In reality, roulette is a game where you can only hope to win. And this game doesn’t feature great odds for the players either. The casino has a pretty big edge in American roulette of 5.24%. In European roulette, the edge is 2.70. There are many other games like blackjack and baccarat where you can play with a lot better odds.

Albert Einstein supposedly once said: “No one can win at roulette unless he steals money from the table while the croupier isn’t looking.”

Probably the most common roulette strategy out there, the martingale relies on doubling bets after a loss in a 50/50 chance game. This way, the first win recoups all the previous losses, along with a small profit for the gambler. The advantage of this strategy is intuitive. In basic roulette, you're playing a coin-flip game. There are numerous systems published that do work with roulette to a point but do not be fooled by any of them as there is no such thing as easy money. The most popular betting system that lends itself to roulette very well is the Martingale betting system, which we have written up about. Any system, so far devised, can be analysed to show that there is a win expectation for the casino. The following video shows the maths. The mathematics of roulette.

Although I wouldn’t normally question Einstein, this statement isn’t true. In fact, you can use Einstein’s specialist subject, physics, to help you win. Or you can find a biased wheel that makes some numbers more likely to come up.

What Einstein actually meant was that there is no mathematical trick that can help you win at roulette. Each spin is an independent trial and, in the long run, the casino will win. This is different to a game such as Blackjack where the probabilities change as cards are dealt.

But some believe that it is possible to exploit the way the roulette wheel, and the betting cloth, is laid out to give themselves an advantage. The idea is that you can make bets on the layout in a way that you are guaranteed to win. But is this really possible?

Roulette wheel layout

Like a dartboard, the layout of a roulette wheel did not come about by accident. It was carefully planned and exhibits certain properties. In fact, there are two different layouts. An American wheel and a European wheel. The two layouts are shown below.

Notice that the American wheel has two zeroes. This is important as it doubles the advantage for the casino. On a European wheel you would expect to lose, in the long run, 2.7% of any money you bet with. On an American wheel you can expect to lose 5.26% (if you are interested in the mathematics of roulette, the video at the end will show you how these odds are calculated).

The numbers are arranged in a different order on each wheel but there are some similarities in the patterns. On both wheels, the red and black numbers alternate around the wheel, although if you removed the zeroes, the American wheel would have consecutive reds and blacks. The wheels are also structured so that the low numbers (1-18) and the high numbers (19-36) should alternate as much as possible.

On a European wheel, this is only violated where the 5 sits next to the 10 (both low numbers). On the American wheel, there are many examples where this rule is violated. It is for this reason that the American wheel is considered not as balanced as the European wheel. Both wheels also try to distribute odd and even numbers as evenly as possible. But again there are a number of violations of this rule on both wheels.

On the European wheel there are two other interesting symmetries. First, all the low red numbers and black high numbers are on one side of the zero, and the high red numbers and low black numbers are on the other side. Second, the sequence 29-7-28-12-35-3-26-0-32 contains no numbers between 13 and 24 (the second dozen). You can place a bet on the whole of the second dozen, with odds of 2-1.

So, can we beat the maths?

A simple search on Google will return many (possibly millions) of systems for playing (and supposedly winning) roulette. Some easy, some complicated, some well described, some not so.

A system should really be a combination of a playing strategy and a money management strategy. Perhaps the best known money management strategy is the Martingale system. This system is guaranteed to win money as long as you have enough of a bankroll to double your bet after every loss and you do not hit the table limit, which you will quickly do so. The Martingale system is probably the quickest way to bankruptcy known to man.

Whatever betting strategy, and money management strategy, you choose, they all suffer from the same fate. Assuming that each number on the wheel has the same probability of being selected – meaning the wheel is not biased – the maths means the casino will always win. The system may look good, and may work in the short term, but when one of the numbers comes up that you have not bet on you will lose and the casino will move towards its win expectation (2.7% or 5.26%).

Some systems involve betting on many numbers, perhaps 20. In this case, you will win quite often as you are covering more than half of the numbers. But when one of the numbers does not turn up (and it will almost half the time) you lose all of the 20 bets you have made. This will often wipe out any wins to date.

Any system, so far devised, can be analysed to show that there is a win expectation for the casino. The following video shows the maths.

Is There Any Tricks To Roulette Games

You might as well place a single chip on the same number every time and hope that it appears more than it should during the short time that you are playing.

We can dress up the layout of the wheel, the layout of the betting cloth, our number selection and our money management system however we like, but the maths is always there, quietly working against us. You might as well just have fun, pick random numbers and trust to Lady Luck. Either that, or do as Einstein suggested and steal chips (not that we’d recommend it).

