How we rate and review the best roulette sites
At CasinoSelect.co.nz we make it our business to present you with the best online roulette sites New Zealand has to offer. We continually review the market, bringing you the latest on new casinos as well as updates on established sites. Our expert team heavily researches every casino we recommend to make sure they pass our strict criteria, that looks into the following areas:
Bonus deals – We assess the size, quality and wagering requirements of any and all roulette welcome bonuses, offers and VIP programmes.
Game selection – We want to see lots of roulette variants from the top software providers when we review online casino sites. A good selection of the best online slots and blackjack titles also helps!
Design – Sites with distinct branding and design have an edge, while easy-to-use interfaces and navigation are essential.
Device support – As more players move away from laptop and computer play to their mobiles and tables, we require the highest quality gambling experience across all platforms.
Withdrawals – Arguably the most crucial part of gambling online, we want sites with the easiest deposit and withdrawal methods, times, restrictions and currencies.
Security – State-of-the-art data encryption is pretty much a given now and we also look into a site’s popularity and customer feedback to build a strong understanding of their reputation.
Roulette software
Roulette software has come a long way since the first online roulette games, with Playtech, Microgaming and NetEnt being perhaps the three best developers of the game.
The games supplied by these three providers have become increasingly diverse, yet the quality has remained fantastic across the board. To gain an idea of what each provider has to offer, check out the details right here:
Playtech
As a matter of fact, Playtech offers more than 40 different roulette games, which is staggering. As you’d expect, the best online roulette casinos in New Zealand offer a great selection of Playtech titles. Of course, 40+ roulette games is a pretty large offering, but if we had to pick our favourites, we would shoot for Dragon Jackpot Roulette, Age of the Gods Roulette and Roulette Lounge, a game that definitely fits the high stakes roulette description.
Microgaming
While these classic roulette games are Microgaming’s bread and butter, this developer has become a little more creative in recent years. In fact, at the time of writing, Microgaming has branched out to put together games like Multiplayer Roulette, European Roulette Gold and Multi-wheel Roulette Gold. These games are more unique compared with the traditional roulette versions which Microgaming covers. Just to reiterate, the graphics for these games are wonderful, while fitting in perfectly for mobile play too.
NetEnt
Much like Microgaming, NetEnt has paid special attention to classic roulette games like American, European and French. But dive into its portfolio and you will also unearth gems like Mini Roulette and Roulette Advanced. Again, these games are seamless for mobile play, especially through mobile apps which the best online roulette casino sites have available.
Roulette game variations
There are a number of different variations of roulette, with varying rules and often odds. Here are the most popular:
European roulette – Most common variant of roulette, with its wheel containing 37 pockets numbered from 0 to 36 and coloured green (only 0), red or black.
American roulette – Similar to European roulette, but with an additional 00 pocket giving these wheels a total of 38 to land in. The extra pocket increases the potential outcomes for each spin which gives the house a slightly higher edge.
French roulette – The original version is similar to the European, but the felt has a different layout. French roulette has a number of different betting options including the La Partage rule that gives players half their money back when they’ve placed even money bets and the ball stops on zero.
Mini roulette – Not as popular as regular roulette versions, with the key difference here being there are only 13 pockets on the wheel, simplifying the game.
Multi-wheel roulette – A more advanced version of the game which gives players the chance to have eight wheels on the go at once. As you can control the number of wheels in play, you can tailor multi-wheel roulette games to your own preferences.
Using bonus funds while playing roulette
The best online roulette sites offer welcome bonuses that you can use to play online roulette games. The most common are matched deposit bonuses, which offer players a bonus fund worth a percentage of their first deposit, up to a certain amount, such as ‘100% up to £100’.
It is important to understand that while you can play roulette using bonus funds, the game is not well suited to meeting wagering requirements. This is because roulette games often have low wagering contributions, such as 10%.
For example, if you receive a $200 welcome bonus and use it on roulette, but it comes with a x30 wagering requirement then you will have to bet $6,000 on the game in order to collect any winnings associated with the bonus amount. If roulette has a 10% wagering contribution, only 10p of every £1 bet will go toward completing the wagering requirement.
Looking for bonuses that offer low, or even no wagering requirements are therefore more of a priority for many fans of online roulette.
Pretty much all of the best online roulette casinos supply bonuses that can be used to play roulette. However, not all of these bonuses operate in the same manner and they each have their own positives and negatives. To give you a more rounded understanding of what these bonuses are and what they entail, we’ve gone into depth on the more popular roulette bonuses right here.
Deposit matches
Deposit matches can be given as part of a sign-up bonus or can be given as an existing player bonus. The larger deposit matches are usually given to new customers, with deposit matches of up to 100% or more being fairly regular. Of course, this lets you double your money straight away, but once used, this bonus is no longer available. First deposit bonuses tend to always have expiration dates, wagering terms and you must pay attention to the payment method used for this first deposit. This is because certain methods will be excluded from counting towards the bonus.
