Jan 09, 2018 Top Tips to Play Roulette and Win 1 – Eye the edge. Due to the addition of an extra zero in American Roulette, the house edge is increased to an unfavorable 5.26% compared to its European counterpart. European Roulette has halved house edge due to its use of a single zero, making it 2.7%. American roulette is among the table games that enjoy the greatest popularity in casinos throughout the United States. The game tends to become more popular at casinos in Asia and the United Kingdom but is somehow avoided by players in Europe, as their focus is primarily on the European version of roulette.
If you find a page about American roulette strategy that purports to be written by a “pro,” run the other direction. There are no “pro” roulette players, unless you count the casino. Roulette is a negative expectation game.
I’m going to explain the intricacies of roulette in this post, including the math behind the game that prevents players from turning pro. This post focuses on American roulette, which is the version of the game I learned on.
But I’ll touch on European roulette and other variations in the final section so that you’re not completely lost.
The American roulette strategy advice I have to offer is probably different from what you’ll find on most roulette strategy pages, but I hope to offer more accurate advice than the average gambling writer. I do know a couple of roulette tips and tricks you might find useful.
About American Roulette
I’ve seen various pages about roulette which start off with a history of the game. They usually compare the age of the game roulette with the age of other casino games. I’m going to skip that nonsense in this post.
I’m an expert on gambling strategy, not gambling history.
I don’t care whether roulette is older than craps or vice versa.
Roulette is a simple enough game, though. You have a spinning wheel, similar to the wheel on the game show Wheel of Fortune. Instead of having dollar amounts attached to the various stops, though, you have numbered slots.
And instead of a pointer, you have a metal ball that gets spun around the rim of the bowl that holds the wheel. The wheel spins in one direction, and the metal ball spins in the opposite direction. Eventually, the ball loses momentum and lands in one of the 38 pockets on the wheel.
The pockets are numbered 0, 00, and 1 through 36. The 0 and the 00 are colored green. Half the other numbers are black, while half of them are red.
The gambling comes in when you bet on the outcome. You’re basically betting on where the ball is going to land, but you have lots of ways of placing that bet.
The most obvious bets are the single-number bets and the bets on which color will win.
If you place a single-number bet, you only win if the ball lands on that number. When you win, though, you get a 35 to 1 payout.
For example, if you bet $10 and won, you’d get a payout of $350. You’d get your $10 bet back, too.
If you place a bet on red (or a bet on black), you win if the ball lands on any of the 18 red (or one of the 18 black) numbers. But since you have such a relatively good chance of winning, you only win even money.
For example, if you bet $10 on black and won, you’d get a payout of $10. You’d get your $10 back, too.
Those are far from the only betting options available to you, though.
Roulette Bets and the Math Behind Them
You can also bet that one of two numbers will win, or you can bet that one of three numbers will win. You can also place a four-number bet.
Or you can bet that the final number will be even. Or that it will be odd.
You can bet that the number will be high (19-36). Or that it will be low (1-18).
All the bets pay off as if there were no house edge on a game with 36 numbers.
If it weren’t for the 0 and the 00, these bets would be a break-even proposition in the long run.
But casinos aren’t in the business of breaking even. They’re in the business of making a profit — hence the 0 and the 00.
A bet on black loses if you get a red result OR a green result.
A bet on even loses if you get an odd result or a 0 (or 00).
This gives the casino an unassailable mathematical edge over the player.
Let’s look at the payoff for a single-number bet and compare it to the payout odds to see how the casino profits.
Let’s assume you made 38 statistically perfect spins of a roulette wheel. You’d see each outcome once. You’d lose $100 every time you lost, but on the one number where you won, you’d win $3,500.
But there are 37 losing numbers, for a total loss of $3,700.
With a loss of $3,700 compared to a win of $3,500, you’d show a net loss of $200 over 38 spins.
That’s an average of $5.26 per spin, or 5.26%.
That 5.26% is the house edge for the game of American roulette. If you played an infinite number of spins of the roulette wheel, that would be the amount you’d lose.
