To calculate maximum payouts to maximum bets, start with 37 in American roulette, or 36 in European roulette, and divide the number of squares you are betting on. Subtract one from this number and you now have your payout rate. Roulette payouts are an important part of roulette strategy. They work like this. The odds are stated in the form of x to 1, which means you’ll win x dollars for every dollar you’ve bet. For example, the single number bet offers a payout of 35 to 1. If you win, you’ll get your dollar back plus the $35 for the win. Betting area of the roulette table is covered with special colored fabric. It is known as the roulette table layout and is the same throughout every gambling establishment with only one exception: European roulette table layout is identified with a single zero; American roulette table as a rule has additional double zero square. Column – There are three columns with twelve numbers each on a roulette table. Therefore, if the ball lands on one of the numbers in the column you chose, you will get a payout of 2 to 1. Dozens – There are thirty-six numbers on a roulette table.

• Roulette Table Payout Odds
• Blackjack Table Payouts
• American Roulette Layout

Roulette tables are divided into two parts for different types of roulette bets.The part of the table with all the numbers (from 1 to 36 and the additional zero pockets) in the grid is for Inside bets. Outside the number boxes there are additional bets, called the Outside bets.These bets cover up to 18 numbers at one time while there are those that cover only 12.

For as long as gamblers have wagered money on games of chance and skill, the temptation to cheat has loomed.

Unwilling to let fate decide, casino cheaters use creative and unscrupulous tricks to gain an unfair edge over the house.

Among the earliest methods employed by poker cheats, the gunslinging poker games of the Old West era saw cheats wield aces up their sleeves. These days, cheaters who plague poker can be found in both brick and mortar card rooms and online sites, colluding or dumping chips to team up on unsuspecting opponents.

Cheating in modern casinos predominantly afflicts the skill-based games like poker and blackjack, but you’d be surprised by how prevalent the crime has become in roulette and other games of chance. You wouldn’t think a simple wheel-spinning affair like roulette would be subject to cheating because players don’t really have any influence on the gameplay.

Nonetheless, cheats can be found anywhere real money is being wagered, and the roulette table is no exception. Even with the ever-present “eye in the sky” watching their every move, and eagle-eyed croupiers (dealers), pit bosses, and other staff members trained to detect malfeasance, roulette cheaters just can’t help themselves.

The allure of making easy money without incurring risk certainly makes sense, but trying to cheat the casino while playing roulette is a fool’s errand. Don’t take my word for it though, just ask the long lineup of convicted roulette criminals who tried the five ways to cheat at roulette listed below.

1 – Past Posting or Late Betting to Increase Wagers on Known Winners

Every roulette player knows the feeling well…

When you nail the number perfectly and watch the croupier stack the 35 to 1 payout, wishing you would’ve bet $10 instead of $1, the experience can be bittersweet to say the least. Beating long odds for a big payout is always cause for celebration, but when you only bet a few bucks, it can be easy to kick yourself for not putting more out there.

Some roulette cheaters aren’t content with their minimal payouts, so they resort to a tactic popularly referred to as “past posting.” Also known as “late betting,” the concept of past posting is quite basic on the surface. You add chips to your bet once you know it’s a winner.

When the croupier watches the wheel to find out where the ball landed, it will take them a split second to scan the spaces, find the ball, and turn their eyes back to the table before calling the number. In that split second, past posting artists use sleight of hand tricks to secretly add significant sums to their winning bet.

Let’s say you sprinkled various bets between $5 and $40 on several single-number spaces, using combinations of both the red $5 and green $25 chips. You have the number 17 covered with one $5 chip, but when you see the ball nestle into the 17 space, you instantly dart your hand out and cap the $5 bet with a $25 chip. The croupier never notices your trickery, and just like that, you’ve turned a $175 payout (35 to 1) on $5 into a whopping $1,050.

Why You Shouldn’t Try Past Posting

While potentially lucrative when undetected, past posting is inherently dangerous based on the moving parts in play.

A professional croupier is trained to scan and memorize the bets in play when they wave for final wagers, so they might notice your small chips suddenly transforming into big ones. While you’re watching the croupier, a nearby pit boss outside of your peripheral vision might see you make the switch. And up above, high-resolution cameras are recording every move you make.

Add it all up, and past posting just isn’t worth the risk involved, a fact Charbel Tannous and Constandi Lubbat can attest to. In 2011, while playing roulette at L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort in Louisiana, the pair were caught red-handed past posting for big money.

Roulette Table Payout Odds

After authorities used surveillance footage to confirm that over $175,000 was stolen via the roulette scheme, Tannous and Lubbat were charged with felony cheating and swindling over $1,500 and criminal conspiracy.

Tannous was eventually convicted and sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for organizing the roulette racket. This is a harsh punishment US Attorney Stephanie Finley made clear will be the norm for casino cheats:

“We are very pleased with the court’s decision to give this defendant a significant prison term. The casino and the citizens were victims in this case. A portion of the profits from the casino goes to the State of Louisiana and the Calcasieu Parish School Board.
We will continue to partner with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to prosecute crimes of this nature and seek the maximum amount of prison time available.”

2 – Partnering With a Croupier to Produce Fake Winners

If you read the previously linked reporting, you know Tannous and Lubbat didn’t work alone.

By conspiring with two croupiers working at the casino, these cheats made sure their past posting antics would never be reported.

