Roulette Comes To Paradise Springs
by SealWyf, HSM editor
Not all casino games are created equal.
A careful gambler knows this. A game may be fun to play — but if it requires a hefty bankroll or offers terrible odds, it’s best to avoid it. Because the alternative to being a careful gambler is being a broke one. And that’s no fun at all.
That said, roulette is one of the better casino games, because it gives you choices. You can play for safety with the even-money bets. Or you can play for mad rushes of adrenalin, by betting large amounts on single numbers. For every bet, the casino’s hold (the amount of your money they keep) is 5.26%. This means that, on the average, a bit over a nickel of every dollar you spend at the roulette table will go toward replacing burned-out light bulbs.
A five percent hold may not seem like all that much. And it’s not, considering that many slot machines hold 15% and Keno holds at least 25%. However, there are two things to keep in mind.
First, the hold applies to each and every bet you make, not your cumulative total. Suppose you are playing a game with a 5% hold, starting with bankroll of $100. Assuming zero volatility (which means it’s not gambling, just a mathematical demonstration), after one hand, you have $95. After ten hands, you have $59.87. After 100 hands, you have $.59. That’s a lot of light bulbs!
But the volatility of casino games is not zero. It can vary from a little to a lot, depending what game you are playing. So your hundred hands can leave you anywhere from dead broke (the most likely scenario) to rolling in dough. It’s just a matter of luck. That’s why it’s gambling, and not a defective automatic teller machine.
Which brings us back to roulette. With a 5% hold and potentially moderate volatility, it’s one of the better games on the casino floor. And it can be fun. I’m delighted that Digital Leisure has added it to the Paradise Springs casino. The appallingly bad Big Six wheel (with a house edge from 11% to 24%, depending on the bet) has been moved to a back corner, where it deserves to be. Actually, it deserves to be dumped in the alley and hauled away with the trash. The only reason to keep it around is that people may still wish to win the associated prizes.
Another factor to consider, when choosing a game to play, is that game’s reputation. This is especially important in Home, which is all about role-playing. You’re not going to be able to win any real money in Paradise Springs, so you might as well have a good time and act like a high roller for what in the real world would be a very modest investment.
By this criterion, the addition of roulette is a definite win. In real casinos, roulette is a game played by fairly well-to-do people who are having a good time. The game can get noisy and enthusiastic as favorite numbers hit. Couples visit the wheels after an evening in the nightclub, to spin a few numbers. It’s simple to play, and wins can be substantial. It’s an extrovert’s game, like craps — but easier to understand, and more forgiving to a player with a moderate bankroll.
In movies, roulette has a reputation of being a high-status game. The only higher status game is probably Baccarat, unless you are into poker. Now that we are getting new table games, I think Digital Leisure should add a Baccarat room to its next revision of the Casino. Despite the glamour, it’s a dead simple game to play, and the odds are decent. And of course it would open up all sorts of opportunity for role-play in Home, with socialites and secret agents mingling with cats, volcanoes, Amazon warriors and wandering Homelings, in a cosmopolitan atmosphere of glamorous intrigue.
Roulette can be a dead simple game to play as well. Your only decision is where to place your bets. And, since all bets pay off at 95% over the long run, your only concern is how much volatility you willing to ride for a chance at a profit.
If you are simply playing to win all the prizes, your best strategy is to put through a lot of cash for very little risk. And the best way to do this is bet both sides of a more-or-less even bet: black and red, or even and odd, or first and second 18. You will never make a profit, and most of your hands will just break even. But you will only lose when the wheel hits 0 or 00 — one in 16 spins, on the average. You put a lot of cash through, move up the tiers, and walk away with your rewards for a modest investment.
If you want a bit more excitement in your life, bet on red or black, even or odd, etc. You will lose about half the time, and win about half the time. For a bit more volatility, consider the bets that cover a third of the board. That way you’ll win about a third of the time, and there’s a possibility that a run of luck will earn you a tidy profit.
If you want to indulge your inner high roller, and have the time and bankroll, try playing single numbers. None are better than others. Pick your favorite, and give it a whirl. If you hit, you get back 36 times your original bet — a nice return in any game.
While we’re talking numbers, I would like to say something about the two green spaces, 0 and 00. They’re numbers too — you can place bets on them, and they’ll return 36 times your investment. If you only know roulette from movies, you may be surprised there are two of them. You should be. The 00 space was added as a way to increase the casino’s hold from 2.70% to 5.26%. High-end wheels in the US, and many wheels in Europe, still have the single zero. The 00 space makes sense when you are earning real-world cash to replace the burned-out light bulbs. In a virtual casino, it feels a little predatory. But then so do Keno and Big Six. And you know how I feel about those.