Let’s look at another example — the even money bet.
You bet $100 on black on 38 perfect spins. You win 18 of those bets because there are 18 black numbers. That’s $1,800. You lose 20 of those bets at $100 each, for a loss of $200. That’s 5.26% again.
All the bets at an American roulette table carry that same 5.26% house edge — except one.
There’s a bet at the roulette table called the five-number bet, and it’s a bet that wins if the ball lands on any of the following numbers:
- 0
- 00
- 1
- 2
- 3
That bet pays off at 6 to 1.
Let’s look at 38 perfect spins again. You win on five of those spins, and you win 6 to 1, which is $3,000 ($600 x 5 winning spins).
But on the other 33 spins, you lose $100 each, or $3,300 total.
That’s a net loss of $300.
Over 38 spins, that’s an average of $7.89 per spin, or 7.89%.
This makes the five-number bet the only “incorrect” bet at an American roulette table.
The best strategy for any casino game is to place the bet with the lowest house edge. All the bets at the American roulette wheel have a house edge of 5.26% with the exception of the five-number bet.
Therefore, if you’re betting on anything OTHER than the five-number bet, you’re using the perfect American roulette strategy.
Congratulations!
Some Roulette Systems and Strategies You Might Consider (With Their Pros and Cons)
You’ll find plenty of more involved strategies and systems for roulette, though. These are usually structured ways of raising and lowering your bets based on what happened on previous spins of the wheel.
The most famous of these, and my favorite, is the Martingale System. To some extent, the Martingale System is unjustifiably maligned, too — and I’ll explain why.
First, though, how does the Martingale System work?
It’s simple. Every time you lose, you double the size of your next bet until you win. Then, you go back to your initial bet size.
For example, you bet $10 on black and lose. On the next spin, you bet $20 on black and win.
You won back the $10 you lost on the first spin, AND you have a $10 profit.
But sometimes you’ll lose multiple times in a row. Every time you lose, you double the size of your previous bet, so you need to have a bankroll to pull off the Martingale System.
Here’s another example of the Martingale in action.
You bet $10 on black and lose. You bet $20 on the next spin and lose again. You bet $40 on the third spin and lose yet again.
On the fourth spin, you bet a whopping $80, and you win.
You lost $70 on the first three spins, so now you have a $10 profit.
Most gambling writers are quick to point out that the Martingale System cannot overcome the house edge for American roulette in the long run. It might not be immediately obvious why that is, though. After all, this system seems foolproof at first glance, doesn’t it?
If you had an infinitely large bankroll and no betting limits, the Martingale System WOULD be perfect.
The problem is that you DON’T have an infinite bankroll.
And you DO have betting limits.
American Roulette Wheel - How To Play American Roulette
The problem with the whole “doubling up” strategy is that the size of your bets gets much larger than you’d expect them to, much faster than you’d expect them to.
Sure, it’s rare to lose a bet on black five, six, seven, or eight times in a row.
But it happens at least once a day in every casino.
Let’s look at the size of the bets in a progression like that:
- $5
- $10
- $20
- $40
- $80
- $160
- $320
- $640
- $1,280
Most of the people I know who can afford to risk $1,280 on a single roulette bet are going to be bored silly with a $5 bet.
They’re not going to have much fun playing American roulette for these stakes, and they’re not going to be satisfied with a $5 profit, either.
Also, I’ve never seen a roulette game with a $5 minimum bet that didn’t also have a maximum bet of $500. I’ve seen games with a $20 minimum that had a $1,000 max bet or even a $2,000 max bet.
But there’s always a maximum bet, and the betting spread between the two isn’t usually very large.
The Pros and Cons of the Martingale System
Here’s the reality of the Martingale System. In the short run, it can improve your probability of walking away a winner. I’ve seen one educated, well-researched estimate that said if you only play for an hour or so, you have an 80% probability of walking away from your session a winner.
But keep in mind that with the Martingale, after a progression, you’re only ahead by one unit.
