Bettors Palace
Betting Odds in Roulette
In Roulette, a person wins if the roulette ball falls into the pocket or one of the pockets that they had predicted it would fall into. An American roulette wheel typically has a total of thirty-eight pockets; two pockets are green and numbered zero and double zero, and the rest are colored an alternating red and black, and numbered from one to thirty-six. This means that a person has a one in thirty-seven chance of winning a game of roulette, if they should decide to make a Straight Up bet and place their money on a single number from one to thirty-six. Despite that, the payout for winning a Straight Up roulette bet is thirty-five dollars for every dollar that a person bets. This difference between odds and payout makes up part of the house edge or house average. This term is also often called the "expected average." It is the average amount that a player loses in relation to the bet made.
During the days of the saloon, which was the American frontier equivalent of the modern day casino, the house edge was such that if a person made a Straight Up bet in a game of roulette, the odds would be set at twenty-seven to one, and a person's payout would be twenty-seven dollars for every one dollar that they had bet. Today though, most casino odds have been standardized by law; meaning that if a person makes a Straight Up roulette bet and wins, they will incur winnings of thirty-four to thirty-five dollars to every dollar that they had invested, and they get to keep their original bet.
While casinos are great places to have fun, gamble, and occasionally enjoy some live entertainment, these places are also business establishments, and it takes a lot of money to keep a good casino running. This is why there is a house edge. The house edge ensures that, even if a bet has been made and won, the odds that the player has to face are still usually higher than the payout, and the casino does not have to part with as much money, or at all. In roulette, in any outside bet, if the ball lands in zero or double zero, it is immediately counted as a loss. In inside bets, the house edge is already displayed by the fact that the odds are thirty-five dollars to one, but a person's chances of winning are thirty-seven to one.
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