Roulette Casinos

These are the casinos I recommend if you're looking to play roulette online.

I've played at each of these roulette casinos for real money, so I'm happy to vouch for them as being reliable places to play.

It's not an exhaustive list of every roulette casino on the Internet. It's just a list of the ones that I think are most worth checking out.

1. Ignition

• Rating: A+
• Website: ignitioncasino.eu
• Launched: 2016

Roulette Games:

AmericanEuropean

• Live Roulette: Yes
• Racetrack: Yes
• La Partage / En Prison: No

Payment Methods:

• Payout Time: 1-2 Days

Pros

• + Best roulette casino for US players.
• + Extremely reliable with fast payouts.
• + Accepts bitcoin.

Cons

• - Only accepts US and Australian players.
• - Small number of roulette games.

Play at Ignition

2. Cloudbet

Cloudbet does not accept players from United States

• Rating: A
• Website: cloudbet.com
• Launched: 2013

Roulette Games:

AmericanEuropeanFrench

• Live Roulette: Yes
• Racetrack: Yes
• La Partage / En Prison: Yes

Payment Methods:

• Payout Time: Within 24 Hours

Pros

• + Fastest withdrawals thanks to bitcoin.
• + Professional website.
• + Fast and friendly support.

Cons

• - Only accepts bitcoin.

Play at Cloudbet

3. Bookmaker

• Rating: A
• Website: bookmaker.eu
• Launched: 1996

Roulette Games:

American

• Live Roulette: No
• Racetrack: No
• La Partage / En Prison: No

Payment Methods:

• Payout Time: 1-2 Days

Pros

• + Old and extremely reliable company.
• + Excellent sportsbook.
• + Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals.

Cons

• - Only offers American roulette.
• - Limited number of casino games overall.

Play at Bookmaker

Which roulette site is the best?

All of the casinos I have listed are worth checking out, and ultimately it depends on which country you're living in:

• If you don't live in the US or UK, check out Cloudbet.
• If you live in the US, Ignition Casino is your best choice.
• If you live in the UK, have a look at Yeti Casino.

Personally I'm a big fan of the flexibility that comes with bitcoin, which is why I recommend Cloudbet to everyone who is eligible to play there.

A good roulette site is one that accepts deposits quickly, lets you gamble however you want, and processes withdrawals almost immediately. Other than that, the casino should keep out of the way.

The more established online casinos (e.g. 888) have to expend resources dealing with regulation, and they recoup this money through aggressive advertising (and holding on to your money longer than they really need to). Sure, they'll pay out, but they're thinking of themselves first before the player.

I see bitcoin casinos as the future of online gambling, and I'd recommend anyone to try them out and see the difference.

What do I look for in a casino?

1. Company
2. Website
3. Mobile
4. Games
   • Live Roulette
   • La Partage / En Prison
   • Modern Variants
   • Software Providers
5. Banking
6. Bonus
7. Support

I. Company

I only play at and recommend casinos where I trust that all winnings will be honored by the company no matter what. Everything I judge a casino company on rests on how much respect they pay to that pursuit.

The company behind the casino is the first thing I'm interested in when checking out a new roulette casino.

Gambling is an agreement between you and the casino; you agree to the terms of the bet, and casino agrees to honor your winnings if you win. That's the fundamental understanding between the casino and the gambler, and it underpins your entire experience.

I look for companies who understand the importance of paying out to winners no matter what, and hold this obligation higher than their goal of making a profit. The games are already designed so that the odds are in favor of the casino, so their only job is to have the integrity to pay out when luck falls on your side for a change.

These are the main things I take in to account when assessing the standard of the company behind a roulette casino:

• History. A solid history of honest behaviour is the best résumé you can get the world of gambling. Every other metric you can measure a casino by pales in comparison to integrity. A casino can be terrible in all other areas, but it's hard to say a bad word about them if they've been paying out to winners for years.
• Player Reviews. It's good to get feedback about other players' experiences at a roulette casino. I like to think I'm a good judge of a casino's character, but it's beneficial to corroborate my opinions with other gamblers'. You need to take most reviews with a pinch of salt though (most people only write reviews when they're angry or upset), but they're still a valuable source of information about a company's practices across the board.
• Terms & Conditions. I like clear and simple terms and conditions. If I sense that a casino has an underhand approach to bonuses (e.g. locking your deposit until you redeem it) or subtle predatory conditions (e.g. taking your balance after a few months of inactivity), then I don't hold out much hope for their overall practices. Transparency is a key variable in the trust equation.

