- Maths reviewed by Josh Miller
- Tested by Diana Westfield
Run your usual Lightning Roulette spread through a Lightning Roulette calculator and the multipliers stop looking like free money. Five numbers at 20p each is a pound a spin. Over a long session that pound shrinks by about 2.9p every spin, since straight-ups give back 97.10%, and at around 50 spins an hour you’re paying roughly £1.45 an hour for the entertainment. The free calculator above works that out for any spread of numbers and outside bets, and shows how often a multiplied win should turn up.
Lightning Roulette calculator: where the multipliers come from
It’s single-zero roulette with a twist. Before each spin, between one and five numbers are struck by lightning and given a multiplier from 50x to 500x. If your straight-up number lands and it was struck, you’re paid at the multiplier. If it lands and wasn’t struck, it pays 29 to 1, not the usual 35 to 1.
That missing 6 units is what funds the lightning. Picture a pound on 17. When it lands unstruck you collect £30, where a normal wheel would hand over £36, and it’s those lost sixes, spin after spin, that bankroll the odd £300 or £500 payday. Evolution’s figures put straight-ups at 97.10% and every other bet at 97.30%. So you’re giving up about a fifth of a percent, which isn’t much, in return for a far wilder ride.
How often you’ll actually see a multiplier
This is the part people underestimate. For one of your numbers to pay a multiplier, it has to land (1 in 37) and it has to be struck that round. With two strikes a round on average, that’s 2 in 37. Multiply them and a single number gets a multiplied win about once every 684 spins, which at 50 spins an hour is close to 14 hours of play. Cover five numbers and it’s every 137 spins or so, still nearly three hours.
The average number of strikes isn’t published, so the calculator lets you change it under the advanced options. From the published RTP it also works back to the average multiplier that must be paying out. With two strikes a round that comes to roughly 139x, which sits comfortably inside the 50x to 500x range.
Outside bets in Lightning Roulette
Red or black, odd or even, dozens and columns pay exactly as they do in European roulette and have no multipliers. They carry the standard 2.70% edge. If you play Lightning Roulette only on outside bets, you’re simply playing normal roulette with a lot of extra noise on screen, and that’s fine if that’s what you enjoy.
The CasinoCalcs calculator above mixes both: set your straight-ups and your other bets, and the loss per spin, per session and per hour come out at the top. For classic single-zero maths, the roulette calculator covers every bet, and the Crazy Time calculator does the same job for the money wheel.
Past strikes and past numbers don’t change the next spin. There’s no pattern to chase. If it stops being fun, BeGambleAware.org will talk to you for free, in confidence.