More than just red and black
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ROULETTE You can turn your R100 into millions at Tsogo Sun’s Roulette Knockout.
An iconic game steeped in history, roulette is known as the queen of casino games – for good reason. It’s great fun and delivers a thrilling experience, particularly when the stakes are as high as a R500 000 knockout first prize.
Tsogo Sun’s Roulette Knockout, which offers a total prize pool of R1 million and a guaranteed first prize of R500 000, kicked off on May 22 at Montecasino, Gold Reef City and Silverstar.
With players from not one but three casinos contributing to the winnings and 100% of the R100 buy-in going straight into prize pool, the chances are good that the winnings could be even higher than the guaranteed amounts.
“Every Tsogo Sun group and regional tournament has seen the prize money being increased because of the enormous popularity, which can be attributed to the low buy-in of just R100, making it possible to transform a hundred rand note into thousands or even millions.
“This is exactly what happened to the winner of Tsogo Sun’s 2015 Roulette Knockout tournament when a student spent just R100 on the buy-in, played once and won R350 000. Every year the tournament starts with a guaranteed prize pool and every year the prize pool increases because every cent of the R100 buy-in goes into the prize pool,” says tables manager of Montecasino, Caroline Naidu.
Shedding some light on the game of black and red, Naidu explains, “Roulette doesn’t require a lot of learning to play. There are 11 different ways that you can wager, resulting in 161 betting spots on the wheel layout. An American roulette wheel has 37 numbers – 1 to 36, and a 0”.
The beauty about the Tsogo Sun roulette tournaments are their accessibility, says Naidu.
“Anybody can enter and win. Our latest Roulette Knockout tournament winner spent R300 and won R1 million. We’ve seen a massive increase in the popularity of roulette since the inception of the Roulette Masters and Roulette Knockout tournaments.
Based on the maximum bets and number of positions available on the table, it’s possible to win R784 000 on a single spin. Our biggest wins in roulette have been a player who won R5 million overnight and another who was awarded R9 million in one gambling session.”
On to the burning question – is it really all about luck or is there some strategy to playing roulette?
“As with all casino games, roulette is game of chance. There is some strategy to playing in a tournament. But in the end, it all comes down to chance.”
Having worked in the casino industry for over 18 years, Naidu has witnessed all manner of superstitious behaviour.
“We see lots of lucky charms on the tables, and people who will only sit or stand in a particular position. We even have people throwing salt on the table or walking around their chair before resuming play.”
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