How To Win At Online Roulette Every Time Online casinos have risen in popularity over the last number of years as players look for ways to win big. A direct result of this increased online gambling is the rise in popularity of online roulette.
- Best Way To Play Roulette And Win
- Roulette Systems That Work 70% Win
- How To Win Big On Online Roulette
Roulette tips that work: The Players that are winning millions, how they do it, and how you can win roulette in modern casinos.
Most roulette tips websites are written only to promote online casinos, and they don’t provide accurate information. Very rarely are tips to win roulette provided by people with real experience. I’ve been playing roulette for over 15 years, and managing professional teams for over 5 years. Here I explain the truth about beating roulette so you can decide whether or not it’s for you. Really the life of a professional player is not for everyone. In fact most people don’t have the right mindset.
To go straight to the best roulette systems that work, see the cross reference roulette system and the roulette computer device website.
Roulette Tips for Beginners
- Making your bankroll last: If you want to just have fun and stay at the table as long as possible, decrease your bet size as your bankroll decreases.
- Quit while you’re up: the longer you play, the greater the chance you’ll lose money. Set a profit goal. For most people, it would be something like $100 profit or even just enough to pay for dinner and a movie.
- Set a loss limit, and stick to it: it is very easy to take more money from the ATM and lose more. Never play with more than you’re prepared to lose. And if you lose your set bankroll, accept the loss and walk away a prepared loser. It may be great to win back losses, but chasing old losses leads to gambling addiction. Also remember that money will come and go all your life.
- Understand the bets, odds and payouts: roulette is a very easy game to learn. See the roulette bets, odds and payout chart so you know what to expect. Especially if you bet just one number, you may be without a win for many spins. This can get frustrating, so it may be best to make outside bets like red, black, odds, evens etc. This way you get wins more frequently. Learn about the types of roulette bets.
- Choose tables that aren’t too busy: it is very frustrating when you are waiting for other players to be paid. Busy tables tend to spin too infrequently, and aren’t fun to play on. Generally the time of day determines how busy tables are.
- Give preference to European (single 0) wheels instead of American 00 wheels: The single 0 version wheels give you a significantly better chance of winning.
- Only play against real wheels, not software roulette: Online casinos often use software roulette where there is no physical roulette. This is called RNG roulette, and isn’t roulette at all – it’s a slot machine, and they are impossible to beat. Some online casinos even used rigged RNG where the winnings of other players will determine whether or not you win. This is far from fair. If you play online roulette, stick to the webcam roulette wheels where you can see spins from a real wheel.
- Check the reputation of online casinos before joining: many online casinos refuse payouts and legally cheat players. See the recommended honest online casinos.
Intermediate Roulette Tips
- Learn how to properly test your roulette system: Without proper testing, you’ll waste lots of time on systems that have no chance of winning in the long term. See how to properly test roulette systems.
- Learn what others have tried, and what is known to fail: There’s no point to re-inventing a broken wheel. See how you can and can’t win at roulette.
- Try something NEW: If you are looking for something other than typical professional systems, try something that nobody else has tried before.
Advanced Roulette Tips
- Find partners: some techniques require a lot of time, and sharing the workload with others makes it more practical to beat the more difficult wheels.
- Learn to assess wheels first: understand where your edge comes from, and assess wheels to determine if they exhibit suitable attributes, without needing a lot of data. This will save you a lot of time.
- Assess conditions and casino procedures: some casino conditions will make play impractical. For example, a wheel may spin too infrequently for play to be practical.
- Think in terms of weeks and months, instead of hours and days: Beating roulette is a long-term job. Casinos themselves look at the bigger picture instead of what happens only on an individual day.
- Consider the conditions to determine what is required to remain covert: staying undetected is critical. No casino will tolerate a consistent winner. It is not difficult to remain undetected if you use common sense.
- Become familiar with wheel designs from the manufacturer websites: This way you will have reasonable knowledge of which wheels are easiest to beat.
Can You Really Win at Roulette, or Are You Wasting Time?
The short answer is yes you can win, but you can’t beat all types of roulette and in all casinos. But before I continue, I’ll provide general advice that should be obvious to anyone.
How to win roulette in a real casino needs expert advice. The Internet is full of self-professed roulette tips experts who think they know about everything, including strategies for winning at roulette. You can find such people on forums, websites like Yahoo answers or just random comment threads. Next to none of these people have any experience with legitimate methods that beat roulette, so it should be no surprise they aren’t going to know what they’re talking about. They get their “expert knowledge” from other “experts” who similarly have no real experience, other than reading what some other “expert” said. You get the picture. It’s the same case with virtually any topic on the Internet; a bunch of people who really know nothing.
