Holland Casino Adds Extra Zero to Roulette to Offset Tax Hike

Higher gambling taxes in the Netherlands have forced the nation’s largest casino chain, Holland Casino, to resort to desperate measures – it’s adding an extra zero to its roulette tables.

In the U.S. it’s the norm to have two zero pockets on a roulette wheel, 0 and 00. That’s almost never the case in European roulette, which features a single zero. The addition of the 00 in the American variety almost doubles the house edge, from 2.7% to 5.26%.

European roulette games that employ the “en prison” rule have a lower edge still, just 1.35%. This rule allows gamblers who placed an even-money bet, such as on red or black, to leave their stake on the table for another spin when the ball falls in the 0 pocket.

Difficult Headwinds

Holland Casino hopes that adopting the less player-friendly American version will allow it to weather the tax hike and cope with other unfavorable headwinds, including higher costs of wages, interest rates, and energy.

The gambling tax will be raised from 30.5 percent to 34.2% next year, and Holland Casino is expecting costs to increase by €30 million (US$31 million). The casino chain says it needs to implement cost-cutting measures while increasing turnover to absorb this.

This will likely include job cuts, the operator has said, although it’s unclear how many. The company currently employs around 3,500 people and hopes layoffs will reduce costs by 20%.

A spokesperson said this week the measure will be an experiment and acknowledged it may not have the desired effect, as it might “also mean that people go home earlier and that it does not increase revenue.”

It’s possible that American roulette may go down like a punch in the throat in Europe.

Reinventing the Wheel

It’s often assumed that single zero roulette was the original version of the game and that the double zero was added to the wheel by greedy US casino operators. But that’s not the case.

The 00 modification came in the mid-1800s and was the brainchild of two French brothers, twins Francois and Louis Blanc, who operated a casino in the German spa town of Bad Homberg. The move proved so popular with gamblers, who were delighted to get the fairest bets in Europe, that the Bad Homburg casino became famous and was able to rival the gaming halls of Paris for revenue.

While the single zero ultimately took off in Europe, both types of wheels existed there until the beginning of the 20th century, when the player-friendly version became the norm.