The Best Roulette System – Without the Hogwash
It’s no secret that people really like roulette. So much so, that nowadays you can find all kinds of supposedly fool proof tips and tricks to try and beat the wheel and land that coveted huge payout. The truth is, however, that there is no silver bullet for a fail-free mastery of roulette – it’s a game of chance for Pete’s sake! There’s no guarantee of a win no matter how you spin it. At the same time, a tactical approach to playing might help you cut your losses and thereby increase your net profit over an extended playing period.
These betting strategies dictate various actions based on previous outcomes, and are actually ideal for roulette as the game is pretty straight-forward. What isn’t so straightforward is judging which strategy is indeed the best roulette system – out of the most common ones, it always depends on player preference and style. So, on that note, we’ll asses the most popular approaches and you can be the judge on which is the winning roulette system for you. The strategies we assess have all been around for quite some time and have a successful rap sheet. Nevertheless, these methods of play also require patience and a certain level of skill when it comes to assessing your potential wins or losses. Don’t worry though – with this quick guide you’ll become well-versed in no time!
What Is the Best Way to Play Roulette?
The beautiful thing in life is the fact that there are many activities where there’s no such thing as the ’best’ way to do them. While this laissez-faire approach perhaps shouldn’t be used in things like driving a car or operating on someone if you’re a surgeon, it most definitely applies to roulette. Objectively speaking, there is no best way to play roulette. Every player has her or his own goals and priorities, so the best way to play roulette is to play your own way, and to get out of it what you want. If you play for entertainment, you may choose to just make random bets and call it a day after you’ve had your fun, regardless of payouts. If you’re playing to satisfy a certain number of wagering requirements when claiming a bonus, you also likely won’t follow a betting system. Or perhaps you like to use personal references such as birthdays or important dates to pick roulette numbers – in this game, anything goes!
- What’s your reason for playing: fun, payouts, wagering requirements or other?
- Consider your committment level: short, mid, or long-term
- Do you like systematic/rigid or flexible approaches?
- How much of the table do you tend to cover?
The best course of action is to consider the above-mentioned factors and take it from there. Further down page you’ll find a breakdown of each system, each aligning well with at least one of the above considerations. And by the time you’re done with this roulette system reviews introduction you’ll be well prepared to judge which strategy suits you and your gameplay style.
What Makes a Good Roulette System?
Roulette is working with a massive advantage when it comes to betting patterns – it’s got all the prerequisites for the application of betting systems thanks to even money options. Whereas games like blackjack complicate the matter with the possibility of having multiple hands at a time, or doubling up, roulette is centred around a very direct principle: make a bet, lose or win. No insurance, side bets, standing or re-splitting. This makes things a lot simpler if you’re after finding the best roulette strategy for you – even though individual preferences like time commitment, table coverage tendencies or a penchant for flexibility are crucial.
What follows are the two most common and the most popular betting patterns, used by many dedicated roulette players. Pay attention to the differences in bet progression – they may have a big effect on the style of gameplay. If you’re hungry for more information, you get an in-depth breakdown of each system in their dedicated roulette system reviews in the links below.
The Martingale System
The best-known roulette system is the Martingale system, originally based on a popular coin-flipping game in the 18th century. In other words, it’s a fixed odds, even money betting approach. This system is based on an incremental progression of wagers, whereby you increase your bet by one unit each time you lose. Once a win comes around, you will have recovered all your previous losses and made a small net profit as well. You can see how this is an attractive formula, and the even money bet possibility in roulette makes it very applicable to the famed table game of chance.
The Paroli System
Perhaps surprising to some, the Paroli betting strategy has been around even longer – since the 17th century. It is similar to the Martingale system in that it works best with even money bets like red/black or even/odd. Unlike Martingale, however, this system does not advocate raising your wagers after a loss. Rather, you double your wager after a win, but keep the same size of wager after a loss. For instance, you bet one unit and lose, so the next round should be played with one unit again. If you win, the following wager should be the size of two units. A huge plus is the fact that this approach is not cumbersome at all. No need for pen and paper, nor for any math-related mental acrobatics.
