Roulette is a game of pure chance, but a roulette strategy can still give you valuable guidance in the size and volume of your wagers. Strategies don’t improve your chances of actually winning, but help you to bet in a smarter way.
Read on to learn about the top current roulette strategies. Discover what these strategies are and whether they could work for your roulette gameplay.
Progressive vs Non-Progressive Roulette Strategies
There are plenty of contenders for the title of best roulette strategy, with every one having its own characteristics. That said, these can still all be split into two main categories.
Progressive Roulette Betting Strategies
A progressive roulette betting strategy alters your stakes depending on whether your previous bet won or lost.
There are two main types of progression: positive and negative progression. The former targets greater profits, while the latter aims to recoup your losses. Both forms tend to have solid mathematical bases, but often fall foul of gambler’s fallacy.
Non-Progressive Roulette Betting Strategies
A non-progressive roulette betting strategy won’t automatically change based on your recent performance, prior results, or any other metric. Instead, by default, your stakes will simply stay the same. Flat betting is the most common example, in which you decide a stake in advance then stick to it, come what may.
If you’re looking for a roulette strategy to win good money, we would not recommend sticking 100% rigidly to a non-progressive system. You can, however, simply adapt the system over time.
Let’s say you’re looking for a $20 roulette strategy, and using $2 stakes. If that budget hits $40, you can double your stakes to $4 and retain the same basic risk, while increasing your potential rewards. If your bankroll shrinks to $10, you can halve your stakes to $1instead, again maintaining the same risk/reward balance.
The Flaws and Risks of Progression Betting
Progressive betting on roulette is preferable to simply gambling at random. Is it the best roulette strategy? It still has its flaws, with these being the three most common complaints:
- Assumes Infinite Bankroll – This is a particular problem for negative progression systems as a roulette strategy when it comes to money management. While they should theoretically recover your losses, the problem is your stakes could grow out of proportion to your bankroll before that actually happens.
-
Gambler’s Fallacy – This is the belief that prior results affect future outcomes. No roulette strategies are sure things since they all, to some extent, assume that you will win or lose ‘eventually’, or at least within a realistic time frame. There’s no guarantee this will actually happen.
- Limited Flexibility – Progression systems only work with even money bets. This means you can certainly gamble on red/black in roulette, but other roulette bets – like betting on a single number – are off the proverbial table.
Guaranteed Success with a Roulette Strategy – Myth or Reality?
We’re assuming you already know how to play roulette. If so, you’ll know it’s a game of pure chance. Unlike in blackjack, for example, there’s nothing whatsoever you can do to influence your chances of actually winning, and no foolproof roulette strategy chart you can refer to.
As such, there is no such thing as a guaranteed roulette winning strategy. That being said, there is still value in learning how to play roulette with a strategy. Crucially, it will help you to decide what size stakes to use, and – sometimes – specifically how many bets to place. In turn, this helps you split up your bankroll more effectively, and ensure you stay in the game for a longer amount of time. It also helps you avoid the most common cause of losing money at roulette – placing wagers completely at random, and blowing up your betting account in no time.
None of the strategies below will guarantee you a profit, but they’re all useful to study if you’re looking to learn how to win at roulette over the long-haul.
Martingale
The Martingale roulette strategy is extremely popular, and is arguably the most straightforward system there is. Briefly, the Martingale strategy in roulette involves doubling your stakes after a losing wager, then continuing to do so until you win, at which point you will recoup all your losses in one go.
D’alembert
The D’alembert is another extremely popular online roulette strategy with seasoned players. You start by identifying a unit size. If your initial bet loses, you increase the next bet by one unit, and continue to do so. When you win, you decrease your next stake by one unit. This is a simple roulette strategy to implement, but – like the Martingale – leaves you vulnerable to a big losing streak.
Labouchere
The Labouchere system was created specifically as a roulette strategy, and is a slightly more complex negative progression system.
You start by creating a sequence of numbers, such as 1,2,3,4,5. Your bet size equals the first and last number combined, multiplied by your unit size. So if you’re using $1 units, your first bet here would be $6 (1+5 = 6, x 1 = $6). If a bet wins, you remove the two numbers you just used, and keep doing so until no numbers are left. When a bet loses, you add the sum you just calculated to the end. So, if your bet lost, for example, we’d add 6 to the sequence.
Fibonacci
This is a very basic negative progression casino roulette strategy. You literally just have to follow the famous Fibonacci sequence – 1,1,2,3,5,8,13, etc. – multiplying the latest number by your unit size to get your stake.
Roulette Strategies Based on Probability
Any successful roulette strategy that works – really works – should be based on actual probability. The odds are always stacked against you in roulette, thanks to the built-in house edge.
The best you can realistically do, as you learn how to play roulette and win, is stick to 50/50 wagers and control your stakes in a smart and sensible way. The strategies below will help you do this, and are based – to varying extents – on actual probabilities.
James Bond Strategy
The James Bond system is another strong contender for the best roulette strategy. In short, it involves placing three wagers per round, with the stakes progressing from larger to smaller based on the probabilities of the bets actually winning.
Law of Thirds
The Law of Thirds won’t help with your actual staking in casino games, but it is indeed used as a prediction algorithm focused on probabilities. As far as a roulette strategy goes, it involves noting down which numbers have won so far, then betting on numbers that haven’t come up yet. There is a statistical basis for the system being successful, based on the probabilities of certain segments winning.
