Roulette has the type of timeless gameplay that has helped it stand the test of time over various centuries. Yet when you play online, you’ll notice that it has changed in recent years with the addition of live-streamed games and new features. How have the latest changes added fresh new elements to roulette?
A Greater Focus on Variety and Entertainment
The earliest online roulette games released at the start of the 20th century were simple affairs, where a computer-generated wheel spun around after each betting round, with a random number generator ensuring that the classic house edge of 2.7% was retained in European games and 5.26% in American versions.
This proved to be a popular and highly effective approach that attracted lots of new players, but when live-streamed and themed games were added to casinos, the leading developers realized that they could add an extra element of entertainment to the game.
This can be seen in areas like the studio design and the dealer’s outfits, which bring the game to life. However, the biggest change has been in the way that the dealers are now viewed more as presenters or entertainers who keep players amused and informed by commenting on the game as it progresses. These changes have made roulette feel more like a type of interactive online entertainment, without losing its roots as a gambling game.
New and Interesting Themes
The previous point leads us to the growing importance of themes in the online roulette casino approach. By streaming the action from a themed studio with a clearly defined color scheme and props, developers can easily create a unique atmosphere that captures our imagination. Classic RNG versions with no human presenter on the screen have also added new themes by using graphics that lead players into exciting new worlds.
What a change this has resulted in! This list of online roulette casino versions now includes titles such as Double Dragon Roulette, Virtual Burning Roulette, and Vulcano Roulette. These games use a traditional roulette wheel when the ball is launched, with the usual betting options like straight up, split, and corner that you would find in any casino. Yet, the use of varied themes brings in new ways of playing that add something extra. Who doesn’t enjoy a good theme, after all?
Random Multipliers Add Extra Volatility
Random multipliers are among the most interesting changes we see in the themed roulette games. Multipliers are used in many games, such as Double Dragon Roulette, where winning bets can be multiplied by up to 500x. The mechanism varies from one game to another but generally involves multipliers being added randomly to certain numbers on each spin.
This gives players the chance to win bigger prizes, usually on straight up bets where they’ve correctly chosen the winning number. In addition, it adds more volatility to the gameplay.
The roulette wheel was cleverly designed by inventor Blaise Pascal in the 17th century, with each wager having a similar house edge in the long term. Outside bets like red, black, odd, or even provide lower volatility with a greater chance of regular wins. This design can still lead to winning streaks on a single type of bet. The term gambler’s fallacy was coined following a famous evening over a century ago when the ball landed in a black pocket 26 times in a row, causing many players to become increasingly convinced that the next spin had to result in a red win… which, of course, wasn’t true! However, most of the time, it will be an approximately even split between black and red.
When adding multipliers, the creators of modern roulette variants tweak the returns on standard bets to ensure that there’s still a house edge present despite the boosted payments, ensuring the game can continue and increasing the excitement factor for a lot of players. It makes these versions of roulette closer to high-volatility casino games like slots.
VIP Games for High Rollers
The large variety of roulette versions that can now be accessed online has led to an interesting sense of diversification. No matter what it is that you want to enjoy, you’ll find options available, which has encouraged modern audiences to keep playing this classic game. Of course, even before we moved to the internet, there were different options – American roulette, European roulette, etc. – but now, the choice has skyrocketed. Humans love variety in a lot of different spaces… and casinos have managed to deliver when it comes to roulette.
As the market has matured, we’ve also witnessed the emergence of VIP and high-roller games that are the digital equivalent of entering a private room in your favorite brick-and-mortar casino. They may have a more luxurious look than regular roulette but the key difference lies in the fact that higher stakes are often allowed at these exclusive tables.
There’s little doubt that the roulette market will continue to expand and change as the variety of online versions grows. This should lead to more new approaches like those we’ve looked at, while completely new features and presentation styles may also come along to shake up the way we play.