New roulette number arrangement

4 June 2013

By Frank Scoblete

Hello Frank,

My name is Thomas and I live in the south island city of Christchurch, New Zealand.
We have only one casino here aptly named "Christchurch Casino" and there is something I'd like to ask you in regards to roulette. I have been very familiar with who you are for some years now, and read your book "Spin Roulette Gold" and read many other articles and comments of yours, always with interest regarding other games you have expertise in.

Anyhow as you may know New Zealand has always been seen as single-zero roulette territory, but a few months ago a double zero wheel appeared in the gaming area and one of the staff told me it was just experimental and was most probably only temporary, but a few weeks ago another double zero wheel appeared, both minimum $2.00 tables but on weekends when things are more busy they will open another couple of single zero $2.00 tables along with one $5.00 table.

Now to the interesting part, I know of course that the numbers are placed around the wheel on the double zero wheels in your country, in different positions to the single zero wheels we've had here, but what they have done with these two double zero wheels here is to retain exactly the same number positioning clockwise from the single zero to 32, 15, 19, 4, 21, 2, 25, 17, 34 and so on and then they have jammed the two zeros at the bottom between numbers 5 and 24.

So was just wondering does this seem a bit odd or unusual to you Frank, or have you heard of or seen this type of thing before, also there are new major shareholders that have taken over recently.

I have also heard that they have toughened up in certain areas on the slot machines also, not that I play them or are familiar with the slots.

Anyhow hope to be able to read your comments soon Frank, when you have time okay.

Yours Truly,
Thomas


Dear Thomas:

I have never seen what you are referring to and I do hope they decide to take those double-zero roulette wheels out. They basically double the house’s edge over the player.

It really doesn’t matter where they shoved the two zero points on the wheel. The game is random and each has the same probability of coming up. The fact that they kept the alignment of the numbers on the wheel the same is probably due to the fact that they had no interest in changing them; nor did they really need to change them.

The numbers were placed on wheels in the old days in ways that would not allow a player to play a few or a column of numbers on the betting layout that were in close proximity on the wheel for fear of biased wheels where some areas might contain more hits. With today’s sophisticated wheels that is really no longer a worry.

All the best in and out of the casinos,

Frank Scoblete