Strategies To Play Roulette

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The correct mathematical strategy is to make one bet of your entire bankroll, cross your fingers, and hope you get lucky. If you lose, you’re out of money, but if you win, then you’ve succeeded in your goal. The maximum boldness strategy entails placing a single even money bet and hoping to get lucky.

This guide has everything you need to know on how to increase your chances to win at Roulette and get better odds every time you play this exciting Casino game.

If you are new to the Roulette wheel, I'll give you all the information you need to get started and get the best chances to win at the game of Roulette.

THE BIG CAUTION ON THE BIG NUMBER ROULETTE TRICK. I am a very conservative player. I try to protect my money even as I am betting my money. To me gambling is a combination of fear and fun. I find it fun to play the games but I do not find it too much fun when I get clobbered and I have been clobbered at times in my almost 30 years of casino play. You can try the Martingale strategy where you have to double your bet unless you hit the house limit or win. The D’Alembert System is yet another popular strategy where the players need to add a unit to the bet place upon losing and then subtracting a unit from the bet upon winning. Roulette Strategies. When it comes to roulette tips to win there are basic rules you should follow – such as never bet more than you can afford to lose and don’t chase losses. There is no guaranteed winning system so don’t expect to learn how to win every time. But if you use some of these roulette tips to win you might be able to minimise your losses.

And if you are a Roulette pro? In that case, I'll share with you some actionable hacks and betting strategy tips that you can use to make sure you do your absolute best to beat the house.

Tips To Play Roulette In Casino

Bottom line:

If you want to discover how to win at Roulette - or at least to get your best shot at it - you'll love this guide.

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Getting Started with the Game of Roulette

In this part of my new all-in-one Roulette guide, I'll show you how to set up the game correctly to maximize your chance to win money at Roulette machines.

Important note: Roulette is a gambling game and, as such, it depends on luck. Also, the house advantage varies depending on the Roulette variant you play but it is never equal to zero.

Regardless of the strategies you follow, you can't win at Roulette every time you play. All you can do is to avoid placing wrong bets and focus always on those that offer you the best odds to win.

Also, if at any time you feel things are getting a little out of control, please make sure you take this quick test on gambling addiction. A little help goes a long way — trust me.

Despite what most people think, the key to winning at Roulette is to set up the game the right way and have everything ready before you play, not while you play.

This Roulette guide is divided into several different parts:

  • The before you play
  • The while you play
  • The betting strategies

Make sure you take all of them seriously because if you understand how to apply the tips I'm giving you here, then you'll know how to get your best shot to win money at Roulette if you gamble for real money — or free chips if you prefer the freeplay version.

All the online Casino sites mentioned on this article offer both free and real money Roulette games. The gameplay and the fun are exactly the same — so you should not feel like you have to play Roulette for real money if you don't want / can't afford to.

Furthermore, remember to play only for the fun of it. Roulette is one of the most exciting Casino games out there — and that's enough.

When you go online to win money on Roulette every time you play, you make a mistake. A devastating one, potentially.

So — focus on the fun, play for free if you want to, and keep in mind these tips to win a little bit more of your Roulette games.

Don't Rush: Check Out the Game First

This is the basic rule that all professional Roulette players follow: once you think you have found the right Roulette table for your games - let the Roulette wheel spin for a couple of times before you place your first bet.

You want to do this to learn more about the table and about the players that are already in the action.

It might sound unimportant but, when you play Roulette games at a brick-and-mortar casino, it's good practice to make sure you get along with the other players already in the game.

Stay away from the tables where people look aggressive, where gamblers bet too much, and where you feel too much alcohol is being consumed.

Those are clear signs that things might get heated anytime the Roulette wheel presents unfavourable results, and you don't want to be playing at the troublemakers' table.

Shenanigans aside, monitoring the action before the real money play begins is also a good practice to make sure everything is (or seems) fully transparent and legit.

Depending on where you play, a game of Roulette could be rigged or not fair - and it's important you learn to recognize these situations in order to avoid them.

How do you do that?

When you play online, just go for online Casino sites with the seal of an independent and international gaming authority like the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) or the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA).

That certifies the fairness of the real money Roulette games, of the platform, and of the company that runs the business.

Practice Roulette Online for Free

Things are a little different when it comes to online Roulette because one or 100 spins will not give you any significant information about the others at the table and the fairness of the game.

However, this doesn't mean you should jump right in and bet all your money on a game you are not familiar with.

The best way to learn how to play and how to win at Roulette online is to start from the freeplay option that most Roulette sites offer.

