Venetian opens "Triple Zero Roulette" with staggering 7.69% house edge
Just two decades ago, casino managers believed that their players knew the odds fairly well. Therefore, they were afraid to manipulate popular pit games such as blackjack and roulette for additional profit, worrying alienating gamblers. They would create weird variants of the game to accomplish this (think Spanish 21), but as far as standard blackjack and roulette were concerned, they stayed mostly stable and unmolested.
In the early 2000s, Harrah's introduced 6:5 single-deck blackjack. Instead of paying 3:2 for a blackjack ($75 payout for $50 bet), they would only pay 6:5 ($60 payout for a $50 bet) at single-deck tables.
This was actually genius for two reasons. First, Harrah's realized that the long-held assumption that gamblers were well-informed was incorrect. especially after the change in Vegas tourist demographics since the early '90s. Vegas tourists were now more families than hardcore gamblers. They only casually knew the games they played, and would not understand why the reduction of blackjack payouts from 3:2 to 6:5 was such a big deal.
Second, they only did it at single-deck. This was because the public had an incorrect perception that single deck was "better for the player" because "it's what the pros play". The public didn't understand that blackjack pros only preferred single deck because card counting was more effective. If you don't know how to count cards, there's no point to play single-deck. However, the typical Vegas gambler didn't realize this, and would gravitate toward single-deck tables. When they saw the 6:5 rule, they would simply shrug their shoulders and assume that was just the "cost" of having a "better" game to play.
6:5 single-deck was a huge hit, and soon spread throughout Vegas.
Later, 6:5 tables were also introduced at "entertainment" pits, such as pits where the dealers impersonated celebrities or were scantly-clad young women. The rationale here was that, again, people would overlook the 6:5 payout in exchange for the sexier/more entertaining dealer. Again, this worked out great.
In 2014, Sheldon Adelson decided to try a new experiment at his Venetian and Palazzo casinos, changing most blackjack games to 6:5, rather than just the single deck.
But now Mr. Adelson has outdone himself.
He has added triple-zero roulette, which has a staggering 7.69% house edge.
For those of you who don't know roulette, it's the green zeroes on the wheel which give the house the edge. Without the zeroes, roulette would be a zero-edge game for both the house and player. For example, you can bet on regular numbers 1-36, and they will pay 36x for single-number bet, 18x for a 2-number bet, even-money if you bet half the numbers (such as 1-18), etc. The house wins because of the zeroes. If a zero hits, then every single bet loses, except for the bets on the zero.
Initially, roulette was a "single zero" game, with a semi-reasonable house edge of 2.7%. This edge is easy to compute. Simply put, the zero would hit 1 out of 37 times (since there are 36 numbers plus the zero), which translates to 2.7%.
Double-zero roulette was then introduced. It has both the regular single zero, as well as a "00" spot. Now there were two chances to land on zero. This changed the house edge to 2 out of 38, or 5.26%. Most casinos have double-zero roulette nowadays.
But now triple-zero roulette has just been introduced at Venetian, even though the double-zero games also remain. Triple-zero roulette has 0, 00, and 000 on the wheel. This means the house edge is now 3 out of 39, or 7.69%. This makes it one of the very worst pit games possible.
How will triple-zero roulette do? Nobody knows, but I'm assuming it might work just fine. Sadly, roulette players tend to be going for the big "lucky" hit, and even if they are just doing an even-money bet such as red or black, they still tend to ignore the effect of the zeroes. However, it's possible players will rebel against this. Even the most casual roulette player understands that the zeros are bad, and seeing three of them instead of two may be unnerving enough to where they get up and go elsewhere. Not that double-zero is a great game (5.26% house edge is pretty brutal, too), but this is a bad sign.
Slowly but surely, casinos around the US are realizing that the gambler they really want is the dumb/uninformed gambler, and they are quietly driving out both the advantage players and the low-house-edge "informed" gambler. We are seeing this trend in video poker, as well.
Casinos used to be happy with ANY action, provided they had at least a small edge. Not anymore. They seem to be looking to increase revenue against the weakest players, while allowing the strongest players to walk.
