Roulette Strategy That Works Best
Roulette is without question one of the most popular casino games. It can be played with no skill and you can find a roulette table almost in just about every casino in the world, online or live.
Roulette is purely a game of luck, but if you learn these roulette strategies, you can significantly improve your odds of winning.
Above all, it’s important to keep in mind that all gambling games are nothing more than entertainment. The casino wants to cash in on your desire to win. Therefore, they make it very hard for you to not only realize how much you are losing but to quit playing whether you’re up or down.
There are more strategies and systems out there than I could possibly cover in one post, and each of them claims to be the most successful roulette strategy.
One of the most famous and widely used roulette strategies – the Martingale system – is a great example of a progressive strategy. Martingale suggests that you double your bet after every loss. This method is popular because it’s very straightforward and newbie-friendly. The D’Alembert Roulette Strategy For those looking for something a little safer than the Martingale or Reverse Martingale roulette strategies, the D’Alembert Strategy is a perfect alternative. This simple method of gameplay is accomplished by increasing and decreasing bets based by one, which is much safer than doubling. Best roulette strategy: Progressive betting Progressive betting strategies work by increasing your bet size following the end of each round. This betting strategy is known as the Martingale betting system. It is one of a few progressive betting strategies in existence.
So, rather than cover every situation under the sun, I’ve chosen to focus on four of the most popular roulette betting strategies.
Labouchere, or the cancellation system, is one of the best roulette strategies and also one of the most complex ones. Also famous as Split Martingale, Labouchere comes from France, just like roulette itself. This roulette strategy is systematic in the sense that the player needs to determine how much money they want to win in advance.
These strategies will help you hedge your losses and maximize your enjoyment.
Finding the Most Successful Roulette Strategy
There are lots of different bets you can make playing roulette, although most beginners bet on either red or black or a number. That’s fine, but there are tons of other bet combinations you can make.
While this is a game of chance, and you’ll need some help from good old lady luck to go on a streak and win big, using a proven and effective roulette betting system to win can help.
Under each roulette strategy below, I’ll give a brief description of how it works. I’ve tested these strategies over a countless number of spins of the wheel, and the results are clear. These aren’t new roulette strategies but are some of the best-known and battle-tested systems available today.
1 – The Martingale Roulette Strategy
One of the advantages of the Martingale roulette system is that it’s incredibly easy to understand. In effect, all you need to do is double the size of your previous bet until you win.
The theory is that when you eventually do win, you’ll win back everything you have lost and the value of your original stake. This system only works on even money bets like red or black.
Let’s say you start by betting $5 on red and lose. Using the Martingale system, you double your next bet to $10 on red, for example. If you lose again, you double your next bet to $20, and so on.
Using the example above, if you won on the $20 bet, you would have won back $40, covering the $15 you had previously lost, plus the $20 stake, and putting you up $5.
Yes, to a certain degree.
You can profit from it short-term, but the key is knowing when to get out. If you keep betting, the odds of roulette will catch up with you, or you’ll hit a table limit which doesn’t allow you to double your previous bet.
If that happens, as it has to me, you’re in too deep. It is probably best at this point to cut your losses and start over with your initial bet.
2 – The Paroli Roulette Strategy
If you believe in hot streaks and dry spells, which we’ve all endured when playing roulette and other casino games, the Paroli or ‘Reverse Martingale’ is likely to be right up your alley.
When using the Paroli system in roulette, the idea is to do the exact opposite of what you do when using the Martingale, increase the size of your bets when you win and lower them when you start losing.
This way, you take advantage of win streaks when they occur and reduce your risk when lady luck decides to head out for a bite to eat or shine on one of your fellow gamblers for a while.
An Example of the Paroli Roulette Strategy At Work:You start by betting a smaller amount such as $5 per spin on red or black, even or odd, or high/low numbers. As long as you keep losing, you keep betting $5. When you win, you double the size of your bet to $10. If you win again, you double it again to $20, and so on.
The intelligent readers among you have probably already figured out that this roulette strategy requires perfect timing. If you keep doubling your bet and you lose, you’ll wipe out everything you have won plus a few bucks. Are you seeing why this is called the reverse Martingale, yet?
In order to use the Paroli system to win at roulette, you’ll need to get out after a few wins in a row. Yes, it can cause your bankroll to grow quickly, but it relies on the winning streak lasting, and as all experienced gamblers know all too well that lady luck leaves just as fast as she arrives.
While I won’t suggest using the Paroli system for anything other than short pops when it feels right, I nonetheless wanted to make you aware of the option. Should you ever find yourself getting hot, you may want to press your luck.
3 – The James Bond Roulette Strategy
The James Bond roulette strategy is among the riskiest of those listed here, but its creator, Ian Fleming, claims that it is “foolproof”.
To use the James Bond strategy, you need to place multiple bets worth $200 on a single spin. The idea is that you cover most of the possibilities, and you come out in profit no matter what happens. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the improbable happens and you wipe out.
Bet $140 on the high numbers from 19 to 36, risk $50 on numbers 13 to 18, and stick $10 on the zero for insurance. Note that this is based on a European roulette wheel, where there is only one zero to consider.