This way, you can get familiar with the Roulette wheel, the table structure, the payout structure, and the personality of the live dealer - if you decide to go for the live variant.

Here's a short list of the best online Roulette sites that offer free accounts to play and practice:

Make sure you open a gaming account at least one of these Casino sites to practice Roulette online and learn how to win your games.

A freeplay account loaded with demo money is extremely useful if you are a Roulette beginner and you need to practice online to learn the differences between the betting systems I'm going to highlight in the last chapter of this guide.

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The bonus is calculated on your deposits so you can just add the money to your account and keep it safe there until the bonus helps you to learn how to win more often.

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European vs. American Roulette

I understand this might sound obvious to most people but, in case you don't know yet:

Never play American Roulette games. Always choose the European variant.

To understand why you should only play the European Roulette games, let's look at the Roulette wheel. The only difference between the European and the American roulette is the order of the numbers on the roulette wheel.

The American Roulette has one additional pocket as the American Roulette wheel features a second green slot with a double zero.

Oddly enough, the two variants of the game feature the same payouts, meaning you will get paid 35-to-1 every time you nail the single right number. On the American Roulette wheel as much as on the European Roulette wheel.

What differs, however, are your chances to win money at the game.

The fact the European Roulette wheel features 37 slot means you have one chance in 37 to win every time you place a bet on a single number.

The odds get considerably worse if you decided to play on an American Roulette wheel since the second green slot brings them to one in 38 on each single number bet.

Given that both Roulette variants offer the same payout (35:1), your choice is pretty obvious. You should only play European Roulette games.

Now, to make things more comfortable for you, here's a list the most popular online games of European Roulette.

How to Pick a Winning Roulette Wheel

The last step we need to consider in the before you play section of this guide to winning at Roulette is the game's choice.

Now that you know you should always discard the American variant of Roulette, you need to learn how to choose the right European Roulette game to maximize your winning odds.

Don't let the word 'odds' fool you here:

All European roulette games offer the same winning chances - so there are no special Roulette games that give you more opportunities to win money than others.

What you need to pay attention to, as you get ready to play Roulette games with real money, are the table limits.

The limits represent the maximum and minimum bets allowed in the game and it's important you learn how to match them with your bankroll.

Most of the online games I included in the list above accept bets starting from €/£/$1 to €/£/$5, with these two being the standard in the industry.

If you are just starting with online Casino games and you are looking for ways to win at online Roulette, I suggest you start from the smallest limits and go for the 1-credit games.

Otherwise, if you feel more confident and you have a proven record of positive results (and ROI) at Roulette, Casino.com features some really interesting high roller games that might offer the excitement you are after.

How to Win Your Roulette Games (Fingers Crossed!)

Now that you know how to choose the right games to play and you know that you should always avoid the American Roulette wheel let's see how you are supposed to behave once your money is on the table.

You got you chip stack; you found the table, you want to play…
…but how do you exactly win at Roulette!?

How Much Should You Bet on Roulette?

Assumed that you already know what are the table's minimum and maximum bets, let's tackle one of the most complicated questions about roulette: how much should you bet?

The size of your bets is connected to the size of your bankroll (the total amount of money you decided to invest in a session) and the minimum amount of time you plan to spend betting on the Roulette wheel.

An average Roulette wheel spins 40 times every hour so, if you decided to play for two hours, you need to make sure that you can survive at least 80 spins.

Important Note: Since the game of Roulette is a game of chance, all the calculations are always done as if you will not win a single game.

This way you can be sure your betting strategy will always be 100 percent effective.

Use basic Math:

80 spins at €1 per spin mean you will need €80 to stay at the table for two whole hours before your money is gone.

However, that's not how I play.

With a bankroll of €80 and a lower limit of €1, I place bets of between €5 and €8 on every spins as I combine the length of the games with my winning odds.

Here's how you can take your chances to win at Roulette doing the same.

You can combine this general Roulette betting rule with three more elements:

  • Experience
  • Betting Choices
  • Betting Strategies

While I can't teach you experience (but the links to practice online Roulette for free are there for that), I can surely help you in choosing the right bets and adopting a good strategy that won't kill your bankroll.

How to Choose the Right Bets in Roulette

As I mentioned earlier, the single number bet pays 35:1 (35 times your bet PLUS your bet) and you have one chance in 37 to win.

So, is this really the best bet you can pick in a roulette game?

***

Before we go any further, let me make something extremely clear:

This is a guide for beginners who want to know how to win at roulette or, even better, how to get the best odds and minimize the risk of placing losing bets all the time.

