Roulette Strategy

First of all, let’s make one thing clear. Unlike what many so-called gambling experts claim, there’s no strategy in roulette that can guarantee you profit.

There’s no winning strategy – unfortunately.

However, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when playing roulette – bets to avoid and games to prefer.

Optimal Strategy in Roulette

Here we will go through the basics of roulette strategy and give you a few tips that might make an online roulette session more enjoyable.

Avoid the 00

As we went through in the article covering roulette rules, American roulette wheels have a 0 and a 00, while European wheels have the single 0. Since roulette bets pay out according to what the odds would be if there were no zeroes on the wheel, the wheel with fewer zeroes is obviously better.

For more information about the odds in American and European roulette, please read roulette rules and odds.

If you play roulette online, you can always choose the European tables.

Avoid the Basket Bet

On American roulette tables, players can take the "basket bet," covering 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3.

Covering an odd group of numbers skews the odds a bit, and this bet offers the worst odds on the board for the player, with a House edge of nearly eight percent.

Beware of Roulette Systems

Betting systems like the Martingale, where you double your bet every time you lose, are risky ways of playing. They alter your win/loss pattern by creating a situation where you have a number of small wins and eventually one very large loss.

In theory, the system works, but that is with an infinite bankroll. The bets build up rapidly after a while and pretty soon you might find yourself in a situation where you are risking your whole bankroll on just one bet.

And should you win this bet, you are just back to break even.

Betting systems should be used for fun and with a small portion of your bankroll. Risking a large part of your bankroll using a roulette betting system is not a wise way to manage your casino bankroll.

Remember the Gambler’s Fallacy

A lot of betting systems in roulette are based on the gambler’s fallacy – the belief that for instance red in roulette is more likely to come up because of prior events.

The dangerous thing is that our mind works the same way.

When we’ve watched five “black” in a row, we feel that red must be next. We feel that the odds have increased tremendously.

It’s been said many times before – but it’s important to remember – isolated, random events do not affect one another.

Roulette Strategy Summary

In roulette, the best thing you can do is probably to forget about strategy altogether, apart from choosing European tables and staying away from “sucker bets.”

Of course, it doesn’t matter if you bet on your lucky number or perhaps a particular sequence of numbers; they will be as good as any other numbers. Not better, but not worse either.

Just don’t get carried away with some elaborate system that is said to guarantee profit. There simply is no system that works.