This is roulette as you have never seen it before – it literally looks completely different. There is no wheel for one thing, but there are a few betting options that you won’t find on a regular roulette table.
Playtech are the brains behind Roulette 101, so called because of the amount of number on the board, and this is an RNG based game so it can be played at your own pace keeping the player in control.
It’s not too much of a jump from your regular game of roulette in terms of gameplay, but there are some important differences to be aware of.
The Wheel
Or should that be, the lack of a wheel?
There are so many numbers on the board that the roulette wheel would need to be gigantic to fit them all on, so instead, the ball spins around an oval shaped board that is fixed in place.
That means the only element that is moving is the ball, rather than both the ball and the wheel as you would usually find in a standard roulette game.
Any bets you have made will be indicated on the oval ‘wheel’ by a small white star so that you can see how close you are to winning as the ball slows down.
The Board
The board looks a little different too, and not just because it is so much bigger.
You will find a single zero and then numbers 1 – 100 available for straight up bets. Alongside them you will also see the suites from a deck of cards; club, heart, spade, and diamond. These are essentially further straight up bets.
You can also bet on a line or a column, odds or evens and black or red as normal, plus splits (two numbers) and corners (four numbers).
The payouts have been adjusted to take into account all of the changes to the structure of the game, and each bet has a minimum stake too as detailed below:
| Bet | Payout | Min Stake |
|---|---|---|
| Black/Red | 1:1 | £1 |
| Odd/Even | 1:1 | £1 |
| Line | 4:1 | 50p |
| Zero Line | 5:1 | 50p |
| Street/Column | 9:1 | 20p |
| Zero Street | 19:1 | 10p |
| Zero Corner | 32:1 | 10p |
| Corner | 24:1 | 10p |
| Split | 49:1 | 10p |
| Straight Up | 100:1 | 10p |
The top payout in a standard game of roulette is 35:1 for a Straight Up bet and this game offers almost triple that.
Quick Bets & Lucky Numbers
There are a couple of options included that allow the player to quickly make a series of bets based on a specific number they have chosen.
The Lucky Numbers switch can be toggled to automatically place bets on the borders of any number that is chosen, so that means every split and corner around the number in question will be bet on. That’s 9 chips laid altogether, and in our example here the ‘lucky’ number was 35.
The Quick Bets toggle will automatically place a straight up bet on every number in the same row and column of a chosen number. This means 19 chips will be laid forming a ‘T’ or a cross shape, depending on which number you choose.
These bets will be for the same amount as the initial chip laid.
RTP
The theoretical return to player percentage for this roulette variant ranges depending on the bet that you place, but it will always fall somewhere within that bracket.
The lowest RTP is found when betting on a Zero Line, and that is just 85.71% so this is probably a bet to avoid.
The highest RTP is actually found when making Straight Up bets, as this comes in at 96.19%. However, this is still short of the RTP for a regular game of European roulette which is 97.30%.
You are therefore less likely to win as often when playing 101 Roulette, but the payouts will be bigger when you do.