Roulette Tournaments: Types and Rules for Playing Them

Roulette tournaments are quite a new trend in the gaming community. It has to be said that roulette tournaments were inspired by poker tournaments. The popularisation of poker tournaments inspired some of the providers to try and see if the same will work when it comes to roulette. Some people did find it strange in the beginning, especially because poker and roulette aren’t really that similar. For one, poker is played against other players and therefore tournaments make a lot of sense. In classic roulette, whether American or European, as we know, players compete against the croupier and not against one another. Here are more details on roulette rules, if you are curious. Naturally, many people were sceptical when it came to introducing roulette tournaments. However, the creators of roulette tournament did a pretty good job. The players compete against one another in a specified number of rounds. The winner, of course, is the player that has the highest number of chips by the end of the game and the limit is either set on a number of spins or at the end of a certain amount of time. The entry fees may vary and each player can choose a tournament that suits his or her budget.

Advantages of Roulette Tournaments

For the Players

Participating in roulette tournaments as opposed to playing classic roulette, whether online or at brick-and-mortar casinos, has a lot of advantages for the players. Roulette tournaments are less about luck and more about developing the right winning strategy. Furthermore, you can win a larger amount of money in a relatively short amount of time. Surely, most roulette tournaments are on a “winner-takes-it-all” basis, but your aim is to be the winner, isn’t it?! In addition, it is fairly easy to sing up for a roulette tournament, and you can always pick the one that is the most appropriate for you.

For the Casinos

Needless to say, roulette tournaments have a lot of advantages for the casinos, too. Otherwise they wouldn’t organise them. The first advantage is that the prize-pool is entirely covered by the amount of the entry fees and there’s a little extra for the casino. In other words, there isn’t even a theoretical possibility that the casino would lose any money. Also, roulette tournaments are a great way of popularising the game and attracting new players. Many people who may not have played roulette before, could be curious to participate in a roulette tournament. Therefore, roulette tournaments are a win-win situation for both players and casinos.

How is a Round-based Roulette Tournament Played?

A round-based roulette tournament is one of the two main types of roulette tournaments. In order to participate in such an event, you need to sign up and pay the buy-in, i.e. the entry fee. The amount of money required for participation may differ, depending on the tournament. A higher buy-in means more money for the winner. The fee that the casino gets for organising the tournament is usually calculated in the buy-in sum. As part of different promotions, casinos may offer players free participation in certain tournaments, where they have a chance to win a certain amount of real money at the end.

The fee that you pay for participation is calculated in real money, but the actual rounds in the game aren’t played with real money. Instead, you get a certain amount of chips and you play using them. The precise number and value of chips that you get usually depends on the buy-in. In most tournaments you can’t cash out during the game and you have to play until the last round. These tournaments are more similar to a regular game of roulette, than a tournament. In most tournaments there is a maximum and a minimum amount of chips that you’re allowed to bet in each round.

The duration of a round-based roulette tournament may vary and it depends on the structure of the tournament. The tournament is over when the last round is played. So, if a tournament has 100 round,s it will finish when the 100th round is over, regardless of the time that has passed from the beginning to the end. Some tournaments have different stages and only players who pass a certain stage qualify for the next. For example, a tournament can consist of 90 rounds, where the first stage is of 30 rounds and only half of the players go to the next stage. Then this stage may also last 30 rounds, and the third portion of 30 rounds will be the final stage where the winner would be decided. Some players prefer structured tournaments, because it is easier to plan a strategy.

The main question at the end of the tournament, naturally, is “Who won?” Simply said, the player who has the highest number of chips at the end of the tournament the winner. In most cases, that is true regardless of the precise number of chips as long as it is at least one chip more than the player who comes the second. Typically, the winner gets the full prize pool or at least the largest chunk of it. In tournaments where you can cash out during the course of the tournament, the winning prize depends on the number of chips and other players also get prizes.

Time-based Variant of Roulette Tournaments

The other variant of roulette tournaments is the time-based variant. As the name suggest, here the duration of the tournament is strictly fixed in time. Again, different tournaments take place at different time periods and may be longer or shorter. A tournament can last for 7 days, a fortnight or even a month. The shorter tournaments that last a single day are called daily tournaments. The amount of rounds that a player has to participate in, usually depends on the duration of the tournament. In a tournament that lasts for a whole month, a player would have to play at least few times a week, whereas if it lasts for a week or 5 days, the player would have to play at least once a day. There’s also a minimum and a maximum amount of rounds for each player, as well as an amount of chips that can be wagered per round.