Alphabetic Roulette

Last Update: Aug 7, 2011

Introduction

Alphabetic Roulette is a roulette variant I saw at the Fitzgerald's in Las Vegas on August 7, 2011. It is a simple roulette variant involving both colors and letters. There are 25 spaces, one for each letter from A to X, and one for both Y and Z. There are also six colors, each consisting of four letters. The YZ is treated much the way the 0 is in single-zero roulette and has no color.

Rules

There are ten types of bets, as follows:

Straight Up: Bet on any one letter, or YZ.
Split: Bet on any two neighboring letters.
Top Line: Bet on A, B, and YZ.
Four Way: Bet on any four neighboring letters.
Color: Bet on any one color.
Six Way: Bet on one of four groups of six letters: A-F, G-L, M-R, S-X.
Party Pit: Bet that any letter in "party pit," i.e. the P, A, R, T, Y, or I.
Roulette: Bet that any letter in "roulette," i.e. the R, O, U, L, E, or T.
Dozen: Bet on one of two groups of 12 letters: A-L or M-X
Column: One of two bets of alternating letter: A, C, E, ... , W or B, D, F, ... , X.

Analysis

The following table shows the probability and expected return of each bet. The right column shows that every bet has a 4.00% house edge.

Alphabetic Roulette
Bet	Pays	Combinations	Probability	Return
Straight Up	23	1	0.040000	-0.040000
Split	11	2	0.080000	-0.040000
Top Line	7	3	0.120000	-0.040000
Four Way	5	4	0.160000	-0.040000
Color	5	4	0.160000	-0.040000
Six Way	3	6	0.240000	-0.040000
Party Pit	3	6	0.240000	-0.040000
Roulette	3	6	0.240000	-0.040000
Dozen	1	12	0.480000	-0.040000
Column	1	12	0.480000	-0.040000

Strategy

Every bet has the same house edge so it makes no difference what you bet on.

If you enjoy roulette and conventional roulette is also available, here is how Alphabetic Roulette compares to some other horizontal-wheel games.

Alphabetic Roulette
Game	House Edge
European roulette	1.35%
Atlantic City roulette	2.63%
Single-zero roulette	2.70%
Alphabetic roulette	4.00%
Double-zero roulette	5.26%
Boule	11.11%

Rule Card

Outside Links

Alphabetic Roulette : Official game web site.

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