Those winning sessions are guaranteed to be small.
Eventually, though — on average, 20% of the time, you’ll have a losing session.
And because of the exponential nature of the betting system, those losing sessions will be bigger losing sessions than the size of the winning session. You’ll wind up with a net loss, over time, that will eventually average out to about the same size as your 5.26% house edge.
This means that this American roulette strategy won’t overcome the house edge in the long run. It’s not really a winning strategy.
It can be a fun strategy to use in the short run, though. I’ve been with buddies at the casino and showed them this system. They were impressed when I walked away with a profit.
I didn’t bother to tell them the flaws in the system. I guess I’m just ruthless in that respect.
Although some people are too dull to even follow what’s going on when you make this kind of system known in the first place.
There are other ways to play American roulette, though.
Trying to Win a Massive Amount of Money Playing American Roulette
Everyone knows that the odds of winning a million dollars playing the lottery are ridiculously low. Winning a progressive slot machine jackpot is also a big longshot.
ANY game where you can win a million dollars will be a longshot, though.
You could try to win a huge amount of money playing roulette, though. You just need to win several times in a row. You could try to win even-money bets repeatedly, or you could go for a shorter winning streak on a longer shot bet. Either would work.
For example, you could start by betting $5 on black. If you win, you leave your winnings there and go for it again. Look at the progression if you go on a winning streak:
- $5
- $10
- $20
- $40
- $80
- $160
- $320
- $640
- $1,280
- $2,560
- $5,120
- $10,240
- $20,480
- $40,960
- $81,920
- $163,840
- $327,680
- $655,360
- $1.3 million
You only have to win 18 times in a row to win over a million dollars.
That sound impossible, but it happens.
Another way to do this more aggressively is to place a single-number bet repeatedly.
Here’s what that progression looks like:
- $5
- $175 + $5 = $180
- $6300 + $180 = $6,480
- $226,800 + $6480 = $233,280
- $8,164,800
Win a single-number bet five times in a row, and you’ve won over $8 million.
Of course, with either of these options, you run into a similar problem that you’d run into with the Martingale System. You can’t place the next bet in the progression because of the betting maximums.
Still, you can win some big jackpots with this strategy.
The house still has an edge, though. You don’t get to overcome that no matter what happens.
Still, your odds of getting a significant payout are better when letting your winnings ride in roulette than they would be playing a slot machine.
This is my favorite system to play.
Other Variations of Roulette and Their Strategies
The most common variation of roulette is one in which you have a single 0 on the wheel instead of a 0 and a 00. This changes the probability significantly. The payouts remain the same, but the probability of losing drops.
Instead of having a 37 to 1 probability of winning a single-number bet, you have a 36 to 1 probability. The payout is still 35 to 1, though.
The house edge for this version of roulette — single-zero roulette — is 2.70%.
You can find variations which offer you opportunities to cut your losses in half, too. The house edge on these versions is 1.35%. They put your even-money bet in prison and wait a spin to see what happens. If it loses a second time, then it’s lost for good.
Otherwise, your original bet is returned to you with no winnings.
Conclusion
American roulette is a game where you can’t get an edge over the house. That’s just the nature of the game, its probabilities, and the payout odds. No system or strategy can overcome that house edge in the long run.
This doesn’t mean that roulette strategies are useless. You can use some of these strategies to improve your probability of having a winning strategy, if that’s your aim. The Martingale System is perfect for this, in fact. You just need the bankroll to withstand it.
You can also use a let it ride strategy to parlay your roulette winnings into a larger win than you’d probably see on a slot machine anytime during your casino visit. You’ll fail far more often than not, but you’ll still have a better probability of hitting a jackpot than you would playing slots.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Who are we kidding? In the casino world, there’s nothing quite as exciting as watching that small steel ball spinning around the roulette wheel and wondering where it will land. The game of roulette is fast-paced, super easy and, if you have lady luck on your side, very lucrative.
