h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Working in the gaming industry as I do, we operate roulette tables on touch-screen machines in our shops.

If you are under 18, don't get excited, as you're not even allowed in the shop, let alone allowed to play these machines. It's the law. Come back in a few years.

Now, we have two roulette games. "Roulette" and "American Roulette". Apart from being intensely annoying (the sound effects on the american version of the game are so unbeleivably irritating when you hear it day after day from ten feet away) the American Roulette has two zeros, 0, and 00 (double-zero). These are both green, i.e. neither red nor black, neither odd nor even, neither high nor low.

This increases the odds against winning a single number bet from 36-1 to 37-1, while still paying out 35-1 (i.e. stake 1, win 36 (See my entry on bet settling at A982389 (under construction) for more info on betting fractions). This almost doubles the house advantage.

I don't understand why people insist on playing this game. One person told me that it's because it allows smaller stakes (I checked the logs, he had been staking atleast a fiver a spin for the last half hour, and the minimum on the non-american version is one pound per spin)). Perhaps he just like to annoy betting shop staff by making the machine produce irritating simulated ball-bearing-rattling-on-metal-roulette-wheel noises.

So, while not really the subject of the original article, if you plan to be a benefactor at a roulette table, choose the 'European' (one zero) table over the 'american' table where you can.

ObProvocation: Any americans care to come in and dispute this?

Thanks Caveman.

I mentioned the double zero in a footnote; and apparently somewhere in the western hemisphere (don't ask me where, I'm quoting) a triple zero has been seen.

If you're in the gaming industry, you are obviously on the right side of the figures!

ing to check out your A982389

Triple zero? Now that's just sheer profiteering.

One zero = 2.703% profit for house
Double zero = 5.263% profit for house
Treble zero = 7.692% profit for house

Perhaps I should suggest it to management? On second thoughts, perhaps not. We get enough stick from the public as it is. I think we'll just stick with 2.703% profit.

Now, if you really want to lose money, try Rapido. Probably THE highest margin numbers bet in the history of betting shops, possibly not counting 'Magic Numbers' which was an ill-fated venture some time ago (mainly because the staff started calling it 'Tragic Numbers'). I expect Rapido will go the same way, especially as we've started to pronounce the invisible 'K' on the front...

Meanwhile A982389 is back in peer review for another round. Please feel free to savage it as appropriate.

Me, I'll stick to the Irish Lottery, and raiding the oppositions roulette machines (which are the same as ours) occasionally. My strategy is to shove a fiver in each week when I put my irish lottery bets on, stick it all on zero, and if I win, run away with a hundred and eighty quid before I'm tempted to spend it. If I lose, run away anyway.

Delighted to see A982389 is back in peer review as in my opinion it's a truly classic entry.

You stretch my credulity by saying you bet on the Lotto and other folks' roulettes. Isn't that too much like work? And playing the benfactor to boot?

And I thought zero couldn't be bet on in Roulette -- though why not, after all. Shows how much I know.

I submitted a verse to the Irish Times literary competition shortly after the introduction of the Lotto, the theme being a review of the year:

"The world's insanest charity
Continued unabated;
The needy paid a lot-to see
New millionaires created"

I've heard some casinos, usually in the USA, don't allow betting on zero, but I've not seen that over here in the UK.

As for playing the benefactor, the same could be said for virtually any transaction. Someone, somewhere, is creaming off a profit margin. I'm not gambling the house away, just a small amount each visit.

I think the UK lottery is too hard to win, over promoted, and many of the high-profile 'causes' to which money has been given could have been better ones. One of our number once said "The lottery is a tax on people who are poor mathematitians". Being paid 9/1 for a 53/1 shot is just plain ridiculous. It's the equivalent of 158 zeros on a roulette table.

Money talks. Mine only ever says "Goodbye!"

There are win-win situations. When I buy a pint, the innkeeper gets money, I get