Who Can Reliably Answer The Question: Can You Really Beat Roulette?
When I say “beaten”, I mean real winnings over extended periods of time. I don’t mean lucky wins or short-term play.
Probably the most obvious people to ask about winning roulette would be casino staff. After all, they spend a lot of time around roulette wheels. However, their job is not to study the wheel and ways to beat it, and dealers can give roulette tips no more useful than an inexperienced player. When it comes to someone like a dealer, they’ll mostly just spin the wheel. If you have your own wheel at home, the chances are you’ll have spun the wheel more times than a typical dealer. Having experience with a wheel certainly helps to understand the physics involved, but it is more keen observation that can uncover clues relating to the predictability of spins. I’ll explain more about this later.
If roulette was being “consistently” beaten, you’d expect that casino staff would at least have come across consistently winning players. In the past 15 or so years, I’ve come to meet and know many casino employees including dealers, pit bosses and even casino owners. Of course different individuals have different knowledge, but the general attitude towards the concept of beating roulette is as follows:
Dealers: Most dealers believe roulette can be beaten, but only under strict and rare conditions. For example, they may consider “wheel bias”. This is essentially when there is a physical defect of the wheel that makes certain numbers win more than others.
Sometimes, dealers have heard of other methods like electronic devices (roulette computers), but they only have a very vague understanding of the conditions under which such technology is effective. Sometimes a casino consultant has been hired by their casino, and provided a training course to help them spot professional roulette players. But rather than it be a proper course, it is more of a crash course explaining the very basics.
Overall, most dealers only have a very vague understanding of legitimate methods to beat roulette. Generally they know it’s possible, but don’t expect they’ll ever encounter a professional player. What they usually see is a constant stream of losing players at their table.
Pit bosses: these are the serious-looking people that usually oversee a group of 2-4 roulette wheels at a time. They do everything from handle any disputes, communicate with surveillance about whatever, and generally make sure all the dealers are doing their job and that everything runs smoothly.
When it comes to understanding roulette prediction, they rarely have significantly better knowledge than the dealers. Again they know roulette can be beaten under the right circumstances, but they also know for every 1,000 players you see, you’d be lucky for even one of them to have a method that is a threat to the casino’s money.
Casino owners: Many owners have very little knowledge about their own games. They tend to view the casino as a revenue source and investment at a very different level. After all, it’s not their job to be on the gaming floor – their job is more confined to a board room. But for smaller casinos where the boss takes a more “hands-on” approach, the owner again has not much more knowledge than a common dealer. More importantly, they will at least be aware of the risk of professional players. They call them “advantage players”. They know they exist. They know very well even individual professional players have taken casinos for many millions. But their perspective is at a much higher level, and professional players are seen more as an accepted hazard, not without measures to deal with them. Kind of like an annoying bee that can do harm, but aren’t difficult to squish once you know about them.
It’s also much like a retail store that may make $1M in sales each year, but $10,000 is lost each year due to theft. In other words, the retail store knows it’s almost impossible to stop 100% of theft. Technically they could stop 100%, but it would mean taking measures that would make honest customers feel uncomfortable, and this alone may lose more revenue than they save. So all the retail store can do is follow the best procedures to limit the losses from thieves. This is how a casino boss often view “advantage players”.
Getting Accurate Tips To Win at the Roulette Table
The vast majority of roulette tips websites exist only to promote online casinos. Such website owners give content for search engines, not to help players. So most of the tips to win at the roulette table are nonsense. It is also important to understand the difference between a method to meat the roulette table, and one to beat the roulette wheel. Almost every system is based around bets on the table. Even Einstein said “you cannot beat the roulette table”. He didn’t say “wheel”. He said “table”, because the roulette table is a deliberate randomized representation of the real wheel. In other words, a red or black bet doesn’t represent any specific sector of the wheel. The only systems that do beat roulette involve predicting areas of the physical wheel where the ball will fall.
Evidence That Roulette Can Be Beaten
A safe roulette strategy is important, but they can not always be called a simple roulette system. You’d think that if someone could beat roulette, that it would make headlines and they’d win the Nobel Prize. Actually the truth is winning at roulette isn’t rocket science – it’s more about using the right approach for the right wheel and conditions as I’ll explain later. Anyway I’ll refer to four particular high profile cases of roulette players winning fortunes:
Joseph Jagger: You may have heard the song “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo”. This was the first record of anyone exploiting roulette wheel bias. In today’s money, he earned millions. The casino staff couldn’t figure out how he was winning. Eventually, they changed the wheels (or rather a part of the wheel relating to the defect) and he didn’t notice. This inevitably changed the patterns he was following, and he lost much of his winnings. He still walked away with a fortune.
