Roulette is undoubtedly one of the most popular casino games in the world. Try walking through a casino and you will see throngs of people standing around the wheel, cheering with every spin by the dealer. The popularity of Roulette has translated well over to the online gambling world.
The ‘wheel’ is what makes the game exciting. The Roulette wheel and the ball certainly add to the drama. For many novice players, the wheel may seem like a complicated mass of numbers and colours, but for the experienced, it signifies excellent potential to optimize payouts.
Here is everything you need to know about the Roulette wheel.
The European and American Roulette variants
Take a look at what the European and American Roulette has in store!
European Roulette wheel layout
This is the most famous layout of the Roulette wheel having 37 pockets, and numbers ranging from 0 to 36. The European variant also has a single green pocket 0. This layout drastically reduces the house edge. The European Roulette wheel follows a clockwise sequence of 26, 3, 35, 12, 28, 7, 29, 18, 22, 9, 31, 14, 20, 1, 33, 16, 24, 5, 10, 23, 8, 30, 11, 36, 13, 27, 6, 34, 17, 25, 2, 21, 4, 19, 15, and 32.
American Roulette wheel layout
Unlike the European variant, this layout possesses two green pockets making the total number of pockets 38 and increasing the house edge to 5.26%. The Roulette wheel numbers on this layout clockwise sequence of 0, 2, 14, 35, 23, 4, 16, 33, 21, 6, 18, 31, 19, 8, 12, 29, 25, 10, 27, 00, 1, 13, 36, 24, 3, 15, 34, 22, 5, 17, 32, 20, 7, 11, 30, 26, 9, 28.
The wheel layout
Novice players tend to find it difficult to understand the wheel because of their lack of knowledge about the layout. You’ll need to know about the parts of the wheel for easy identification as a novice player because some of the parts hold tremendous secrets. Let’s take a look at two of these parts:
Diamonds
Diamonds are metal disruptors set at various parts of the wheel, which tend to deflect the ball. The secret here is that there will always be some particular diamonds that the ball hits more frequently, which are called Dominant Diamonds. Experienced players make use of these diamonds to predict where the ball will land.
Ball track
The ball track of the Roulette wheel is made of wood and is coated with epoxy plastic. As with all other objects, the ball is also subject to wear and tear. So, this can also change the result of a random game into a strategized game.
The logic behind the Roulette wheel layout
The sequence of the numbers on the Roulette wheel is carefully designed to accomplish several things:
Red and black will always alternate – Whether you’re playing American and European Roulette, two adjacent pockets will always have different colours.
Low and high numbers should alternate – The European Roulette wheel will rarely feature low and high numbers next to each other, expect the 5 and 10. In American Roulette, however, the high numbers are often next to low numbers, which makes European Roulette the more balanced of the two variants.
Odds and even numbers are distributed evenly – In general, there shouldn’t ever be more than two odds or even numbers next to each other.