Californian Roulette

In the sun drenched US state of California the beaches may be buzzing, but in 2004 this famously liberal state got hot under the collar about the business of betting on dice and wheels – or what they saw as games of chance rather than skill. The result? They banned them!

Who knows what the future of roulette is in this US State, but for now playing on the wheel can be tricky. For now, you need to get on the Interstate 15 to Las Vegas.

Roulette is Banned

So what does this restriction mean to roulette players? This means that the ball that spins around the roulette wheel falls foul of the law and takes the King of Table Games strictly off limits in the Golden State.

So what happens if you find yourself out West and you fancy a game of roulette? Well, those Californians came up with an ingenious alternative which is played with cards, which means that this game sits inside state law.

What makes roulette so popular that a whole state had to come up with a new game to bend the rules? You just can’t put the game down…..Welcome to Californian Roulette!

Cards not Wheels

So what is California Roulette? We’re not talking about whether there’s going to be a big earthquake today, we’re talking about the biggest card game in town.

It’s a variant on a classic game of roulette, but how does it work? The traditional roulette wheel is replaced with a special deck of 38 cards (1 to 36 plus the zeros), following the numbering of an American roulette wheel, instead of the European 37 numbers- (we are stateside after all).

What is ingenious about this game is that despite the lack of a wheel, the game is very close to the red and black of the card deck providing the same betting options as the wheel does. And of course, the numbers work the same way too.

The mechanics of the spin of the wheel can be replicated in different ways. One version sees the dealer literally turn over a card from the selection which is randomly shuffled by a machine and this is the winning card, but there is a world of creative variations to this popular game.

Another way is to spin a kind of wheel filled with red and black cards, when the wheel stops the colour is determined by a pointer. The number is then selected by the dealer turning over one of two cards on the table, one red and one black. Once the card of the selected colour is turned then the number is chosen- this is the winning number.

California isn’t the only state that clamped down of roulette and craps in what could be the biggest upset for players since the Straperlo Scandal in the 1930s. In the Grand Canyon state of Arizona, similar regulations have been put in place, and here too players have had to get creative to play within the law of the land.

We’re betting that if further legislation is laid down across the US, other states produce legal games that sidestep the rules.

With necessity being the mother of invention, the law-makers have forced innovation into the gaming industry….