Table Games

Table games are the ones where the maths is public, old and settled. Nobody needs to tell you the house edge on a roulette wheel, because you can work it out by counting the pockets.

A single zero European wheel has 37 pockets and pays 35 to 1 on a straight up number. You are paid as though there were 36 while playing against 37, so the edge is 1 in 37, or 2.70%, and the return is 97.30%. An American wheel adds a double zero: 38 pockets, the same 35 to 1, an edge of 5.26% and a return of 94.74%. Same game, nearly double the cost, and the only visible difference is one extra green pocket.

That is why this category is worth paying attention to. The baseline is knowable, which makes it obvious when something has changed it. A studio adding a boost, a bonus wheel or an enhanced price to a classic has to fund that from somewhere, and the familiar number stops describing the game the moment they do.

So the question on every page in this section is the same: what has been added to the classic, and what is paying for it?

Covered so far: 20p Boost Roulette, a single zero wheel with a Boost bolted on and no published figure for what the Boost costs.