What If Gambling Used the ‘Free Price Effect’?

The bedrock life principle, the house always wins, derives from the mathematical advantage casinos build into their games. But what if that wasn’t the price of admittance?

On an American roulette wheel, a bet on the number 13 pays off at 35:1. If there were 36 slots on the wheel, both the house and the bettor would break even in the long run, but there are 38 slots (zero, double-zero and the numbers 1 to 36). The house doesn’t win every spin — 13 does come up — but in the long run bettors lose $5.26 of every $100 bet.