World Cup Roulette

World Cup Roulette LogoThis is another version of European roulette that essentially just sticks a bonus round onto the game without changing any of the fundamentals.

That means that all of the regular payouts are in place and you can still make all of your favourite bets, but you have the opportunity to try and go a bit further if you would like to.

The football theme is arbitrary really, the bonus round is like any other but it plays out as a penalty shoot out. The whole game is RNG based and developed by a company named Inspired Entertainment.

Game Rules

World Cup Roulette Board

As you can see, the layout of this variation of the game is almost identical to the normal game.

The only difference is the extra space on the board, which you can see on the far right in the image above. The gold lettering makes it difficult to miss.

This is the bonus bet, and you must have placed a chip on this space if you want to access the bonus round.

The wheel will spin as normal and you must hope the ball lands in the extra silver pocket on the wheel as shown below.

World Cup Roulette Wheel

Once you hit the bonus a new screen will load and this works differently to anything you might have played before, because you are given the top prize right at the start. Don’t get too excited though, because during the following three rounds you can lose it all.

Bonus Round

This round simulates a penalty shoot out, and the goal is initially split into four parts; two top corners and two bottom corners.

You will be given various multiplier tokens that you need to place in the corners of the goal that you think the ball will be kicked. If a goal is scored in the corner or corners that you have chosen then the multiplier amount in that space remains yours for the next round, and on it goes.

World Cup Roulette Bonus Round

In our example image above, we started with a 500x multiplier. We have 160x left to place and have placed various other amounts already.

You can place your tokens across all corners and limit your risk, or on just one of them for higher potential rewards, but you only take forward the multipliers that were correctly placed in corners where a goal is scored.

There are three rounds, and whatever you have left at the end of the third round is the multiplier you win. The final round splits the goal in half so you only have two options for placing your remaining multipliers, and if you have lost all of your multipliers before you reach the end you get a 5x consolation prize.

It’s a bit like the TV show, The Million Pound Drop hosted by Davina McCall if you ever saw that.

RTP

The bonus round is essentially another straight up bet, and while you can walk away with a much higher payout than the regular 35:1, you could also walk away with just a 5x multiplier, so it’s not guaranteed to be a value bet even if it comes in.

This stings when you look at the theoretical return to player percentage. For the base game it is heavily reduced to 94.74%, probably to make up for any big wins on the bonus round and partly due to the extra pocket on the wheel.

However, due to the way the bonus round is structured, the RTP for the bonus is only slightly higher at 95.39%. Given that a standard version of European roulette has an RTP of 97.30%, you are giving a lot away for the small chance of cashing in a big bonus win.