California Roulette: Why Cards Pick the Number

How California roulette works, step by step

Sit down at one of these tables and very little feels different at first. You buy chips, you bet on the usual felt, the dealer closes betting. The change comes at the moment of truth.

1. Bets go on a normal board. The layout carries the thirty six numbers, a 0 box and a 00 box, with dozens, columns and the even money boxes.
2. The dealer stops the betting. Same call, same timing as any roulette table.
3. A card is produced. Depending on the table, it comes out of an automatic shuffler, is dealt from a shuffled set, or is revealed from a slot on a large spinning wheel that holds face down cards.
4. The card is the result. If it shows 17, then 17 is the winning number. Red, odd, high, the second dozen and every bet covering 17 win.
5. Bets are settled. Losing chips come off, winners are paid at the regular roulette prices.

Some tables also spin a ball and wheel for show. When they do, only the card counts. If you have never played the standard game, how to play roulette covers the bets themselves.

California roulette law: why the ball is not allowed

The short version: California's Penal Code, section 330, lists roulette by name among the games that may not be dealt or played for money, along with banking games played with cards, dice or any device. The state Division of Gambling Control has said in a tribal casino advisory that it treats any roulette game where a device decides the outcome as prohibited, and that such games are not allowed in tribal casinos.

Tribal casinos, though, operate under agreements with the state, called compacts, that allow them to run banking card games. A game where a card decides the result is treated as a card game rather than as wheel roulette. That is the gap the card based version fits into. Whether every version fits it cleanly has been argued over for a long time, and disputes between tribes and card rooms over table games continue.

For the official rules and current notices, see the state's California Bureau of Gambling Control pages. Nothing here is legal advice.

Roulette in California: tribal casinos vs card rooms

California has two kinds of places with table games, and they live under different rules.

If you see roulette on a California gaming floor, read the table sign. It will say how the result is chosen and whether any fee applies. The table layout guide will help you read the felt itself.

The California roulette wheel and table

There is no single design, which is why people get confused. Three setups are common:

• Shuffler only. A set of 38 numbered cards sits in an automatic shuffler. After betting closes, the dealer presses a button and one card comes out.
• Card wheel. An upright wheel, a bit like a prize wheel, holds 38 face down cards in equal slots. It spins, stops, and the card in the winning slot is turned over.
• Ball wheel for show. A regular roulette wheel spins, but a card drawn at the same time is the official result.

The California roulette table is the familiar double zero board. The card simply stands in for the pocket, so the winning number is read from it and marked on the board. To see how a real ball wheel arranges its numbers, look at the American roulette wheel.

California roulette rules and odds

With 38 equally likely cards, every number on the table matches a double zero wheel. The table below uses a 5 unit chip.

That works out to a 5.26% edge on standard bets, or about 5.3 units lost per 100 units bet over time. If a table ever uses a set with only one zero card, the odds match a single zero wheel instead, at 2.70%. Count the zero cards.

Is a roulette card game the same as wheel roulette?

For your bankroll, yes. The odds come from how many outcomes there are and what each bet pays. A shuffled set of 38 cards and a wheel with 38 pockets both give each number a 1 in 38 chance. Payouts match too. So the expected cost of a session is the same, and so are the swings.

What you lose is mostly atmosphere: no ball rattling around the rim. What you do not gain is any edge. Tracking which cards came up does not help when every draw starts from the full set, just as watching a wheel's past numbers does not help. How fair games get checked is explained under is roulette rigged.

Online roulette in California and free practice

California does not license online casino games, so there is no state regulated online roulette in California. If you want to learn the game or test a bet without money, a free simulator does the job. The free roulette simulator runs a double zero table, which plays exactly like the 38 card version, using play credits and no download.