Moving on from a first deposit bonus to a deposit match open for current customers, these are usually a little lower. While first deposit bonuses might be as high as 100% or greater, especially at the top online roulette casinos, these reload matches can be somewhere in the region of 25%-50%. Yet again, you get a shot at receiving some free cash and there is no need to wager money in order to unlock the bonus.
Just to stress once again, real money casinos will almost always have this bonus available at some point in your membership.
No deposit bonus
In contrast to a deposit match, this bonus doesn’t require you to stump up any of your own money. In order to secure a no deposit bonus when you see one, all you have to do is sign up with the site that is offering it. Although not all will, several of New Zealand’s best online roulette casinos serve up no deposit bonuses, especially recently launched sites. That’s because they need to provide exceptional value in order to compete with more established brands.
Before we move on, there are a couple of points to address. Firstly, these bonuses will almost always have higher wagering terms to counteract the no deposit qualifying terms. So, while they are easy to get, it can be tricky to meet the playthrough terms.
Secondly, such bonuses can sometimes have a winnings cap placed on them too. Make sure you read up on this before claiming the bonus, as this will show you what the potential value of the bonus actually is.
Bet $10 get $10
Much like the other bonuses mentioned, this one can be available to both existing and new customers. As you can see, this bonus has a stipulation where you must deposit funds and then wager them in order to unlock the bonus cash. While we’ve given this as a bet $10 get $10 example, the exact values will vary from site to site. As for the positives and negatives of such an offer, there are a few to note.
The negatives are that you must stump up some money and then risk that money on whatever the eligible game might be. However, once this is done, you’ll find that these kinds of offers have lower wagering terms. It is pretty rare that the bonus cash is restricted to just one or two games.
Live dealer roulette has become increasingly popular in recent years and is available at the best New Zealand roulette sites. You can expect to interact with a real life croupier through live chat features as the games are streamed from either purpose built live casino studios proper land-based casinos, which really makes you feel like you’re rolling for real even if you’re actually on the sofa at home.
Roulette on mobile
There are more benefits to playing roulette on mobile that may initially meet the eye. Besides the obvious convenience of having access to your favourite roulette games from wherever you might be, choosing to game on mobile is incredibly easy. Thanks to drastically improved interfaces, you can slide the chips with your finger and drop them onto various table areas. Arguably, this makes the game more immersive than playing on a desktop site.
Software providers have also started to adjust established games to now work perfectly on mobile. This means a great selection of games is almost a guarantee on mobile, something which wasn’t the case in the past.
But naturally, there are some downsides to playing on your smartphone or tablet. There is always the chance you won’t have sufficient battery life, or that you will have a troublesome internet connection, which can interrupt your game. Some would even argue that staring at a small screen for a long time is far from ideal.
Free-play roulette
Pretty much all roulette sites will offer players the chance to play a version of the game for free. Demo games mean established players can try out new strategies or newbies can learn the game without staking any real money.
Quick how to play guide & rules
The object of the game is to place your bet based on where you think the ball will land. Players choose to place a variety of bets on where the roulette ball will land on the spinning wheel, on either a single number, various groupings of numbers, the colours red or black, whether the number is odd or even or if the numbers are low (1-18) or high (19-36).
Roulette bets
Bets on a roulette table fall into one of two categories – inside bets or outside bets. Which category your bet falls into depends on where you place your chips on the felt. Here are the different types of roulette bets:
Inside bets
- Straight up – Bet on one single number.
- Split – Bet on two numbers, with your chips on the line between the two numbers.
- Street – Split bet on three numbers, with your chips on the border that surrounds them.
- Corner – Bet on one of four numbers, with your chips on the corner where all the numbers meet.
- Five – Only occurs in American roulette, because it involves the double zero. Bet on the ball landing on 0, 00, 1, 2 or 3.
- Line – Split bet on six numbers in a line on the roulette felt, with your chips on the outside border of the sequence of six numbers.
Outside bets
- Column – With numbers on the felt split into columns, you’re betting on the ball landing on one of the numbers in a column. Put your chips on the corresponding column sign.
- Dozen – Bet on the ball landing on a number in one of the sequences of a dozen (12) on the wheel.
- Odd/Even – Bet on the ball landing in either an odd or even numbered pocket, with your chips placed in the corresponding box. The 0 and 00 pockets are excluded from this bet.
- Low/High – Bet on the ball landing on a low number (1-18) or high number (19-36).
- Red/Black – Bet on the colour of the pocket the ball lands in.
Whether you play roulette online compared or at a land-based casino, the odds will be the same. However, they do change depending on the variation of roulette you choose. European roulette has a house edge of 2.7% while the American version is slightly higher at 5.26%.