Pelayo family: This is a family of Spanish players who also exploited roulette wheel bias. Despite the history and what happened with Joseph Jagger, the casino staff still had no idea how the Pelayo family was winning. They could not lawfully ban them, so they started changing the conditions at the wheel. For example, they tried speeding up the wheel spins. But this actually helps wheel bias players because the parts that cause the bias are more likely to influence ball behaviour, resulting in a statical anomaly (the bias). Eventually the Pelayo family were illegally and physically removed from the casinos they were winning at, so they were forced to play elsewhere. But they had become so well known that it was near impossible for them to continue winning discretely. They began with a bankroll of about $2000, and profited around $1,000,000. See the video below:
Laszlo Kovacs: This happened a few years ago in Star City casino in Australia. He used an electronic device (roulette computer – the best way to win roulette) to calculate the speed of the wheel and ball and predict where the ball is most likely to land. He won about $200,000 before the casino staff noticed he was winning a little too often. But according to casino staff, what initially gave him away was the tapping of his foot, not his winnings. He was tapping his foot because a hidden button in his shoe was pressed when the ball and green zero completed revolutions (to measure speeds). Laszlo was charged with casino cheating under Australian law, but was deported without being convicted, and was allowed to keep his winnings.
Ritz team: This happened a few years ago too. A team of 3 professional players win over US$2M in 3 days. Nobody but the players themselves know what technology they used, although they were caught with various mobile phones and electronic devices. Based on reports from casino staff who reviewed the footage of them winning, their behaviour and bets were consistent with roulette computer application. These are the devices also used by Laszlo Kovacs. The team was allowed to keep their winnings because they had not broken any law. These devices continue to he LEGAL in the UK and many other parts of the world. But legal or not, casinos will of course do what they must to stop you winning. So you need to use them very discretely. See the TV documentary about the team below:
There have actually been many other cases in the news. And certainly far more cases do not make the headlines. To summarize, basically there is enough evidence to support that even the casinos know roulette can be beaten. But mostly the casino staff don’t understand it. However, they do they “need” to understand it – they only need to monitor for consistently winning players, then take whatever action is appropriate to stop casino losses.
What Roulette Strategies Do and Don’t Work?
It’s important to note that with all the known methods that have worked and even made headlines, the physics of the roulette wheel was involved. As far as I’m aware, there has never been a case where a player has won millions over sustained and long-term periods of play without using physics. Certainly players have won millions with sheer luck. But I’m referring to methods that have repeatable success.
The common factors of the effective methods:
- Real roulette wheels only
- Roulette wheel physics
- Inside bets based on sectors of the wheel
I’m not aware of any legitimately effective method that beats roulette, without all of the above factors. So the most important roulette tip I can give is focus on real wheel physics.
Strategies That DON’T work:
Save yourself some time and understand why most systems lose:
Betting progression: most gamblers believe that if you bet higher to cover losses, that you’ll eventually win and your bankroll will increase. But roulette doesn’t work this way. When you increase bet size, all you do is increase the amount you risk on that individual spin. Remember that the wheel has no memory. It doesn’t know or care if there were 10 reds in a row. And even after 10 reds, the odds or red or black spinning next haven’t changed. So changing bet size wont help at all (unless you actually have a method to increase the accuracy of predictions).
Thinking something is “due”: as explained above, even after 10 or so reds, the odds of red or black spinning next do not change at all. Nothing is ever “due” to happen. The ball lands where it does only from cause and effect. That’s real physical variables only.
Systems that work well on a set sample of spins, but not new spins: Every set of previous spins will appear to have mysterious coincidences and patterns that aren’t really patterns at all. In fact you can put them down to simple statistics in the sense that certain sequences of spins will inevitably occur over time. It doesn’t mean they will occur over new spins in the near future.
Another important consideration is the house edge. For the European wheel, it is -2.7%. A simple explanation is if you bet on one number, you can expect to win 1 in 37 spins. When you win, you are paid 35 chips plus your original bet. So after 37 spins, on average you’ll be left with 36 chips. If everything was fair and the house edge didn’t exist, you should have 37 chips after the 37 spins. To make this even simpler to understand, even when you win, you still actually lose because you are paid an UNFAIR amount. The effect of this is you slowly drain your bankroll. The only way to overcome this is by winning more times than statistically expected. In this case, winning more than 1 in 37 times.
