The old saying goes “if it ain’t broken then don’t fix it”, but some game developers take a different stance. In their book, if something is working well, let’s add more of it.
That is how roulette games with multiple wheels and more than one ball came into existence.
Adding an extra ball has allowed developers to introduce new rules and tinker with payout ratios, perhaps giving players the chance release extra balls for a reduced payout, or to go for larger payouts if more than one ball lands in their selected areas of the wheel. This can all add to the excitement.
Roulette is already an exciting game, no question, but it can also be fairly slow paced, averaging between 25 and 50 spins per hour depending on how many people are playing at the same time. Taking the game online made it possible to get more in the region of 150 spins per hour when playing an RNG based rather than a live casino game, but even that isn’t enough for some.
This is where spinning multiple wheels at once comes in, allowing the player to get through many more spins per hour.
Multiple Balls
Roulette Diamond
Not only is this the least roulette looking roulette game out there, but there aren't actually any balls either.
Taking the place of balls are roulette 'orbs', and more than one can be released at the same time. These orbs are all different colours and the player can keep releasing them as they see fit, although each extra ball/orb will cost another stake of the same amount as the original.
A maximum of 4 balls/orbs can be released at the same time, and any bets made can win on more than one orb, so an orb landing on red 16 and another landing on red 28 would result in a bet on red winning twice.
Double Ball Roulette
It's European roulette but played with two balls instead of one, meaning twice as many chances for your bet to be a winner.
The game isn't giving you this opportunity for free though, with the payouts for inside bets being cut in half for a single ball result, although if both balls land on the same number that you have bet on then a huge 1300x payout is the prize.
You can also bet that both balls will land on any single number for a 35:1 payout. So in this case it doesn't matter which number the balls land on, but they do both need to land on the same one.
Conversely, outside bets have had their payouts boosted by 3 or 4 times, but both balls need to land correctly in order for outside bets to win. The extra ball has also created a new bet; the red/black option is a bet that each ball will land on a different colour.
Multiple Wheels
Jet Set Racing Roulette
Jet Set Racing Roulette is put together using a number of different elements and features.
Bets are placed to begin with as normal, but the roulette part of the game doesn't even begin until two virtual races have been run, and before they are run players must guess which runner they think will come first and second.
Correct guesses will result in multipliers being applied to any winning spins on the roulette wheels, provided they are inside bets.
There are two wheels in this game, and any bets placed on the board will be cut in half and split between each wheel. This means there are two wheel spins per round.
The bets on each wheel are exactly the same, however, but the multipliers from race 1 will only apply to wheel 1, and those from race 2 will only apply to wheel 2.
The wheels are spun one after another, and while outside bets are paid out as normal, inside bets have had their payouts reduced to allow for the multipliers.
Three Wheel Roulette
In effect, this game is simply a way to play multiple spins at the same time.
All bets placed on the board are placed three times, once for each wheel. This means that a £1 bet on red would actually cost £3, but you would also have the potential to win the bet 3 times.
This is not the same as simply tripling your bet on a single wheel, because there are three different spins of the ball going on here.
There are no other differences to the game; all payouts and bet types are as standard, it just plays a little slower because each wheel is spun individually.
However, this is still a faster way to play three spins than playing three spins on a single wheel version of the game.
Nexus Roulette
European roulette played out on four different wheels at the same time, but the results of three of the wheels dictate what happens to certain bets, and what sort of payout you might get.
The whole game has a futuristic feel and the colour black has been replaced with 'neon'.
The main wheel has the same function as normal, but there is also a square wheel, a triangle wheel, and a hexagon wheel. These are just the names of the wheels, they aren't actually different shapes.
Straight up bets have had their base payout dropped to 28:1, but if the main wheel and at least one of the extra wheels lands that number, your payout would be 49x. Most attractively, albeit incredibly unlikely, if all four wheels get the same number the payout would be 5,000x. A slightly different variation of this, the Nexus bet, pays out if any of the 4 wheels land any identical numbers.
The extra wheels also allow for spread betting in this game, so you can predict how much the results from all four wheels will add up to, within six different number ranges.
It does mean that many of the 'easier' bets have had to be adapted though; for example if you bet on red or black, you would need at least three of the wheels to finish on that colour to be paid out, but the payout would be 2:1 rather than the regular 1:1, and if all four wheels hit the same colour the payout would be 4:1.
Multi Wheel Roulette
Although this game is an unchanged version of European roulette in terms of the rules and features, the gameplay is a little different and allows the player to cover many more spins per hour.
There is only one betting board but there are 8 different wheels that the player can use. These can be toggled on or off as the player sees fit.
The key thing is that the bet you make on the board will apply to every wheel that is toggled on, so the same bet can win on 3 wheels but lose on 5, for example.
All of the wheels run independently of each other, although the game is controlled via an RNG. It's essentially like playing up to 8 games at once.