Other Roulette System Reviews
Apart from the two go-to methods, there’s a handful of somewhat fringe strategies which can also easily be applied to the game of roulette. These still have a decent following and might also work for you if you’re in it for the long haul. Take a look at some of our more niche roulette system reviews below.
D’Alembert System
A less-known but still heavily followed is the D’Alembert approach, which can be traced back directly to a French mathematician with one mouthful of a name – Jean-Baptiste le Rond D’Alembert. The good thing about this betting pattern is its simplicity: you pick your base value at one unit, increase your wager by one unit after a loss, and decrease it by one unit after a win. If the theory is true and there are approximately as many wins as losses, you should come out ahead since your wins will have been placed at a higher stake after a string of losses, recovering your unsuccessful wagers. Where this system crumbles somewhat, is the fact that even if this theory were right, it’s hard to say by when you should reach the wins/losses equilibrium. Secondly, this strategy runs dangerously parallel to the Gambler’s Fallacy concept – which assumes that one result’s likelihood is somehow dependent on other result’s frequency.
Fibonacci System
This strategy kicks things up a notch. It is based on the principle of the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical pattern which produces an evenly increasing spiral pattern that inspired much of renaissance art. With this background, the Fibonacci betting system dictates starting with the same wager for round one and two, followed by a third wager whose size is the combined value of the previous two. Similarly, wager number four should be the same as wager two and three put together; wager five equals wager three and four, and so on. You follow this sequence until you win, at which point you will have placed a sizeable wager, and thereby recovered your losses. After a win, you take two steps back in the sequence, and start again. The caveat here is remembering the numbers as you make your wagers – otherwise you’ll mess up the maths!
Labouchere System
And now for something completely different – the Labouchere strategy. If you’re looking for something simple, do a giant detour around this one. However, this system has a steady and dedicated following – so maybe there’s something to it? Also referred to as the Split Martingale, American Progression or the Cancellation System, Labouchere was actually designed with roulette even money bets in mind. So, to start off, you’ll need to think of a sequence of three numbers – it can be anything, a number of units or value of wager – your call. A bet should equal to the combined value of the first and the last number in the sequence. If you win, you remove these two numbers from your sequence; if you lose, you keep them and add the number you just wagered with. Though a bit of a head-scratcher at first, the attractive element here lies in the more realistic idea that you can recover your losses in various smaller wins, as opposed to one explosive win.
Oscar’s Grind
This system is good for those who look for a reasonably short playing time and will be happy with just a little bit of net profit – whether this is due to budget restrictions, preference for speed or part of a larger approach. Basically, you wager the same as the previous bet after a loss, and increase your bet by one unit after a win. You will, naturally, first go thorugh several rounds of being in the red, but eventually you’ll level off. Once you’ve reached a profit point of one unit, you stop. Clearly this approach is best for those who are happy to take just a bit of net profit home. Not being greedy is generally a great way to not run your finances into the ground when gambling.
Flat Betting System
Unlike any of the other betting systems presented on this page, our last contender for best roulette strategy does not care about using progression. Instead, you set an amount you want to bet and make the same wager time and time over. That means no complicated number sequences and keeping track of things – simply pick a number. However, what the flat betting system offers in simplicity, it loses out on winning potential: over longer playtime, you’re quite likely to lose to the house edge, and there won’t be any explosive wins. However, if you’re a ‘easy does it’ kind of person, it may be just the right thing.
Do These Systems Work Online?
Roulette is the same whether you play at a top-notch online casino or in a land-based one. There’s no extra bells and whistles attached to online roulette, save for a few novelty variants with side games or a different layout. But the rules remain the same – you’ll always play one of the three regional variants. That means these roulette systems can be applied to both formats in the same way. One slight difference, however, might be the time factor in live vs. RNG-based roulette. In the latter, you control when the wheel is spun, whereas in the former you might have to keep up with the rest of the crowd as the control is in the croupier’s hands. Apart from the speed, you can feel free to search for your winning roulette system both online and offline.
