Live Dealer Wheel of Fortune

Introduction

The goal of this page is to compare and contrast the various live dealer games played on a large vertical wheel, where the player bets on where it will stop. Elsewhere on this site, I refer to the game as big six, but that is more of an industry term. Players in the U.S. usually call it the Wheel of Fortune. Online, it goes by lots of names. I had to call it something for this page, so went with Wheel of Fortune.

First let's review the games out there.

Wheel by Betgames

Wheel by Betgames is mathematically like roulette with a 19-number wheel, numbered 1 to 18 with a "trophy" in lieu of a zero. The win on every bet would be fair if not for the trophy. Thus, the house edge on every bet is 1/19 = 5.26%, the same as roulette.

Dream Catch by Evolution

by Evolution Gaming is like the conventional Wheel of Fortune game in land casinos, except adds multipliers to the wheel. You can read all the rules and analysis in my page on the game. Bottom line — the table below shows the house edge on each bet.

Monopoly by Evolution

Monopoly Live is a unique variant of Wheel of Fortune games. There are slices on the wheel for $1, $2, $5, $10, Chance, 2 rolls, and 4 rolls. Here is a very brief summary of the rules:

• Bets on $1, $2, $5, and $10 pay at those odds if the wheel stops in that segment. For example, a bet on $5 will pay 5 to 1 if the wheel stops on the $5 slice.
• If the wheel lands on Chance, then a Chance card will be drawn. This card will show an immediate win or a multiplier. If the player gets a multiplier all previous bets will remain standing and the wheel will be spun again. Any win will be multiplied by whatever the multiplier is. I'm not sure what happens if the wheel lands in Chance two or more times in a row.
• If the wheel lands on 2 Rolls, then a bonus game will be played with at least two rolls of the dice. This bonus game is based on Monopoly where the roll of the dice determine what happens. All the property spaces are instant wins. Things get more complicated on all the other spaces with random wins. If the player rolls doubles he gets more rolls.
• If the wheel lands on 4 Rolls the player goes through the same bonus game, but with a minimum of 4 rolls.

The rules don't give nearly enough information for me to quantify the odds of this game. However, Evolution kindly discloses the return of each bet, as follows:

• $1 — 92.88%
• $2 — 96.23%
• $5 — 91.30%
• $10 — 96.02%
• 2 Rolls — 93.90%
• 4 Rolls — 93.67%

Spin a Win by Playtech

This game seems to follow the same rules and odds at Dream Catcher (explained above).

Wheel by TvBet

Wheel by TvBet is played on a 38-spot wheel, like roulette. However, the bets are different and some of the pays are a little better. For example, bets on a winning color (red or black) pay 2.006 for 1, as opposed to the 2 for 1 in conventional roulette. For all bets except those on one or three specific numbers, which have a house edge of 5.26%, they set to odds to achieve a house edge close to 5.00%.

Summary

The table below shows the house edge range for all games mentioned above.

Written by: Michael Shackleford