bets.

Whereas betting systems are essentially an attempt to beat the fact that a geometric series with initial value of 0.95 (American roulette) or 0.97 (European roulette) will inevitably over time tend to zero, engineers instead attempt to overcome the house edge through predicting the mechanical performance of the wheel, most notably by Joseph Jagger at Monte Carlo in 1873. These schemes work by determining that the ball is more likely to fall at certain numbers. If effective, they raise the return of the game above 100%, defeating the betting system problem.

Edward O. Thorp (the developer of card counting and an early hedge-fund pioneer) and Claude Shannon (a mathematician and electronic engineer best known for his contributions to information theory) built the first wearable computer to predict the landing of the ball in 1961. This system worked by timing the ball and wheel, and using the information obtained to calculate the most likely octant where the ball would fall. Ironically, this technique works best with an unbiased wheel though it could still be countered quite easily by simply closing the table for betting before beginning the spin.

In 1982, several casinos in Britain began to lose large sums of money at their roulette tables to teams of gamblers from the USA. Upon investigation by the police, it was discovered they were using a legal system of biased wheel-section betting. As a result of this, the British roulette wheel manufacturer John Huxley manufactured a roulette wheel to counteract the problem.

The new wheel, designed by George Melas, was called "low profile" because the pockets had been drastically reduced in depth, and various other design modifications caused the ball to descend in a gradual approach to the pocket area. In 1986, when a professional gambling team headed by Billy Walters won $3.8 million using the system on an old wheel at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, every casino in the world took notice, and within one year had switched to the new low-profile wheel.

Thomas Bass, in his book The Eudaemonic Pie (1985) (published as The Newtonian Casino in Britain), has claimed to be able to predict wheel performance in real time. The book describes the exploits of a group of University of California Santa Cruz students, who called themselves the Eudaemons, who in the late 1970s used computers in their shoes to win at roulette. This is an updated and improved version of Edward O. Thorp's approach, where NewtonianLaws of Motion are applied to track the roulette ball's deceleration; hence the British title.

In the early 1990s, Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo believed that casino roulette wheels were not perfectly random, and that by recording the results and analysing them with a computer, he could gain an edge on the house by predicting that certain numbers were more likely to occur next than the 1-in-36 odds offered by the house suggested. This he did at the Casino de Madrid in Madrid, Spain, winning 600,000 euros in a single day, and one million euros in total. Legal action against him by the casino was unsuccessful, it being ruled that the casino should fix its wheel.[9][10]

To defend against exploits like these, many casinos use tracking software, use wheels with new designs, rotate wheel heads, and randomly rotate pocket rings.[11]

At the Ritz London casino in March 2004, two Serbs and a Hungarian used a laser scanner hidden inside a mobile phone linked to a computer to predict the sector of the wheel where the ball was most likely to drop. They netted 1.3m in two nights.[12] They were arrested and kept on police bail for nine months, but eventually released and allowed to keep their winnings as they had not interfered with the casino equipment.[13]

The numerous even-money bets in roulette have inspired many players over the years to attempt to beat the game by using one or more variations of a martingale betting strategy, wherein the gambler doubles the bet after every loss, so that the first win would recover all previous losses, plus win a profit equal to the original bet. The problem with this strategy is that, remembering that past results do not affect the future, it is possible for the player to lose so many times in a row, that the player, doubling and redoubling his bets, either runs out of money or hits the table limit. A large financial loss is certain in the long term if the player continued to employ this strategy. Another strategy is the Fibonacci system, where bets are calculated according to the Fibonacci sequence. Regardless of the specific progression, no such strategy can statistically overcome the casino's advantage, since the expected value of each allowed bet is negative.

The Labouchre System is a progression betting strategy like the martingale but does not require the gambler to risk his stake as quickly with dramatic double-ups. The Labouchere System involves using a series of numbers in a line to determine the bet amount, following a win or a loss. Typically, the player adds the numbers at the front and end of the line to determine the size of the next bet. When he wins, he crosses out numbers and continues working on the smaller line. If he loses, then he adds his previous bet to the end of the line and continues to work on the longer line. This is a much more flexible progression betting system and there is much room for the player to design his initial line to his own playing preference.

This system is one that is designed so that when the player has won over a third of his bets (less than the expected 18/38), he will win. Whereas the martingale will cause ruin in the event of a long sequence of successive losses, the Labouchre system will cause bet size to grow quickly even where a losing sequence is broken by wins. This occurs because as the player loses, the average bet size in the line increases.

As with all other betting systems, the average value of this system is negative.

The system, also called montant et demontant (from French, meaning upwards and downwards), is often called a pyramid system. It is based on a mathematical equilibrium theory devised by a French mathematician of the same name. Like the martingale, this system is mainly applied to the even-money outside bets, and is favored by players who want to keep the amount of their bets and losses to a minimum. The betting progression is very simple: After each loss, you add one unit to the next bet, and after each win, one unit is deducted from the next bet. Starting with an initial bet of, say, 1 unit, a loss would raise the next bet to 2 units. If this is followed by a win, the next bet would be 1 units.

This betting system relies on the gambler's fallacythat the player is more likely to lose following a win, and more likely to win following a loss.

There are numerous other betting systems that rely on this fallacy, or that attempt to follow 'streaks' (looking for patterns in randomness), varying bet size accordingly.

Many betting systems are sold online and purport to enable the player to 'beat' the odds. One such system was advertised by Jason Gillon of Rotherham, UK, who claimed you could 'earn 200 daily' by following his betting system, described as a 'loophole'. As the system was advertised in the UK press, it was subject to Advertising Standards Authority regulation, and following a complaint, it was ruled by the ASA that Mr. Gillon had failed to support his claims you could earn 200 daily, and that he had failed to show that there was any loophole.

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Roulette - Wikipedia