Live Roulette is an interactive gambling show which was launched in June 2005 in the United Kingdom. Participants playing online or watching television place their chips on the roulette table. Live Roulette was later rebranded as SuperCasino.com, to include other types of gambling games.
History
Live Roulette was the idea of Interactive TV format developer David Wainwright, and was first broadcast under the name Vegas 24/7 on 23 June 2005 on Sky channel 274, airing between 3 pm and 11 pm. The show soon moved to a new time slot of 6pm-2am. On 25 September 2006 this was extended to 4am. Due to its previous contract with Virgin1 and Bravo 2, Live Roulette TV again extended its hours to broadcast until 4 am. The show broadcast on Sky channel 274 until 28 February 2006, when it moved from the Entertainment to Gaming & Dating sections of EPG to channel 847, where it remained until 7 July 2008, when it moved once again due to another Sky EPG reshuffle to its current 866. The game added an online operation on 14 August 2006. On 8 December 2006, the parent company of Live Roulette, was acquired by NetPlayTV plc. On 1 October, Live Roulette rebranded to become a programme strand of Super Casino, which encompasses various other casino games. Following an Ofcom agreement, Live Roulette was the first gambling show on UK terrestrial television, airing on Channel 5 between 12-4am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and subsequently broadcast on the channelseven days a week. The matter became a cause of political attention. Channel 5 ceased broadcasting Supercasino Live Roulette on 31 December 2018.
Presenters
From the show's launch in 2005 the presenters acted as both hosts and croupiers, until a major studio refurbishment in February 2010, after which the presenters would just present the show and a team of croupiers were hired to spin the Roulette wheel. The longest-standing presenter was Christopher Ditchburn, known as "The Pitboss", who was the showrunner for Vegas 24/7, a precursor to Supercasino. Ditchburn, who had previously worked in a casino, was the show's script writer, trainer, and technical adviser. He left the show in December 2011. Other notable previous presenters include Natasha Powell, Oreke Mosheshe, Kate Heavenor, and Zoe French.
Gameplay
The roulette used in the game is the same format as in real casinos, and uses the single zero European wheel rather than the American double zero version. Players use a telephone menu or the game website to place their chips. The betting options were previously limited to simple plays, such as straights, splits, corners and the outside chances, but was expanded on 18 April 2006 to include columns and all the French bets, and to allow play on zero for the first time