Pivot
Over a long period of time – a million spins playing roulette, for example – the chances are that roulette segments will come up the same number of times. The Pivot system states that over a shorter period of time – such as 35 spins – there’s a good chance the same number will be repeated. This might be true, but the system is also a clear example of basing future predictions on prior (random) results, and therefore isn’t reliable.
Biased Wheel
With in-person roulette games, it’s possible that a wheel could be physically biased, so that certain results come up more frequently than others. This could also be possible with live dealer online roulette (though you’d need to watch for a long enough sample size), but obviously won’t be the case with RNG-based versions.
Visual Ballistics
‘Visual ballistics’ is the belief that you’ll be able to predict where the ball lands based on its actual movements. We wanted to include it in this list simply in case you came across the term, but it’s almost certainly nonsense, and not a serious roulette table strategy.
Dealer Signature
While more believable than visual ballistics, this is still a pretty suspect roulette strategy. It’s the belief that online casino dealers will have tendencies to conduct their games in certain, physical ways (probably true), and that you can use these to predict future results (probably not true). The dealer might drop the ball at a certain point each spin, for example, which makes its final landing spot more predictable. Like the biased wheel, even if this is the case, it’s only relevant for live dealer online roulette, not computer-run games.
Factors That Could Affect Your Roulette Betting System
Obviously, sheer luck will have the biggest effect on your per-spin success in roulette. That said, there are still three other major factors which – in conjunction with your roulette strategy – can impact your profits and losses.
Type of Games at Online Casinos
While the basic principles will remain the same, different roulette variants will have somewhat differing rules. Arguably the most important example, particularly for actual roulette strategies, is the number of segments on the wheel you use.
The two most popular roulette variants are European and American Roulette. The latter has 38 segments, rather than 37. Crucially, the extra segment here is a white ‘zero’, which doesn’t count for either a red or black bet (remember that all progression systems will need you to wager on red/black).
Your roulette odds are slightly better for European roulette, rather than American, and you should therefore stick to the former when using a roulette wheel strategy. The latter does feature an extra ‘Five Number Bet’ option, but this is irrelevant for roulette system betting.
Betting Limits
All online casino roulette tables will have both lower and upper limits in place. The latter are mainly important in that they will put a cap on your potential profits per-spin, but – in reality – this is unlikely to trouble more casual bettors. The former simply serve as a barrier to entry, but it’s very easy to find tables for only $1 per spin, and some sites have a minimum bet as low as $0.10.
Bet Choices
Technically, roulette does feature quite a few bet types, allowing you to wager on very specific outcomes. You’re perfectly welcome to experiment with these in your casual play. Again though, if you’re using a progressive strategy for roulette, you should be sticking exclusively to the red/black bet, since this is giving you the 50/50 odds (assuming you’re using a European roulette strategy) that you need.
Top Tips for Choosing the Right Strategy for Your Roulette Game
We’ve already suggested a number of systems you can use to help with your roulette play. Here are three key factors to consider when picking the best roulette strategies for your needs.
- Risk Tolerance – Even within the positive or negative progression frameworks, some systems are riskier than others. A roulette doubling strategy, for example, like the Martingale, will see your stakes grow very quickly indeed. By contrast, the D’alembert will still help to recoup your losses, but in more of a ‘slow but steady’ manner.
- Ease of Use – Complex roulette strategies can certainly have their merits, with the Labouchere, for example, having a strong mathematical basis. That said, there’s no shame in choosing a more streamlined and straightforward system instead, if you prefer a more relaxed, casual approach to your gambling.
- Time Scale – Tying somewhat into our two previous points, you must decide early on how much time you’re willing to commit to your roulette play. Something like the Fibonacci roulette strategy, for example, can be executed instantly. Placing multiple wagers for the James Bond roulette strategy, however, will require slightly more of your time before every spin.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for a guaranteed method on how to win at roulette, we’ve got bad news. This is a game of pure chance, with completely random results, and the house edge in roulette ensures you’re starting at a disadvantage. That said, a roulette strategy can still help you to stay in the game longer, by helping you to measure and control your staking.
After reading this article, you have all the information you need to implement a roulette strategy for yourself. Begin by setting your unit size, then pick a strategy, activate it after either winning or losing a roulette bet, and stick to the plan thereafter.
FAQs
What is the most successful online roulette strategy?
There’s no ‘sure thing’ roulette strategy, but some are certainly smarter than others. The likes of the Martingale System, D’alembert, and Fibonacci Strategy, for example, all have a sound logical base.
What is the safest bet in roulette?
The highest odds you can get are 50/50, which come courtesy of the good old red/black bet. Your rewards are somewhat capped here, but there’s far less risk with this online gambling bet than with many of the other options, like outside bets.
Is there a secret to winning roulette?
Absolutely not – if you’re trying to find out how to always win at roulette, we’re here to tell you that’s impossible. This is a game of pure chance, with completely random outcomes
What is the most popular roulette bet?
Lots of bettors enjoy the thrill of trying to pick a specific number to come up, but the odds for this are only 35-1. One of our top tips to win in roulette is to stick to the red/black bet, which – in European Roulette – has 50/50 odds.
What happens if you bet on every number?
Yes, and if you’re looking for the opposite of the best way to win at roulette, this would be it. The built-in house edge, which comes specifically via the incorporation of the ‘zero’ segment (or segments with an American roulette strategy), means you’d be guaranteed to lose money when betting on every number.
