Terracotta Wheel

We painted this one on the base of an enormous old pot that cracked one frosty January and was far too handsome to throw away. It has thirty segments in five values, a fig at its centre and a leaf for a pointer.

How to play

Pick a chip of 5, 10, 25 or 100 Fig Coins, then tap one of the five value buttons under the wheel to place it: 1×, 2×, 5×, 10× or 20×. You can cover more than one value, and tap the same one again to stack more chips on it. Press Spin and the wheel turns for a few seconds before slowing to a stop under the leaf.

Clear takes your chips back before a spin. After a spin, Repeat stake lays the same chips down again so you can go round once more without rebuilding anything.

Reading the values

Each button tells you what it pays and how many segments carry that value:

1× pays 1 to 1 and fills fourteen segments of thirty: very nearly half the wheel.
2× pays 2 to 1 on nine segments.
5× pays 5 to 1 on four segments.
10× pays 10 to 1 on two segments.
20× pays 20 to 1 on a single segment, painted fig-pink.

When the leaf stops on a value you covered, your chip comes back along with that many more: a 10-coin chip on 5× returns 60. Chips on the other values are lost. The larger figures are larger precisely because they are rarer, and the wheel keeps a small edge on every one of them.

Rounds and Fig Coins

All the chips on the board leave your balance when the wheel starts, and anything collected is added the moment it stops. The value that came up is outlined on its button so you can see at a glance how the round went.

Fig Coins are free, you can refill to 5,000 at any time, and they have no cash value whatsoever. Nothing here is ever paid out.

From the garden notebook

The pot held a bay tree for nearly twenty years. When it split, we kept the base, sanded it smooth and painted it in the club’s colours: aubergine, olive, terracotta, honey, and one bright slice of fig-pink for the 20×.

The sundial keeps its own corner of the lawn and counts the afternoon in shadows. This wheel counts it in quarter turns, and is much less strict about it.

Questions about the Terracotta Wheel

Which value comes up most often?

1×, because it fills fourteen of the thirty segments. The 20× has just one segment, so on average it appears about once every thirty spins, though the wheel has no memory and can show it twice running or not for an age.

Can I cover every value at once?

You can, but only one value pays on any spin, so the chips on the other four are lost. It is a pleasant way to watch the wheel go round. It is not a way to come out ahead.

Why is there a fig in the middle?

Because it is our wheel. The fig stays perfectly still while the wheel turns beneath it, which we think is rather elegant.