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.
A win at the $20 level overcomes the $5 and $10 losses and leaves the player with a $5 profit. The player then goes back to the original bet level. This sounds good in theory - keep betting until you win once, and you have a profit. In practice, you run into very large numbers very quickly, and run up against maximum bet limits. Roulette betting strategies either win in the long term or they don’t, it’s as simple as that. For example, if you decide to use a negative progression strategy after losing a few bets, the end result remains a loss. On the other hand, you could wait for “triggers” before using an aggressive betting strategy and win big.
Which of these games should you play?
How should you bet on them?
What’s the smartest strategy for roulette betting?
I’ll explain all that in this post:
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.
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.
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.
Divide the bets into two groups:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
Ah yes – the question I get asked often: “How do I win at Roulette?”
Its simple really; guess where the ball is going to land next and bet in the appropriate place, bet correctly, win money, repeat, end of story right?
Well sort of.
Like any casino game – the house has an edge. You can’t get around that. Long-term, you’re going to lose. That’s just the way the casino is. But that doesn’t mean you’ll always lose – it just means long-term you will.
What you want to do is first of all – go with a betting system. We have a large variety of them in our strategy section. See – one of the biggest ways you can lose at Roulette is by betting with “emotion” or betting with “feeling”. Stick to a betting system because while they won’t guarantee you as a winner, they’ll help keep you in check.
Once you find a strategy that works for you, where do you go from there? How do you maximize your profits and minimize your losses at Roulette? At Play Roulette we not only want to help you understand and win big on Roulette, we want you to walk away with a bunch of cash.
The best way to do that is to understand bankroll management and knowing when to stop your Roulette session, before you get into trouble. Roulette is a game of luck, and with luck comes streaks, winning and losing streaks. So it might seem appealing to keep pushing that winning streak into serious cash, you have to realize that all good things come to an end and Roulette is no different.
Here are a few tips on bankroll management that might help you, they have helped me over the years, each has its pros and cons and may work differently depending on the player, but the key to making a ton of money at Roulette all boils down to the main concept, keeping cash in your wallet not the casinos:
By setting a limit you don’t want to go under lets say $100, then you know if it’s a bad day the worst you will do is lose $100. It’s a great way to stay on top of your budget, but sometimes by setting a limit, you might reach your limit before you go on a hot streak. Win or lose, if its going to be a bad day at the table, which like it or not is inevitable, it’s a lot easier to tell the wifey or significant other that all you lost was $100, not the mortgage payment
Once you get on a roll and build up a sizable amount of winnings, stand up from table and take what you initially put down out of your pile, that way you’re playing from that point on with the casinos money.
If you have bet 5 times in a row on black or another even money bet and have won 5 times in a row, assess the situation, if you stay here for three hours is it going to hit black every time for those three hours? No it won’t but deciding when to stand up, essentially ending your hot streak before it’s over is a hard thing to do and either will save you a fortune or depending if you stay around to watch the next couple spins for free, cost you a fortune.
If you lose a few bets in a row, it might be tempting to bet a large amount on the next spin to try to win back your previous loses. If you hit your number or color and do win big, then all is grand, but if you don’t, have you dug yourself a hole you cant climb out of?
What’s the point of playing Roulette if your not going to enjoy yourself while doing it? Roulette can be very enjoyable and exciting, just remember, that Roulette doesn’t care if Christmas is around the corner, or its your anniversary this weekend, all he cares about is being fed and he’s on a strict diet of roulette chips and human souls!!
Playing with online casino bonuses is a great way to start off playing Roulette online – because you’re playing with the houses money. Check out our casino review section, with all reviews from a Roulette perspective, for more on that.
You can’t beat a Roulette table, unless you steal money from it” – Albert Einstein
Is it possible to beat Roulette?
Many people believe the key to beating Roulette on a consistent basis starts with using a betting system or strategy, like the Martingale or D’Alembert. With our expertise at Play Roulette I can tell you that NO betting system or strategy works.
Albert Einstein couldn’t figure out a way but what did he know; its not like he was a genius or anything. The only people that win constantly at Roulette are and will always be the casinos themselves. Casinos aren’t rich because people can beat them regularly, they’re rich because all casino games are designed so that the player loses more often then they win.
But with that being said there are variations of Roulette that give the player better odds of winning or that lowers the house edge just enough in favor of the player so that, while still the odds are against you, it will be less and could mean the difference between a good day at the tables or a terrible one.
The first thing to understand is the House Edge. In theory Roulette should always have a winner after each roll because the ball will land on a black or red, even or odd or high or low number every time and the casino would lose too much money if that were the case, so that is why there are zeros added to the wheel.
Some games have a single zero and others have both single and double zeros. United States rules use both zeros and have a house edge of 5.26%, European rules have a single zero so the house edge drops down to 2.7%.
Even a first time player should be able to tell which game to play, the house edge is doubled in the casinos favor in the American Roulette version. In addition to the number of zeros in the two versions, European Roulette also has a few quirks when the ball lands in the zero.
When the ball lands in zero you have two options the first is “en prison” rule, where if you bet on a even money bet, black or red for example, and the ball lands on zero the player has the option of imprisoning the bet with hopes of winning on the next spin, if you win on the next spin your bet gets released back to the player. The second option is “la partage” where if you bet on an even money bet and the ball lands in zero you lose half of your bet and continue playing as normal.
We strongly advise against playing American Roulette due to the house edge difference and in European Roulette even if the ball does land on the zero, you still have a second chance to win, thanks to the “en prison” rule.
One great place to take advantage of that is Bodog Casino. They are the kings of all things gambling and other both American Roulette and European Roulette. They have a nice signup bonus, and refer a friend bonus as well. While you’re there you can try any of their other games with a quite amazing selection to choose from.
You can also place a bet on any sporting event imaginable. They also offer both versions of Roulette, but as we said, try and stay away from the double zero US version and hit up the European Roulette at Bodog Casino
Another great option is Omni Casino. Using award-winning Playtech software, Omni Casino is a great casino to play Roulette at. They offer a great sign up bonus as well as a high roller bonus, plus all of the other games you would normally find at an online Casino. Graphically Omni is top shelf and it helps to enjoy what your looking at while you rake in win after win.