Roulette Overview

The fist game I'm going to write about is roulette because this is the game that seems to attract the most false systems and I want to try to explain to people that may not be as familiar with odds as myself why the systems appear to work, but when you delve into the mathematics of them they always fail.

So I will start by making quite a profound statement:

ALL ROULETTE SYSTEMS ARE FLAWED!

The casino will ALWAYS have the mathematical advantage. Apparently Albert Einstein even tried to develop a system to beat roulette, and he came to the same conclusion, there isn't one!

Having said that there are still hundreds of people out there selling what they claim to be the holy grail of roulette systems, promising untold wealth in a matter of spins for just a small fee. The question has to be asked if these people really did have the holy grail of roulette systems why do they need to sell it. I know for a fact if I had discovered a way to beat roulette I wouldn't be shouting about it, I'd be in the casino making far more money than I ever could selling it! 

So why is it impossible to beat roulette?

The simple answer is because of the zero on the wheel. There are 37 numbers on a roulette wheel (38 on an American roulette wheel as they have a double zero '00' which makes the odds even more in the casinos favour) If you place a bet on a number you get paid out 35-1, for example if you placed a £1 bet on number 6 and your number came up, you would win £35 plus your £1 stake back. However there are 37 or 38 numbers on casino roulette wheels, so the true odds you should be getting are 36-1 or 37-1, not the given 35-1. This means in the long run over hundreds of spins the casino will always win. So no matter what bet you are making, whether it be on doubles, singles, dozens or hi-lo numbers etc, the house will ALWAYS have an advantage of 2.70% on a European single '0' roulette wheel, and 5.26% on an American double '00' roulette wheel.

The Systems

Most roulette systems are based on the premise of doubling your bet every time you lose, they are all variations of what is known as 'the martingale strategy' which you can google for a more detailed explanation!

But basically say you bet £1 on red and you lose, you then bet £2 on red, and if you lose again then £4 on red, and so on and so on until black finally lands which it inevitably will do and you will always win your money back plus your initial stake of £1 when black finally comes up. This would be a perfect system IF you had unlimited funds and there was no betting cap on the roulette table! Obviously this isn't the case in any casino so the system is flawed. Say the roulette table you were playing had a minimum bet of £1 and a max bet of £100 you would only be able to survive 7 spins, your bets would be as follows:

Spin 1 £1, Spin 2 £2, Spin 3 £4, Spin 4 £8, Spin 5 £16, Spin 6 £32, Spin 7 £64! You would need to bet £128 on Spin 8 which would be over the betting limit of the table.

So what are the odds there being 7 blacks in a row? The odds of the ball lading in black are 1/2 (and that doesn't take into account the zero which makes it even worse but for simplicity we shall ignore the zero). So to work out the odds of 7 blacks in a row you multiply the top number of the fraction (1) 7 times, 1x1x1x1x1x1x1 = 1       And then do the same for the bottom number of the fraction (2)

2x2x2x2x2x2x2 = 128

So the odds of spinning 7 blacks in a row are 1/128

So you are getting odds of 127-1 and you are betting £127 in total to win £1, which would be ok if it were not for the fact there are zero's on the wheel to lower your odds, and the fact that on occasion the run of blacks will continue past 7 spins. I admit the martingale system looks very tempting, and people can win with it in the short term, but in the long run you will lose all the small amounts you have won and more when the run of blacks (or whatever else you aren't betting on) arrives, which it inevitably will do.

Conclusion

If you wanna beat the casino then roulette isn't the way to go, but having said that I'm going to post a few systems that I have tried and had fun with. If you go into a casino with a set amount of money that YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE and stick to that limit, and if you don't be greedy and set yourself a reasonable profit target, with a touch of luck you can make a bit of money and have fun in the process because roulette is a cool game to play. 

Happy gambling

Rich