Many people are enticed by the game of Roulette and specifically is it possible to win at roulette everytime. We’ll, the answer is no, but here's how you can increases your chance of winning:
 

  • Find a Single Zero (European) Wheel: cuts the house advantage in half
  • Get a Playing Partner: A friend or relative to play with you as a partner
  • Playing Techniques: Ways for players to manipulate the casino comp system 
  • Avoid Playing Systems: the Martingale and d’Almbert systems were designed to get a players dollars 

The objective of beating a casino game is to get more from a casino than he gives the casino. If you lose $1,000 on while playing, but you receive $1,300 in free rooms, food, alcohol and show tickets you have beaten the casino at their own game. You have gotten more from the casino than you have given them. The following steps illustrate just how a player can do that.

FIND A SINGLE ZERO ROULETTE WHEEL

This is an important first step in beating Roulette. The single Zero Roulette reduces the house edge from 5.26% to 2.63%, this gives the player a very good starting position. However, if the player can find it, the rare French Roulette wheel gives the player the best possible starting position with an advantage of 1.35%. The following chart gives the exact percentages for the American, European and rare French Wheel.
 

Bet Name Winning Spaces Payout American Roulette European Roulette French Roulette
0 0 35 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Double Zero Double Zero 35 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Straight Up Any Single # 35 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Row 0, Double Zero 17 to1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Split Any two Adjoining Numbers  17 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Basket 0,1,2 or Double Zero, 2,3 or 0. Double Zero,2 11 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Street Any 3 Horizontal Numbers 11 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Corner Any 4 Adjoining Numbers in a Block 8 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Top Line 0, Double Zero, 1,2,3 6 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Six Line Any Six Numbers From Two Horizontal Lines 5 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
1st Column 1,4,7,10,13,16,19,22,25,28,31,34 2 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
2nd Column 2,5,8,11,14,17,20,23,26,29,32,35 2 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
3rd Column 3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,30,33,36 2 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Odd 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29, 31,33,35 1 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Even 2,4,6,8,10, 12,14,16,18,20, 22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36 1 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Red All Red Numbers 1 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
Black All Black Numbers 1 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
1 to 18 1-18 1 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%
19 to 36 19-36 1 to 1 5.26% 2.70% 1.35%


The next tip is to find a playing partner to go in cahoots with to swindle as many comps as you can from the casino.

PLAYING TECHNIQUES

The playing techniques aspect is where the players gain their edge. Roulette is a game that can be comp hustled under a specific set of circumstances. Roulette hustling relies on deception and misdirection. The first criteria, is that you must find a full table. By full I mean that you have ideally have to wedge yourself in to play.

The best time to play is weekends, holidays, big event days or at the very least a weeknight. Decide how you and your partner will bet, in a offsetting manner. One of you can play red and one can play black. Or one can play 1-19 and the other 20-36, one play even one play odd. The idea is to offset the losses with wins by the other party. Next bet a large amount on your first 3 off setting spins. 50 dollars is great 100 dollars is awesome.


Roulette Betting Board

Here the pit bosses will label you as a high-level player and rate your play as such. Your comp offers will reflect your level of play and you’ll be offered rooms, food and show tickets. After that, reduce your denomination to 25 or 15 dollars and then only one out of every 4 spins. Since roulette is the only game where players can fiddle with their chips constantly, it is easy to pull back your chips prior to the dealer saying “no more bets”.  Place your chips out on the felt constantly moving them around and then pull them back. Since the table is crowed there will be a lot of motion over the felt and no one will notice or care if you pull your chips back. Try to play with the action. If a few players are playing the outside bets with green or black chips place your bets next to theirs using the same chip denominations and pull back after a few seconds. There is multiple people playing and no one in the pit is paying attention so you will get credit for this play.

Every once in a while (1 in 37 times) the ball will land on the single zero. But with the reduced bet frequency the amount that the player will earn in comps between the two players will greatly surpass the amount of the loss. And the player will have beaten the game consistently.

AVOID PLAYING SYSTEMS

Playing systems were designed by casino owners to get their players money and should be avoided always. The Martingale system is far and away the most popular betting strategy known to recreational players. This is not because it is effective. It's because it is such a straight forward and simplistic system to apply.  

Over the years there has been dozens, and possibly hundreds of variations on the Martingale system. All of these variations orbit around the central idea of increasing the bet after a loss. In most cases the system is applied to games of chance that have a near 50-50 win to loss outcome, such as the Roulette black and red bets.

Roulette wheel numbers

The traditional Martingale system simply doubles the next bet after a loss is attained. When a win is achieved the cycle begins anew. For example if the player starts with a 1 dollar bet and losses the first bet, the next bet would be 2 dollars, and if the player loses that bet the next bet would be four dollars. If that bet is won the cycle begins at one dollar again. This approach dictates that the player will win the largest bet of each betting cycle.

The d’Alembert betting system has characteristics similar to the Martingale in that the player increases or decreases their next bet dependent on the outcome of the previous bet. The d’Alembert betting system is popular among players who want to keep the amount of their bets and subsequent losses to a minimum.

 

The betting progression is very simple: After each loss, you add one unit to the next bet, and after each win, one unit is deducted from the next bet. Starting with an initial bet of 5 units a typical betting sequence would like the following:

  • Bet 5 and lose
  • Bet 6 and lose
  • Bet 7 and win
  • Bet 6 and lose
  • Bet 7 and win
  • Bet 6 and win
  • Bet 5 and lose
  • Bet 6 and win

The general point is that these systems do not and will not work. They should be avoided at all cost.

SUMMARY

The idea of comp hustling is to make the casinos think you have lost more money than you actually have. Some additional hints for making the casino think you are a losing player is to “rat-hole“ chips. This means placing chips preferably 25 dollar chips in your pockets as inconspicuously as possible over the course of play. This again gives the illusion that you are losing player. Be sure to be very nonchalant about this, you don’t want noisy croupier who will rat you out to the pit boss. Regardless of what they say, losing players ALWAYS get more stuff. So the more you look like a loser, the better off you are going to be, and that’s how you can win at Roulette everytime.

Nicholas is a 17 year veteran of the casino gaming industry. He is former player manager with the infamous MIT Blackjack teams and is a regular attendee of the Blackjack Ball, a gathering of the world’s top professional gamblers.

He is the Managing Director of the Alea Consulting Group, a leading gaming consultant company with a focus on gaming economics and, is a frequent contributor to world class business publications like Forbes and Entrepreneur magazines’ and over 15 gaming trade publications. He is also the founder of Casino Exploits a player centric casino gaming site.