Roulette is one of the most popular table games in modern casinos. Although variations on the game have been around for several hundred years, there are now only 3 variations in American casinos.
You’re likely already familiar with American roulette and European roulette. The most recent addition to the table game inventory is Sands Roulette.
Let's start with roulette types. The most significant contrast exists between the European and American wheels. The American version has two zeroes, giving more of an edge to the casino. So, the first roulette secret is - go European to win more frequently. For this reason, you should always go for European roulette rather than American. Make short-odds bets. If all you care about is winning, it makes sense to go for the low-risk bets like low/high, red/black or even/odd. Now, of course, you won’t get paid out as much when you do win, but you’ll win much more often. Always keep the money you win and play with your original amount put at stake. If you lose your stake within a short span of time, control your temptation to make more deposits in the future. Here comes the most important Roulette Tip for any playeralways bet an amount you think you ca afford to lose. Roulette Tip 6#.
Which of these games should you play?
How should you bet on them?
What’s the smartest strategy for roulette betting?
To all those who are on a search for the best way to win at roulette – we will leave you with a quote from a very smart person named Albert Einstein: ‘No one can possibly win at roulette unless he steals money from the table while the croupier isn’t looking.’ The Most Frequently Asked Questions on Roulette Strategies. In order to win at roulette always be ready to spend time playing regularly. Advantage player is a profession and hence requires time and systematic approach. Even with the usage of the roulette computer which is one of the most effective winning techniques you should dedicate to playing around 20 hours per week.
I’ll explain all that in this post:
What Are the Differences between American, European, and Sands Roulette?
Although these games have a few other differences, the most significant distinction between the 3 versions of roulette are the number of green slots the wheels contain.
Every roulette wheel has at least 37 slots.
36 of those slots are always numbered 1 to 36, and they’re alternately colored RED or BLACK.
The additional slots are green.
In European roulette there is only one green slot, the “0”.
In American roulette there are two green slots: “0” and “00”.
In Sands roulette a third green slot, “S”, has been added to the wheel.
The green slots are there for one reason:
They make the game’s statistical probabilities uneven.
This is because of the way roulette bets are paid off. You can win anywhere from 35-to-1 (for betting on a single number) down to 1-to-1 (for betting on 18 slots at a time).
The payoffs, called “odds”, are not as fair to you as the actual estimated probabilities of the roulette ball landing on any given slot. This is how the casino makes its money.
In a game of roulette the house should keep at least 2.70% of all the bets players make over time. The casino has no need to cheat the players. In fact, the players often make really bad bets that improve the “house edge”, as that casino profit is called.
One of the other differences between European roulette and both American and Sands roulette is that the European roulette table has an additional betting area. This secondary betting area is used to place specially designed bets. They are more complicated than the normal bets made in American and Sands roulette. I’m going to ignore this section of the table, because I’m going to show you how to place bets that have the best chances of paying off.
Is There a Winning System for Roulette?
Everyone who gets into roulette sooner or later starts to think about how they can “beat the system”.
I’m going to be honest here:
There is no way to do that.
The green slots on the wheel make it impossible for anyone, anywhere, to ever design a betting system that is guaranteed to win. If you really want to guarantee yourself a win every time, then put a chip on each of the 2-to-1 outside bets and on each of the green number bets.
That’s the only way you’ll be paid money every time the wheel spins.
You’ll also go broke.
You may have heard about a system called the Martingale System. It’s a popular betting system with new roulette players.
Experienced roulette players just turn their heads and roll their eyes when someone mentions the Martingale System. The only way you can make money with the Martingale System is to write a book about it and get people to buy your book.
Even that’s a gamble, though, because most people now know that the Martingale System promises more than it delivers.
Here’s how this system works:
You start out betting the minimum. If you lose, you double your bet. If you win on your doubled bet, you go back to betting the table minimum. If you lose again, you double the size of your bet again.
This sounds great to inexperienced bettors but the problem is that you’ll either run out of money or hit the table limit before you can recoup your losses as they add up.
The Martingale System is a sucker bet, plain and simple.
Every betting system in every form of gambling tries to leverage probability theory. The Martingale System and other roulette betting strategies also rely on probability estimates.
But there’s a flaw in the thinking behind these systems. If you account for the flaw you’ll be okay. You won’t always win but your expectations will be more reasonable.
