Playtech Lucky Ball Roulette

Lucky Ball Roulette live from Playtech is now up and running. It’s roulette with an additional bet: the Fruity Bet.

Aside from the addition of the Fruity Bet, this is a game of live European Roulette. Identical wheel. Identical bets and payouts.

What’s more, there is no (other) ball in the game other than the roulette ball – which does make the title a little perplexing (we were expecting some kind of ball machine setting multipliers).

The Fruity Bet

As the Fruity Bet is the only thing that sets this game apart from any live European Roulette table we should address it from the outset.

Left of the bet map (or at the top if you’re playing on a mobile device) you’ll find the Fruity Bet.

At the beginning each round 5 numbers are randomly selected as Fruity Numbers.  They are highlighted as such on the bet map during betting time. In the above example, 0, 3, 12, 26 and 35 are the Fruity Numbers. The other graphics on the map indicate hot and cold numbers.

A chip on the Fruity Bet wins if any of the Fruity Numbers result. You don’t need a chip on the actual Fruity Number to win the Fruity Bet (this will win you a straight up payout).

The payout on the Fruit Bet can be either 3x, 5x, 20x, 50x or 100x . Which of these it is will be determined after bets close. 3x is by far the most common. During an hour of play it was all 3x apart from 5x occurring twice and 20x once. 50x and 100x never made an appearance.

A Round of Lucky Ball Roulette

Before bets close we get a €1 chip on the Fruity Bet.

We’ve also taken some regular roulette bets (Jeu Zéro neighbours).

After the ball is launched, the presenter pulls the handle on the fruit machine and the Fruity Bet multiplier is determined – 5x in this case (anything other than 3x is a rarity).

The result is 26 black which happens to be a Fruity Number so the Fruity Bet pays €5. A 3, 12, 28 or 35 result would have also won the Fruity Bet.

We also happened to have a €1 chip on number 26, so collected 35:1 or €36 on the straight up bet, for a total win of €41.

Lucky Ball Roulette RTP

• The RTP (return to player) on the Fruity Bet: 95.29%
• The RTP on any of the regular roulette bets: 97.30%

Hard to make a strong case for taking the Fruity Bet, when you’re losing an extra 2%.

Thoughts on Lucky Ball Roulette

The provider playbook on roulette based game shows, says that any additional or altered bets should come with a bigger house edge. Lucky Ball Roulette follows this rule whole heartedly.

Contrast this with Pragmatic’s Lucky 6 Roulette which actually returns more on the bet that is altered. A welcome exception. I know which game I’d prefer to play.