At first glance, roulette might not be a game that looks like it can be mastered. All of the bets have the same return number on the wheel, and systems don’t work. So, what is there to master?
The main thing you need to do to master roulette is to find the right wheel and play it a certain way. Once you know what wheel to play, the rest is simple.
Roulette Game Type The best way to play roulette is to stick to single zero wheels – European or French roulette.
In this article, you can learn more about the best roulette wheels and find out the nine ways to master real money roulette fast.
Avoid American Roulette
The casino roulette wheel can be your best friend (or worst enemy) Here are some other basic roulette strategies players often use: Numbers. A favorite of many, players choose one, or several of the 38 numbers on the wheel. That is, the numbers 1 through 36, or the 0 or 00. A lucky back-to-back win can be very profitable when upping your bet with the house’s money! Although there’s the same probability (2.63%) of any single number hitting on any single spin, trends do occur in roulette and waiting for them is part of the fun and excitement, as well as part of playing to win (or at least limit losses).
American Roulette isn’t the worst roulette game I’ve ever seen, but it’s the most common option. A trick that live casinos use is that they don’t call roulette games by different names. Every roulette variation in the casino is simply called roulette.
The way to tell if a roulette wheel is an American Roulette wheel is to count how many spaces are on the wheel. An American Roulette wheel has 38 spaces on it. The key space is the 00 space, which European and French wheels don’t have.
I mentioned that American Roulette isn’t the worst game available. A few roulette wheels with more than 38 spaces exist. Never play on a roulette wheel with 38 or more spaces. These wheels have such a bad return that you’re better off playing almost any other game in the casino.
The problem for roulette players is that in some casinos an American wheel is the only wheel available. You need to find somewhere else to play or play a game other than roulette. American wheels are to be avoided at all costs.
European Roulette Is Better
European Roulette wheels only have 37 spaces, and they’re almost twice as good as American wheels. But just because a European Roulette game is better than an American wheel doesn’t mean that it’s a good game.
While casinos don’t come out and say that European Roulette is better than American Roulette, this is what they want you to believe. And the truth is that European Roulette is better, but the lie is that this makes European Roulette a good game.
You can play European Roulette, but there are many casino games that offer a better return. And there’s a roulette game that offers a return that’s much better than European Roulette. The reason why it’s better is because of one simple rule. You’re going to learn all about it in the next section.
French Roulette Is One of the Best Casino Games
All of the roulette variations that you’ve learned about so far are played using the same rules. The only difference is how many spaces there are on the wheels. And the number of spaces on the wheel changes the return to player percentage.
A French roulette wheel looks just like a European Roulette wheel. The wheel has 37 spaces and the table layout looks the same. But French Roulette uses a special rule that you don’t find on any other roulette wheels. And this rule improves the return to player from 97.3% to 98.65%. The rule is called in prison or en prison.
The in prison rule is in play on any even money wager you make. These wagers are red, black, odd, even, 1 to 18, and 19 to 36. Before you play verify that the 1 to 18 and 19 to 36 are covered by this rule. You might have to stick with the black, red, even, odd wagers.
When you lose one of these even money wagers while you play American or European Roulette, you simply lose. But when you lose one of these wagers playing French Roulette, your loss is put in prison. If you win the next bet, you get the en prison bet returned to you.
Here’s what this means. If you want to be a roulette master, you need to play on wheels using French rules and only make even money wagers.
The Smaller the Risk, the Better
Here’s another problem you run into when you’re looking for good roulette wheels in casinos. On the regular casino floor, the only roulette game that’s usually available is an American wheel. If the casino has a better wheel, it’s almost always located in the high roller area.
The main issue is that the minimum bet amount is much higher on the wheel in the high roller area than on the wheel in the main area. You might wonder why this is bad. Isn’t it worth it to bet more in order to get a better return?
A simple example shows why this isn’t better. If the minimum bet in the regular area on an American wheel is $20 and the minimum bet on the European wheel is $50 and you stick with minimum bets, here’s how much you can expect to lose on average on each wager.
On a $20 wager on an American wheel, you can expect to lose $1.05 per spin. On a $50 wager on a European wheel, you can expect to lose $1.35 per spin.
The main point is that you need to not only find a roulette wheel that offers the best rules, but you also need to make the smallest wager amounts possible. The best combination is a French wheel with the smallest minimum bet available.
The Only Gambling Strategy
With everything that you’ve learned to this point, you already know what the best strategy is when you play roulette. In fact, it’s the only strategy you can use.
The best strategy for any casino game is playing in a particular way that produces the highest possible return. When you play roulette, this strategy is simply making an even money wager on a French Roulette wheel.
You Can Predetermine Your Losses
In the example, I used in a previous section I showed you how much you can expect to lose on average on every spin. You can do this by using a simple equation.
Multiply the amount of money that you’re risking times something called the house edge percentage.
Here are the house edge percentages for the three main types of roulette games:
American – 5.26%
European – 2.7%
French – 1.35% on even money wagers
Get a Roulette Online Bonus
I haven’t touched on this so far, but the best way to play roulette is almost always in a mobile or online casino. In the next section, I’m going to explain exactly why this is true. But in this section, you need to learn about something else.
When you play online or mobile roulette, you might be able to get online casino bonuses. Roulette bonuses look like a great way to get free money, but most of them don’t really help you.
Every roulette bonus comes with conditions. And to meet these conditions, you usually have to play so much that you lose all of your money before you clear the bonus requirements.
Online Roulette Is Better
Online and mobile roulette is almost always better for two different reasons. The first reason is because it’s a lot easier to find French Roulette tables online and at mobile casinos.
