Roulette House Edge
The house edge in roulette is significant, hovering over 5% in American
Roulette, so gamblers should know that the odds are stacked against them
when betting on roulette. The roulette house edge, also called the roulette
expected value, is one of the largest expectation edges in casino gaming.
High House Edge
As I was discussing the other day, as a good rule of thumb, the easier a game is to learn, the higher the house edge. You might be paranoid about these things and think the casino operators assume people who play the easiest games are going to know the least about the odds, and therefore they can rook them on the game's payouts. I'm not sure if that's the thinking, but it sure would explain the huge expected value on state lotteries. If a casino ran a game with that big of a house edge, the state would shut their casino down for fraud.
Casino Game House Edges
I've
been comparing roulette to the other casino games a lot lately, making
statements that other games have better odds than Roulette. I wanted to give
you a chart to look at, so you could see I'm not making this stuff up. You
can verify the truth behind these stats by looking at any number of other
sites online for gambling odds and house edges, and I encourage you to check
out my numbers.
- Single Zero Roulette (European) - House Edge: 2.63%
- Double Zero Roulette (American) - House Edge: 5.26%
- Blackjack (liberal rules) - House Edge: 0.28%
- Video Poker (Jacks or Better) - House Edge: 0.46%
- Pai Gow Poker - House Edge: 1.46%
- Craps - House Edge: Between 1.36% and 13.89% (depending on bets)
- Baccarat - Player - House Edge: 1.24%
- Baccarat - Banker - House Edge: 1.06%
- Baccarat - Tie - House Edge: 14.36%
- Keno - 25% to 29% House Edge
Expected Value of Roulette
As you can see, the European Roulette house edges isn't good, but it isn't scandalous, either. The American roulette house edge is getting pretty darned close to scandalous. Games like blackjack, video poker, Pai Gow poker, Baccarat (assuming you don't bet on the tie), and Craps (once again assuming you don't make a crazy bet). The only game listed with worse odds is Keno, and it's essentially a lottery style game.
I would have listed slot machines, but there are so many different slots games, each with its own house edge, that if I posted those expected values, it would have been distracting. Many mainstream online slots games hover around the averages for double-zero roulette expected values, though some are better and others much worse.
The point being, you can find much better games to play, if all you value is finding the best value for your betting dollar. Roulette's easy to play and goes at a calm pace, so many players, knowing the odds, still prefer to play roulette to the games with better odds.
Roulette Variance
Besides, gamblers can beat the odds, despite what's stacked against you. A house edge is what the casino expects to make on average for each hand from a theoretical limitless number of hands. It's the expected amount you're going to lose.
In the short term, the variance in roulette means you could win a lot, beating the odds. You might walk out with 50% winning, while the next ten players (who bet the same money) might walk out with 10% losses. It's not that simple, of course, but if the roulette house edge is going to assure winnings for the casino, someone would have to lose to make up for what you won.
That's why they call it gambling, because it's not certain anyone is going to win or lose--just likely that the casino rakes more than it loses.
Roulette Payout Percentage
Payout percentages goes hand-in-hand with the house edge. To get what the payout percentage is, simply subtract the house edge from 100%. So if the house edge is 5.26%, subtract 5.26 from 100 to get the payout percentage for roulette. Simple math leaves you with 94.74%. For every $100 you wager at a roulette wheel, you can expect to receive $94.74 in roulette winnings.
That's how casino gambling works. That's $5.26 doesn't seem like that much, especially if you're betting $5 a spin. In 20 spins, that comes to about one extra lost spin. Even that is illusory, since on a 50-50 bet, you're going to win 10 out of 20--it's just the payouts that get you. Nickel and dime all day long with thousands of different players, and the casino ends up making plenty of money.
Roulette House Edge - The Price of Entertainment
Which is why you hear from your gambling friends all these stories about what they won at the casino. The losses tend to be small and incremental enough that they are quickly forgotten. But the big winning jackpots and winning roulette sessions tend to stand out. That's what gets reported.
But that's the right attitude, anyway. You should look at what you lose (or expect to lose) at the casino as the price of entertainment. You wouldn't flinch at paying money for concert tickets or movie tickets or even airfare for vacation, which are all entertainment expenses. If you gamble wisely and responsibly, then you can look at your gambling losses as just another entertainment expense.
Though the roulette house edge means you're probably going to pay that expense, casino gambling is better than those other forms of entertainment, though, because if you get lucky, you'll walk about being paid for your hours of entertainment.
