Best Roulette Bets – What Makes The Casinos Worried?

It’s quite logical really, the best roulette bets have to be the ones that the casinos dislike the most.   Remember in all casino games including roulette there is a negative expectation, that is there is a probability that the player will eventually lose.   Of course this doesn’t always happen sometimes people will win fabulous amounts of money and defy this expectation, the trick is to walk out of the casino when this happens – quickly, in fact if you’re up big time then run away.    The simple fact is that the longer you play, the more you are subjecting your bank roll to this negative expectation and it will eventually catch up with you.   The less actual bets you make the more chance you have of being a winner.

Many of course would argue (with some justification) that the minimum number of bets is actually none at all.  But it is true that to maximise your odds of winning you’d be best to walk into the casino, place one large bet then leave immediately.    It really doesn’t sound much fun and it would make for a pretty dull evening although of course that could really depend on the result of your one single large bet.

You see the casino are well aware that in the short term there will be fluctuations.   You will see lots of wierd results and strange winning streaks in the short term, but experience tells them that  these never last very long.  The longer someone plays the more likely the expectation will be realised, if you bet indefinitely whatever your bank balance you will eventually lose.  It’s the large, I mean really large single bets that really worry a casino – in a short term anything can happen, a few spins could easily go against the odds.   This is what keeps the casino owner sweating at night and what actually is the best way to win.

So the Best Roulette Bets are Large Single Stakes

In essence yes, the way to maximise your potential of winning is to minimise the number of bets.  Walking into a casino, putting your entire bankroll down on an even number spin and walking out whatever the result is the way to play.   The casino seeks to outlast the player and ride out these small variations, one off large bets don’t allow them chance to do this.   It is the very simple reason why a house has table limits, so they can reduce their risks to individual spins.  The casino would much rather take your cash off you with a 1000 – $2 dollar bets than win it all of you in a single spin.   For the simple reason they are far more likely to win in the long term scenario.

But of course knowing this is not likely to change most peoples behavior in a casino, after all who wants to put one bet one and then leave.   Playing roulette online or off is supposed to be fun but knowing these expectations can make a difference to how people play.    If half way through the evening you find yourself way up, then think to yourself the expectation at the start of the night was that you would lose.  If you carry on playing you are giving that expectation more chance to happen.

How many times have you heard about some huge wins, when a player takes a casino for millions.    These luck streaks happen but the only reason a casino needs to worry is if the winners stop playing, their negative expectation will catch up to them if they carry on.   Of course they might continue their gambling at a different casino – but the players expectation will still be reached.

No you can’t enjoy roulette or most casino games by playing purely with these sort of tactics.  Of course you can minimise the negative expectation against you, the advantage known as the house edge.  In the case of roulette always play on European tables if possible, as they have one less zero than the American ones plus they normally allow En Prison or La Partage rules which further reduce the house advantage.

If you’re playing online then you can take that even further, there is one roulette game which has no advantage – it is completely equal 50-50.
Betfair’s Zero Lounge
…..has no zero on the wheel, and as such they offer by far the best odds of any online game anywhere.   I’m not that fond of the actual roulette interface of this game but there’s no doubt it’s the place to play if maximizing your odds is your goal.   You wonder how they make money, well in fact the Zero lounge has in fact lost money in many of the countries it operates in.  The fact is that players drift away from the Zero lounge eventually and start playing the slots, video poker and all the games were the odds are back in their favor.

The zero lounge is a good place to try and win big money, but it’s not the place to test a system simply because you won’t get that advantage in any other place on or offline.   The Zero lounge also relies on one other fact to push the odds back in their favor – most people are hopeless gamblers !

Roulette Systems That Work

I heard about a new roulette system the other day that my friend had read about in a book, he’s always finding roulette systems. It was yet another one of those, a guaranteed system and all you needed to do was to visit or logon to an online casino. Ah if only life was that simple, just grab a system from a web page and sign up at your local casino then just enjoy the cash. Obviously not quite how it works but the one thing I do say for many roulette systems is that they don’t actually worsen the odds you are playing against, they just don’t do anything. The roulette system in itself is not usually the problem, it’s more the expectation of the player thinking they can’t lose.

Ok so here’s the latest masterpiece to add too all the other roulette systems that I’ve been though on this blog. It hasn’t got a name but how about the James Bond Roulette system although it’s probably not flamboyant enough for 007 tastes.

The Latest of the Roulette Systems That Work (well perhaps not)

This one does sound quite good and just in case you don’t read until the end, then let me make clear it isn’t exactly a dangerous way to play roulette in fact it’s quite likely to make you last as long as any other system would. The system as much as it is, was developed in the USA and therefore uses an American Roulette Wheel as illustrated here -

So here it is, quite a simple system I think you’ll agree -

• You place $100 on an even money bet – let’s say red or black and stick to that bet each time.
• You then put on your other bet – which is a $10 split bet on ’0′ and ’00′ and that’s basically it.

The idea behind this system is quite basic, the casino always wins because it has a slight advantage on all bets. That is represented by the zeros on the wheel – for if you bet red or black there’s always the chance it lands on one of the zeros and the house wins.

So we can see the plan here is to bet against that house advantage, and reclaim that edge by betting on the zeros as well. Sounds like a plan but does this roulette system actually work? Well here’s a summary of the maths behind it, presuming that you bet on black.

• If the ball lands on black (probability=18/38) then you win $90 ($100 win – $10 for the split bet)
• If the ball lands on one of the zeros (probability=2/38) then you win $70($170 win – $100 for the bet on black)
• If the ball lands on red (probability=18/38) you lose the full $110 on both bets.

The final equation is as follows (where E=Expected Outcome)

• E = [18/38x(+90)]+[2/38x(+70)]+[18/38x(-110)]
  which works out as -220/38 or -5.7895
• E per dollar bet =-5.7895/110=-00526

Which means the House Edge against this particular system is 5.26% which is actually exactly the same as the normal house edge of 5.26% that everyone faces without using this system. It’s not a bad way of gambling as long as you don’t presume it gives you some real edge.

It’s just losing in a slightly different way, but there is an important point to made here especially if you use an online roulette system. The odds in roulette are very reasonable compared to most gambling games and therefore you genuinely have a good chance of winning in any particular session with any sensible method of picking numbers. A roulette system cannot be proved to work in one particular session or even many of them – you have to keep playing it to prove it works. The unfortunate fact is that if you play any roulette system over the long term you will definitely lose.