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by John Grochowski

Casino games don’t stand still, not even games that are more than 200 years old. There are tweaks and changes as operators strive to make the games more profitable.

That can mean making the games more attractive so more people play. It also can mean raising the house edge and hoping that doesn’t drive off players.

The latter course has been set by casinos trying out triple zero roulette. Instead of one green space with a 0, or two with a 0 and a 00, there are three with a 0, 00 and 000.

Sometimes the 000 space is filled with a logo instead, but the effect is the same. It expands the wheel to 39 spaces, winners are still paid at odds that would be true for 36 spaces, and the extra space increases the house edge.

Instead of the usual 2.7 percent at a single-zero wheel or 5.26 percent on most bets at a double-zero wheel, the house edge jumps to 7.69 percent with three zeroes.

Where did Triple Zero Roulette Originate?

Triple zero roulette first popped up on the Las Vegas at the Venetian in the fall of 2016. There, it’s called Sands Roulette and instead of a 000, a Sands logo is used. That’s the only connection to the old Sands hotel and casino, which once stood on the Venetian site. This isn’t any nostalgic old game, it’s just a higher-edge version of an old one.

A triple zero roulette game at the New York New York casino in Las Vegas

Since then, the game has popped up at other Strip locations, including Excalibur, New York New York, Harrah’s, Luxor and more. Triple zero roulette has made its way to downtown Las Vegas at the Golden Nugget and Four Queens, and also has been spotted at locals casinos including Green Valley Ranch and the Palms.

Calculating the House Edge in Roulette

Calculating the house edge isn’t difficult. In an average 39 single-number bets in which each number turned up once, a winner would bring a 35-to-1 payoff in which the bettor gets 35 units in winnings and keeps his one-unit bet. That leaves 36 units on the player side of the table, and the house keeps three units for the sequence.

Divide the house’s three-unit profit by 39 units risked, and you get 0.0769. Multiply by 100 to convert to percent, and the house edge is 7.69 percent.

To go into more detail, think about the situation on bets with even-money payoffs such as red or black, odd or even, or 1-18 and 19-36.

All of the “outside” bets in roulette pay even money (1-to-1)

Imagine you bet $1 on red for each spin in a 39-spin sequence in which each number came up once. Your total risk would be $39.

On the 0, 00 and 000 (or Sands logo or other special logo), you’d lose your $1. You’d also lose your bets on the 18 black numbers.

The 18 red numbers each bring $1 in winnings and you get to keep your $1 wagers. So you win $18 and keep $18 for a total of $36.

That $36 on your side of the table means the house has kept $3, and as we’ve already seen above, $3 in house profit divided by $39 in wagers, then multiplied by 100 to convert to percent, yields a 7.69 percent house edge.

A triple zero roulette wheel at the New York New York casino in Las Vegas

You could do that exercise for every available wager, and the answer would be the same. Regardless of whether you’re betting 12-number columns, four-number corners, two-number splits or any other available bet at a triple-zero table, the house edge is 7.69 percent.

How Does the Triple Zero Roulette Advantage Compare to Double Zero Roulette?

How does that compare to double-zero roulette, the most common roulette configuration in American casinos?

Let’s try the same exercise with even-money bets at a double-zero wheel.

There are 38 numbers instead of 39, so your risk is $38 at $1 a spin in a sequence in which every number turns up once.

Bets on red and you will lose on the two zeroes and on the black numbers. On each of the 18 red numbers, you win $1 and keep your $1 bet.

A triple zero roulette table layout at the New York New York casino in Las Vegas

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Again that leaves you with $36 at the end of the sequence. Since your risk was $38, that gives the house a $2 profit.

The $2 house profit divided by the $38 risk, multiplied by 100 yields a 5.26 percent house edge.

That’s how it is for every bet on a double-zero wheel. The house edge is 5.26 percent on all but the five-number basket of 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3, where the edge is 7.89 percent.

If we ran the same exercise for single-zero wheels, we’d find all bets with a house edge of 2.7 percent.

A single-zero roulette game at the famed Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco

Edges can be trimmed by special rules such as the European en prison or the Atlantic City half back rule when even-money bets run up against a zero. But basic house edges are 2.7 percent for a single-zero wheel, 5.26 percent for double-zero and 7.69 percent on triple-zero games.

If a fourth zero was added, the house edge would rise to 10 percent, and would continue to rise as more zeros or logos were added.

