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

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

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.