The secret to not going broke when you gamble is to set reasonable expectations and maintain your self-discipline. You should never drink or take drugs when you gamble. They lower your inhibitions and impair your judgment.
You might as well just hand your money over to the casino at the cashier window and say “keep it” if you’re going to drink or do drugs when you gamble.
How Do Probabilities Work in Roulette?
Probability theory came out of statistics. It tries to give us rules by which to guess what happens next in any situation. The guesses are seldom accurate predictions. Sometimes the guesses work out, and sometimes they don’t. Gamblers love probability theory because they think it helps them pick the best betting strategies.
You’re actually more likely to double your money during a roulette session if you put all your money on a single bet. The more bets you place, the less likely it becomes to double your money.
That’s because every bet brings you close to the long term expectations. The closer you are to the short term, the more likely you are to get better than expected results.
In roulette, the probabilities are simple. The dealer spins the wheel and releases a ball that whirls around the outside of the wheel and finally settles in a slot. With only 37 slots on a European roulette wheel you have a 1-in-37 probability of the ball landing on a specific slot.
This probability never changes.
This probability is calculated on the basis of all the known possibilities.
What probability theory cannot do, however, is predict where the ball will stop.
Nor can it predict whether the ball will land on red, black, or green any number of times over the next 100 spins.
Nonetheless, a lot of gambling guides tell you that you have the best chances of winning if you do this because of such-and-such probabilities. And many of these guides warn you that there is no way to predict the future, but by setting the expectation that the ball will land on red about 47% of the time, these guides are making predictions and promises they cannot keep.
They’ll even back up their claims by talking about how to run computer simulations for 1 million spins of the wheel so that you see how often the ball lands on red, black, or green.
In the real world the Probability Fairy is always on vacation. She’ll never be there to wave her magic wand to make things happen the way experts say they should. The ball could land on red over the next 20 spins. Or it could land on black or green or some random mix of color combinations.
You have no way of knowing how many of the next [X] spins will turn out a certain way. Talking about probabilities in this way is just dishonest.
What you can do is look at the wheel and ask yourself how much it costs to bet on the largest possible set of numbers. The idea here is to get as much coverage as you can without losing money too fast.
But even if you cover every number on the wheel you’ll lose money.
So the only way to win in roulette–and this is completely random, never guaranteed–is to bet on less than all the numbers on the wheel.
You also want to play bets that pay better than even money. You can place a variety of bets, but most of them aren’t worthwhile.
Betting on single numbers is a bad idea. You can place bets on the lines between the numbers (these are called “street bets”) and on lines at the corners of numbers (these are called “corner bets”).
But even though you get pretty good odds (payoff) you’re still covering too few numbers.
How Bets Work in Roulette
Divide the bets into two groups:
- Inside bets
- Outside bets
Inside bets are based on individual numbers or small groups of numbers. When you see players betting on the lines, corners, and individual numbers on the table they are making inside bets.
Outside bets are based on pre-selected groups of numbers on the wheel. The “2-to-1” bets cover 12 numbers each: 1 to 12, 13 to 24, and 25 to 36. The “1-to-1” or “even money” bets cover 18 numbers each:
- Odd
- Even
- Black
- Red
- 1 to 18
- 19 to 36
The bets more likely to pay are the even money bets.
But unless you can win 5 times out of 9 on even money bets you’ll lose your stake. That’s the problem with roulette. You always have to win at least 1 more time than you lose no matter how you place your bets.
The “2 to 1” bets pay better than the “1 to 1” bets because they cover fewer numbers. You have less of a chance of winning.
There are 6 types of “2 to 1” bets:
- 3 kinds of dozens bets: (1 to 12, 13 to 24, and 25 to 36)
- 3 kinds of columns bets: ([1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34], [2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 32, 35], [3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36]).
You can make a bet by betting on any two of the “2 to 1” groups. That means that instead of covering only 18 numbers you’ll be covering 24 numbers.
This type of bet is often called the “double dozen” bet. It’s popular among gamblers who like to hedge their bets. They have a better chance (all other things considered) of scoring a win with a “double dozen” than with one of the standard even money bets. If you’re playing it safe and going for even money odds, you should always play a double dozen bet.
If you want to bet more aggressively, then instead of betting more money on your double dozen, you can cover all 36 of the red and black numbers. Leave the green numbers alone. Yes, they’ll come in every now and then, and you’ll lose money.