The second reason is because the minimum bet amount is usually lower at a mobile or online casino than it is in a land-based casino.
Remember that a French Roulette table is the only one you should use. And also remember that the lower your wager amount, the less you lose on each spin. This is why mobile and online roulette is better.
Are Betting Systems as Good as Advertised?
The short answer is no. Roulette betting systems claim to beat the game, and the math they use to advertise these systems often looks good.
But roulette systems simply never work. A few of them work for a short time, but end up costing you at least as much money as it does to play without the systems. And some systems actually create bigger losses.
I don’t care how great a roulette system looks, do yourself a favor, and don’t use them.
Conclusion
True roulette masters know that most roulette games are terrible, so they avoid them. The biggest lie that the casinos tell roulette players is that European tables are good to play, simply because these tables are better than American tables.
Now you know why this is a lie and you know what the only roulette option is for master players. You also know everything else that you can do to play roulette the best way and how to play longer than most players with the same bankroll.
The best news of all is that you can quickly become a master roulette player. Just follow the nine fast steps in this article.
Roulette is one of the most exciting games in the casino because it’s a game people can play (and win!) together. No system works all the time, but knowing a few basic strategies can help minimize losses and maximize gains.
Roulette is a pure game of luck. There is absolutely no 100% successful strategy for winning at roulette, despite numerous advertisements to the contrary in some newspapers and on the internet. Even Albert Einstein weighed in on the subject, reputedly saying “You cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it.” Since stealing money off a roulette table is a very bad idea in the modern casino, I decided to look at some popular strategies that have developed since the game began back in the late 18th century. Allegedly derived from efforts by Blaise Pascal to create a perpetual motion machine in the 17th century, the French novel La Roulette, ou le Jour by Jaques Lablee describes a modern roulette wheel being played in 1796 inside the Palais Royal in Paris.
People have been devising strategies on how to win ever since.
Roulette has a relatively high house advantage, especially on the double zero tables that populate most Vegas casinos. It’s a fun game to play, but it’s a RNG (Random Number Generator) game where the odds stay exactly the same on every spin. In other words, if Red numbers have hit five times in a row, the chance of a Red number hitting on the next spin remains 47.37%, the exact same chance that a Black number will hit. Roulette is not an even money game because the 0 and 00 each have a 2.63% chance of hitting, thus reducing all the “even money” bets (red/black, odd/even, high/low) to 47.37%.
Since the odds remain exactly the same on every spin, most popular strategies for winning at roulette focus on manipulating the amount of units you wager. I’ve experimented with several of the following systems and can say that the one thing they all do (if you adhere to them) is limit your losses. There’s something to be said for following your gut feeling when you walk passed a roulette table. Either keep on walking or look at the results board and try to double your money with one bet.
Tip #1 – Roulette is a Short-Term Game. Set a limit for your losses and set a goal for your winnings before you start to play.
How To Win Money On Roulette Every Time
Tip #2 – Avoid the Martingale System. This is the system very popular with people who have had too much to drink. Like the game of roulette itself, the Martingale System began in France in the 18th century. The strategy requires that the gambler double his even money bet after every loss so that the first win recovers all previous bets plus a profit equal to the first amount wagered. The problems with the system are threefold. First, it requires an unlimited bankroll. Second, most casinos have table maximum limits to curtail this system. Third, a $10 initial bet turns into a $160 bet if you lose just four times in a row. Mathematicians sometimes like to tweak the Martingale System and use the Fibonocci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13…) where the sum of the two previous bets equals the next bet. Elegant, yes, but it’s just a slower road to ruin with less winnings on a hot streak.
Tip #3 – If you’re good with numbers, try the Labouchère system. This may require a piece of paper and a pen, two things the pit boss might not allow you to use. It’s an involved mathematical progression, but you might be able to keep track of by using your chip stack. Basically you decide how much you want to win and then write down a list of numbers that equal that amount. A player stakes an amount equal to the sum of the first and last numbers on the list with every bet. If the bet is successful, the two amounts are removed from the list. If the bet is unsuccessful, the amount lost is appended to the end of the list and the player stakes an amount equal to the sum of the first and (new) last number on the list. As with any system, a bad losing streak can bust you. But, even a moderate hot streak can help you hit your target win amount.
Tip #4 – Start Small and Wait for an Overdue 2-1 Bet. Sit down with your loss limit and target win clearly in mind. Place small even money bets (red/black. odd/even, high/low) bets until you get a feel for the table. Watch for trends, either recurring ones or overdue, in the “1st 12”, “2nd 12” and “3rd 12” groupings. When you feel ready, make you move. Double your average units wagered and pick a group (either 1-12, 13-24, or 25-36). Unlike regular outside bets, these groups of a dozen pay 2-1. This is a variant of the “Double Dozens” strategy. Play it until it hits or you bust. If it hits, take some of your winnings and cover some of the overdue numbers in that group. For example, I like to wait until there’s been a dry spell in high numbers, then bet the “3rd 12” group until it hits and then when it does hit use some of my 2-1 win to cover the inside numbers 30-36, letting the rest ride on “3rd 12”. A lucky back-to-back win can be very profitable when upping your bet with the house’s money!
Although there’s the same probability (2.63%) of any single number hitting on any single spin, trends do occur in roulette and waiting for them is part of the fun and excitement, as well as part of playing to win (or at least limit losses).
Can You Win At Roulette
Next week I’ll look at some legendary roulette wins, along with some other Vegas myths and legends.