I don't give much weight to the license an online casino holds. In general a trustworthy casino will have a license (i.e. a completely new casino with no official license is a red flag), but the specific type of license is not always a reliable measuring pole. I know of online casinos that hold a Malta Gaming License (the best license you can get) but have deceptive business practices, whereas other smaller casinos with a Curaçao license (the easiest you can get) have more integrity in their little business finger that the biggest operators in the industry.

So licenses are okay for a quick judgement on where a casino is "at", but it's not make or break.

II. Website

The more professional the experience, the higher I rate the website design.

The website of an online casino is the equivalent the gaming floor in a brick and mortar casino. Both should be professional and clean.

Now, before we go any further I must address the fact that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. As you may have noticed, this website is not a work of art. In fact it's quite the opposite. Therefore, what gives me the right to be the judge of how another website looks?

Absolutely nothing at all.

Anyway, I rate a roulette casino's website based on the following:

• Speed. I like fast-loading webpages. The job of a casino website is to provide an interface for creating an account and to lay out the games they have on offer. That's all there is to it, and it shouldn't require an inordinate amount of code or javascript libraries to achieve. The faster a website runs, the more enjoyable it is to use.
• Design. Simple designs are better than complex ones. When I visit a roulette casino I'm there because I want to find a game and gamble; I'm not there to be impressed by colorful graphics or high-res images of female croupiers winking suggestively at me. I believe that basic designs without distraction are a sign of respect to the player. Plus simple designs tend to load faster as well.
• Navigation. A good online casino sorts their games in to logical categories, and offers a search feature for quickly filtering through the games on offer. If I can't find a particular type of game through the main navigation or if the search feature is painfully slow, I consider it a sign of laziness in the design of the website.
• Popups. Popups (or "modal overlays" as they're now called) are the scourge of the Internet. Some casinos use them as a way to throw bonus offers in your face, or to distract you with a new fantastic slot game they've just released. But they're just a nuisance. I consider any interruption of this sort as an offense to my good nature, and I avoid casinos who choose to use them.

I know it seems superficial to judge an roulette casino based on how their website looks, but a polished appearance is a basic standard of the casino world. The casino operates solely to try and take your money, so the least they can do is put some effort in to how they look.

III. Mobile

Using an online casino on a smartphone is becoming the dominant way to play, and any roulette casino that does not cater for mobile users is getting left behind by the industry.

The majority of online casino players do so on a mobile device these days (as opposed to on a desktop), so having a casino that works well on mobile is mandatory.

Most roulette casinos provide a responsive HTML5 website that works both on desktop and on mobile, which is the most efficient way of running on mobile devices.

Sometimes an online casino will create a downloadable app for iOS and Android, which is a nice touch, but often these are just the exact same mobile-version of their websites wrapped in an app container.

My preference is a well-made responsive website, but either way, I like it when a roulette casino works just as well on mobile as it does on a desktop.

The things that contribute to a good mobile casino include:

• Lightweight Pages. Mobile data doesn't grow on trees, so the less data that you need to download to browse the roulette casino the better. The worst offenders for data usage are websites overlaced with javascript. Javascript is good for some extra functionality, but overdoing it slows down load times and makes webpages slower to respond. A good mobile casino snaps.
• Good Navigation. The first thing to disappear or get hidden on a responsive website when viewing on a small screen is the navigation. It's annoying when key navigational elements are completely removed rather than relocated, so I make note of casinos that have crafted a design specifically tailored to mobile devices as opposed to simply chopping away at a desktop-first layout.
• Modern Design. Website design standards change quickly, and designing for mobile devices has changed dramatically since smartphones were first released. A mobile-friendly website five years ago (i.e. a separate mobile-only website) functions completely differently to one today (e.g. a single responsive HTML5 layout), so you need to keep up with the times to be practical. A website that wasn't built or redesigned in the last three years isn't going to provide an optimum mobile experience.
• Mobile-Specific Games. Some of the actual games developed by casino software providers work better on mobile than others. Some of the more graphical games require the precision of a mouse-click to play effectively, whereas the simpler mobile-friendly variants can be operated by the fattest of fingers. I give extra credit to casinos with games designed specifically for mobile.
• Cashier Integration. There's nothing worse than jumping from tab to tab and domain to domain when trying to make a deposit at a roulette casino. I look for casinos that have tightly integrated the cashier in to their website design, so that the steps between depositing and playing for real money are as seamless as possible.

