For the most part, calculating roulette payouts is just a matter of multiplication. Each bet pays out at certain odds, and that determines what you multiply the bet by to get the payout. Also, as with most table games, the payouts are done on an X to Y basis, as opposed to an X for Y basis.
This post wants to cover roulette payouts in some degree of detail, though, including how much each bet pays off.
(Certain blackjack variations may be playable while offering lower payout for blackjack, but you need to investigate these games separately. For example, Spanish 21 is a blackjack variation that doesn’t pay 3 to 2, but offers a low house edge.) Games paying 6 to 5 add almost 1 ½% to the house edge. This is to help new or aspiring Blackjack dealers to memorize the payouts for a blackjack. Blackjack Payouts study guide by Afterlife includes 30 questions covering vocabulary, terms and more. Quizlet flashcards, activities and games help you improve your grades.
More importantly, I want to explain how the croupier is able to calculate payouts for roulette so quickly. Guess what? They have a system for that.
Payout Odds in Gambling
When you’re gambling on something, you get paid off using odds. Some games offer even odds, which means that if you bet $100, you win $100 when you win.
Blackjack Payout Chart For Dealers
Most games, though, have various payouts for various kinds of bets.
The top jackpot on a video poker machine pays off at 800 for 1.
And that’s an important distinction. There’s a big difference between a payoff of 800 for 1 and a payoff of 800 to 1.
With table games like roulette, the payoffs are in the form of 2 to 1, 3 to 1, 35 to 1, etc.
This means that if you win the bet, you get to keep the amount you bet, and you get the winnings along with it.
If you bet $100 on a single number at the roulette table and win, you get a payoff of $3,500. But you also get to keep your $100.
With gambling machines, payouts are made on a “for” basis instead of a “to” basis. This means your winnings are traded for what you risked.
If you bet $5 on a slot machine and win a $10 payout, you don’t get your $5 back on top of that.
This is an important distinction you should make. Most gamblers don’t stick just with roulette, so if you’re going to play other games — and you probably will — you should understand how that works.
Specific Payouts in the Game of Roulette
In roulette, you have a huge variety of bets you can place. You bet on a single number. Or you can bet on two numbers — if either of those numbers come up, you win. Or you can bet on three numbers, and if any of those three numbers come up, you win.
The more likely it is for you to win, the lower the payout is.
A bet on black wins almost half the time. The payoff for that bet is only 1 to 1, or even money.
A bet on a single number pays off at 35 to 1, which is a big payoff, but it also only wins 1 out of every 38 spins on average.
The Difference Between the Odds of Winning and the Payout Odds
The casino makes its money from the difference between the odds of winning and the payout odds.
You know how you can express the payout on a bet as odds?
35 to 1 is an example of how you’d express a payoff on the single number bet.
The odds of winning can also be expressed in the same way.
On a standard American roulette wheel, you have 37 ways to lose a single number bet and only one way to win.
This means the odds of winning are 37 to 1.
Since the odds of winning are lower than the payoff for the bet, the casino makes a profit in the long run.
Once out of every 38 spins, they’ll pay off a single number bet, but they’ll only pay off 35 to 1 on that bet. The rest of the money goes into the casino’s pocket.
The casino deals in long-term averages, especially when it comes to roulette.
Roulette Bets and Their Payoffs
Here’s a list of bets you can make at the roulette table and how much each of them pays off.
How To Calculate Blackjack Payouts
The Outside Bets
These are the bets on the outside of the betting surface, and they’re the bets that pay off the most often. As a result, you win less with these bets.
Here are the outside bets you can make:
- Red(or Black) – You can bet on the color of the number, and the payout is even money — 1 to 1
- Even (or Odd) – You can bet that the number will be even or odd, and the payout is again even money — 1 to 1
- Low (or High) – You can bet that the number will be 1-18 (low) or 19-36 (high). The payout is even money on this one, too
- Columns – The numbers on the betting surface are organized into three columns. You can bet that the ball will land on one of the numbers in that column. The payoff, if you guess right, is 2 to 1
- Dozens – The numbers can be divided into 1st third (1-12), 2nd third (13-24), and 3rd third (25-36). If you guess right, you get a 2 to 1 payout
On all these outside bets, 0 and 00 count as losses. Those numbers are green, and they’re not considered even or odd, high or low.
The Inside Bets
These are the bets on the inside of the betting surface. They pay out better but have a bigger chance of losing.
Here are the inside bets you can make:
- Straight Up – This is a bet on a single number and pays off at 35 to 1
- Split – This is a bet on two numbers that are next to each other. It pays off at 17 to 1
- Street – This is a bet on three numbers, and it pays off at 11 to 1
- Corners – This is a bet on four numbers, and it pays off at 8 to 1
- The 5-Number Bet – You can only bet on 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3 if you want to bet on five numbers, and it pays off at 6 to 1. This is the only bet on the roulette table with a different house edge from the other bets — 7.89% (the other bets have a house edge of 5.26%)
- Line – This is a bet on six numbers and pays off at 5 to 1
All these bets would be a break-even proposition in the long run IF the wheel didn’t have a green 0 and a green 00.
How the Croupier Makes the Payouts So Quickly
The first thing the croupier does after the decision is to clear all the losing bets off the roulette table. Since he’s intimately familiar with the layout of the betting surface, this doesn’t take long at all.