Our tips for roulette looks at three separate strategies to be used with the game:

1. Minimize the House Edge – by choosing the right roulette wheel
2. Betting – choose the best bets for you
3. Roulette Betting Systems – learn how to bet smarter

All of these help give us more control over the odds of winning, and are explained in full below.

Minimize The House Edge

First and foremost, it’s best to play on a European (including French) roulette wheel over an American one whenever possible, even if all three are on offer at the same casino. That’s because while all wheels offer the same payouts, the European wheels have better odds. The average house edge on an American roulette wheel is 5.26%, whereas the house edge on European roulette wheels is just 2.7%. If you can find online roulette that not only offers a European wheel but also offers an “En Prison” rule – which allows players to hold and repeat their bets for a single turn after the ball has landed on 0 – then the overall house edge is reduced to just 1.35%. Similarly, if you can find a casino that offers a French variation of Roulette that offers the “La Partage” rule then even money bets that land on a zero are halved and given back to the player resulting in the same house edge of just 1.35%. Based on our experience it is very rare for online casinos to feature the En Prison rule, however a few do feature the La Partage rule, which has the same house edge (see box below).

Online Roulette Games with a House Edge of Just 1.35%

• Intercasino features the “La Partage” rule in their new European Roulette game
• Coral Casino features the “La Partage” rule in their Premium French Roulette game

Betting

Because roulette is at its heart a game of chance, and players have no way of controlling the outcome of every spin, you have to go with the best odds available to you. That’s why a smart roulette strategy focuses on betting. Below are all of the inside and outside bets that are available to roulette players.

Inside Bets

Is There Any Tricks To Roulette Real Money

• Straight-up – a bet on any single number on the wheel
• Split – a bet on two numbers adjacent to each other on the betting layout
• Street – a bet on three numbers in a horizontal line on the betting layout
• Corner – a bet on four numbers on the betting layout, marked by placing chips where the corners of the numbers meet
• Six line – a bet on six numbers in two adjacent lines or streets
• Trio – a bet on 0, 1 and 2 or on 0, 2 and 3
• Basket – a bet on 0, 1, 2 and 3; on a double zero layout this is just a bet on 0, 1 and 2, on 0, 00 and 2, or on 00, 2 and 3
• Top line – a bet on 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 on a double zero layout

Outside Bets

• Column – a bet on any of the three 12-number rows on the betting layout
• Dozen – a bet on any of the three groups of 12 consecutive numbers (1-12, 13-24 or 25-36)
• Even/odd – a bet that the ball will land on either an even or an odd number
• Red/black – a bet that the ball will land on either a red or a black slot
• Hi/lo – a bet on either 1-18 or 19-36

Simple math is all it takes to see that the outside bets offer the best odds because they have nearly 50/50 probability. Because of the single green 0 space, unfortunately they still carry a house edge, but it’s the smallest possible edge at the roulette table. That’s also why it’s important to play at a European wheel whenever possible, since the extra green 00 featured on American wheels affects the odds on all of the bets.

Roulette Betting Systems

Finally, a lot of players use betting systems while playing online roulette. There are numerous systems published that do work with roulette to a point but do not be fooled by any of them as there is no such thing as easy money. The most popular betting system that lends itself to roulette very well is the Martingale betting system, which we have written up about. Ultimately, you will likely win for quite some time but following it over the long term will eventually lead you to hit a losing streak that could break you.

While it’s important that players understand that these systems won’t improve their odds, there is a logical reason why such systems were once popular with roulette. Back when roulette wheels were first invented, it was common for wheels to develop biases as they got worn down. Systems like the Labouchere were designed to subtly take advantage of such biases. Today, unfortunately, live roulette wheels are too well-kept to develop such biases, and online roulette wheels operate on unbiased random number generation software. As with most casino games it may be possible to take advantage of online bonuses to reduce the house edge and enhance your experience but you need to check whether you are allowed to play roulette whilst meeting the bonus requirements and if so whether there are any restrictions such as maximum bet size allowed that you should be aware of.

So Where’s The Best Place To Play?

Taking into consideration our strategies above we have short-listed 4 online casinos in the table below, which use 3 different software platforms to power their roulette games. So, you should be able to get a fair deal of variety and be safe in the knowledge that these casinos are the best places to be playing roulette – we determine this primarily because these casinos offer the lowest house edge for roulette but also because we know from experience they are all big casino brands, using reputable game software that offer a wide variety of banking methods and quick cash-out times.