Roulette Strategies
Everyone dreams of stumbling onto a perfect strategy for winning at roulette. The truth is, there is no such thing! Every strategy is flawed and will let you down and the best you can hope for is passing the advantage from the house to you. Roulette strategies are methods by which you may put the odds in your favour while minimising losses. Large wins only come with large bets and strategies often call for smaller amounts.
If you’ve been playing roulette for a few years, you have no doubt tried a few strategies and discovered the anguish which ultimately follows the disappearance of large sums of money.
Popular Roulette Strategies
As you surf the internet you will come across multiple strategies. Some of the more popular are the Martingale, Parlay, James Bond, and D’Alembert.
Each of them fails eventually, despite your best efforts. Depending on what your goal is, profit or fun, you should at least try them for yourself. I have a strategy I use regularly and until recently I’ve always won money – but just last week I lost consistently. That is the randomness of roulette at work; I’ve said it before and will say it again “roulette will always bit your on the bum.”
Martingale
Martingale is simple by design but also dangerous.
With each loss double your wager and keep doubling until you win. If you eventually win you will get back all losses plus a little more.
If you have a $10 bet and lose increase to $20 and try again, if you lose again, double it to $40 and so on. When you win return to your original $10 bet.
Best to use Martingale on Red / Black, Odd / Even, or thirds but remember it can be dangerous when things go bad, and can get out-of-hand quickly.
10 losses in a row, which can happen if you are flipping between Red / Black, or Odd / Even, your wager climbs to $5,120. Winning on the 11th spin returns all your losses plus a $10 profit – congratulations. Are you prepared to continue doubling?
In my opinion, it isn’t worth the risk
Parlay
This is the polar opposite of the Martingale system requiring you to double your bet with each win and return to original bet after a loss.
Starting again with a $10 bet and a win you’d bet $20 and then $40 etc. and only go back to $10 when you lose. I’m just not sure about this system and have tried it on simulators without much success.
Let me know if you’ve tried it and won some money using the Parlay system.
James Bond
If you’ve watched any James Bond movies you’ll know he plays a bit of roulette and often uses the same strategy, hence it’s called the James Bond Strategy.
It is kind of simple and can work for you on occasions. Of course it all depends on how that pesky ball roles. When playing this strategy be happy with a just a few wins because over time this one falls apart in my experiences.
In order to get a reasonable win you need to wager a larger amount. When I’ve played the James Bond Strategy I use units of either $5 or $10, but you can set your playing unit at $1.
Place 14 units on 19-36 plus 5 units on double street 13 to 18 and then 1 unit on 0.
If your unit is $5 your total wager is $100. If that’s a bit rich for you, use $1 units for a bet of $20.
Based on a $5 unit the results will be;
| Number | Odds | Loss | Win |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 – 12 | 0 | $100 | $0 |
| 13 – 18 | 5:1 | $0 | $130 |
| 19 – 36 | 2:2 | $0 | $140 |
| 0 | 35:1 | $0 | $180 |
D’Alembert
The goal with D’Alembert works by playing only even bets, such as Red / Black or Odd / Even. Long term your bets “should be” reasonably stable as the odds are 48% in your favour. Notice the odds are not 50% because of the 0 or 00 loses.
First choose an amount known as the bet unit, for example $5. With each win you decrease your wager by one unit and each loss you add one unit.
For example, with a starting bank of $100.00 and a betting unit of $10.00, playing 20 games, winning 40% of the time the results would be;
| Unit | Bet | Result | Bank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $10.00 | Win | $110.00 |
| 1 | $10.00 | Loss | $100.00 |
| +1 | $20.00 | Loss | $80.00 |
| +1 | $30.00 | Loss | $50.00 |
| +1 | $40.00 | Win | $130.00 |
| -1 | $30.00 | Loss | $100.00 |
| +1 | $40.00 | Loss | $60.00 |
| +1 | $50.00 | Win | $160.00 |
| -1 | $40.00 | Win | $240.00 |
| -1 | $30.00 | Loss | $210.00 |
| +1 | $40.00 | Win | $290.00 |
| -1 | $30.00 | Loss | $260.00 |
| +1 | $40.00 | Loss | $220.00 |
| +1 | $50.00 | Loss | $170.00 |
| +1 | $60.00 | Win | $290.00 |
| -1 | $50.00 | Loss | $240.00 |
| +1 | $60.00 | Win | $360.00 |
| -1 | $50.00 | Loss | $310.00 |
| +1 | $60.00 | Loss | $250.00 |
| +1 | $70.00 | Win | $390.00 |
| 40% Win (8/20) | Total Profit: $290.00 |
Another good strategy is the Labouchere Betting System.
Happy Roulette Adventures Everyone!
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