Practicing With A Roulette Simulator. Is It Worth It?
For many people roulette is the quintessential casino game. It conjures up images of glamorous locations like the Casino De Monte Carlo or the gaming room at the Bellagio or Caesars Palace where high rollers put their money on the spin of a wheel.
Then there’s the drama of the game itself. The wheel, believed to have been the invention of the famous mathematician Blaise Pascal in a bid to create a perpetual motion machine, spins slowly in one direction. As the dealer introduces the little white ball spinning in the opposite direction it sets up a palpable tension as players wait to see which number it will land on.
Will it be red? Will it be black? Could it be the precise number that they have chosen to back, potentially winning them 35 times their stake back? They’ll be finding out soon enough. So, for what is really a very simple game that could equally well be achieved by drawing random numbers from 0 up to 36 from a hat, roulette amounts to far more than the sum of its parts.
That’s not to say that the novice player can leap straight into playing, and this is where the roulette simulator comes into its own.
What it is and how to play on one
Simulator is possibly not the best word to describe one as, to all intents and purposes, playing on one is exactly the same as the real thing.
In fact, most are exactly like the roulette games that you’ll find in online casinos and which work like this.
- You decide the amount of stake you’re going to put on each spin.
- You use your mouse or touchpad to place your bet or bets on the numbers on the roulette table.
- You press a virtual button to set the ball in motion and wait to see where it drops.
- If yours is a winning bet you’re credited with the winnings – and it all begins again.
The actual mechanics behind a roulette simulator include a piece of software called a Random Number Generator that can accurately recreate the randomness of the real world and it’s this that “decides” where the ball will land.
As to where you can find roulette simulators, most online casinos do include one for new players to get used to the game. At this stage, it’s recommended to research where to play, so you can have the best experience possible. To help with this, review sites like Casino.org provide the lowdown on a huge number of providers, detailing deposit speeds, RTP rates and even giving their readers the opportunity to find a casino bonus to complement their game of roulette.
The chance to sharpen skills
There are two distinct areas in which playing on a roulette simulator can be a great help. The first of these is in betting. One of the beauties of the game is the many variations of bet that can be placed. For the more cautious player, they might go for red or black or odd or even numbers. More adventurous ones might like to cover two numbers with their stake or even single numbers.
A simulator provides the opportunity to try out these different options without risking any actual money in the process. The result can be some fairly complex combinations of bets. So when the time comes to bet for real the player can be well prepared for it. Secondly, a roulette simulator helps a would-be player to get into the rhythm of online roulette which can be a little faster than the “real” game with spins coming more frequently, especially if playing one of the more quickfire games.
It can even bust some misconceptions
For as long as the game of roulette has been played people have been trying to devise strategies to beat the wheel. Perhaps the most well-known of these is the Martingale. On paper it seems an unbeatable method of winning when the bets are 50/50 like red or black or odd or even. The theory is that by doubling the stake after each losing bet a player will inevitably come out on top.
The reality can be very different in the event of a losing streak which is all too possible given the random nature of roulette. Say, for example, a player started by betting $5. They lose, so their next stake will be $10. Another loss means it has to rise to $20. After six unsuccessful spins of the wheel the stake will have risen to $320 – obviously unsustainable for all but a very few players.
So testing the Martingale out risk-free will show that it really doesn’t work. But using a roulette simulator to get into the game itself can be very worthwhile indeed.