Roulette is one of the most popular games in the casino, thanks in no small part to the fact that it’s so easy to play. The wheel and table might look confusing when you first walk up to it, but all you need to do is place a bet on the table that you think corresponds to where the ball will land. Little wonder, then, that so many people head straight to the roulette wheel when they entire a casino in Macau, Las Vegas or London.
It’s equally as popular a game in online casinos as it is in physical ones for all of the same reasons. Consequently, it’s not unusual for companies to have a number of different roulette options for their online customers, including auto roulette. This works in the same way as normal roulette, with the exception being that there is no croupier spinning the ball and collecting your chips and all of that is done automatically instead.
Auto Roulette Explained
When you’re playing roulette at a normal table, there is usually a croupier there to check over your bets, spin the ball and ensure that winners receive the correct number of chips as payout for their success. You get none of that with online auto roulette given, as the name suggests, the entire process is automated. The chips that you place are computerised ones and then end of betting is confirmed by something flashing up on your screen.
When it’s time for the ball to start spinning, it is sent on its way by a mechanical guide rather than a human hand. When the ball reaches its home on the wheel, the payout of winnings is done by the computer, meaning that there is no human interaction whatsoever for auto roulette players. Indeed, the only time that there’s a need for a human to get involved is when something goes wrong with the machine, but even then the likelihood is that it will be taken offline so you won’t see anything.
When it comes to the actual playing of auto roulette, it works in the same way as the normal game that you play anywhere else. You still need to make your selection, choose how much to stake on the number, colour or third that you want to bet on and the action works in the same manner that it does in traditional, croupier-based roulette. The only difference is that there is no human dealer leading the play as you would find in a standard casino.
It’s Normally Cheaper
The one thing to bear in mind about auto roulette is that it is normally cheaper than roulette with a croupier. This is because roulette with a dealer involves the costs of paying them a wage that doesn’t need to be paid to a computerised version of the game. Yes, it is obviously the case that the initial install costs etc are there for auto roulette, as well as any maintenance costs, but they’d be there for a standard roulette table too.
The overheads involved in roulette that uses a croupier are significantly worse than those involved in auto roulette, simply because of the human factor. As well as paying them a wage, you also need to ensure that they can have breaks and somewhere to eat, get changed and generally just exist. Obviously there is no such issue with auto roulette, apart from the rare occasions that it might have a mechanical issue.
The final thing worth noting is that auto roulette can run 24-hours a day without the need for a break or a dealer change over, allowing casinos to make more money from them than from traditional roulette wheels. All of this contributes to auto roulette being much easier to run and therefore much cheaper, which means that those savings can be passed onto the bettor in the form of minimum stake sizes.
As an example, here’s a look at the minimum stakes of one live casino roulette compared to the auto roulette equivalent on the same website:
| Bet Type | Live Roulette Minimum Stake | Auto Roulette Minimum Stake |
|---|---|---|
| Straight Number Bet | 50p | 10p |
| Black or Red | £1 | 10p |
| Column Betting | £1 | 10p |
| Thirds Betting | £1 | 10p |
As you can see, the auto roulette allows a casino to keep their costs down enough to ensure that the minimum bet is ten pence regardless of what it is that you want to bet on. When it comes to in-house roulette, meanwhile, it’s common for the minimum to be higher irrespective of whether you’re betting on the inside numbers or the outside wagers. Number bets are also more expensive than outside bets on a standard live roulette table.
It should be noted that on the specific auto roulette wheel we were playing, you were limited to placing two bets on the outside offerings. The same was not true on the live roulette table, so it’s possible that you might need to opt for a live roulette table if you’re the sort of person that likes to place a lot of wagers at the same time when you’re playing on roulette. Equally, it’s possible that this was just on the auto roulette tables we were using.
Things to Consider
As with so many things in the world of gambling, it might just come down to personal choice. Some people like not having to interact with another human being, therefore enjoying what they get out of auto roulette more than a live dealer version. Others will type into the chat box and get to know their live roulette dealer, enjoying the personal feel of playing along with a person and having a joke with them.
Finally, auto roulette can result in much quicker play than on live roulette tables. On the tables that we looked at when writing this piece, the auto roulette was about 30 seconds quicker than the live roulette, which is something you might want to bear in mind when deciding what to play on. Is speed important for you to the point that you’d rather play regularly with no human contact than less often with a human involved?