Published on 11th July, 2008

Oh I can’t speak French so I let the funky bonus do the talking….talking…. (or something like that!). Let it never be said we at bet72.com don not embrace the European culture and we have extended this into the wonderful world of casino bonuses. This time our game of choice is French Roulette as we have made a very interesting discovery that we can apply to some fantastic bonus offers out there.

At certain casinos, with the Microgaming software, French Roulette should be your game of choice to extract the bouses on offer most successfully. Firstly we must point out that no casino deal is ever risk free so please only play with money you can afford to lose but a strategy like this gives you the best chance of turning a profit in our opinion.

Our criteria is simple, we need a Microgaming casino as this has autoplay facilities and they offer big bonuses. These bonuses becomes cashable in £10 increments as you meet a corresponding portion of the wagering requirement. Games are weighted, similar to the table below:

Slots, American Roulette and Parlor Games

100%

Table Poker games, Casino War, Sicbo and all Roulettes except American Roulette

50%

Video Poker, Craps, Baccarat and all Blackjacks except Classic Blackjack

10%

Classic Blackjack

2%

The most common requirement is to playthrough the value of the bonus 30x with the games weighted as listed in the table above (check the T&C’s for details). So if you played only slots, you'd have to play through the bonus 30x before it became cashable. If you played only video poker, you'd have to play through the bonus 300x and if you completed wagering on classic blackjack, you'd have to wager the bonus a massive, 1500x

French roulette, we have found, gives us the perfect balance between wagering requirement and house edge (the advantage the casino has over the player). This game has a house edge of just 1.35% because of what is known as the "la partage" rule. If the ball lands on zero, half of bets on any “even chance”, namely, 1-18/19-36, red/black, and even/odd are returned. So as long as the weighting on the wagering is 50% or more then this should yield us a profit. Compare this to other roulettes and you will see why it is recommended. American Roulette has two zeros, resulting in a house edge of 2/38 = 5.3%. European Roulette has a single zero, resulting in a house edge of 1/37 = 2.7%

Don’t be put off by the amount of wagering either as we can speed up the wagering requirements and reduce the overall variance of game by betting on both two even money chances together, we would suggest either red & even, or black & odd. Don’t be tempted to bet on both red & black at the same time as this will more than likely give the casino an excuse not to pay you. Anyway there is no need, as French roulette also has autoplay and quick spin options so we can get through the wagering in no time.

We put this to the test at SPIN PALACE which offers, well upto £1000 in bonuses but we initially tackled the first £150 matched offer and had a great result.

Here are the steps:

SPIN PALACE

You will get another £150 instantly matched giving you a £300 account balance

The wagering requirements are 30x the bonus amount (£4500) but roulette only counts for 50% so we need to turnover £9000 before we can withdraw

Select French Roulette, click on the options button, select game settings as quickest and switch off all sound settings. Now select autoplay set the number of spins to at least 4500 (usually recommended to go a little over) and the time between spins to 0 secs and save.

Now select your even money bet, we did £1 on black and £1 on odd, then hit the autoplay button and it was off.

After just over an hour (this bad boy is fast when it gets going) all spins had been completed and we had a balance of £240 for a very nice £90 profit (not a bad hourly rate that), we requested our withdrawal and the money is back in our Neteller account already!

At the time of writing we are just going back to play the second stage of their 3 tier bonus for another free £125, so we will keep you posted on that one too.

We are now drawing up a list of “French Roulette” casinos, initially we have these:

SPIN PALACE – upto £1000 in bonuses, initially deposit £150, requires £9000 wagering on French Roulette

DASH CASINO - free £50 bonus, deposit £50 – requires £3000 wagering on French Roulette

Just use the links above to qualify for the bonuses.

There are a few more we have found and we are just reviewing the T&C’s to see how viable they are, this of course goes without saying, always read the T&C’s so you are happy before you start playing.

We will post the results up in the next few days as we play them and please send us your results in too so we can publish a table of which casinos are proving most profitable.

As always if you have any questions then please don’t hesitate to contact us anytime.

See you at the tables.

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Update

We have had quite a few emails asking if there is a way of utilising these bonuses even more and the good news is that there is as we have found a method to give yourself a head start before the main wagering begins so you may wish to consider this alternative strategy for increasing the overall Expected Value of the offer. Once again it is important to stress that this Casino strategy is NOT risk free. The idea is to “double up” (or at least greatly increase) your balance before you start playing over the main wagering requirement. This consists of betting your whole balance after the bonus is applied to your account on a Baccarat banker bet. Since the banker bet in Baccarat will win slightly more than 50% of the time (removing ties from the statistics), approximately half of the time you will double your starting balance giving a massive buffer to cover the wagering requirement of the bonus. However we must say that half of the time you will bust out.

As an example if we look at the SPIN PALACE 100% match bonus of £150 on a deposit of £150. As we know there is a 30x wagering requirement on the bonus which represents a £4500, however as each bet on French Roulette only counts 50% towards the requirement we have to make £9000 worth of bets before we can withdraw.

On this strategy we would expect to make £28.50 using French Roulette. This is also proved by the feedback we have had from people who have played already, so have made £150 whilst others have lost their £150 with the average sitting just over the £30 mark at present.

How did we calculate this, well we know that you have to wager £9000 to clear the bonus, and the house's edge playing French Roulette is 1.35%. So we just multiply the house edge by the wagering requirement of the bonus:

0.0135 x £9000 = £121.50

and subtract that from the original bonus offered

£150 – £121.50 = £28.50

So now taking the same £300 starting balance (£150 deposit + £150 bonus), we bet the whole amount on one hand of Baccarat. Statistically, half of the time you will win and have a balance of £585 (since the banker bet charges a 5% commission when you win) and half of the time you will lose and have nothing. Obviously, when you lose, there is no wagering requirement to complete.

When you win, you then clear the remainder of the wagering requirement using regular French Roulette method.

So now our bonus has an expected value of £313.50

To calculate this we just multiply the house edge by the wagering requirement of the bonus:

0.0135 x £9000 = £121.50

And subtract that from our current balance (less the orginal £150 that we deposited)

£435 – £121.50 = £313.50

Not a bad return eh?

To recap here are the seven steps to casino heaven

1. Sign up to the casino in our list below , download and install the software as prompted.

2. Deposit the required amount via Neteller (please email me if you haven't got a Neteller account as we can refer you for an extra bonus). If you use Neteller to deposit and withdraw then you can use the profits from casino one to fund casino two etc...etc....

3. You will receive your bonus instantly.

4. Head to the Baccarat table. Place the entire bet (or the largest bet you can) on the banker on the Baccarat table. Naturally you don't have to stake it all on the first bet just select a smaller bet to place and keep going until you reach a balance you are happy with.

5. About 1/2 the time, you will win this bet giving you double the amount in your account (- 5% commission). About 1/2 the time you will lose your deposit.

6. When you win change your game to French Roulette and setup to autoplay the wager requirement over as outlined above.

7. Withdraw all that lovely profit.

We are now drawing up a list of “French Roulette” casinos, initially we have these:

SPIN PALACE – upto £1000 in bonuses, initially deposit £150, requires £9000 wagering on French Roulette

DASH CASINO - free £50 bonus, deposit £50 – requires £3000 wagering on French Roulette

Just use the links above to qualify for the bonuses.

Slots, American Roulette and Parlor Games	100%
Table Poker games, Casino War, Sicbo and all Roulettes except American Roulette	50%
Video Poker, Craps, Baccarat and all Blackjacks except Classic Blackjack	10%
Classic Blackjack	2%