Players that have no understanding of these concepts will forever create the same systems again and again, but just repackaged a different way. And many players waste years of their life before they understand why they’ve been losing. Almost every professional gambler was once at this stage – even myself. And now we ask ourselves how we couldn’t see plain logic before.
How Can You Win At Roulette Today?
Roulette is not much different from how it was 6-8 years ago. Some changes have made winning easier, such as rapid roulette. But it’s quite different to how it was 50+ years ago. Naturally, as casinos learn about how roulette is beaten, they will do what is reasonable to limit losses from professional players. Again they presently can’t do this fully without losing revenue. For example, to prevent roulette computer users from measuring the ball speed and betting late, the dealer can call no more bets earlier. This will stop a roulette computer player from winning. But it will also stop the average losing player from placing late bets that lose. For every 1 roulette computer player, there may be 50,000 normal players. So it is not viable for casinos to fully forbid late bets.
To limit losses to professional roulette players (advantage players), casinos rely on:
- Detecting consistent winners, then applying countermeasures (like forbidding late bets) until the consistent winner either loses or leaves. Then the casino can resume normal procedures.
- Using roulette wheels and technology that makes roulette spins less predictable.
There are far more undetected professional players than those who are detected. So for professional players, avoiding detection is mostly a matter of not being greedy and winning more modest amounts.
As for modern roulette wheel technology: there’s no doubt that wheels are getting harder to beat. But it is actually much harder to design a wheel with completely unpredictable spins than it is to develop a method which at least slightly increases the accuracy of the player’s winning number predictions. And to overcome the casino’s typical small edge of -2.7% is not at all difficult – it only requires the roulette player to only have slightly better than random accuracy when predicting the winning number. In suitable conditions, this is not at all difficult to achieve. This is the key to winning at roulette.
Videos Showing Roulette Being Beaten
Free roulette physics course: See the free course for winning at roulette by visiting www.roulettephysics.com – a sample of what you receive for free is below:
Roulette computers: Visit www.roulette-computers.com for more information. Also see the following video demonstrations:
Advice on Having Realistic Expectations
If you do proper research, you’ll understand that it is not only possible to win at roulette, it is being done every day. But keep in mind for every consistent winner, there are likely tens of thousands of players who lose with a system that has no chance of winning in the long term. It makes sense that if you are trying to beat roulette, you should start with what has historically already shown to work. This doesn’t mean your current approach, whatever it may be, will not also be successful if developed further. Also keep in mind many people have even committed suicide because they couldn’t beat this game. But you can be sure such people were looking at the wrong approaches. Blindly trying to do the impossible will drive anyone insane. Trying to do the possible, with proper and logical approaches, makes more sense.
If you spend years using the same approaches used by millions of players, you are going to lose. But if you don’t want to look at the physics of the roulette wheel, then at least try something that nobody has tried before. If you are not trying to be a pioneer and just want a roulette strategy that works, then the application of physics-based roulette systems (advantage play) may be what you’re looking for.
But a word of warning: don’t expect to beat all wheels in all conditions. None of the methods that have worked previous or today have ever been effective on every wheel. In all known cases, the players had to search for suitable wheels and conditions. The prevalence of suitable wheels mostly depends on the method you use – you will find that specific approaches may work on perhaps only 5% of wheels. Whereas other approaches may be successful on far more wheels (30-50%).
Other than using roulette computers, the overall best methods I have developed to beat roulette will beat approximately 35% of modern wheels in real casino conditions. But this doesn’t mean you will obliterate the casino with 35% of their wheels. It means of the 35% of wheels, you will overcome the normal edge against you which is -2.7%. In typical conditions, the edge you will achieve is between +5 to +15%. So on average, around a +10% edge. This may not seem like much, but consider a -2.7% edge is all a casino needs to often make hundreds of thousands from a single wheel in one night. An edge of over 50% is not uncommon with roulette computers. But despite their larger edge, professional players have serious disadvantages such as the casino being able to simply ban players for any reason. So you can’t just win millions overnight. Well you can, but expect to be noticed. If you have a more modest bankroll, you need to win much more discrete amounts. How much is ok to win? It depends on the table. But say if the minimum inside bet is just $5, then the most you should take from the table is $500 or so. Or if the minimum is $50, then generally winning $5,000 in one session is ok (provided you don’t repeat it too often and in the presence of the same casino staff). This is just a rough guide though, and there are many variables that determine what is “covert” to win.
Winning and avoiding detection is one thing. But the biggest roadblock for professional players is time. More specifically, most people don’t have the will or patience to spend in casinos for many hours. It can quickly become very boring and tiring. The boredom can lead to costly mistakes.