My focus is to show you how to maximize your chances to make money when you play. Not to give a fake system to win money on Roulette all the time or to teach you winning Roulette secrets that do not exist.

What I am about to describe might sound very boring to all those who play Roulette for the thrill of it and love crazy and expensive bets but - hey! I am here to help you play Roulette, not to find you an expensive alternative to Netflix!

***

The best way to win money on Roulette (or to minimize the risk to lose money, if you wish) is to focus on the outside bets.

How To Play Roulette Strategy Win

Although these Roulette bets do not lead to mind-blowing wins, keeping your bets on the odds/even, red/black, and high/low will give you the highest chances to score some cash.

These are by far the best bets in a game of Roulette and the only ones a beginner should focus on. The outside bets pay 1:1 but give you almost 50 percent chances to win every bet you place.

Forget your lucky numbers. Forget what 'you feel' will happen on the Roulette wheel.

Concentrate your bets on the options I just gave you. That is key to learning how to get your best winning odds when you play Roulette.

You Won Some Money: Now What?

If you are serious about winning money on Roulette, you need to treat your winnings as if they didn't exist and resist the temptation to add them to your bankroll.

In other words, you shouldn't bet the money you win.

Professional Roulette players handle wins in a very simple way: they cash them out.

You need to learn how to define a bankroll you can invest in your games before you place your first bet on the roulette wheel and stick to that amount.

If you start off with the €80 bankroll we described above, and you find yourself with €120, cash out the €40 and continue to play with the original €80.

It's easier than you think.

The more you do this, the more money you'll be able to set aside every time you win on Roulette.

This is going to be very hard as soon as your bankroll starts to look too-thin-to-survive - but that's exactly when it's imperative you keep your winnings separate from your gambling money.

Consider it like a saving account: it's good to have a backup when things don't go your way.

Roulette Betting Strategies

And now, let's go through the most advanced part of this guide: the Roulette betting strategies.

Being this an article for beginners who want to know how to win on Roulette, I am not going to go too deep on the subject.

Later this month, PokerNews will publish an intermediate strategy article where I explain all the details and nuances of the different Roulette betting strategies.

If you are and advanced player (e.g., you won $1,000 or more on Roulette — and not all in one night) and you are looking for an in-depth guide to give you Casino account a new boost, I suggest you wait for that.

But if all you want is an overview of the different betting strategies that can help you win on Roulette - here we go.

The Martingale Betting System

The Martingale Strategy is one of the most popular betting patterns in the world of gambling.

My guess? People love to follow the Martingale strategy when they play Roulette because they understand it immediately. Not because it works.

(Spoiler alert: it doesn't)

The basics are simple: each time you place a bet, and you lose, you should repeat the same bet but with 2x the money.

The Martingale is a guarantee if you want to break even since you only need to win once to cover even the ugliest of all losing streaks.

If you plan on betting on Roulette following the Martingale system, make sure you begin from the table's minimum bet - or you might be forced to deal with monster bets already after a handful of spins.

And those bets might get just too big for you to handle them.

The Grand Martingale Betting System

Another system many players use to beat the roulette is the Grand Martingale, a (pricey) variant of the regular Martingale Roulette system.

The Grand Martingale works exactly as the Martingale, but with on steroids: every time you double your bet, you also add an extra amount equal to your initial bet.

If you follow my advice on starting from the minimum bet, that means you are always going to 2x your losing bet + adding one more minimum bet on top of that.

Unfortunately, I am not rich enough to use it.

The James Bond Roulette Strategy

Also known as the beginners' favorite, the James Bond strategy is a combination of bets that give you the best odds of winning on Roulette.

To follow the James Bond strategy, you need to place the following bets on the same spin:

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  • €10 on the zero
  • €140 on the 19-36 box
  • €50 on the 13-18 box

What makes this the best strategy to win at Roulette every time? You only lose if a roulette wheel stops with the ball being on a number between 1 and 12.

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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.

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:

  1. $5
  2. $10
  3. $20
  4. $40
  5. $80
  6. $160
  7. $320
  8. $640
  9. $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:

  1. $5
  2. $10
  3. $20
  4. $40
  5. $80
  6. $160
  7. $320
  8. $640
  9. $1,280
  10. $2,560
  11. $5,120
  12. $10,240
  13. $20,480
  14. $40,960
  15. $81,920
  16. $163,840
  17. $327,680
  18. $655,360
  19. $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:

  1. $5
  2. $175 + $5 = $180
  3. $6300 + $180 = $6,480
  4. $226,800 + $6480 = $233,280
  5. $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.

Roulette

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.

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