Live roulette: live dealer formats, speed costs, Lightning maths

Key facts

Live roulette streams a physical wheel, with or without a dealer, to a screen where you place bets. The house edge on a single zero live wheel is the usual 2.70%.
Speed is the hidden cost. Evolution's Speed Roulette runs 25 seconds from spin to spin, about half a standard round. At $5 a spin that is roughly $19.46 an hour in expected losses against $9.73, in our calculation.
Lightning Roulette strikes 1 to 5 lucky numbers a round with 50x to 500x multipliers on straight-ups, but pays 29 to 1 on an ordinary straight-up win instead of 35 to 1.
Online live roulette cannot legally be offered to people in Australia. In casinos, Victoria's approved rules include TouchBet Roulette, with up to 50 touch-screen stations linked to a real wheel.

What live roulette is

Live roulette is a physical roulette game filmed and streamed to your screen. A ball is spun on a real wheel, by a dealer or by an automated wheel, and you bet on a digital layout during a timed betting window. Results are decided by the ball, not by software, which is the main difference from RNG roulette, where a random number generator picks the pocket (our random number generator casino guide covers that side).

Because the payouts are the same as at a casino table, a single zero live wheel carries the usual 2.70% house edge, and a double zero one 5.26%.

Live dealer roulette formats

Evolution, the game maker behind Lightning Roulette, lists a wide range of live roulette formats on its own game pages. The main ones:

Format	What Evolution says about it
European Roulette	The core live game, with standard and VIP tables
French Roulette	Single zero, with the La Partage rule (even-money bets lose half on zero)
American Roulette	Adds a 00 pocket and a Five Bet; lower betting limits than other variants
Immersive Roulette	Multiple cameras and a slow-motion replay of the winning number
Speed Roulette	"25 seconds from spin to spin", about half a standard round; bets only during the spin
Auto Roulette	Fully automated wheel, no dealer; European, French and American versions
Speed Auto Roulette	"2,500 games per day"
Instant Roulette	12 synchronised Auto Roulette wheels
Double Ball Roulette	Two balls and two winning numbers per spin, payouts up to 1,300 to 1
Dual Play Roulette	Connects online players to tables on land-based casino floors

French tables with La Partage halve the edge on even-money bets to 1.35% in our calculation; see French roulette. American tables nearly double it. More on the supplier itself is in our Evolution Gaming profile.

Speed is the hidden cost

The house edge is charged per bet, so the faster the wheel spins, the faster it collects. Evolution says its VIP Auto tables deliver 60 to 80 game rounds per hour, and that Speed Roulette's 25-second round is about half the length of a standard one. In our calculation, at $5 a spin on a single zero wheel:

Pace	Spins an hour	Money through the wheel	Expected loss an hour
Standard live round (about 50 seconds)	72	$360	$9.73
VIP Auto, low end	60	$300	$8.11
VIP Auto, high end	80	$400	$10.81
Speed Roulette (25 seconds)	144	$720	$19.46

Same game, same edge, twice the cost per hour. The VGCCC makes a related point about casinos: automated versions of table games are not monitored by dealers, so harmful play can be overlooked.

Pundit tip: if you play any fast format, set your budget in spins, not dollars. "100 spins at $5" costs the same $13.51 on average whether it takes 40 minutes or two hours.

Lightning Roulette, worked through

Lightning Roulette was unveiled by Evolution at ICE 2018 in London, and Evolution says it "combined digital random number generators with the Live Roulette wheel". Its current game page sets out the rules:

The wheel has 1 to 36 plus a single zero, spun by an Auto Roulette wheel.
After betting closes, between one and five lucky numbers are struck by lightning, each with a multiplier between 50x and 500x.
A straight-up bet on a lucky number that wins is paid at that multiplier.
A straight-up win on any other number pays 29 to 1.
Splits, corners, red or black, dozens and the other bets pay the same as standard roulette.

What that means, in our calculation:

Bet	Payout	What the edge depends on
Red, black, dozens, splits, corners and the rest	Standard	Unchanged: 2.70% on a single zero wheel
Straight up, non-lucky win	29 to 1 (30 units back)	Without multipliers, 30 units back per 37 bet: 18.9% loss
Straight up, lucky win	50x to 500x	The multipliers must make up the gap

A normal straight-up win returns 36 units; here it returns 30, a cut of 16.7% on every ordinary win. The multipliers on lucky numbers have to give that back. The game page does not publish a return-to-player figure, so we cannot tell you whether they give back all of it. What is certain is that the straight-up bet is the only one that changes, and that it now pays out in rarer, larger lumps. A sibling format, XXXtreme Lightning Roulette, adds "Chain Lightning" up to ten lucky spots and Double Strike multipliers up to 2000x.

Other wheel-based live games, such as money wheels, are covered in our live casino game shows guide.

Live roulette in Australian casinos

The closest thing to live roulette in an Australian venue is an electronic terminal linked to a real wheel. Victoria's approved roulette rules include TouchBet Roulette: up to fifty touch-screen betting stations on a virtual layout, a real wheel and ball, cameras, and optional displays of the bets and recent numbers. Tasmania's rules include Rapid Roulette, an electronic variation where players bet on automated transaction stations with a countdown for each betting period, and where no Inspector is required at the table.

Both settle bets from what the screen shows when betting closes, and both use the standard single zero rules unless a variation says otherwise. For the standard wheel itself, see European roulette.

The law on live roulette online

Live roulette streamed to Australians is online gambling, whatever the wheel looks like. Under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, ACMA lists casino-style games, roulette included, as illegal to offer online to people in Australia; it is not an offence to play, but ACMA warns players they risk losing their money with illegal operators. The licence list Evolution publishes does not include Australia. Our online roulette Australia guide covers this in full, and if fast games are getting away from you, the gambling help page lists free, confidential support.

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Frequently asked questions

What is live roulette?

Live roulette is a real roulette wheel, usually in a studio, streamed on video while you bet on a digital layout. Some tables have a dealer who spins the ball; auto roulette tables use a fully automated wheel with no dealer.

Is live dealer roulette fair?

The result comes from a physical ball and wheel rather than software, and the payouts are the same as at a casino table, so a single zero live wheel has the normal 2.70% house edge. Fairness also depends on who regulates the operator, and offshore sites offering roulette to Australians are not licensed here.

How does Lightning Roulette work?

Evolution's Lightning Roulette is single zero roulette where, after betting closes, between one and five lucky numbers are struck and given multipliers of 50x to 500x for straight-up bets. Straight-ups that win without a multiplier pay 29 to 1 instead of 35 to 1; splits, corners, dozens and even-money bets pay as normal.

Is Lightning Roulette better odds than normal roulette?

Evolution's game page does not publish a return figure. What we can say from its rules: the outside bets pay as standard on a single zero wheel (2.70% edge), while an ordinary straight-up win returns 30 units instead of 36, so straight-up bets rely entirely on the multipliers to make up that 16.7% cut.

Can I play live roulette in Australia?

Not legally online. ACMA lists roulette among the casino-style games that cannot be offered online to people in Australia, and warns that players with illegal operators risk losing their money. Roulette with a real wheel is legal in person at licensed casinos.