But there’s a way to keep your losses low.
How to Bet on Columns or Dozens Aggressively
Take 6 chips and distribute them across EITHER the three dozen bets or the three column bets.
Place 3 chips on 1, 2 chips on the 2nd, and 1 chip on the 3rd. If the ball lands on a green number you’ll lose your entire bet, so always play the table minimum with this aggressive style.
If the ball lands on any number with your single chip bet, you’ll win 2 chips and lose 5–for a net loss of 3 chips (half your bet).
That’s the safest way to bet aggressively on the table.
If the ball lands on any number in your 2 chip bet you’ll win 4 chips and lose 4 for no loss. This keeps you in the game.
If the ball lands on any number in your 3chip bet, you’ll win 6 chips and lose 3 for a net gain of 3 chips. This will offset 1 single chip win.
The way this betting strategy works out, your money can grow substantially and still take some big hits. Where the strategy will fail you is when the ball lands on green or if the ball lands on the single chip bet more often than it lands on the 3 chip bet.
Sorry, but there’s no way to prevent that from happening.
There Is No Guaranteed Way to Win in Roulette
I can’t say this often enough:
You can’t win at roulette in the long run.
I think roulette is a fun game to play. It’s exciting because you don’t know where the ball will land. You take an active role in making your wagers.
And you’ll find there are a lot of different betting systems to experiment with. The only thing that is guaranteed in roulette is that the casino will make a profit. What you hope for is that they make their profit at someone else’s expense.
Players who try to improve their luck by making big bets do sometimes win, but most often the people who come out ahead are the patient players who use conservative betting strategies and take money off the table. If you only walk away with your beginning stake you’ll be luckier than most gamblers.
And you can take that to the bank.
Roulette holds quite the sway over players across the world. It is often featured in pop culture and movies and let’s face it, roulette is one of the best-known forms of gambling around the world and it certainly has a lot of class, with the roulette wheel the very symbol of gambling to so many people in so many cultures.
Playing online roulette has become very popular and as we have grown more accustomed to playing roulette online from the comforts of our homes, we’ve also begun to wonder, how can we beat the casinos at their own game and how do we win at online roulette?
We take a look at some of the best strategies to end the supreme reigns of your favorite casino table game.
Understanding Roulette
Before you even consider how to win and how to increase your chances of winning at this great game, you will need to understand a few fundamental factors for online and casino-based roulette games:
- Understand the safest bet
- Learn more about the different versions of the game
- Get practical and applicable advice on how to be successful in roulette
- Win more than ever before
Winning at Online Roulette: The Basics
To develop successful winning strategies for online roulette, you first need to understand what the game is. Strategies for simple games such as slots are much simpler to understand that a more complex game like roulette.
It’s more than a ball that madly spins around a wheel covered in red and black sections; there’s logic behind it all and we’re here to explain it. Roulette is a game of chance, but luck hasn’t got much to do with how successful you are overall.
Players get the opportunity to put wagers, or ‘bets’ on an individual number, a group of numbers, or a selection of special wagers.
Depending on the version of the roulette game, the wheel can feature between 37 and 38 numbers, from 1-36, including a 0 and a 00 (‘double zero’) in the American game.
Payouts are determined based on the outcome of a ball that is spun around the wheel. When the ball lands, you know whether or not you have won. There are several types of wagers you can place, including, but not limited to:
- Inside Bets (placed on a number or groups of numbers)
- Outside Bets (odd/even, red/black, 1-18/19-36)
The best payouts in roulette tend to be on the Inside Bets, but you will need to understand that the chance of hitting an Inside Bet is much slimmer compared to the Outside Bets, which are up to 50%, depending on the version of online roulette you are playing.
Outside Bets are truly your best friends. It’s not surprising that the majority of winning and successful strategies in roulette have been developed to be used on Outside Wagers exclusively.
Online Roulette: The House Edge
There are actual strategies that will increase your chances of winning and you will do well to brush up on them.
If you stick to Outside Bets, your chances will be almost 50%. The slight variation depends upon the 0 and 00, assuming you’re enjoying yourself in the American version of the game. Hence, there may be slightly varying payout rates (let’s call them the ‘house edge’ to get used to the jargon here) based on the version of the game, such as:
- French Roulette – 1.35% or 2.70%*
- European Roulette – 2.70%
- American Roulette – 5.26 – 7.89%
*The French version comes with two special rules that can help you get even more profit out of yourspins!