You have most of your bases covered here, but keep in mind that if numbers 1-12 come up, you’ll lose the lot. But what happens if you win?
- If numbers 19 to 36 come up you’ll win $80.
- If 13-18 show up, you’ll be up by $100.
- If the zero shows, you’ll win $160.
So, does the James Bond strategy really work? In theory it holds some water, in application it’s buyer (or bettor) beware. It is probably best to leave this to fictional British super-spies.
4 – The D’Alambert Roulette Strategy
The D’Alambert strategy is undoubtedly one of the safest roulette strategies. It involves way less risk than some of the others you see here, but as a result, the potential payouts are lower, too.
When using the D’Alambert roulette system, you increase or decrease bets by one unit, rather than doubling them like you would when using the Martingale or Paroli systems.
For Example:Start by placing a $5 bet on odds or evens. If you lose, increase your bet size by $1. If you lose again, increase it by another $1, for a $7 bet, and so on. This is far less risky than the Martingale and Paroli systems, but when you run the numbers, you’ll see that the potential payouts won’t cover what you’ve previously lost like the others.
In this example, let’s say you win on the fourth bet with a total bet size of $7. We’ll win $7, get back our $7 stake, but we’ll have lost $6 in the runup to the bet. Therefore, we will have won only $1.
Once you win, you’ll need to begin decreasing your bets by $1, taking risk off the table with the thought that any win streak can only last so long. Of course, this also reduces the potential profits you can make when win streaks do finally roll around.
The D’Alambert system is for risk-averse players, but we still wanted to give it a try in our hunt for the most successful roulette strategy.
Conclusion
After trying the most popular 4 roulette strategies over countless hours at the table, I’ll let you in on a secret. There’s no such thing as a roulette strategy that works every time. All of these strategies have flaws and none of them increases your chances of winning roulette mathematically.
When looking for a roulette strategy to win, keep in mind that there are endless numbers of marketers out there who want you to believe that they have the best roulette strategy ever that will allow you to win consistently.
I am here to let you know that’s a load of you know what, roulette odds don’t change because you’re using what you think is the most successful roulette strategy, and the house always has an edge no matter what bet you make.
Best Roulette Strategy Ever
I’m not saying you shouldn’t play roulette. It’s undoubtedly one of the most fun games in the casino and wins can grow dramatically when you do finally go on a hot streak.
However, I am saying that most systems don’t improve your odds in the long run, and you shouldn’t believe they will actually help you win roulette more often.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Roulette Strategy Explained
You won’t find a casino game with more betting systems than Roulette. Although using them does not guarantee success, it does not mean that having a Roulette strategy cannot have a positive effect on your betting. Below I give you two systems from our list of 45+ Betting Systems that are quite successful and low risk. I have played them both at various casinos with some decent results.
Roulette is a game of many options to bet, some of the equal chance bets such as odd and even (these are known as even bets even though it is less than that when the number zero is taken into account), and others with 35 to 1 payouts (betting on individual numbers).
Therefore, plenty of people have come up with a system which they believe will be a foolproof way to win money.
If any person came up with one of these, it could potentially take down a casino as they will be losing all the time over the long run. There is no such thing as a Sure win Roulette strategy or a sure winning system for any other casino game for that matter.
There are plenty of sites that promise you loads of fame and fortune if you pay them for their magical, guaranteed formula. If they really had one, though, why would they want to sell it to make money as opposed to using it themselves to win at online or land-based casinos around the world?
It follows that the first point to make is never pay anything to anyone who professes to have a guaranteed winning system or Roulette strategy as you will lose your money.
We have heard so many times over the years that if a number hasn’t come up for a while, it must be ‘due’ to come in. This is nonsense as any number has the same chance of coming in each spin irrespective of whether it came in the last spin, 10 spins ago or 100 spins ago.
This has become known as ‘the Gamblers Fallacy’. This seems to be the basis for the vast majority of betting systems and as such, means the system is flawed from the start. An example would be if 3 even numbers come in a row, it is, therefore, more likely that the next number will be odd.
This is simply not the case as in a casino website a Random Number Generator (RNG) is used to determine the outcome of a given hand and it doesn’t ever take into account previous results; in the same way, a land-based casino uses a wheel in which the speed of the spin and speed of the roll are not constant and so again, the outcome of the next spin is in no way related to the past spins.
That being said, I have provided below two popular betting systems that I’ve been very successful with when playing Roulette.
The Martingale System
This system gets you to gamble on even money bets such as odd/even, high/low, black/red etc.
Every time you lose a bet you need to double your bet every time you lose.
The thinking behind this is simple enough. If you start with €1 and lose 4 bets in a row, you will lose €1 the first bet, double this to €2, double this to €4 and then double this to €8. Therefore you are €15 down. The next bet would be for €16 and if this wins, it returns €32, so a total profit over the 5 hands of €1.
There is an obvious flaw to this system, however, in that if you were to lose the 5th bet, you are suddenly €31, the next bet is €32 which would result in a loss of €63. Although the chances of losing 6 even bets in a row are slim, there is a possibility and if you find yourself at the end of your bankroll, you can face a substantial loss.