That's about everything. Ultimately a mobile casino website is an extension of their overall website design, so if it looks good on your desktop, it's probably going to be decent on your mobile device too.

IV. Games

I always look for casinos that offer French Roulette, or at the very least European Roulette.

There are three classic variants of roulette that every good roulette casino should offer.

In descending order these are:

1. French Roulette

French Roulette is the key game to look for, because it always offers the lowest house edge (1.35%) of the classic roulette variants. This is due to the presence of a La Partage / En Prison rule that gives you half of your bet back if you make an even-money bet (e.g. red/black, high/low) and the result is 0. However, many people mistakenly avoid this variant due to the less popular table layout and the French bet names.

2. European Roulette

European Roulette is next on the list of variants to look for, and it's the version the game you're most likely to be familiar with. This game typically has a house edge of 2.70%, but sometimes it can be reduced to 1.35% if it also offers the La Partage / En Prison rule (as in French Roulette). If this is the case, then both French and European roulette are equally as good to play, and the only difference between the two is in the table layout.

3. American Roulette

American Roulette is last on the list. This version looks exactly the same as European Roulette, except it has an additional 00 number. However, this number only serves to reduce your chances of winning, because the payout for each of the bets are exactly the same as in European roulette. As a result the game has the highest house edge of 5.26% and is best avoided at all costs. Many people choose this variant due to patriotism, but from a gambling point of view it's the worst version of roulette you can play.

Live Roulette

I always look for live roulette tables when visiting an online casino, and I'm disappointed if they don't have them.

Live roulette (and live casino games in general) have become a major part of online gambling since the early 2010s. Digital games are fine, but nothing compares to watching the physics of a roulette wheel in action.

La Partage / En Prison

You want to find a roulette casino that offers games with either the La Partage or En Prison rule in place

These rules halve the house edge in zero-wheel roulette (i.e. French and European) from 2.70% to 1.35% on all outside bets.

As mentioned, the rules come in to play when you make an even-money wager (e.g. red/black) and the ball lands in the green 0:

• La Partage - You immediately get half of your bet back.
• En Prison - Your bet is left where it is for the next spin. This is effectively the same as getting half of your bet back, because you have 50/50 chance of winning on the next spin of the wheel.

Modern Variants

One of the benefits of digital casino games is that you can create variants of classic casino games that would be difficult or impossible to construct in real life. Roulette especially is a game that game providers like to add their own unique twist to.

Some of the most popular variants of roulette include:

• Double Ball Roulette (Felt)
• Lightning Roulette (Evolution)
• Bonus Roulette (Inspired)

And that's just to name a few.

These games are fun to play, but be aware that they usually have a worse house edge than the classic roulette variants. For example, Lightning Roulette may seem to offer bigger wins and better odds due to the increased payout on some numbers from one spin to the next, but the default payouts are reduced to compensate for this, and the actual house edge for the game is worse overall.

Lightning Roulette. The default payout on a straight bet is reduced, and the overall house edge for these bets is actually 2.90%.

So keep an eye on the house edge when playing any non-standard version of roulette.

I don't tend to play exotic variations of roulette myself, so it's not something I take in to account when rating a roulette casino.

Software Providers

Game providers make the games, and the casinos pay them to offer the games in their casino.

It's rare for a roulette casino to offer games that they've actually developed themselves. Instead, what normally happens is the online casino gets licenses from game providers to offer the games they have developed.

