Seventy rounds an hour. That is the midpoint of the 60 to 80 Evolution gives for its Auto Roulette, and about what a busy dealer table manages too. The wheel is the same wheel, the payouts are the same payouts, and the edge is the edge you already know. What changes is that the rhythm never slackens and the table never closes, so the number of rounds you play is set by when you stop, not by the table.
Below: how a dealerless table works, what it costs per hour at real stakes, the versions you can choose from, and where automated wheels run in Canada. The full comparison of wheel types is on our roulette variants hub.
A real wheel without a croupier
Auto roulette is not a computer game. A physical wheel spins, and a mechanism launches a real ball with no person at the table. A camera films the wheel, software reads the winning pocket, and the result is posted on screen. Evolution’s game page describes it simply: no dealer, an automated wheel, around the clock.
That puts auto roulette between two other formats. It has the physical randomness of a live table and, like a digital game, no person setting the rhythm. If you want the full comparison of live studio tables with software-generated results, our page on RNG and live dealer roulette goes through both.
Which wheels auto roulette runs on
Evolution runs three versions, and the choice decides the price:
- European Auto Roulette: single zero, 37 pockets, 2.70 % on every bet.
- French Auto Roulette: single zero with the French layout; where La Partage applies, even-money bets cost 1.35 %.
- American Auto Roulette: 0 and 00, 38 pockets, 5.26 % on most bets and 7.89 % on the five-number bet.
The table name in a lobby sometimes leaves off the wheel type. Before betting, look at the wheel graphic or the rules panel. A second green pocket roughly doubles your cost, and at 70 rounds an hour that adds up quickly. The working behind each edge is in our house edge guide.
What the pace costs per hour
The house edge is a share of what you wager. Wager more per hour and the expected cost per hour rises, even though each bet costs the same. Here is the long-run average cost of a C$5 even-money bet at the three wheel types, at the low and high end of Evolution’s stated pace.
| Wheel | Edge on even money | 60 rounds (C$300 wagered) | 80 rounds (C$400 wagered) |
|---|---|---|---|
| French with La Partage | 1.35 % | C$4.05 | C$5.41 |
| European | 2.70 % | C$8.11 | C$10.81 |
| American | 5.26 % | C$15.79 | C$21.05 |
The sum behind one cell: 80 rounds of C$5 is C$400 wagered; 2.70 % of C$400, more exactly C$400 divided by 37, is C$10.81. If you play the same stake at a slower table, the hourly figure drops in proportion to the number of rounds. Halve the rounds, halve the average cost.
That is the point many players miss. Auto roulette is not more expensive per bet, and at 60 to 80 rounds it is not much quicker than a busy dealer table either. What runs up the bill is the absence of breaks: no dealer change, no slow player, no table closing for the night, so an hour at an auto wheel is a full hour of rounds. If you plan sessions by time, lower the stake or set a round limit. The responsible gambling page lists the session and deposit tools available in each province.
A round at an auto table
Betting opens with a countdown, closes, the ball is launched, and the result appears seconds after the ball settles. There is no dealer chat, no waiting for chips to be cleared by hand, no pause while a dealer changes shift. Most of the round is betting time.
Two variations push the pace further. Evolution’s Instant Roulette links 12 synchronised Auto Roulette wheels: you set your bets, choose a wheel, and that wheel spins, so the next round is ready almost at once. At the other end, Evolution’s Speed Roulette keeps a dealer but runs about 25 seconds from spin to spin, roughly half a standard round, which makes it a dealer-run cousin of the auto format.
Auto roulette or a digital table?
Online lobbies put auto wheels next to digital roulette, and the two are easy to confuse. A digital table has no physical wheel at all: a certified random number generator picks the pocket and an animation shows it. It also spins only when you press the button, so the pace is entirely yours, from one spin a minute to as fast as you can click.
An auto wheel sits in between. The ball and the wheel are real, filmed in a studio, but the cadence is set by the machine, not by you. You cannot speed it up, and you cannot slow it down either, apart from sitting out rounds. Players who want the feel of a physical wheel without a dealer tend to prefer it; players who want full control over the speed of a session are better served by a digital table, set at a pace they choose.
What a missing dealer changes, and what it does not
At a dealer table, the croupier calls “no more bets”, spins, announces the number and settles the layout. At an auto table each of those jobs passes to the system: a countdown closes betting, the launcher fires, the camera and software read the pocket and the balance updates. Payouts follow the same table as a dealer-run game.
What disappears is the human rhythm. There is no small talk, no pause while a new dealer takes over, no moment when the table waits for a slow player. For some people that is the attraction. For others it is the reason to stay at a dealer table, where the round itself slows them down.
Is the machine fair?
The question comes up more often with auto wheels than with dealer tables, and it is a reasonable one to ask. The answer is that the same physics decides the result either way. A ball launched by a machine and a ball spun by hand both bounce off the same deflectors and land unpredictably, and regulated studios have their equipment and processes tested. Our guide to how roulette fairness is tested explains who checks what.
A side note on an old floor theory. Some players believe in “dealer signature”, the idea that a croupier who spins at a steady speed sends the ball into the same part of the wheel time after time. Auto roulette removes the croupier and leaves the theory with no one to accuse. Nothing about a machine launch, or any pattern in its results, tells you the next pocket, and our roulette strategy guide checks every popular system against the same wheel, with the same result each time.
Automated wheels on Canadian casino floors
Automated roulette is not just an online product. Several Canadian venues describe automated or electronic roulette on their own sites:
- Casino Niagara lists Interblock automated roulette next to its dealer-dealt tables.
- Casino Rama Resort lists Double 00 Roulette in an auto mode, so that one is a double-zero wheel.
- Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto describes roulette as live-dealt or fully automated.
On a floor, terminals around one wheel let many players bet on the same spin. Our land-based casinos page lists what each venue publishes about its wheels and limits.
An hour of auto roulette: average against swing
The hourly costs in the table are averages, and a single hour behaves very differently. At 70 rounds of C$5 on red, the average cost of an hour is about C$9.46, but one standard deviation of the result is about C$42. Most single hours finish somewhere between roughly C$51 down and C$32 up, and plenty land outside that range.
Stretch it to 20 hours over a month and the picture shifts. The average cost grows to about C$189, while the spread grows more slowly, to about C$187. The longer you play, the more the result looks like the edge and the less it looks like luck. That is the side of an always-open table that matters most: the hours add up, and the long run arrives sooner than it feels.
Round limits work better than time limits
Because an auto table never closes and barely pauses, a time limit hides how much you have actually wagered. A round limit does not. Decide on a number of rounds, say 80, and the money follows: at C$5 that is C$400 wagered and an average cost of C$10.81 on a European wheel. Set the limit before the first round, and stop when the count is reached, whatever the screen shows at that moment.
Who auto roulette suits
It suits players who want a physical wheel without the social side of a dealer table, players who like to bet at odd hours, and anyone who prefers a quick, quiet rhythm. It suits less well anyone who tends to play by the clock, because a table that never pauses keeps every hour at the full count of rounds in the table above.
Our pick, plainly: a European or French auto wheel at a stake low enough that 80 rounds an hour is still a comfortable figure. If you want a dealer instead, our live roulette guide compares the studios and C$ table limits available in Canada.