To overcome this problem I recommend that you place a cap on the 3rd bet in the round. Therefore, if you start with a $10 bet and loose, the next bet doubles to $20, and the 3rd bet doubles to $40. This will limit your losses and you will find that more often than not you will be able to complete a series of rounds without loosing 3 spins in a row. I usually set a goal for winnings that represents a series, so for example, if betting $10 per round I would set the goal at $150 or $200 to complete the series. I then take a break before playing again or finishing for the day. If in a series you do hit 3 losses in a row this is not the end and you can still recover, but this adds more risk and time to that session of play.
You can read a more in-depth article on The Martingale Betting System here.
The 1-3-2-6 Staking Plan
This is actually a reasonable way to bet a small amount and sensibly enjoy yourself without risking too much.
The name is basically a 4 stage betting system with the number shown the number of units for each bet.
Again, it concentrates on even money betting as opposed to the larger odds.
Starting with a bet of 1 unit, we will use €1 as an example. The thinking behind it is that as the chances of guessing correctly are near enough 50/50 – slightly less due to the Zero, as long as you are playing European or French Roulette, which have only one Zero – it is possible that you could win 4 times in a row every so often which will result in the winnings from that 4 bet cycle overcoming any losses.
The first bet, the 1, would be for $1.
If any bet loses, the next bet would be for 1 unit again as the cycle needs to be restarted. If the bet wins, you then have $2 on the table and you need to add a further €1 to ensure the second bet is for 3 units. The good thing about this System is that this is the only time during the cycle you need to add more funds, the rest are taken from winnings.
If the 2nd bet loses, you end up down $2, the maximum loss for any stage. If the 2nd bet wins, you have €6 on the table.
You would now remove $4 and leave the remaining €2 for the 3rd bet of the cycle. If this bet was to lose, you would end the cycle up $2 as you risked $1 on stage 1, $1 on stage 2 and pocketed $4 after the end of stage 2. Should stage 3 win, you have $4 on the table and would now add a further $2 from your winnings to make $6.
The 4th and final stage would result in you breaking even for that stage, whereas a win would give you the maximum return of a $12 profit over the 4 bets.
As mentioned, this is only a unit, so if you wanted to risk more, you can start with $2 instead of $1 and double each level, if you wanted to reduce and the table allows it, you can start with a $0.50 bet and half the other levels.
To summarise, using the 1-3-2-6 Staking Plan playing $1 per unit, you would:
Lose $1 if you lost on Bet 1.
Lose $2 if you lost on Bet 2.
Win $2 if you lost on Bet 3.
Break Even if you lost on Bet 4.
Win $12 if you win on Bet 4.
Potentially, you could actually lose 6 cycles in a row on Bet 2, resulting in the maximum loss each time of $2, but just one win of the 4 consecutive bets would see you break even.
You can read here a more in-depth article on The 1-3-2-6 Staking Plan.
Roulette Tips
Roulette is a hard game to win on because it has some of the worst odds of all casino games but there are some things you can do to reduce the house edge. Use the following roulette tips as a supplement to a good roulette strategy.
- Always choose the European or French Roulette wheels over the American Wheel as this wheel will give you a 2.63% edge over the house.
- Find a table with limits you’re comfortable with. Each roulette table should have its minimum and maximum bets clearly posted.
- If you have noticed that one number is being spun more often than the others out of around 100 spins then you may have what is called a biased wheel. This is one of the only true advantages a player has against the casino. This is for playing at live casinos
- Never play the five number bet, 0-00-1-2-3. This bet has the worst odds on the roulette table.
- Depending on the casino, column bets are often the best roulette bet for the online games. Choose a column and hang in there with it.
- Because of the luck/chance nature of roulette, players should always bear in mind that with games such as these the number one priority should be to have fun, whilst making a profit.
- You can place as many bets as you like on a single spin of the wheel up to the table maximum.
- Some casinos use a rule called en prison. When a zero or double zero hits, the player loses half the bet or can let the bet remain in play, with the results to be determined on the next spin. This rule only applies to even money bets.
- With the 38-number American wheel, the house has a big 5.26 percent edge. (Whenever 0 or 00 are hit, all bets lose.)
- With the 37-number European wheel, the house advantage is 2.7 percent. In other words, on every $100 bet the house makes $2.70. With the en prison rule, this edge drops to just 1.35 percent.
- If you use a betting system, such as the Fast Double Bet or the Flat Bed Counting, try to win more money in fewer spins.
- Roulette Tip: A Roulette wheel has no memory so every single spin is independent of spins that occurred in the past. Knowing this makes betting systems let effective instantly.
- Roulette Tip: Do not think you can beat the house edge at Roulette, it’s simply too big. If you win in the short term, cash out because if you keep playing the house edge will more then likely defeat you.
- Roulette Tip: Increase your bets when you’re winning and not when your losing.
Read on to Part III the final part of this series “Roulette Payouts & Odds” below
Part I – How to Play Roulette
Part II – Roulette Strategy & Tips
Part III – Roulette Payouts & Odds