American Roulette is clearly the one version that will challenge you the most when it comes to winning big. Some players still prefer to stick with it as they love the thrill of uncertainty.
Using Gambling Strategies to Defeat Online Roulette
Unlike most casino games, you can use actual strategies to play against the house. All of these strategies have been proven to work at least to some extent in the short to mid-term, but they struggle in the long run, because the slight house advantage you will have to deal with every time you spin the ball. This applies to all forms of roulette online and at a casino.
With a bit of foresight, you can easily work yourself a good profit and then stop while you are ahead. If you insist on sticking to a strategy in roulette, we would recommend:
- Martingale
- Fibonacci
- Labouchere
Martingale Strategy
All strategies have their quirks and their pitfalls. Martingale for example relies on very small progression; you bet the same amount until you’ve lost at which point you double your bet and keep doubling until you’ve won back all your losses.
The idea here is that you will keep doubling your bets and when you win, you will simply recuperate your losses. It’s really like chasing your losses a bit though. The danger here is that you might hit the table limit before you win back what you’ve lost.
Fibonacci Strategy
With the Fibonacci roulette strategy you will need to remember or just reference to a sequence of numbers:
1 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 8 – 13 – 21 – 34 – 55 – 89 – 144 – 233 – 377 – 610 – 987
The rules are simple. Each number is the resulting amount from the previous two numbers, so it’s rather easy to grasp and there are several interpretations of the sequence. However, you must always use it with Outside Bets and start with a lower sum, just like you would do with Martingale.
To profit, you will need to win on the first bet. If you don’t and keep playing, you will have to win by the third spin; if you succeed, you will break even, but if you keep losing after the third spin, you will then not be able to recuperate your losses. At this point, it’s worth starting all over or picking another strategy.
If you win on your first bet, just start again. If you are down the sequence and get a win, just move two numbers back. Fibonacci is a negative progression system, which is slightly scarier to play, but it seems to be a popular one.
Labouchere Strategy
To play Labouchere, you will need to have a piece of paper with you. Write any sequence of numbers you like. For example, we stuck with something simple:
1-2-3
Each bet you make should be equal to the sum total of the first and last number in the sequence, in this case 1+3 = $4. If you win, you cross off the numbers. If you lose, you add the sum total of the first and last number to the sequence, so you will get 1+3 = 4:
1-2-3-4
If you win your first bet and you are left with one number, just stake that, i.e. $2. If you win the $2 wager, write down a new sequence and start over. Labouchere is easy and fun to play with. Also, if you lose the $2, you will need to add it to the sequence:
I Always Win At Roulette Game
2 – 2
Always Win At Roulette System
This means that your next wager will be $4 and so on.
Practical Tips at Beating the Casino House at Roulette
It’s time to flesh out some general tips for roulette that will come in handy. There are quite a few considerations to take into account here, so let’s get started:
- Stick to the outside bets – Every time we’ve discussed a successful strategy, we’ve recommended the outside bets. They offer the smallest variation, which is welcome for a steady and successful play
- Choose French or European Roulette – Shaving off some of the house edge, such as those 00s is always welcome and by sticking with these two versions of the game, you will give yourself a slight boost
- Study the betting strategies – Make sure to test if the betting strategies we’ve recommended will work for you. Most people start with Martingale or Labouchere as they find it to be the most novice-friendly
- Keep an eye out for new versions – There are quite a few versions of roulette, so make sure you always at least check out what new versions offer in terms of gameplay and of course, payout rates
- Make sure you are winning – Your wins will be measured in the amount you have managed to contribute to your bankroll at the end of your gaming session. Curious to see how it all works out? Just make sure you put a small % of every successful spin aside and don’t use that money to play. This way you are guaranteeing yourself some nominal profit or recompense even if no big results materialise
- Stick to the best operators – Playing with a reputable casino should be a top priority. Always stick to the casinos that are known for their customer-focused approach and untarnished reputation and good name.
This advice may seem simple, but it’s the crux of any successful strategy. Combining your knowledge and understanding of the game with these simple practices will certainly show you how to win at online roulette in no time.
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