The Winning Edge Of Roulette Articles | Casino

By: Richard Bleuze

Roulette was a favorite game of the British and French nobles until about 100 years ago.

As most casino gamblers know, there are two types of roulette wheels in today's casinos: the American Wheel which has red and black pockets numbered 1 through 36 and two other green pockets numbered 0 and 00. Then there is the European Wheel or French Wheel with red and black pockets also numbered 1 through 36 and one green pocket labeled 0. Thus, there are 38 pockets in the American Wheel and 37 pockets in the European or French Wheel.

Roulette is the game that helped to create most of the classic betting systems you read about in books and articles on casino gambling. Unfortunately all these betting systems, however clever they seem, ultimately fail to beat the game as no betting system can overcome a negative edge.

The first , is called the Martingale. The Martingale system has a certain compelling logic to it; quite simply, you double up after every bet you lose. This is to be used against the even-money bets of red/black, odd/even, and big/little.

The inherent logic of the system is that you must win one bet. If you do win one bet, you get all the money you wagered back, plus a win on the first amount wagered. Most Martingale players win most of their sequences but when they finally do lose, the loss is devastating because you are betting a lot of money and losing a lot of money.

The next system is called the Labouchere System was named after Henry Labouchere who used the idea of the system from a French mathematician, the Marquis de Cordorcet. It is a cancellation system. If you are betting this sequence 1-2-3-4-5, you wager $6 - the 1 and 5 combined. If you lose that, you add a 6 to the sequence and keep doing this until you ultimately win. Like the Martingale system, you will have a lot of little wins and then that one devastating session where you get blasted and hit the house limit for bets.

The 3rd system is called the d'Alembert system.  This system basically says that if events have an equal likelihood of happening, given enough time, they will happen equally. A coin flip is a 50-50 proposition. Therefore, given enough time, you will get 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails. This is simultaneously true and not true.  Since betting either side of a 50-50 proposition, where the house takes a cut of all your wins, is - a losing proposition.

The final system used by many roulette players is what I call the trend finding system.  This is the most frequently used system by roulette players.  The roulette player look for trend-finding or trend-opposing systems.  For example, they see red come up four times in a row and they figure that black is coming up so they bet black, or they figure red is hot and will continue to come up so they place a bet red. Doesn't really matter what they do; the house always wins in the end!

As you can see, I'm not a fan of roulette since the player usually loses. 

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