I once spoke to the director of one of the largest and best-known roulette wheel manufacturers. He and his colleague spoke candidly about the viability of beating their wheels. They stated something to the effect that “Yes we know wheels can be “clocked” (their word for ‘beaten”). We know all about it”. They spoke rather defensively as if I was attempting to somehow expose them. I was actually just looking to purchase a new roulette wheel, which they refused because they were aware of who I was, and my intentions to study it. On another occasion I spoke to their chief wheel designer, who is also well aware just about any wheel can be beaten in the right conditions. The manufacturer websites neglect to explain to their clients (casinos) how easily beaten many modern roulette wheels are, but the wheel manufacturers at least do have knowledge. Again although wheels are getting more difficult to beat, to create a wheel that produces truly random and unpredictable spins would be extremely difficult and costly, and perhaps not viable considering it is not difficult for casinos to identify a player who is consistently winning hundreds of thousands, which is what it would take to significantly impact the income of most casinos.
How Much Time Do Professional Methods Take To Use?
Roulette computers are by far the quickest, but you still may need to dedicate 4hrs or more just getting enough data for one wheel. Some players may consider this far too time consuming and absurd. A roulette computer user would consider the notion of 8 hours work from 9am-5pm for day after day for around $150/day, then paying 35% tax, to be closer to insanity.
But excluding roulette computers, a good professional method to win roulette consistently (that can earn a living) may take around 20 hrs per week. This again may seem absurd to some people, but consider this is around half the time as a normal job, but it can pay much better if done right.
If you are considering becoming a professional roulette player, understand that while it is not uncommon for players to win hundreds of thousands or even millions, this level of income (with modest bet size) requires time and dedication, just like any other job. But the average player doesn’t play full-time. The average player keeps their normal job, and plays roulette part-time or whenever the need arises for an income boost. In any event, if you expect to consistently win money from roulette, you will need to use an approach much more sophisticated than “doubling bets” after losses.
If you don’t like the idea of using physics to win roulette, perhaps read https://www.roulettephysics.com/why-it-works/ which explains why most methods fail, and why physics may be the only approach that works. Whatever systems you are using, CONSIDER THE WORKING PRINCIPLE you are attempting to apply, and test it thoroughly.
Roulette Tips That Really Work
Start with the basics rules and learn how to play roulette. The following advice is intended for casual players who are more about having fun than being a serious player. Tips for professional players are quite different.
- Set your loss limit and goals: Set your bankroll and stick to it.
- Know the payouts and odds of each bet: If you know the chance of winning, you can calculate the bankroll you’ll need so you have at least some good wins. Generally outside bets like dozens, odds, evens 1-18 and so on are bets where statistically you can expect to win at least once every few spins. This way you don’t blow your bankroll too soon.
- Be careful of progression betting like the Martingale: This is where you increase bet size after losses, in attempt to win back losses. Unless your roulette strategy first increases the accuracy of predictions, no progression betting is going to help you.
- Focus on predicting wheel sectors where the ball is expected to land. The betting table has nothing to do with the winning number. This is not as difficult as you may first think. Roulette is not a random game, and it has many predictable aspects.
For a lifetime of professional roulette tips that really work, take the time to fully browse this website.
What Is The Best Way To Win Roulette
It would be great if there was a single universal method to beat all roulette. But the truth is different methods are better suited to different wheels. For example, you may find a heavily biased roulette wheel where you simply need to bet on the same numbers. You could apply visual ballistics to win, but you would find simply betting on the same numbers to be easier. However, visual ballistics will likely produce a higher edge. But then again, visual ballistics requires the player to make late bets after the ball is released, and it may not even be possible to use.
The closest you can get to universally best ways to win roulette are the JAA system explained on this site, and the roulette computers. If you can only bet before the ball is released, then JAA is best. But if you can bet after ball release, then roulette computers are almost always best – they are quicker to use and more profitable.
The Best Way To Bet On Roulette
Most professional players who play alone prefer rapid roulette betting terminals. These allow you to place bets on a touch bet screen, without needing to lean over tables. Professional players who play in a team can just as easily place bets on real tables. The best way to bet usually is by different players placing bets to represent specific sectors of the wheel.
Can you win roulette every time?
The best way to win roulette is with a roulette computer, and you can achieve an edge of over 100%. In one of my last public demos, I achieved a 120% edge which is a win on almost every spin. Now if I bet on just one spin, it could have been in the 7% of losing spins. It’s unlikely but possible. But if I played on 10 spins, almost certainly I would have profited.
