Roulette
Roulette (Japanese: ルーレット roulette) is a game at the Mauville Game Corner in Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. It is based on the game roulette, which can be found at many real-world casinos.
Play
The roulette wheels have twelve slots. Each slot has a different combination of one of three colors (yellow, green, and purple) and one of four Pokémon (Makuhita, Azurill, Skitty, and Wynaut). By betting which slot a ball will land in, the player can win Coins.
Bets can be placed in three different ways: on a specific slot, on a color, or on a Pokémon. Once a bet is placed, a ball will be spun around the wheel until it lands in one of the twelve slots. Winning a bet on a specific slot returns twelve times as much as was originally bet, winning by Pokémon yields four times the amount bet, and winning by color gives three times as much. Each ball remains on the wheel after being placed. Once six balls have been played, the wheel is reset.
As only one ball can fit into each slot, bets on a Pokémon or color can change their odds and increase their payouts when some of the possibilities are taken off the board. The multiplier of a payout is always equal to 12 divided by the number of empty slots of the bet type; for example, if a ball has already landed on a Wynaut, that column will have a ×6 multiplier (12/2) instead of the usual ×4 multiplier (12/3), as now there are only two Wynaut slots left on the wheel instead of three.
There are two roulette wheels in the Game Corner, with one having a wager of 1 coin and the other having a wager of 3 coins. On the Game Corner's Service Day, the 3-coin table has a special rate of a 6-coin wager instead.
Sometimes the ball may get stuck between two balls which have already settled. When this happens, either a Shroomish will drop down, causing the ball to fly up into the air and land in another spot, or a Taillow will pick it up and, after hovering with it for a bit, drop it into another spot.
Payout
| Slots | Payout |
|---|---|
| 4 | ×3 |
| 3 | ×4 |
| 2 | ×6 |
| 1 | ×12 |
Slots appearance
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Strategy and probabilities
Because the payouts are calculated based on an empty board, the odds favor the player as more balls fill the roulette wheel. For example, on an empty board, the payout of a single slot (×12) matches its probability (1/12). After five spins, the payout remains the same ×12, but the probability of a win increases to 1/7, giving the player a 71% edge on the final spin. This comes out to approximately a 30.64% advantage over all spins; this advantage can theoretically become even greater given that the roulette wheel spins relatively slowly and it is somewhat possible for the player to time the release of the ball. The odds favor the player in the long run, but the small bet amounts inhibit winning fortunes quickly. (In this way, on service days when the Game Corner increases the maximum bet on the roulette table and advertises that this "improves your luck", it does in fact increase the rate at which the player can make a profit. As service days are semi-random events that the player can influence, it is possible to ensure a better payout.)
In other languages
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This game-related article is part of Project Games, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon games. |