I am going way, way back to a time when there were candy stores just for kids.
Oh, not the kind of candy stores we have today with store-created candy by “candy-chefs” but the kind where maybe a fourth of the store was devoted to candy cigarettes of all types that were made by companies that made all sorts of awfully but deliciously tasting candied cigarettes for little kids who lived in a culture where so many, many adults smoked.
All my uncles (with maybe a few exceptions) smoked. I had so many, many uncles, and all of them fought in World War II where cigarettes were given out to many of them as a part of their “rations.”
My father didn’t smoke – except the occasional cigar; my mother smoked but not at home. Basically, my parents’ apartment was smoke free – but me? I loaded it with seemingly millions of candy cigarettes of all types.
We had many types of hard candy cigarettes that you had to really bite ferociously to break and chew. They must have been pure sugar. You had chocolate candy cigarettes that were wrapped in cigarette paper. Those were expensive but the best tasting of them all. How can you ever turn down a chocolate candy-cigarette?
Now, did I know anything about sugar? No. Did I know anything about cigarettes? No.
Only adults could smoke them and those adults looked cool although I didn’t know the word “cool” way back then. I guessed that when I became an adult I would smoke too.
That’s what you did as an adult, right?
I do remember that at lunch time, when I was in elementary school, the kids would rush to the candy store with their pennies (and maybe a nickel or two for the richer kids) to hoard away the candy cigarettes they’d load up on. I guess you could say that I lived the life.
Being ignorant of the facts of real life I had fun gobbling down loads of candy cigarettes. I had no idea of the horrors of sugar – what kid does? If it tasted good then it was good.
Many casino players, maybe even most casino players, are like those excited kids in the candy store. The games are just like those candy cigarettes displayed for all to see. They do have a hidden danger that some players don’t really understand. It’s called the house edge.
Every game being played has such an edge. Some of the games have reasonable house edges; some have nasty house edges.
Look around any casino floor and there are slot machines galore and all sorts of table games jammed with players.
We players can, using just a wee bit of our imaginations, look just like the hordes of young kids figuring out what candy cigarettes they want to eat way back when.
The Game of Roulette
There are now three different roulette games in the casinos. They go from a decent game – the single-zero (0) European/French wheel with the numbers 1-36 and a single 0 with a house edge of 2.7%, to mediocre with the double-zero (0, 00) American wheel with the numbers 1-36 and a 0 and a 00 with a house edge of 5.26%, and the latest roulette game that no country takes credit for, with triple zeroes (0, 00, 000) with a house edge of 7.69%.
That triple-zero wheel seems to have come to us from the churches that held Las Vegas nights (or some such) for their parishioners and others willing to gamble for spirituality and perhaps a chance of heaven.
Obviously, the triple-zero game has a ridiculously high house edge. Watch how the house edges are determined and you can then see how the casinos have offered really poor candy cigarettes to their clientele.
There are 36 numbers on all three of the roulette wheels. They travel from 1 to 36.
Check out the wheels and you’ll see these displayed. The numbers on the various wheels are not in numerical order, for example, the number one is nowhere near the number two. However, the layout is in numerical order.
Why is this so? Placing the numbers as the casinos do prevents people playing the layout from betting groups of numbers that are in bunches on the wheel. Of course, wheel-watchers are, obviously, watching the wheel and not the layout but still almost all roulette players play the layout and not the wheel. Just check out a game with a lot of players.
[Please note: The chances of finding a truly biased wheel are now so remote in today’s casinos that it is probably a waste of time to scout for them. Yes, sorry, they probably don’t exist anymore as today’s wheels are computer and electronic marvels and they are constantly checked. My wife, the Beautiful AP, and I accidentally found a biased wheel in the early 1990s in a Las Vegas casino. Three numbers were coming up for an entire day out of all proportion to their probabilities. So, finally at night, we sat down at the table and started to hammer home those numbers. Strangely, no one else played them! The pit boss finally closed the wheel. He was very polite when he told us we could go to another table which was just being opened. Instead, my wife and I went to our room for a well-earned sleep.]
Now we come to the zero and the double and the triple zeroes. These can be found at the top of the layout and opposed to each other on the wheels.
So far so good, right? Now, more bad news as I look at the payouts for the various roulette games.
All inside bets directly on the numbers or the zeroes will pay 35-to-1. At the European/French single-zero game, there are 37 pockets for the ball to fall into. The true payout for a winning bet is not really 35-to-1 but 36-to-1. The casino does not pay out the true value of the bet – otherwise it can’t make money. In short, the casino short-changes the players. By the way, it does this at many of their games, just check out some of the “place” bets at craps.