Roulette, when played fairly, is a pure game of chance. This means there is no sure-proof method for you to predict the winning numbers. If there was, casinos would go out of business a long time ago.
Don’t give up hope just yet. While the house always prevails in the long run, there are some roulette tips and tricks that could help you improve your chances of winning.
Today must be your lucky day, as I’m about to show you how to win at roulette and beat those seemingly unbeatable house odds. But first, we must go back to the basics.
Roulette Winning Strategy: The Basics
For all the beginners out there, the roulette wheel consists of 37 slots or numbered pockets. That is if you’re playing the French or European version — the American variant has 38 slots.
For the sake of explanation, we’ll stick to the European format (shown).
Going back to the roulette layout, all roulette tables have 37 slots — numbered 0–36. The zero pocket is colored green and other numbers are colored black and red (18 of each). A small ball is introduced when the wheel starts to spin, and players must forego where the ball will land.
Before each round, players place bets on the corresponding number, section, or color of the wheel, and if they predict accurately, they get paid.
As you can see, the rules are quite straightforward. It all comes down to trying to predict what number that little ball will fall into.
House Edge
You’ve surely heard of the saying “the house always wins” Well, that claim stemmed from the fact that every casino game has a house edge. House edge is a mathematical percentage that determines how much income a casino gets from every game.
This number varies, depending on the roulette variant. The European format has a house edge of 2.7%, while the American roulette has a 5.26% house edge.
You’re probably wondering why the American version has a higher house edge than its European counterpart. That’s because the American roulette has one additional zero pocket embedded in the layout.
So, European roulette has 37:1 odds of hitting a single number, while the payouts are 35:1. American roulette has the odds of 38:1 while having the same payout ratio — hence a higher house edge.
Tips on Roulette Betting
Although roulette is a game purely based on chance, there are some basic tips that could help you get over the hump. Make sure to learn the basics I talked about earlier so that you can understand how to apply these suggestions the next time you take your seat at the roulette table.
Practice the Game in Demo Mode
There are some online casinos that allow players to play for free — in demo mode. Playing in demo mode will allow you to get a grip on how things work, learn the game mechanism, pay-out odds, and all betting features.The great thing about demo mode is that it’s 100% free. You only need to open an account in a gaming site and choose a roulette variant of your preference. And, in return, you’ll get familiar with the payout structure, table structure, and you’ll also be able to learn the differences between the betting strategies I’m going to talk about a bit later.
Manage Your Bankroll
When it comes to roulette, it’s paramount that you only bet the amount that you can afford to lose. Stick to that amount, regardless of the temptation. Things can quickly go south, especially in a fast-paced game like real money roulette. Here’s how you can manage your bankroll while playing roulette:- Don’t get too ambitious — better leave the table while you’re on a hot streak, then empty-handed. Set a fixed profit goal, and stick to it. No matter it is $100 or $1,000 — don’t get carried away.
- Minimize alcohol consumption while playing roulette. Alcohol can make you do things you normally wouldn’t, like risking money you cannot afford to lose.
- Bring a friend with you on your gambling adventures. They’ll keep tabs on you, and help you control your losses.
Play European Roulette Instead of American Whenever Possible
If you recall what we were talking about earlier about the house edge, you’ll realize why this piece of advice is significant. American roulette has twice as high a house edge, which in theory means, that you’ll lose cash twice as fast.Now, you should keep in mind that this in-built casino advantage becomes important after a couple of hundred rounds — in the long run. So, with a little bit of luck, you can make cash on American roulette over the short term. However, if you plan on playing the game for several hours, it’s best that you stick to the European version.
The Best Roulette Strategies
With roulette, there is no guaranteed system that could allow you to win every single time. But there are some strategies or betting systems that might help you minimize the losses.
