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My question pertains to the mechanical roulette machines usually made by Interblock. Are these considered an actual roulette table with American 5.26% house edge or is it a slot machine where the house can change its win percentage? Or even steer the ball away from large bets on the board? Any information on them would be appreciated.
[Editor's Note: For this answer, we turned to Michael "Wizard of Odds" Shackleford. The new edition of his book Gambling 102 is now available.]
Although I've heard conspiracy theories many times that such games use magnets or blow air on the ball to alter the outcome, I firmly believe they play fairly.
In other words, regardless of what players bet on, the ball has a 1/38 chance of landing in each number and the house edge is 5.26% on all bets, except the dreaded five-number bet (0-00-1-2-3 at 7.89%).
In other words, for mathematical purposes, they can be considered a table game.