My point is if you have an edge, the more you play, the more likely you are to profit. So yes you can win roulette every time with the right technology, assuming it’s applied correctly. Predicting spin results is not really the difficult part – it’s getting away with winning without being detected.
Best Free Course To Beat Roulette
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Roulette is one of the easiest games in the casino to play. After all, it’s just a spinning wheel with colored slots with numbers. All you have to do is bet on which slot the ball will land in.
The table is covered with options, too. You can bet on a specific number. You can bet on a specific color. You can even place multiple bets.
Like all casino games, roulette has a house edge. The bets don’t pay off at the same odds of winning. If they did, the casino wouldn’t make any money.
It’s impossible to consistently win at this game.
But casino math only reflects what’s going to happen in the long run. Sure, you’re going to lose at roulette in the long run. You’re also going to die in the long run. You don’t sit around worrying about it, though, do you.
Here are some easy ways to win at roulette in the short term.
1. Try the Martingale System
Plenty of sites debunk the Martingale System. And I’m not claiming that the Martingale System increases your chances of winning, either. In fact, I’m happy to admit that in the long run, you’ll go just as broke at roulette using the Martingale System as you will using any other system.
But it can be a fun way to grind out some small wins in the short run.
Here’s how it works:
You place an even money bet. If you win, great! If you lose, you bet again, this time doubling the size of your previous bet. If you win this time, you’ve won back what you lost before along with an extra bet. If you lose this time, you double your bet again. And so on…
Here’s an example:
You bet $5 on black. The ball lands on red. You lose your $5.
Now you bet $10 on black. The ball lands on red again. You lose your $10.
Now you bet $20 on black. The ball lands on black. You win $20, which covers the $15 you lost on the previous two bets and nets you a $5 profit.
At first glance, this system seems foolproof. In fact, if you had an unlimited bankroll and no betting limits, it WOULD be foolproof.
But you have a limited bankroll.
And the casino has betting limits.
Let’s look at the progression if you lose 8 times in a row:
- $5
- $10
- $20
- $40
- $80
- $160
- $320
- $640
Most casinos allowing a $5 bet on black or red has a maximum bet of $500. If you lose 7 times in a row (which is going to happen more often than you expect), you won’t be able to place your next bet.
Here’s the other problem:
You have to be able to cover all these bets, and even if you win after this progression, you had to risk hundreds of dollars to ensure a $5 profit.
Once you’ve made those 7 bets listed in 1-7, you’ve lost $635 already.
And the odds of winning that next bet don’t go up because you’ve lost the previous 7 bets. The roulette wheel has no memory.
The odds of landing on red or black are the same on every spin, regardless of what’s happened on previous spins.
But in the short run, the Martingale works often. You’ll grind out a few small wins. You might even have several small winning sessions.
But if you play long enough, the law of large numbers will eventually catch up with you, and you’ll have a devastating loss or two.
This doesn’t mean that the Martingale is a bad way to play. If you enjoy this betting system, go for it.
Just don’t think that it changes or improves your odds of winning, because it doesn’t.
2. Stick with the Even Money Bets
The even money bets are losing bets, but they’re more likely to win than the other bets on the table. The house edge is the same on every bet (except one), but that doesn’t mean you should embrace high volatility.
Let’s look at the payoffs and the odds of winning for some of these common bets.
The even money bets all work the same way. You have a close to 50% chance of winning these.
Red or black, odd or even, high or low—these are the even money bets.
All of them have the same probability of winning.
On a standard European roulette wheel, you have 37 numbers. 18 of them are red, 18 are black, and one of them (the 0) is green. 18 of the numbers are even, 18 are odd, and one of them (the 0) is neither. 18 of the numbers are high, 18 are low, and one of them (the 0) is neither.
If you bet on black, you have 37 possible outcomes. 18 of them are winning outcomes. 19 of them are losing outcomes. Your probability of winning is 18/37, or 48.65%.
The odds of winning are 19 to 18.
But the payoff is even money.
If you play a theoretically perfect 37 bets at $100 each, you’ll win $1800 and lose $1900, for a net loss of $100. The average loss per bet is $100 divided by 37 bets, or $2.70.
And that’s the house edge—2.70%.
A single number bet has the same house edge, but you’re a lot less likely to win such a bet. The payoff for a single number bet is 35 to 1, which helps make up for not winning so often. But in the long run, this bet has the same house edge as the even money bet.
Here’s how the math works:
You have a 1/37 (or 2.70%) chance of winning this bet. The odds are 36 to 1 that you’ll win. But the bet only pays off at 35 to 1.
Place 37 theoretically perfect results, and you’ll win $3500 on one bet, but you’ll lose $100 36 times, or $3600. Your net loss is still $100.