Some of the biggest game provider companies include:

As you can imagine some game providers produce better games than others, and they each come with their own licensing costs. So if a roulette casino wants to offer a large variety of games from different providers, they need to pay more in total licensing fees. This is why smaller casinos typically have a smaller selection of games than larger casinos, and why larger casinos often have duplicates of the same game.

It's cool to play at a big casino with a wide selection of game providers, but you'll normally find yourself gravitating toward games created by specific providers anyway. For example, I think NetEnt currently make the best roulette games, and I play those where I can.

I don't judge casinos too critically on which game providers they use, as the ones they use tend to come and go over time. As long as they have the core roulette variants and the software isn't awful, it's not something I care too much about.

But still, you've got to try them out for yourself to see which game developer you like the most.

Not all game providers serve their games to players from all countries. So you might find a casino offering games from a specific provider, only to realize they're not available in your country. It's a bit annoying, but it's just how it is at the moment.

V. Banking

I like bitcoin.

You need to get your money in and out somehow, and casinos work hard to give you as many deposit and withdrawal options as possible.

In general, if a casino doesn't offer your favorite payment method, it's not because they don't want to, but because they're simply not able to for whatever reason. So try not to hold it against them, and find a casino that does.

If you've never played at a real money roulette casino before, the most common types of payment method are:

Credit/Debit Card

By far the most popular method (if it's available).

Online Wallets

A flexible alternative to paying by card or bank transfer. You can load up an online wallet like Neteller, Skrill, MuchBetter (and sometimes PayPal) using your various payment options, and from there you can use it to deposit and withdraw from a variety of online casinos.

Bitcoin / Cryptocurrencies

A newer option that gives you complete control over your money, but you need to take care of your own security. I highly recommend checking it out if you've not used it before.

The options available will vary from casino to casino and depending what country you live in, but those are the most common options you'll find in any cashier.

Personally I find bitcoin to be the easiest and most reliable method for getting money in to and out of online casinos. Sure, you need to get your hands on some bitcoin first, but after you've used it for the first time you won't go back to the restrictive traditional payment methods you're currently used to. Using bitcoin gives you financial freedom, and it's worth the effort to learn how it works.

Withdrawal Times

Anyway, the most important thing about any casino in my book is withdrawal times. From my experience I categorize them as follows:

• Instant - Excellent (but rare).
• Within 1 Day - Good
• 1-3 Days - Okay.
• 3+ Days - Poor.

Getting a withdrawal processed in less than 24 hours is the goal, but I'm happy with 48 hours or less too. Much more than 48 hours I consider to be slow, as it's usually caused by slow authorization by casino staff (as opposed to standard payment processor times). The only exception to this is bank transfer, which is characteristically slow no matter which casino you use (2-3 working days if you're lucky).

Again, this is why I like bitcoin, because it bypasses traditional payment processor checks and can be processed by the network with 10 minutes.

But at the end of the day, use the deposit and withdrawal option you feel most comfortable with.

VI. Bonus

• Time To Redeem — How long you have to redeem the bonus.
• Wagering Requirements — How much you need to wager to redeem full bonus.

Bonuses should rarely give you a reason to sign up to an online casino. They're usually best avoided, but I like to list the bonus details for each casino so you know what the deal is in simple terms.

The problem with bonuses is that they're not the "free money" they appear to be. The bonus money that gets added to your balance comes with high wagering requirement, where you usually have to wager in the region of 40x-60x the bonus amount before you can withdraw it.

Example. If you receive a $100 bonus and it comes with a 40x wagering requirement, you'll need to wager $4,000 before you can withdraw the bonus.

Even worse, games like roulette are often discounted toward the wagering requirement to around 10%, so in reality the wagering requirement is 400x-600x the bonus amount, which is impossibly high in most cases.

In other words, you're almost guaranteed to go broke before you come anywhere close to being able to withdraw the bonus money by playing roulette.

Example. If you receive a $100 bonus and it comes with a 40x wagering requirement, if you choose to play roulette you'll need to wager $40,000 before you can withdraw the bonus.

And that's not the last of it. There are two bonus conditions (or traps) that you need to watch out for:

Winnings Trap. Some online casinos will force you to forfeit any winnings if you make a withdrawal before hitting the wagering requirements. So even if you win money using the money you've actually deposited, the bonus requirements will prevent you from withdrawing it, and you'll be limited to withdrawing your initial deposit only.