The American game, the double-zero wheel, has 38 pockets, and a winning hit on this still pays 35-to-1. That increases the edge over the players from 2.7% to 5.26%.
And finally, and lousily, the triple-zero wheel has 39 pockets and a winning hit still (yes, still!) pays 35-to-1. Just figure it this way, the more zeroes a wheel has the higher its edge.
How to Buy the Casinos’ Roulette Candy Cigarettes
Roulette has been a great casino game for several centuries and there does not seem to be any reason to believe it won’t stay as popular. Sure, today’s blackjack game is numero uno but roulette is number two or number three. Roulette players are a loyal tribe.
The game was invented by scientist, philosopher, and theologian Blaise Pascal in the 1600s. Blaise was trying to answer one of science’s greatest questions: Could there be such a thing as a perpetual motion machine? That is, a machine that would not need the input of any outside energy to run and run and run, well, and run perpetually. He received the answer everyone who tried to discover the correct answer received and that was (sad to say) a resounding “no!”
But he did, along the way, invent roulette.
[Please note: What else did Blaise do to give him fame? He answered the question of whether it would be smart to believe in God? His answer was pretty clever. If he doesn’t believe in God and God actually exists, well then, good old Blaise would be in for everlasting torment in hell. So, Blaise figured he’d believe in God and if there were no God, what the heck, no eternal damnation; actually no nothing. But if there were a God then Blaise probably smiled, knowing he would be saved. Sadly, there is no way to play roulette in a casino where the house does not have an edge.]
All Those Bets!
Roulette has an amazing number of bets a player can make – all of them coming in with that particular game’s house edge. There is only one way to escape this – and I’ll get to that later (don’t you dare skip ahead!).
Betting one number directly on that particular number opens you up to long losing streaks, much like slot players face.
Just contemplate this. You have a one in 37 chance of hitting your number on the single-zero wheel, a one in 38 chance of hitting it on the double-zero wheel, and a one in 39 chance of hitting it on the triple-zero wheel. Those bets are long shots for sure.
Yes, you can make two, three or more bets on two, three or more numbers – spending two, three or more amounts of cash. That is an option is you can afford it. You’re just like the rich kid buying up all the candy cigarettes.
Or, you can bet propositions which come in with many more numbers and only one bet needed. Here are a few of these:
You can put a single bet on the side of some numbers such a 1, 2, 3 or 4, 5, 6 on up by threes. (You can do groupings of six numbers too.)
You can put a single bet on propositions such as columns and dozens which will pay 2-to-1. You lose if the green zero or zeroes show up.
You can bet the even-money bets of red or black, high or low, or odd or even.
These are called even-money bets because a win is paid at even-money. You bet one chip and get paid one chip but the BIG BUT here is that on the single-zero wheel you have a one in 18 chance of hitting your proposition (you want red so you bet red) but the casino is still taking its cut from your win. How so? Those green zeroes are all losers on the even-money bets too. Ah, nuts!
It gets worse as you go up the zero ladder. Still, these bets won’t come in with major losing streaks. I believe that is a good thing. I believe that is why I prefer to bet the even-money bets. Long losing streaks can really, really get to you.
The Gift Given by Some Casinos!
The casinos are not always money-grubbing entities, are they? Actually, in rare cases not exactly. Some casinos will give you a little treat on the even-money bets.
I am going to go a little sideways in this section. Stay with me, okay?
The even-money bets are good on the single-zero wheel with a 2.7% house edge, and “so-so” on the double-zero wheel with a 5.26% house edge, and stinky on the triple-zero wheel with the abominable 7.69% house edge.
Follow me. Just tour the casino and look at the games closely. In no game does the casino explain how it gets its house edge. There is no sign at the roulette table proclaiming “the house edge on this game is” … whatever the house edge is. At no game is this true.
Go to a craps table and no casino proclaims which are the good bets, which are the bad bets, which are anything about any of the bets. True of blackjack. True of every game in the house.
But there is an option that some casinos will offer the player at roulette who bets the even-money bets, which is, in the scheme of things, a darn good one. On the single-zero game, it is called “en prison” and on the double-zero game it is called “surrender.”
When a zero hits, the casino will only take half your bet in the American game reducing the house edge of that game in half. It goes from 5.26% down to 2.63% – not too bad.
But on the single-zero European/French game “en prison” does the same thing (but differently) by holding onto the bet and not paying it until the next decision. This reduces that game’s house edge down to 1.35%! That is one of the best bets on the casinos!
How do you know if the casino allows this? Just ask! They won’t advertise it but if they offer it and you ask them, they will tell you.
All the best in and out of the casinos!