This doesn’t mean you’re unable to walk away a winner.
It just means the odds are against you.
If you stick with the even money bets, you’ll at least have a 48.65% chance of winning each bet.
That’s much better than a 2.7% chance of winning.
3. Never Make the 5-Number Bet
The 5-number bet isn’t even available on a European roulette wheel. It’s only available on an American roulette wheel.
Here’s the difference between the two wheels:
A European wheel has 37 numbers total, with a single green 0.
An American wheel has 38 numbers total, with a green 0 and a green 00.
This increases the house edge on the American roulette game to 5.26%, which is almost twice as high as 2.70%.
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But it also enables the casino to offer another bet that isn’t available in European roulette. It’s called the 5-number bet, and it’s the worst bet in roulette.
The 5-number bet is a bet that the ball will land on either the 0, the 00, the 1, the 2, or the 3.
The odds of winning this bet are 5/38, or 13.16%.
The payoff is 6 to 1.
Here’s what happens in a theoretically perfect set of 38 spins:
You win 5 times, but you lose 33 times. That’s $3000 in winnings, but it’s $3300 in losses, or $300 in losses total.
$300 divided by 38 spins is 7.89%.
You can place this bet and win, but since it offers the worst odds at the table, it sure makes it harder.
Also, don’t confuse the 5-number bet with the 4-number bet available on the European roulette wheel. That bet doesn’t have such a high house edge. It’s a bet that the ball is going to land on the 0, 1, 2, or 3.
4. Refuse to Play American Roulette
I explained the difference between American roulette and European roulette clearly in the last bullet point, but let’s look at what those numbers mean on average to a roulette player.
One way to look at the math behind a casino game is to estimate the expected hourly loss. This is the average amount of money you’ll lose per hour if you play the game long enough to hit the theoretical expectation.
You calculate this by multiplying the average bet amount by the number of bets you’re playing per hour. The product of those two numbers is the amount of money you’re putting into action every hour.
The house edge is the amount of that action the casino expects to win. You multiply the house edge by the average hourly action to get the expected hourly loss.
In American roulette, let’s assume you’re betting $100 per spin. You’re betting on 50 spins per hour, so you’re putting $5000 into action.
5.26% of $5000 is $263 per hour in expected losses.
In European roulette, you’re only expected to lose 2.70% of your total action, or $135 in the above example.
What’s the difference between losing $263 per hour and losing $135 per hour?
$128/hour
There’s no good reason to play American roulette if you have access to a European style roulette game.
5. Play Roulette in Atlantic City
In Atlantic City, if you place an even money bet, the casino only takes half your bet if you lose. This lowers the house edge to 2.63%.
This doesn’t mean that every casino in Atlantic City offers European roulette.
It just means that the even money bets (also called the “outside bets” because of their location on the betting surface) literally offer better odds than any of the other bets on the table.
In fact, the other bets on the table still have a house edge of 5.26%.
Combine #5 on this list with #2, and you’re now facing a game with a house edge of just 2.63%, which increases your chances of walking away a winner.
6. Play Roulette in Europe
This should seem obvious, but roulette wheels in Europe only have a single zero. They’re called European roulette games because that’s where they’re found.
But some casinos in Europe have additional rules which favor the player.
One of these is the “en prison” rule. It only applies to outside bets. If the ball lands on 0, you don’t lose. Instead, your bet is put in prison—you let it ride until the next spin. If it wins on that second spin, you get your bet back.
This cuts the house edge in half again, making the house edge on these bets only 1.35%.
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Your expected average hourly loss on this game, assuming 50 spins per hour at $100 per spin, is only $65.
7. Clock a Roulette Wheel
Roulette wheels are engineered near perfection, but they’re not all perfect. Some of them form a natural bias over time. In other words, they might land on certain numbers more often than other numbers. If you can figure out what those numbers are, you can get an edge over the casino.
What happens is that on some wheels, a set of half-a-dozen or so numbers hit more often because that part of the wheel is slightly sunken compared to the rest of the wheel. To find a wheel like this, you would literally have to record the result of hundreds of spins and compare them with the expected results.
I don’t think this is a practical technique for a couple of reasons. One is that recording roulette results for hours on end isn’t practical. Another is that casino management changes the locations of roulette wheel and inspects them regularly.
Suppose you spend 16 hours a day clocking a wheel 2 days in a row, and you determine a definite bias. You go home, get a good night’s sleep, and come back the next day to take advantage of this information.
But the casino changed out the wheel in the middle of their 3rd shift when you weren’t there.