Deposit Trap. Worse again, some casinos will prevent you from withdrawing your initial deposit (let alone any winnings) until you hit the bonus wagering requirements. Ultimately this traps your money at the casino and forces you to gamble it all over and over again, and there's a high chance you'll go broke before you hit the wagering requirements for the bonus. This is the most underhand bonus condition in the online casino industry.

So bonuses are not what you think.

In reality the bonuses are just there to try and get you addicted to playing slots (slots always count 100% to the wagering requirement). Slots are designed to excite your endorphins, and if a casino can encourage you to play for longer then there's a higher chance you'll get hooked, and suddenly you'll find yourself handing over more money to the casino than you ever intended.

There's no casino I know of where you can casually play roulette for a couple days, redeem some handy bonus money on the side, and withdraw your deposit and bonus for an easy profit. They're not designed to work that way.

The only way to "beat" the bonuses on offer is to hit the wagering requirements as quickly as possible by betting the maximum amount possible on the highest-contributing games. You'll fail and go broke more often than not, but this approach gives you the highest probability of success.

Bet Limit. Some casinos like Betsafe also have a rule to prevent this fast-redeem approach by limiting the size of bets you can make that contribute to the wagering requirements. This is a death sentence for your chances of ever being able to redeem the bonus.

So if you're going to take the bonus money on offer at a roulette casino, accept that you're probably going to lose your deposit and use it to try and go on the most insane run possible.

VII. Support

Support is a way for an online casino to show how much they care about their players.

Ideally you'll never need to contact support as the majority of an online casino's operations are automated, so there's little that can actually go wrong. But if you do ever need help or advice, it's reassuring to know that the people behind the company have got time to help you out.

The three most common support options at online casinos are:

• Live Chat. This is becoming increasingly popular, for better or for worse. It's ideal for quick questions. but nothing more.
• Email. Usually slower than live chat, but better for longer questions that require more detailed answers.
• Telephone. Useful if you're not a millennial and prefer to speak to someone on the phone. Often the best option for getting direct and thorough answers to questions, but can be hit and miss.

Unfortunately some online casinos see support as a burden, and you get treated accordingly. The larger casinos have a habit of automating support as much as possible by manning their live chat with bots, and doing everything within their power to redirect you to their FAQ pages (on the same topic of your question but do not actually answer it), and then making you wait 3-4 days just to get an answer to your question via email.

As you can tell, I've been burned by support a few times.

So at every roulette casino I play at I always get in contact with support to see how they respond. I send a simple technical question via email and wait to see what comes back. If I get a friendly and knowledgeable reply with 24 hours, then it's a sign I'm on to a winner.

If a casino ever makes it difficult to get in contact with them in any way, it's a red flag. They may be regulated up to the eyeballs, but if they don't care about support then you're leaving yourself open to frustration later on down the line. And honestly, it's not a frustration you want.

Poor support shows that you're just a source of money to a casino. In other words, if you're not depositing money and losing it playing casino games, you're wasting their time.

Support seems like a secondary concern when choosing an online casino, but from my experience provides the most accurate insight in to how the casino treats their players.

And if you're going to lose money to anyone on the Internet, it might as well be to a friendly bunch of people.

Why should I trust your reviews?

I don't have a degree in reviewing roulette sites. I've just been gambling on the Internet since I was 18 (18 years in total), so I like to think I know a good site when I see one.

I've seen casinos come and go. I've seen operators go from good to bad and back again. And most importantly, I've been burned more times by the industry than I can remember.

But I still like the ability to gamble online.

To me gambling is a freedom. It's not going to make you money, nor is it going to make you deeply happy by any measurable extent, but it is a freedom you should be able to exercise should you choose to do so. Gambling sites offer this service, so it's with curiosity I check them out to see how they operate, and find out how they treat those who are drawn to the same freedoms that I am.

You're going to lose over the long run, but if I can help you to avoid losing money from choosing the wrong casino (as opposed to choosing the wrong number to bet on) and give you the opportunity to get paid when you win, then at least my years of experience won't have been completely wasted.

But as with anything in life, the choice is yours.