If you happen to walk onto the casino floor of a resort somewhere like Las Vegas, it’s more than likely that you will see more than a few roulette tables. It’s also expected that the tables will be distinguished from each other based on betting limits, or there may be a choice between American and European roulette. Yet, that’s probably where the differences will end. More or less, playing at one table will be like playing at another.
Online, it’s a different story altogether. Both in the virtual and live dealer sections of online casinos you will find a varied selection of roulette games, many of which have different themes, rules, payout awards, and a variety of other mechanisms. For players, the question of exploring the new games or sticking with the classic variants is an intriguing one for several different reasons.
Games mimic real-world probabilities
The first thing to say is that the classic online roulette games are built to mimic the real-world odds of their physical counterparts. So, if you choose to play European roulette online, regardless of whether that is live or software-based, the odds and payout awards are designed to reflect what you would get in a ‘real casino.’ That unwritten rule has basically been in place since the early days of the internet and the web in the 1990s when the first casino sites began to appear.
For other roulette games, that symmetry is not always in place. The return to player rates might be – but not always – lower than the classic games. There are reasons for this, and it isn’t about the casino taking liberties with the returns. For example, some online roulette games may carry progressive jackpots – potentially huge, ever-rising awards that could be worth millions of dollars – and the trade-off is that the theoretical house edge might nudge in favor of the casino.
Carry out risk-versus-reward analysis
We can illustrate what we mean with another example, this time breaking down the numbers. There is a popular online roulette variant called 100/1 Roulette, which is available in DraftKings’ roulette selection and many other platforms. As the name suggests, 100/1 Roulette pays one hundred to one for a winning straight-up bet, which is much higher than the 35 to 1 in ‘normal’ roulette, but the theoretical return to player is lower than comparable classic games. The explanation is simple: the game is more volatile, and that is reflected in a risk-versus-reward payout mechanism.
Regardless of where you play roulette, you will understand that it is a game of pure chance, so the important thing for players is to match their choices to their risk appetite. Some players might use options like the Martingale strategy in the hope of walking away with a small profit, whereas others may be looking for moonshot plays. The plethora of online roulette options covers all those bases. But the important aspect is that players study the rules of each game so they know the parameters of their risk.
We mentioned European and American roulette earlier as one of the few choices that players have in land-based casinos. Most experienced players are aware that the odds are superior in European roulette as the game carries only one green (Zero) pocket compared to the two in American roulette (Zero and Double-Zero). It makes the choice of European roulette, when offered, a simple one. At online casinos, you have a much wider choice and decisions to make. All games will have strengths and weaknesses, so the key is to match them up to your risk appetite and wider roulette strategy.