More How To Win American Roulette Videos
The Martingale Roulette Strategy
If you see someone at the roulette table casually throwing the chips down, chances are they are utilizing the Martingale Strategy. The core principle of this method is that you double your bets after every loss. The idea is to recuperate previous losses and gain a small profit once the ball finally falls into the number you placed bets into.For this strategy, you will need to play outside bets. Outside bets will help you win more often, but they pay less — usually, it’s even money or 2:1. Here’s an example of a Martingale strategy:
- You bet $10 on black and lose.
- Next round you bet $20 on black again, but this time you win. With a $20 bet on black, you get paid $40. This means that you made up for your $10 from the first round, and still made a $10 profit.
In theory, if you have a limitless supply of cash, you’d always make a profit with this strategy. However, since most of us have a limited gambling budget, we can’t afford a long losing streak. You could bet on black seven consecutive times, and the ball could still land on red every time.
There is also a Reverse Martingale Strategy which, as the name suggests, works on the opposite principle of the Martingale strategy. Instead of raising bets every time you lose, the idea is to raise them after you win. If you use this strategy, you’d make the most profit while you’re in a hot streak.
The D’Alembert Roulette Strategy
The D’Alembert strategy is almost identical to Martingale, but it will eat up your budget much slower. This straightforward betting system is accomplished by reducing or increasing bets by 1.Every time you lose, you must increase your wager by one, and decrease it when you win. Like the previous two strategies, the D’Alembert system only works on outside bets (even or odd, black or red, or 1–18 and 18–36.
If you’re more of an auditory learner, take a look at the video below that explains how the D’Alembert betting system works:
James Bond Roulette Strategy
This strategy is far from “foolproof,” but it certainly is less risky than betting on individual numbers. For this strategy to work, you need $200. Here’s the drill:- Bet $140 on numbers 19–36
- Bet $50 on numbers 13–18
- Bet $10 on zero for insurance
As you can see, you didn’t cover the entire table, which is why there is an element of risk involved in this strategy. But if your bets come through, you might be looking at some pretty hefty profits.
My advice — if you’re on a limited budget, you should avoid using this strategy because even a short losing streak could quickly leave you bankrupt.
Tips for Playing Roulette Online
All the strategies mentioned above can be applied no matter if you’re in a land-based casino or playing online. However, if you opt for playing in online casinos, you should make sure that the casino you’re playing in is legitimate.
You can do this by checking out the license of the gambling site. Licensing jurisdictions make sure that players are treated fairly.
Also, you should make sure the casino has undergone an RNG audit. You may find this certificate by scrolling down to the bottom of the casino home page — that’s where gambling sites usually present this piece of document.
Playing Roulette in US Casinos
When it comes to land-based roulette, US players are spoilt for choice. There are countless casinos across the country, and each one features at least one roulette table.
As for online play, the situation is slightly different. In some US states, online gambling is in a grey area, while in others, gambling on the web is entirely forbidden. For that reason, you may have to play your favorite roulette variant in offshore gambling sites.
There are plenty of US-friendly online casinos out there, but not all of them are safe. It’s paramount that you stick to gambling platforms that have been tried and tested by a team of casino professionals. If you want to save time on searching legitimate online casinos that accept US players, take a look at my list below.
| Casino | Offer | Devices | Play Now / Review |
|---|---|---|---|
$5,000 Welcome Bonus | |||
First 3 Deposits, Get Up To $6000 | |||
350% Match up to $3500 | |||
$5500 Welcome Bonus | |||
$5000 Welcome Bonus | |||
255% Bonus up to $2555 | |||
First 3 Deposits, Get Up To $6000 | |||
First 3 Deposits, Get Up To $3000 | |||
300% up to $500 | |||
$500 other options also available |
All these casino operators offer multiple roulette variants — even the ones you can’t find in Las Vegas casinos. Even better, they offer massive bonuses for US players and roulette play in demo mode.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are some basic roulette tips and tricks, as well as well-known betting strategies that will maximize your winning chances, either in a real casino or online. Keep in mind, however, that none of these hints will lead to a guaranteed success.
If you feel that things are getting a little out of control, you should leave the table — you can always come back another day. Remember to play for the fun of it — and that’s enough.