Has Las Vegas Lost Its Mind? Quad-Zero Roulette Arrives on Strip

As tourist numbers continue to decline in the Las Vegas valley, a new development in the game of roulette at select Las Vegas casino floors shows that the executives just don't get it.

Introducing "Quad-Zero" Roulette

Patrons at two Las Vegas Strip casinos, the Palazzo and the Wynn Las Vegas, have encountered a new electronic roulette game, referred to as "quad-zero" roulette by folks online, that features two wheels and four extra spots equivalent to zeroes, but disguised by labeling them with various gem symbols instead.

Who's Responsible for this Atrocity?

The casino game, officially named "Bonus Wheel Roulette," is a creation of Interblock Gaming, a developer of electronic casino table games. According to Interblock's own website, their vision includes their belief in "pushing boundaries," and certainly they have done so with this ridiculous release.

Even hearing something referred to as a "four zero" roulette game makes our blood boil, and we are sure it affects many of our readers in the same way. Trust us, it's going to get even worse when you see how this game works and how they have added the element of player confusion to make it harder to recognize exactly how hard the players are getting screwed.

Manipulating Roulette Games Isn't New to Vegas

In addition to being a roulette game in electronic form, Interblock Gaming's embarrassingly bad new roulette variant, deceptively titled "Bonus Wheel Roulette," uses clever tactics to disguise exactly how bad the game is for players. We'll get into them a little bit later, but first, let's take a look at the last time Las Vegas got greedy with their roulette wheels and added the third "zero" to table versions of the roulette game.

When triple zero roulette table games landed at Las Vegas Strip casinos a few years ago, great measures were taken to disguise the presence of the third "zero." For example, the Bellagio triple zero roulette still had the (somewhat) acceptable two zero pockets in the wheel, 0 and 00, but the third "zero" was disguised as a Bellagio logo.

In fact, if you weren't paying close attention, you probably wouldn't even realize that the third "zero" existed at all, as it really just looked like branding on the roulette table, rather than a betting position.

This one change increased the house's advantage roughly 50% versus the double zero roulette game that had become standard on main casino floors in most North American casinos, including Las Vegas. 

If you compare the triple zero roulette game to European roulette tables with one zero, the house advantage is almost 200% higher...and over 500% higher on the even money bets.

When the triple zero roulette game debuted, I thought we had reached the bottom and the extent to which casino executive greed could go without a severe player backlash.

I am sorry to report, that's not the case. A new low has been reached.

How "Bonus Wheel Roulette" (Quad-Zero Roulette) Works?

As previously mentioned, this "four zero" roulette game made by Interblock Gaming uses some trickery to disguise how disgustingly bad it is for the players.

This electronic game features two wheels to sow confusion, and the main wheel in which the game is played consists of forty pockets, none of which are labeled with a zero. There are four gems, and they effectively operate as zeroes do in the traditional roulette table games, plus there are thirty-six additional pockets in the wheel labeled with the numbers one through thirty-six.

If you make any bets on the numbers (1-36), including even money bets and the 2-1 dozens bets, the house advantage is an incredible 10%, making it worse than the majority of slot machines in Nevada, and nearly double the advantage of a double zero roulette wheel.

The "gems" bets suck too. If you "win" by betting on a gem and hitting it, you are awarded one lousy chip (for hitting a 40-1 longshot.) The "bonus wheel" is then triggered to see if you can get a multiplier for that chip.

The multiplier "bonus" wheel has eight different possibilities you can score for your multiplier. Here's a list of the possibilities and their hit frequencies:

• 500x (1 in 40 chance)
• 200x (1 in 40 chance)
• 100x (1 in 20 chance)
• 50x (1 in 10 chance)
• 40x (3 in 20 chance)
• 10x (3 in 20 chance)
• 5x (1 in 5 chance)
• 1x (3 in 10 chance)

OK, that might seem a bit confusing to those of you that aren't math nerds (like I am), so let me break it down for you a bit.

You bet one chip on that extremely hard-to-hit gem spot. Thirty percent of the time, you will just get paid even money. Nearly two-thirds of the time, you will get 10-1 or less.

If you do the math for the gem bets, it works out to a mind-blowingly bad 9.25% advantage for the house.

We did some scouring of the internet to find a worse Las Vegas roulette game. It wasn't easy to find one, but we did see a report that the Roulette Xtra game has been offered at the Palazzo. It features a 10.04% house advantage on the straight bets, making it ever so slightly worse than Interblock Gaming's embarrassingly bad electronic roulette game.