Digital Leisure’s implementation of roulette is very nice. The betting layout is substantially that of real casinos, with a few simplifications — in real casinos, there are several ways to split a bet over adjacent numbers by placing it on the lines or intersections between them. This could be confusing in a Home-based casino, where most of the players are not real gamblers. Digital Leisure was wise to leave them off.
(Note from Digital Leisure: “Just a heads up, the author mentioned that you can’t split your bets in Roulette, but you can if you change the bet mode.”)
The wheel’s sounds and actions are very close to those of a real roulette table. The physics look accurate — the regular descent of the ball down the wheel’s smooth outer edge changing to random hops and skips as it hits the baffles toward the center. The number history listed above each wheel looks weird enough to be truly random. (It’s a well-known fact of psychology that random events appear clumped. This is why many gamblers are superstitious.)
The game offers ten new prizes to pursue, from the simple (Aviator glasses for spinning the wheel ten times) to the potentially expensive (a Cardboard Robot Costume, for winning a max bet on a single number.) Some of them look quite decent. I can see a use for my own virtual Roulette Wheel, a Horse Head Mask or a Heart-Shaped Bed. I’m not sure what I would do with a Dice Bra, though. I guess I’ll just have to find out, if I win it.
I’ll finish with a few words on the Big Six wheel. It’s still here, though it no longer takes center stage. If you want it, you’ll find it in the corner of the Roulette room. But the game itself is boring as a snail race, and twice as lossy. The only reason to play it at all is to win the associated prizes.
If that’s why you’re playing it, your best strategy is to make relatively safe bets with the largest possible amount, and get it over with before the odds wear you down. And the odds on Big Six are brutal. Remember that the best bet you can make on Big Six, the “1” square (which pays even money) has a house edge of 11.11%. If that doesn’t sound too bad, let me put it this way: if you started with a stake of $1,000, and ran it through that 11-percent meat grinder 100 times with zero volatility, you would end up with less than a penny.
So how can you win the Big Six prizes without spending your rent on Paradise Springs chips? Your best strategy is to go to the Big Six wheel in the VIP Room and place the maximum bet on both the 1 and 2 spaces. If the 1 hits, you will break even. If the 2 hits, you will make a profit. If anything else hits, you will lose your whole bet. But either 1 or 2 will hit about 72% of the time. You’re still bleeding money, but there’s a tourniquet on it.
Once you win all the prizes, walk away and return to the Poker Room, where you are playing against other players instead of the house — in other words, the one place in the Casino where you actually have a chance of making a profit. The conversation is better there, too. And conversation is what Home is all about.
For giving us a good implementation of a classic casino game, and for keeping Paradise Springs fresh and exciting, I award the Roulette Room 4.0 Bubble Machines. I would have given it five if it been a single-zero wheel, which would have reduced the house edge to a civilized level. But single-zero wheels are rare in real life as well. You really can’t fault Digital Leisure for copying reality.
Good luck!
- Good implementation of casino roulette
- Some interesting prizes
- It's always nice to see a public space refreshed with new content
- Double-zero wheel means a higher house edge
June 19th, 2012 by SealWyf_ | 2 comments
SealWyf is a museum database programmer, who has been active in online communities since before the Internet, and in console gaming since the PS1. In games, she prefers the beautiful and quirky, and anything with a strong storyline. She is obsessed with creating new aesthetic experiences in PlayStation Home.
Nice Article Sea! I have never been a fan of gambling but always preferred the Craps Tables as they were full of the real freaks and I guess I felt a little like I fit in. (don’t understand the game at all but just hang out and do what they tell me to do.) I headed to the Roulette tables when they first opened because I wanted to lose three times and win the flippen plant for a decorating design I had in mind. I figured that Roulette was one of the most glamorous ways to lose at gambling… but I just couldn’t figure it out before someone started the blasted game. So I went to the slot machines and won two times… finally on at third trip back I lost and got my coveted plant. But thank you for spelling this out. I actually might try it again… when I feel the “Leaving Las Vegas” urge come upon me. Nothing like a good dose of losing at the roulette table to put my ego in check. heh.
If they ever make my Casablanca dream come true (see the article Norse wrote on Urban Development) I think they should have a back room with roulette tables… that 1930s/40s nightclub ambiance would not be the same without them.
I’ll put it all on black and let it ride!