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How many numbers on a roulette wheel? | LeoVegas NZ

Summary

Roulette wheel typically has numbers from 0 to 36, with different patterns for red and black numbers. European, French, and American versions have distinct sequences. All numbers add up to 666. Lucky and unlucky numbers vary by culture. No number is more likely to win. History of roulette dates back to the 18th century. Betting involves predicting where the ball will land. Inside bets offer higher payouts but lower odds, while outside bets are safer. Numerous betting strategies exist, but none can guarantee a win due to the game's random nature.

Table of Contents

Roulette Numbers: Everything You Need to Know

How many numbers are there on a roulette wheel?

Regardless of which configuration of the wheel is used, roulette always contains the numbers zero to 36 and may have other numbers depending on the version. For numbers up to and including 28, all the odd numbers are red, and all the even numbers are black. From 29 to 36, this pattern flips, and all the odd numbers become black and vice versa instead.

The zero space is usually marked in green or at least a different colour from red or black. The difference between various wheels is the number of zero spaces. However, these are all marked in the same colour.

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How many red numbers are there on a roulette wheel?

Out of the 36 non-zero slots on the wheel, half of them are red. Of those 18 red numbers, half are odd, and half are even numbers.

How many black numbers are there on a roulette wheel?

The other 18 numbers on the wheel are black, half of which are even and half of which are nine.

Roulette Wheel Number Sequence

Despite the results on a roulette wheel being entirely random, there are different sequences of the number on the wheel between different versions. The history of these sequences is murky at best, and there's no concrete reason for the order of any of them.

Generally, high and low numbers will usually alternate, and there will always be, at most, two odds or evens in a row.

European Roulette

The sequence on a European roulette wheel is:

0-32-15-19-4-21-2-25-17-34-6-27-13-36-11-30-8-23-10-5-24-16-33-1-20-14-31-9-22-18-29-7-28-12-35-3-26

This is a standard pattern used in all European variants. However, the history of the game is so long that the logic has been lost, and at this stage, it is generally preserved for tradition.

French Roulette

As a single-zero game, French roulette uses the same wheel as the European version, with the main difference is in the betting options instead.

American Roulette

As American roulette has an extra zero space, making it a double-zero game, the sequence is entirely different as the zeroes appear on different sides of the wheel. To preserve the aim of keeping high and low numbers separate, the sequence becomes:

0-28-9-26-30-11-7-20-32-17-5-22-34-15-3-24-36-13-1-00-27-10-25-29-12-8-19-31-18-6-21-33-16-4-23-35-14-2

As a note, there is also a scarce roulette variant called a triple-zero wheel, which has the same sequence as the single-zero wheels but with three zero spaces grouped. This is so rare because it is famously geared against the player, and so rather unpopular.

What is the sum of all roulette numbers?

One of the more infamous facts about roulette, and something that has tied it to controversy in the past, is that all the numbers on the wheel from 0 to 36 add up to 666. This is well-known as a number tied to the devil and was historically used to show that the game was 'evil', although some believe it was designed this way on purpose. As for the real reasons, they are lost to history.

What roulette numbers are considered lucky?

Lucky numbers in roulette depend on the culture of the player. The most universal lucky number is 7, which has a lot of explanations although it is notable that it also appears in early slot machines as 'Lucky 7'. In some Asian cultures, 8 is equally a lucky number.

What roulette numbers are considered unlucky?

Again, unlucky numbers depend on the culture of the players. In Europe, 13 is widely seen as an unlucky number, in the line of Friday the 13th which is regarded as an unlucky day for historical reasons. The worst number for Asian players is usually 4, as in many Asian languages the word for 4 happens to be the same word as 'death' in some form.

What are the most common numbers hit in roulette?

As roulette is an entirely random game, there is no number that lands any more than the other. The only exception may be in the American roulette variant, and both zero and double-zero count as a zero result, meaning it mathematically has double the chance of landing. In European roulette, however, all numbers are entirely equal.

It is important to remember that, while patterns may appear over a short time, over 1,000 or 10,000 spins of the wheel, all numbers will appear roughly the same amount of times.

Can you predict roulette numbers?

As we also mentioned in the question above, roulette is essentially a game of chance. Players can not predict where the roulette ball will land. However, they can check the odds of winning for various bets at the roulette table and try using different betting systems to improve their chances of winning long-term.

History of Roulette

The exact history of french roulette wheel is hard to nail down, like many things in casino history. The wheel itself dates from the early 1700s and is connected to Blaise Pascal, although historians place the modern roulette game as first mentioned in 1796, mentions of it go back 50 years earlier. By the end of the 19th century, however, it became a staple in casinos across Europe and the United States and well-liked as a companion game to blackjack and poker.

Despite the single-zero version being the most common in Europe and worldwide, the double-zero "American" version is the first recorded version. Stranger still, the original American version of the game was effectively a triple-zero wheel with three house slots. However, this version is now extinct as it's heavily weighted against the player.

Nowadays, the rules online roulette have been cemented and accepted worldwide, and from dozens of variants, only two or three are still widely played. Single-zero and double-zero can be found in various forms, though there is a French roulette variant that rarely leaves the country.

How Roulette Bets Work

The goal of any roulette bet is to predict which number a small metal ball will land on out of all the spaces on the wheel once it stops spinning. As a general rule, the more specific the bet is, the more it is worth if it wins. For example, choosing an entire half of the numbers on the roulette wheel, such as red or black, pays even, while choosing the exact correct number pays out far more.

Each numbered space on a roulette wheel is exactly the same size and only appears once, meaning that every space has an equal chance of landing on each spin. The wheel itself is also unchanged for each spin, so each spin can be treated as a completely new game where every number still has the same chance of landing.

Inside Bets

Inside bets are those on the riskier end of the scale, named because they appear on the inner section of a standard roulette betting board. Of the inside bets, the one with the lowest odds is the straight or single-number bet, which has odds of either 35 or 37-1, depending on the version. At the other end, the highest odds on the inside are for a six-line or double street, essentially a set of six numbers in a row on the wheel, which sits at 5-1.

Outside Bets

The outside bets on the outer edge of the betting table are usually seen as the 'safer' bets available due to all having better odds than the inside bets. They range from dozens and columns which cover 12 spaces, or a third of the board, to the even bets that are close to a coin flip in their odds.

There are three main types of even bets: odds or evens, reds or blacks, and then 1-18 or 19-36 stakes. While these are nearly 50/50 in their chances, the actual odds sit below that as, in most outside bets, the zero space represents a loss for all.

Roulette Betting Strategies

A search online will bring up a variety of names that are commonly used as roulette betting strategies, including Martingale, Fibonacci and even James Bond himself. These strategies are, in general, built on the concept that no matter how many losses a player gets, they have to win eventually.

However, thanks to the way that random results work and because roulette spins are all separate from one another, these strategies are all fundamentally flawed and none can reliably guarantee a win or a good result of roulette games of any kind.

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