The Problem with ‘Winning’ Roulette Systems
As already hinted in some of the individual strategic approaches, it’s not that these patterns are faulty – often it’s the practical application of these principles where the entire system falters. In theory, if you’re a high roller with bottomless pockets, you should be fine. However, that’s not the case for many of us, so you’ve got to consider that sustaining long streaks of losses in hopes of recovering with a big bang win might not always work out in real life. Another thing to consider are table limits: these may not go as far as up as to allow some wagers dictated by the Fibonacci approach, for instance. So, before you really commit to a system, consider these limitations and choose accordingly.
Common Myths Surrounding Roulette
On top of the theoretically sound betting systems, the gambling faction of the internet is replete with snake oil-type claims and advice on how to beat the roulette wheel. These myths are often nothing but a trap for players to fall into bad habits and put their faith in something that won’t work. With roulette, it’s plain and simple – you either win or you don’t, and there’s nothing you can do to influence the outcome – unless you lift up the table, Hulk-style, and make the ball fall where you want it – for which you would promptly get escorted out, of course.
Reds at this Table are Hot!
One seemingly hard to budge concept is the idea of tables being ‘hot’ or ‘cold’. There’s no such thing as hot numbers, colours or…anything, for that matter. This won’t affect you much at an online roulette table, so there’s no risk of falling for this myth. However, don’t get swayed by such claims when you step into a land-based casino – there’s no point relying on a suspicion.
A Win Must Come after So Many Losses
Another myth is the infamous Gambler’s Fallacy, which is based on the assumption that a certain result is ‘due’ because the other outcome has happened so many times. The outcomes of several coin flips or even money roulette bets have no bearing on the following outcome. Yes, it is true that you have the same likelihood of landing one or other result, but a win/loss equilibrium would happen if you kept the process going infinitely – and that is not the case when you enter a casino as that visit does indeed have an expiration date called “closing time”. And there is most definitely no ‘due’ time for a win to happen.
You Need Money to Make Money
Yet another claim you hear often, this attitude assumes that the more you bet, the more you win. In all fairness, that is not a false statement – a win on a 100 wager will most definitely be bigger than a payout from a 1 bet. However, this is not a true for the whole game overall. No matter whether you bet big or small, you’re most likely to break even over time, or come out with a small profit at best. But, if you’re as lucky (and risk-loving) as Ashley Revell, this statement might prove true to you.
Skilled Players Can Predict Where the Ball Will Land
There has been a case or two of someone successfully predicting the outcome of a spin. However, these cases involved either very careful observation of thousands of spins to establish a numerical tendency at each table, advanced mathematical calculation, or both. If you’re a keen maths nerd and/or a physicist, or someone with a lot of time on their hands like the infamous Pelayo family, you’re welcome to give it a try. In real life, however, ain’t nobody got time for that! You’re still running the risk of your calculations not being exact, so we’d classify this approach as very unlikely to succeed.
The Best Roulette Strategy Doesn’t Involve Cheating
So, no matter how many myths and beat-the-wheel claims you hear, you’ll be hard pressed to find a way to cheat in roulette or significantly increase your odds. For one, online roulette uses random number generation software to determine the outcome of each spin, meaning that physics have absolutely no impact on anything happening on the virtual roulette table. Try as you might, there’s truly no chance for you to beat the system there. Live roulette, in theory, would be the right place to try and get an advantage if you are super good at maths and physics and can calculate the landing spot – but, again, that’s quite the feat even for the most experienced roulette player among us. That’s why it’s best to just sit back, and let Lady Luck have her way, or approach the game tactically with some of the betting systems we’ve just gone over. Have you found the best fit for you yet?
Roulette System Scams
We sincerely hope that our best roulette systems guide has helped you navigate the world of roulette tactics, but if you do end up searching for more information on the almighty internet, there’s still something to keep in mind. Namely, always watch out for unknown roulette tactics with lofty claims of providing a winning roulette system. They are fake news. There’s no betting systems that will help you predict the winning number, so don’t waste your time on these scams. As we’ve mentioned, online casinos use RNG software to determine each spin, so, if you stick to the UK’s best online gambling sites – like the casinos reviewed on this website – you’ll be in good hands, with fair and calibrated RNG gaming software that leaves no room for bias. You can also explore the world of roulette games and see what kinds of game variants are on offer by perusing our introduction to roulette games.