Introducing K-Pop Roulette Live from Playtech

Here’s one for those who like their casino games a little Gangnam Style: K-Pop Roulette Live. 

It’s a roulette based game show very much tailored to the Korean playing market (yes, presenters chat & sing in Korean). K-Pop Roulette is to Roulette as alcopops are to a good red wine. Louder, fizzier, fruitier, less complexity but capable of getting you just as pissed.

The K-Pop Bets and Payouts

Most roulette based game shows will present a familiar roulette bet selector with the full range of inside and outside bets offered (albeit with payouts randomly multiplied).

K-Pop roulette does away with the regular table bet selector, and most of the bets. In its place is a much smaller and simpler choice of bets.

Here’s your bet selector.

You can bet:

• Black, Red, Odd, Even, all paying 1:1 (as per regular roulette)
• Zero, paying 35:1 (as per regular roulette)
• Lucky Number, paying 35:1
  Rather than choosing the number on the roulette table, a Lucky Number is randomly selected for you to bet on each round. If you don’t like the number, a single click randomly allocates another – but you don’t get to choose. If a favoured number does come up you can lock it in for easy selection on future rounds.
• Blue Diamond, Pink Heart, Yellow Star, Purple Moon all paying 3:1
  These are the K-Pop neighbour equivalents.

The K-Pop wheel is a standard European Roulette wheel – numbers 1 through 36 and a single zero in conventional order. It’s further segmented into the 4 sectors: Blue Diamond, Pink Heart, Yellow Star and Purple Moon.

Each sector contains 9 numbers, as below.

The wheel also has an auto ball launch, leaving the presenter with no responsibilities other than chatting, singing and dancing.

Given the limited bet choices, you get an ample 20 seconds to place your chips.

Here’s a win on the Zero bet – effectively the same bet and 35:1 payout offered on the classic game.

Here’s a win on a the Yellow Star sector bet with the ball coming to rest in the 4 pocket.

Theoretical returns

While bet options and presentation has been dumbed down on this game, payouts are identical to the classic roulette game (for equivalent bets). The Zero and Lucky Number bets are simply Straight-up bets and pay the same 35:1. Red, Black, Odd, Even pay bets pay even money as they do with European Roulette.

The return to player on these roulette bets is 97.30%

As for the newly introduced Blue Diamond, Pink Heart, Yellow Star and Purple Moon bets, for each there’s a 9 in 37 chance of winning, 28 in 37 chance of losing and a 3:1 payout so the expected value calculation is:

(-1)28/37 + 3x 9/37 = -0.0270.

That is, a 2.7% house edge or RTP of 97.30%.

This is consistent with the RTP published the game’s house rules.

Our thoughts On K-Pop Roulette

We so often see newly devised bets on live game shows come with horrible returns (like side bets added to traditional casino games). There are no hidden traps in this game. All bets, including those newly introduced, come with the same house edge as regular old European Roulette.

On the downside, the Lucky Number random selection mechanism is just an exercise in frustration. The ability to just select numbers would be much better. Also, can’t say the K-pop theme does much for us. But neither does K-pop.

It’s a game clearly aimed at a different market.