Also, imagine what a drag it would be to clock a roulette wheel for 32 hours and discover that it has no bias at all.
Back to the drawing board.
8. Take Advantage of a Casino Bonus Online
Online casinos offer you free money an incentive to sign up with them. These are called “casino bonuses”. They sound great, too.
Here’s an example:
You can sign up at Example Casino and deposit $1000 and get a $5000 signup bonus.
You have $6000 to play with.
Sounds easy to win when you start with such a big stake, right?
Here’s the catch:
The casino requires you to fulfill wagering requirements before allowing you to cash out.
These are also sometimes called playthrough requirements.
They’re expressed as a multiple of the bonus or the bonus plus the deposit.
In the case of this example casino, let’s assume that the bonus and deposit must be wagered 50 times before you’re allowed to cash out.
You’re required to wager $300,000 in total action before you can cash out.
Since you’re smart and playing European roulette, the house edge is only 2.70%.
But 2.70% of $300,000 is $6100.
The math prevents you from getting an edge. You might be up after $300,000 in wagers, but the odds are against.
To make it even harder to ensure a profit from your roulette play, the casino limits the wagers that count toward your playthrough requirement.
At most online casinos, only wagers on the slot machine games count 100% toward fulfilling your requirements.
It’s not unusual for a casino to disallow wagers on roulette entirely.
Even at casinos which allow roulette wagers, you’ll often only get to count 10% or 20% of your wagers on roulette toward the wagering requirement.
This means an expected loss of 5X to 10X that $6100 I mentioned above.
This makes it almost mathematically impossible to come out ahead when using a casino bonus.
But here’s one strategy you might try:
Fulfill your wagering requirements by playing the slot machines. Once your wagering requirements have been fulfilled, if you have enough money left, bet it all on black.
Your plan is to place a single bet with a goal of doubling your money.
This might still leave you with less money than you started with, but it’s a fun way to bring roulette into the picture when you’re trying to take advantage of a casino bonus.
I talk about why this might be a good idea in the next section.
9. Use a Maximum Boldness Strategy
You can use multiple bet sizing strategies when gambling. When you have an edge, a minimum boldness strategy is appropriate. When the casino has an edge, a maximum boldness strategy is appropriate.
A minimum boldness strategy means using a small percentage of your bankroll and making lots of small bets.
A card counter at the blackjack table might use a minimum boldness strategy. She might have an edge of 1% over the casino, but the edge is a long-term expectation. In the short run, she could hit an unlucky streak.
By keeping her bets small, she avoids going broke before her long-term expectation kicks in.
A maximum boldness strategy is when you bet most or all your bankroll on a single bet.
Suppose you have $500 to gamble with, and your goal is to double your money.
Your best odds of doubling that money is to place a single bet on black or red at the roulette table. (Any even-money bet will do, in fact.)
The probability of winning that bet isn’t 50%, but it’s close. On a European roulette table, it’s 18/37, or 48.65%.
You have a 48.65% chance of doubling your money.
Compare that with the probability of doubling your money if you placed two even money bets in a row of half your bankroll ($250 each).
You need to win both bets to double your money.
The probability of that happening is calculated by multiplying the probabilities of each one:
48.65% X 48.65% = 23.67%.
If you divide your bankroll into 4 bets of $125 each, the probability of doubling your money gets even smaller.
This is a great illustration of how the house edge works over the long run—which is the subject of the next section.
10. Understand that You CAN’T Win at Roulette in the Long Run
You can get the edge at some gambling games. If you play poker better than the other players at the table, you can eke out a profit over time. If you can handicap at an expert level, you can win often enough to make up for the sports book’s vig. If you can count cards, you can get an edge over the casino. Find the right video poker games and play at an expert level, and you can get an edge that way, too.
But you can’t get an edge at roulette.
The best you can do is find the games with the best odds and hope to get lucky.
The higher the house edge is, the lower the likelihood is that you’ll get lucky.
You can budget your gambling bankroll accordingly if you understand this going into it.
Conclusion
Roulette is an entirely random game with an unassailable house edge. The best you can hope for is to get lucky once in a while.
But you can have fun doing so.
The best advice I have to offer roulette players is to refuse to play American roulette. If you’re forced to play American roulette, don’t play the 5-number bet.
If your goal is to double your money, place one big bet on one of the outside bets. You’ll have a close to 50% chance of doubling your money, which is better than what you’ll find at most casino games.
The good news about roulette is that compared to some of the other games you’ll find the casino, the action is slow. This means fewer bets per hour, which results in a lower expected hourly loss rate.
But if you play long enough, you’ll eventually lose all your money.