Also, all the players at the roulette table have chips that are specifically colored so that they have the same color. You can’t use the roulette chips at the other table. This enables the croupier to tell your bet from someone else’s. It’s the color of the chips.
To calculate the payouts, you just multiply the bet by the payout odds.
If someone bet two chips on a single number and it won, you’d multiply 2 by 35 and get 70. That’s how many chips you’d give the player in winnings.
He doesn’t really have a magical system, either. He knows the payouts for the various bets, and he’s able to do the multiplication in his head. It’s easy multiplication, but even if it weren’t, he’d eventually just be able to memorize the correct payout relative to the number of chips bet.
Also, he doesn’t really think of the chips as money. They’re just betting units.
Can Any of This Information Help Me Win at Roulette?
Naw.
Roulette’s a negative expectation game.
You might get lucky in the short run, but if you play long enough, the math behind the payouts will eventually reduce your bankroll to 0.
Conclusion
And that’s how to calculate roulette payouts. You just memorize which bets are possible and how much they pay off. Once you know that, calculating the payouts is just a matter of multiplication.
Croupiers are able to do it quickly because they do it all day every day.
I’m able to make change in my head because I worked for years on cash registers that didn’t calculate change. I know how to subtract from 100 without any effort at all.
Calculating roulette payouts is a similar skill.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Blackjack, unlike other casino games, has a relatively transparent payout percentage. No one besides the manufacturer or the slots manager knows what payout percentage the slot machines have, but since blackjack uses a 52 card deck of cards, the math behind figuring out who has the best payout blackjack is relatively simple.
Of course, the casinos don’t want it to be TOO simple. So they’ve invented a wide variety of rules variations that will modify the payout percentage. The purpose of this page is to explain what those rules variations are and how they affect the house edge. The blackjack games with the lowest house edge offer the best payout percentages.
A More or Less Standard Game with a More or Less Standard Payout
Actually, this isn’t really a standard game. It’s more of a “best case scenario.” If you can find a game with with this particular set of rules, you’ll be playing in a blackjack game where you have an edge over the house, even though it will be a tiny edge. Here are the rules variations to look for:
- This game only uses one deck.
- The dealer stands on a soft 17.
- The player is allowed to double after splitting.
- The player is allowed to double on any two cards.
- The player can resplit up to four hands.
- The player can resplit aces.
If you can find a game with these rules variations, and you play with perfect basic strategy, your edge over the house is almost 0.2%. That means you can expect to win 20 cents on every $100 you put into action.
Unfortunately, most casinos don’t offer such generous rules. But if you know which rules variations are in effect, and what effect they have on the house edge, you can calculate which blackjack game is better than which other blackjack games.
Number of Decks
By just adding a second deck to the game, the casino, without making any other changes to the rules, puts the odds back in their favor, albeit only slightly. A 2 deck game with the rules above gives the house an edge of 0.02%, which is practically a break-even game.
Most casinos don’t offer single deck or two deck games, though. Most of them use 4, 5, 6, or 8 decks. With four decks, the house edge goes up to 0.15%. With five decks, the house edge goes up to 0.17%. With six decks, the house edge increases to 0.18%. And with eight decks, which is probably the most common version blackjack you’ll find today, the house edge goes up to 0.2%. Still, a gambling game with a house edge of 0.2% is a good game for a gambler, and if you count cards, you can gain some of that edge back. Unfortunately, there are still more rules that the casino can and will adjust.
6 To 5 Payout
Soft 17
If the dealer is required to stand on a soft 17, then that’s a favorable rule variation for the player. If the dealer hits a soft 17, the house gains another 0.2% to their edge.
Doubling after Splitting
If a player isn’t allowed to double down after splitting, the house gains another 0.15%.
Doubling on Any Two Cards
Most casinos don’t allow players to double on any two cards. Many casinos only allow a player to double down on a total of 9, 10, or 11. If that’s the case, the casino has added about 0.1% to its edge. Other casinos are even more strict—they only allow the player to double down on a total of 10 or 11. That adds approximately 0.1% more to the house edge for the casino.
Resplitting
The effect of being able to resplit multiple times is a minor one, but it’s cumulative with the other changes. Being able to resplit up to 4 hands is the ideal situation. Some casinos limit the splitting to a maximum of 2 hands in play. In that case, the casino’s edge increases by about 0.1%.
Some casinos disallow resplitting aces, because of the additional blackjack possibilities. In casinos that do this, the player loses another 0.5%.
6/5 Blackjack
The biggest variation to watch out for when playing blackjack is the 6/5 blackjack. In standard blackjack, a natural 21 pays out at 3 to 2. This is one of the rules that favors the player in blackjack. Some casinos will offer all kinds of generous rules, but they’ll make up for it by reducing the payout on a natural from 3 to 2 to 6 to 5. That adds a whopping 1.39% to the casino’s edge over the player.
How to Find the Best Payout Blackjack Casinos
The only way to find the best payout blackjack casinos is to compare the rules to see which games offer the lowest house edge to the player. You’ll rarely (if ever) find a casino offering a game where the player has an edge, but finding a casino that offers a game with an edge of under 1% shouldn’t be too hard to do. The lower the house edge, the more likely you are to have a winning session, and even when you do have a losing session, you’ll lose less money. That makes the little bit of investigative work involved worth doing.