That approach certainly makes sense on an objective level, too. By doubling down on the scam, colluding to ensure their cheating is allowed by the people running the table, conspirators don’t leave anything to chance. Having an “inside man” on the team only makes cheating at roulette that much easier, as a corrupt croupier can allow their partner to inflate winning bets or pull back chips on losers.

Why You Shouldn’t Partner With a Dealer

In 2016, a casino pit boss at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa, decided to go rogue. He enlisted a croupier to do the dirty deed, and a third partner to act the part of lucky player. Past posting provided the bulk of the team’s $20,000 in ill-gotten gains, but like almost all roulette cheats before them, these three were eventually caught on camera and arrested.

David Dales, a special agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (IDCI), issued a statement explaining how the scam was set up:

“There was a dealer that was doing some active cheating mechanism on the roulette table at Horseshoe Casino. And there was a patron he was consistently cheating for. The allegations are they were past posting – adding chips to the winning numbers – doing other activities that gave them illegal winnings at a table game.”

The offenders were charged with four felonies, including ongoing criminal conduct, first-degree theft, conspiracy, and cheating at gambling. They faced significant jail time and hefty fines.

3 – “Coloring up” Small Chips for Higher Denominations off the Table Before Cashing Out

An especially clever way roulette players can cheat the game involves the old bait and switch.

To make the “color up” scheme work, two players working in tandem start by sitting at different tables. In roulette, cash is turned into specially designed chips that are only good at the table. To avoid confusion between different players betting, everyone gets a different color chip in the denomination of their choosing.

A color up team moves from table to table, one buying in for the minimum $1 chips, and the other going bigger with a $25 or $100 denomination. When they both receive the same color chips, they’re always at a different table and only six or seven colors are in play so this will inevitably occur, the trap is sprung.

The low stakes player pockets a handful of chips on the sly, then heads off to take a quick bathroom break. With no surveillance cameras to worry about, they wait for their partner to hit the head as well, then they deliver a handful of chips when nobody’s around.

Flush with new chips in the same color as those at the big stakes table, the second player proceeds to play a spin or two with minimal action before requesting a color up and cash out.

When cheaters turn 10 of the $1 chips into an equivalent amount of $25 chips, they’ve instantly “earned” $240 in profit without incurring an ounce of risk. And if a $1 to $100 exchange rate is in play, the color up scam produces a massive $990 profit margin.

Why You Shouldn’t Color up Chips

Between 2012 and 2013, a highly organized team of color up cheaters based in New York toured the country targeting small commercial and tribal casinos. Their run came to an end in Ohio, after the team struck at four casinos and stole thousands of dollars, only for 13 members to find themselves behind bars when it was all said and done.

Karen Huey, director of enforcement for the Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC), told local media outlets that the Buckeye State was not alone:

“This is a very organized group of about 70 people. They travel the country. They’ve been identified in 18 states running this scam.”

The roulette cheating team wound up facing 29 felony counts and the possibility of lengthy prison sentences. According to Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office Special Units Division Chief John Weglian, casino criminals will never receive leniency.

“One of the principle purposes of these casinos is to provide revenue to the State of Ohio so the laws that the legislature has passed cover casino violations will be enforced strictly by the Attorney General’s office and this office. We will enforce the laws of the state.”

4 – Using Hidden Lasers to Measure Ball Speed Before Betting Concludes

These last two are so absurd that they hardly merit mention, but based on their scientific innovations alone, they made the cut.

Back in the 1970s, a physicist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico named Norman Packard postulated that laser beams could be used to measure crucial roulette variables. By using a laser and a computer to chart the ball and wheel speed, Packard succeeded in predicting which quadrant of the wheel the ball would land in.

Here’s how he described the gambit in an interview with New Scientist:

“In the best circumstances, we could predict the quadrant correctly. Even saying which half of the wheel is extremely powerful because the payoff is so good. We definitely got to the point where we were winning money, but we didn’t continue long enough to make large amounts.”

Why You Shouldn’t Use Technology to Cheat

Obviously, pulling out a laser pointer and hiding a computer on your person is impractical in the modern casino setting. Maybe the laser cheat works in a laboratory, or even an old-school gambling hall before cameras became prevalent, but this is a method of cheating at roulette that would never fly nowadays.

5 – Directing the Ball to Certain Spaces by Generating a Magnetic Field

Using a laser pointer and a computer isn’t the most discreet way to cheat at roulette. So, how about a magnetic roulette ball to improve your odds?

In the early 2000s, a team of Austrian roulette cheats found a way to activate magnetic fields that drew the ball to certain numbers based on where the player stood. While the team didn’t win on every single spin, the use of a remote-controlled ball helped them improve their chances of winning.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Magnets

Unfortunately for this team of conmen, the croupier eventually found the ball stuck to his cufflink. The jig was up, forcing the cheaters to abandon their winnings and run away in shame. Today, some casinos use magnetic field sensors to prevent this from happening.

Conclusion

Folks who feel the need to cheat at roulette represent the bottom of the barrel when it comes to casino gambling. Desperate and down on their luck, yet unwilling to simply learn a skill game and play it well, roulette cheats refuse to accept reality. And as the five entries above should show you, the run of free money always ends at some point, leaving prison, probation, and a ruined reputation as the roulette cheater’s only legacy.

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Blackjack Table Payouts

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.

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.

American Roulette Layout

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.

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.

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 1^st third (1-12), 2^nd third (13-24), and 3^rd 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.

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