Roulette Strategies – Tried and Tested Systems to Help You Lower the House Edge

Strategy Ratings

At its heart, roulette is a game that relies greatly on chance. But more than four centuries after the first version of the game was created by French scholar Blaise Pascal, several strategies have been formulated to give the player an edge over the house. A number of successful players in the past have attributed their success to using some of these strategies to land their big wins. And while some of these strategies are legal to use, others aren’t. At Roulette 77, we’ve tried and tested several of them on various games and the following list shows them in order of effectiveness:

#

Top strategies

1

Martingale

2

Paroli (reverse Martingale)

3

d'Alembert

4

Labouchere

5

Fibonacci

6

James Bond

7

Biased Wheels

Martingale strategy

The working principle of the Martingale betting strategy is simple and straightforward. During your roulette game, place your bet, select your preferred option, and wait for the spin of the wheel. If you lose the bet, the Martingale betting strategy dictates that you double the next one. If you lose again, you are required to double the bet again. You continue in this way until you win your bet.

The win that you achieve after placing several bets will match the original bet that you placed. Furthermore, with the win, you will have recovered all your losses. After landing the win, you can start all over again.

A good example of the Martingale strategy in action is as follows:

1. You wager £1 on your first bet – result, lose
2. According to Martingale, you need to bet £2 on your second bet – result, lose
3. You are required to double your bet and see if you can win, so you wager £4 – result lose
4. On the fourth bet, you are required to double the third bet, so you wager £8 – result win

When you do your calculations, you realize that in winning the £8 bet, you have emerged with a £1 profit, i.e., £8 – (£1 + £2 + £4) = £1

The Martingale betting strategy is very effective, and perfect for players who have a loss limit of about 8-10 bets. Furthermore, it’s worth mentioning that it’s very effective with even-money bets, i.e., colour bets, odd/even bets, and group-of-numbers bets. In addition to wagering on even-money bets, you need to ensure that you stay on the same bet for every wager you make, in order to successfully make a profit, i.e., if you wager on red, all the subsequent bets also need to be on red.

Reverse Martingale Strategy

Most players who have used any roulette strategies see the Reverse Martingale betting strategy as a better version of the Martingale, offering less risk. While the original Martingale strategy dictates that you double your bet with every loss incurred, until you’ve landed your win, the Reverse Martingale dictates that you only double your bet when you’ve achieved a win. The main objective of this is to secure a three-win streak. If your bet is lost, the three-bet progression is lost, while achieving a win represents the beginning of a potential streak.

Also referred to as the Paroli betting strategy, the Reverse Martingale offers you a few advantages. For instance, you don’t spend as much cash on this roulette strategy, as you are most likely going to bet the minimum. Furthermore, when you double your bet, you’ll be using the casino’s cash to your advantage. And if you are lucky enough to land successive wins, you will see your profits quickly soar.

D'Alembert Strategy

French scholars had a thing for playing roulette games, perhaps because the game had its roots in the country. Besides Blaise Pascal, there’s also a renowned French mathematician, Jean Le-Rond D’Alembert, who rose to fame in the 18th century. He is known for studying and deriving several mathematical formulas from Newton’s theories.

However, in the gambling field, we remember him best for developing the D’Alembert roulette system. This is a simple and straightforward strategy that requires you to follow only one rule: up your bet by one unit after a loss, and lower it by one unit after a win. Easy as that!

Below is a quick example of how the D’Alembert system works:

1. You bet £20 – result, lose
2. Next bet, you are required to bet £21 – result, lose
3. Next bet, you are required to bet £22 – result, win
4. Next bet, you are required to bet £21 – result win

In our case example, you have wagered four bets, in the process winning two and losing two. If you add up the stakes involved, you’ll find that you have a profit of £2. And this is how the D’Alembert betting system works. Once you equal the number of wins and losses, you’ll be in profit by this same amount.

This is a great strategy for any player looking to increase the probability of a rewarding session, as well as offering them the ability to adjust the risk themselves by decreasing or increasing the numbers in the sequence.

Labouchère Strategy

The Labouchère betting system goes by several names online. Some people refer to it as the cancelation system, while others call it the Split Martingale system. Irrespective of what you prefer to call it, one fact remains clear: the Labouchère betting system is best used with even-money bets. These include bets placed on black or red, even or odd, as well as the group bets, 1-18 and 19-36.

So, how exactly does it work? Below is a quick breakdown:

1. You determine your starting bankroll.
2. You write down a sequence of numbers that adds up to the amount you intend to win.
3. Wager according to bets that are equivalent to the first and last number in your sequence.
4. In case of win cross out first and last numbers
5. In case of lose add the amount of the bet to the right and left end of sequence
6. The whole procedure is repeated for wins or losses, until you’ve canceled out all the numbers in the sequence. by betting of sum of first and last number

The Fibonacci Strategy

Named after a renowned Italian mathematician, the Fibonacci system has several real-life use scenarios. However, the reason we are focusing on it today is its application to roulette gaming. Before we can go deeply into the mechanics, let’s look at the Fibonacci formula:

N3 = N1+N2

When we apply the formula, we come up with a sequence of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…, and so on. When you start with 0 and 1, you get the next number in the sequence by adding the previous two numbers. This goes on until you have a complete sequence that fits your requirements.

The following is a good example of the Fibonacci system in action:

1. You choose a sequence of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…
2. Therefore, your first bet will be £1
3. The next bet will be £ (0+1) = £1 – result, lose
4. According to the Fibonacci betting method, your next bet will be £ (1+2) = £3 – result, lose
5. The next wager will be £ (2+3) = £5 – result, lose
6. The next wager will be £ (3+5) = £8 – result, lose
7. The next wager will be £ (5+8) = £13 – result, win
8. The Fibonacci system dictates that you now move back two steps, so the next bet will be £5. From here, you continue with the sequence.
9. If your £5 bet wins, the next bet will be two steps back, to £1

All in all, using the Fibonacci betting system requires you to have patience and a huge bankroll that will cushion you against any potential losses, something that’s typical of any negative progression system. Discipline and patience are the virtues that you need here, as you are most likely going to amass some losses before landing the first important big win.

James Bond Strategy

The James Bond roulette strategy can only be described at best as risk-cutting. It’s a tactic that involves spreading all your bets around the table. Most people at casinos use it as a flat betting system. When you choose to use this system, you need to bet the same amount of money in every round, trusting and hoping that the odds alone will pay off. There are several variations of the James Bond strategy but the most popular one, assuming you are wagering £20 for each round is:

Take note that none of the listed bets overlap and any wins that you land will automatically result in a profit. As a matter of fact, you’ll only lose your bet when a number in the last third of the roulette board shows up. This means that you have a 2/3 chance of winning on every round. The only big disadvantage of using the James Bond strategy is that when it loses, it loses big.

Biased Wheel Strategy

The Biased Wheel roulette betting technique works best when betting on a real mechanical wheel, especially on those that have become old and have developed physical imperfections. This makes it the best strategy to use when playing live dealer roulette at online casinos.

So how does it work? Simple, you have to identify a specific number or group of numbers on the wheel and track them over a number of spins. If you are observant enough, you’ll soon realize that there’s a pattern forming, over say, 50 or 100 spins.

The same number doesn’t always have to come up. Instead, a set of adjacent numbers in a particular section of the roulette wheel may start to dominate the results. This indicates a bias in the wheel.

Conclusion

You are now familiar with the basics of roulette and the odds involved. And perhaps, for the first time, you have all the strategies that you require to lower the house edge. Do you feel lucky enough to take on the casino now? It’s not an easy task but you can give it a try at a recommended online casino, and see how lucky you are!