This may not make much sense when you’re up, but that’s because you’re not counting how many spins you’ve played. If you did—and had more money than God to test it—you’d find that, over hours and hours of play, your average loss would be about equal to the answer to the expected value problem. This isn’t to say, however, that playing these bets—and especially the American contiguous—is pointless. They can, in fact, be very helpful when combined with the right system, as we’ll see in Section VI. For now, though, we’re satisfied that we’ve expanded your horizons, and we’re going to finish off this section with another small list of details that, while they aren’t terribly important for system play, are worth knowing if you ever decide to play French Roulette:
- Check Yourself: Unlike American tables, checks don’t exist in French Roulette. Instead, players bet with the same casino chips they’d use at the poker and Craps tables. This might seem to make things simpler, but in fact, it can actually cause a great deal of confusion, especially when two players bet the same chip denominations on the same proposition and it wins.
- Team Players: American Roulette tables will generally have two casino attendants, the dealer who spins the wheel, collects the bets and handles buy-ins and cash-outs, and the “mucker” or “chipracker,” who keeps the “bank” (the casino’s side of the table) straightened, stacks the checks and helps the dealer count out payoffs. In French Roulette, the division of labor goes one step further, with three casino personnel at each wheel: A croupier, who oversees the operation, a “stick man” who clears the layout with a stick resembling a miniature shuffleboard paddle, and the “tourneur” who operates the wheel. This might seem a little excessive, but it makes a heck of a lot of sense when you consider that French Roulette dealers need to keep track of whose chips are whose.
- Double Trouble: French Roulette tables often have two wheels and one layout or two layouts and one wheel, with a team of attendants for each piece. No doubt, this is useful for speeding up play because roulette tends to draw a crowd in Europe. But it also makes some play strategies literally impossible. One of these is the “visual-tracking/past-posting” system, in which one player watches the wheel to determine the general area the ball will land in (visual tracking), then signals his teammate who bets on that area of the wheel after the dealer has called all bets final (past posting). Casino attendants will boot a player out the door if they catch him using the latter technique, and naturally, with five or six table operators, the chances of that happening go up big-time.
| Where ‘da Wheels At | ||||||||||
| Casino | Single-Zero wheels don’t just show up in Europe. In fact, tons of U.S. casinos have them too. Here’s a list of where you can find that sweet 2.7 percent edge if you ever find yourself over the Pond. | |||||||||
| 1. The Showboat | Atlantic City (In the baccarat room)* | |||||||||
| 2. The Trump Marina | Atlantic City | |||||||||
| 3. Trump Plaza | Atlantic City | |||||||||
| 4. The Trump Taj Mahal | Atlantic City (In the baccarat room) | |||||||||
| 5. Treasure Bay | Biloxi, Mississippi (French layout) | |||||||||
| 6. The Bellagio | Las Vegas (In the high-limit area) | |||||||||
| 7. Binions Horse Shoe | Las Vegas | |||||||||
| 8. The Hilton | Las Vegas (In the baccarat room) | |||||||||
| 9. The MGM Grand | Las Vegas | |||||||||
| 10. The Mirage | Las Vegas | |||||||||
| 11. The Montecarlo | Las Vegas | |||||||||
| 12. Paris | Las Vegas (French layout) | |||||||||
| 13. The Reserve | Las Vegas | |||||||||
| 14. The Stratosphere | Las Vegas | |||||||||
| 15. Club Cal-Neva | Reno | |||||||||
| 16. The Peppermill | Reno | |||||||||
| 17. Caesar’s Tahoe | Lake Tahoe (In the baccarat room) | |||||||||
| * | Note: Most U.S. casinos with Single-Zero wheels have “hybrid wheels” (a form of roulette with a French wheelhead and an English-language layout). Unless otherwise noted, the above wheels are all hybrids. Also, Atlantic City casinos do NOT offer Surrender on Single-Zero wheels.Besides those listed, most other U.S. casinos also have Single-Zero wheels. However, these are strictly reserved for V.I.P.s and high rollers. | |||||||||
