Roulette in some form has been around since the 17th century and has become an entertaining casino staple across many parts of the world. The game can be played by players of all levels due to its relatively simple nature and shorter learning curve than many other casino games.
The idea of the game is seriously simple: guess where the ball will land on the wheel once it stops spinning. However, the simplicity of the game doesn’t make it easy to win consistently due to the various bets that can be placed and the house edge that is built into all casino games.
As a result, smart players will look for systems and strategies to use on the roulette table to enhance their odds of walking away with some winnings. This article will outline some of the most commonly used strategies for winning at roulette.
The strategies below can be used in physical or online casinos. The benefit of playing online is many sites now let you try online roulette for free, which means you can practice your strategy before playing for real money.
Famous roulette systems and strategies
Before getting into these strategies, it should be noted that roulette is heavily based on luck and chance. This means there can never be a strategy that is guaranteed to win despite what some people may want you to believe.
The strategies outlined below are there to give you a structured way of playing the game that can increase your chances of winning and limit your losses.
The martingale system
Anybody who heads online to find a system for roulette and many other games will likely have come across the Martingale system before.
The system isn’t strictly a roulette strategy, it is a betting strategy that can be used for several gambling activities. Fortunately, it is very easy to employ so it is worth trying out although it does come with some drawbacks, which will be explained.
The system works as follows: every time you lose a bet, you repeat that same bet but with double your stake with the idea being that you will eventually win.
The Martingale is best used on even money bets such as black or red. Using the system on single number bets means you’re likely to be waiting much, much longer for the eventual win.
The major downside to this system is there is a chance you’ll go on a losing streak that exceeds the table’s wager limit.
Depending on your starting bet, this could only take a losing streak of 6 or 7 for this to happen. Here’s how it could pan out:
- Initial wager of $20 is lost
- Next bet of $40 is lost
- Next bet of $80 is lost
- Next bet of $160 is lost
- Next bet of $320 is lost
- Next bet of $640 is lost
The following bet here would have to be $1280, which won’t be possible at many tables since a $1000 limit is common. As you can see, a losing streak of just 6 has put you out of the game and $640 down.
Even when you do eventually win, your winnings are very small compared to the amount of money wagered during longer losing streaks.
The James Bond strategy
The James bond strategy comes straight out of Ian Fleming’s classic novel series and is another simple to follow system since you only need to remember 3 bets that are to be placed for each spin.
Systems like this one are very good for players who need more structure in their gameplay instead of placing random bets on the fly, which can lead to poor, emotion-driven decisions.
For the James Bond strategy to work, a total amount of $200 per spin should be wagered. Of course, you can use multiples of 200 if you wish to increase or decrease the amount of cash you wish to bet but we’ll stick to $200 for this example.
Here are the 3 bets you need to place:
- $50 on the 13-18 box, which would yield a $100 profit
- $140 on the 19-36 box, which would yield an $80 profit
- $10 on the 0 for insurance, which would yield a $160 profit
Using this system, you’ll lose if the ball ends up landing on a number between 1 and 12 so there is some risk tied so you need to decide if you are comfortable with this risk-reward ratio.
The Fibonacci roulette strategy
This strategy is another popular one for roulette and is seen as one of the safer systems around.
As the name suggests, the whole system is based around the Fibonacci sequence, which is a famous sequence of numbers where each number in the sequence is the sum of the previous 2 numbers. So, it looks like this: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 2, 34…. And so on.
To use the system, you should only bet on even-number bets such as red or black, odd or even etc. You will begin at the minimum bet for the table and increase your bet to follow along with the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence. When you win, you go back 2 numbers in the sequence and continue betting from there.
Here’s an example of how it might play out:
- $1 bet is lost
- $1 bet is lost
- $2 bet is lost
- $3 bet is lost
- $5 bet is won
- $2 bet is the next to be placed and the sequence resumes from here.
The advantage of the system is that losses are recovered very quickly. The key disadvantage is similar to the Martingale system where long losing streaks can lead to big losses.
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