As long as payoffs remain at true odds for 36 numbers, each space added to roulette wheels will increase the house edge. The player’s best defense is to seek out wheels with fewer zeroes.

John Grochowski has been covering casinos and casino games for nearly 40 years. He is the author of six books
and his work appears in newspapers, magazines and websites around the world.

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Roulette Zero

The number zero. Is it even a number? Or is it a non-number?

Well, we always talk about the number zero, so let´s say for the sake of argument that it is a number. If you halve something, and then halve it again, and then halve it again, you are going to have a smaller and smaller number. If you did this an infinite number of times, you´d arrive at zero, but of course that isn´t going to happen in the real world. And that´s the thing about zero, much of what we talk about when we talk about the number zero is theoretical- it´s all in the mind.

But back to roulette. The zero is the only green number on the roulette wheel, and it marks the difference between a European Roulette wheel and an American Roulette wheel, as a European wheel has one zero pocket and an American wheel has two zero pockets (the 0 and the 00).

On a European Wheel, the 0 sits between black 26 and the red number 32. Over in Vegas on the American wheels, the 0 sites between black 2 and black 26 and the 00 has red 1 and red 27 as neighbours.

How to Play the Number Zero in Roulette

You can bet on the number zero in the same way as you can bet on any individual number on the roulette wheel- just place a single number bet on the number and you´ll get a 35:1 payout if it comes in (plus your original bet back).

The zero is often seen as an unlucky number (well it is called the zero)- especially in roulette, as many bets will not pay out if the ball lands in this pocket, such as the outside even money bets, the column bets and the dozens bet and so on.

In a way, that´s a little bit unfair on the zero, as if you bet on the red, you´ll lose if a black number comes up OR the zero comes up, but players tend to feel unlucky when the zero lands and they are playing the even money bets. There are ways of insuring yourself against this happening. You could play a roulette variant like Next Gen European Roulette that plays La Partage. This is a rule that forces the casino to return half of your even money bet if the ball lands in zero. It´s a good one to look out for, as it will reduce the house edge down to 1.3% on these bets. You may also find this rule played on many French Roulette games.

You could also lay a small side bet on the zero to cover yourself for those times when the 0 hits. We´d advise against it- it´s better just to run the gauntlet and trust your luck.

The only rule that we suggest you stick to with the zero, is to only play on single zero roulette wheels. Avoid the double zero roulette wheels (the American ones). If you think it´s bad news when the ball lands in the single zero, how bad are you going to feel when it lands in the double zero? There´s a reason that European Roulette is more popular online than the American game. There´s more choice and the odds are better on the former.

A popular way of covering the zero is with the Voisins du Zero bet. This covers the numbers from 22 to 25 including the zero. These are the Neighbours or Voisins of zero.

If you are playing American Roulette (I thought we told you to avoid it!), you could also play the worst bet in roulette, which covers 0,00, 1, 2 and 3. But why would you? The odds are the worst in roulette.

Another neat way of covering the zero on a European table is with a Jeu Zero bet, which is kind of like a mini Voisins du Zero bet. It just covers 6 neighbours of zero with 4 chips.

Let´s Talk About the Zero

Zero is one of those numbers that is known by a number of names including nothing, none, nought, nil, zip, zilch and nada. In cricket, if you are bowled for a duck you scored zero runs and if you are 40 love down in a tennis game you haven´t scored any points.

The zero hasn´t always been recognised- the Ancient Greeks had no word for it and were sceptical as to whether it was a number at all. How can something be something if it is nothing? You can see their point.

The idea of zero is thought to have been fully developed on the Indian sub-continet where it appeared around A.D. 458 in mathematical equations that were spelled out or spoken in poetry or chants. In 628, a Hindu mathematician called Brahmagupta came up with a symbol for zero — a dot underneath numbers.

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It was through the Arabic world that we came to use the zero as a placeholder and number in calculations. The Hindu–Arabic base 10 system for numbers that we use to this day reached Europe in the 11th century, thanks to the Moors in Spain.

Zero is an even number as you can divide it by 2 without getting a remainder and is the smallest no-negative integer.

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The number zero really started to come into its own with the development of computers, as it represents the “off state” in a binary system, where 1 is the “on state”.

Summary

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So is zero a number? Can you have a number that´s nothing? That´s getting into philosophy, so we are going to say that yes, 0 is a number, at least in roulette. It has its own pocket and space on the betting layout, and there are even 2 of them on some wheels.

Just remember, the odds of the ball landing in the zero are exactly the same as the odds of the ball landing in any other number!