Watch a roulette table for an evening and one number will seem to disappear. Thirty spins, eighty, a hundred and fifty, and still no 17. It is tempting to think something is off, or that 17 must be close. Neither is true, and the maths shows why long absences are not just possible but certain somewhere on the wheel.
One number, one spin at a time
On a single-zero wheel each number has a 1 in 37 chance on every spin, or 2.70%. The wheel has no memory, so the chance that a given number misses the next spin is 36 in 37, and the chance it misses several in a row is that figure multiplied by itself once per spin.
On average a number comes back every 37 spins. Half the time it is back within 26. The rest of the time it can stay away much longer, and the chance of a longer absence shrinks slowly rather than suddenly:
| Spins without it | Chance | Odds |
|---|---|---|
| 37 | 36.3% | 1 in 3 |
| 50 | 25.4% | 1 in 4 |
| 100 | 6.46% | 1 in 15 |
| 150 | 1.64% | 1 in 61 |
| 200 | 0.42% | 1 in 240 |
| 250 | 0.11% | 1 in 944 |
| 300 | 0.03% | 1 in 3,713 |
For one number you pick in advance, starting now. Every spin is independent.
Thirty-seven numbers, thousands of spins
A 200-spin absence for one particular number is rare: 1 in 240. But nobody watches one particular number from one particular moment. There are 37 of them, and every spin ends one number’s run of absence and extends the other 36. Over thousands of spins the wheel produces thousands of these runs, and the longest of them is far longer than any single number’s typical wait.
That longest run can be worked out too. Over 10,000 spins, about five days of play at a busy table, the longest absence of any number lands between 306 and 418 spins eight times out of ten, and is typically around 350. A number going missing for 300 spins is not a sign of anything. It is what a fair wheel does.
What our logs show
We log every spin at three live roulette tables. Since 11 October, the longest any single number went without landing at each table, in spins, against the range the maths expects eight times out of ten for that many spins:
| Table | Spins | Longest gap | Expected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mega Roulette | 60,959 | 459 (3) | 372–484 |
| Gates of Olympus Roulette | 50,760 | 380 (17) | 365–478 |
| Fortune Roulette | 54,979 | 393 (33) | 368–480 |
Every table sits inside its range. The same goes for how often each number landed. Over this many spins, the most and least frequent numbers always drift a little either side of 2.70%:
| Table | Most frequent | Least frequent |
|---|---|---|
| Mega Roulette | 5, 2.84% | 16, 2.50% |
| Gates of Olympus Roulette | 23, 2.83% | zero, 2.54% |
| Fortune Roulette | 1, 2.86% | 11, 2.52% |
Updated nightly from every logged spin over the last 30 days, or since 11 October where our logs start later. The live figures for each table are on its page.
What it means at the table
A long absence tells you about the past and nothing else. After 300 spins without a 17, the next spin gives 17 the same 1 in 37 chance as any other spin. No number is ever due, and betting more on a missing number does not change the odds. It only changes how much is at stake.
What the maths does tell you is what normal looks like. When a number has been missing for a long time, that is the wheel behaving as a fair wheel should. Our How it works page explains how we count results, and each table’s page shows how long every number has gone without landing, live.
Statistics are for information only. 18+. Play responsibly.