Roulette

Roulette is a casino and gambling game named after the French word meaning "small wheel". In the game a croupier spins a wheel in one direction, then spins a ball in the opposite direction around a tilted circular surface running around the circumference of the wheel. The ball eventually falls on to the wheel and into one of 37 (in European Roulette) or 38 (in American Roulette) colored and numbered pockets on the wheel.

Roulette History

The first form of roulette was devised in 17th century France, by the mathematician Blaise Pascal, who was supposedly inspired by his fascination with perpetual motion devices. The game has been played in its current form since as early as 1796 in Paris. [1] In 1842, fellow Frenchmen François and Louis Blanc added the "0" to the roulette wheel in order to achieve a house advantage. In the early 1800s, roulette was brought into the U.S. where, to further increase house odds, a second zero, "00", was introduced. (In some forms of early American roulette the double-zero was replaced by an American Eagle.) In the 1800s, roulette spread all over both Europe and the U.S., becoming one of the most famous and most popular casino games. Some call roulette the "King of Casino Games", probably because it was associated with the glamour of the casinos in Monte Carlo. (François Blanc actually established the first casinos there.)

Roulette Betting strategies and tactics

Albert Einstein is reputed to have stated, "You cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it."

Nevertheless, the numerous even-money bets in roulette have inspired many players over the years to attempt to beat the game by using one or more variations of a Martingale betting strategy, wherein the gamer doubles the bet after every loss, so that the first win would recover all previous losses, plus win a profit equal to the original bet. As the referenced article on Martingales points out, this betting strategy is fundamentally flawed in practice and the inevitable long-term consequence is a large financial loss. Another strategy is the Fibonacci system, where bets are calculated according to the Fibonacci sequence. Regardless of the specific progression, no such strategy can statistically overcome the casino's advantage.

While not a strategy to win money, Los Angeles Times editor Andres Martinez described an enjoyable roulette betting method in his book on Las Vegas entitled "24/7". He called it the "dopey experiment". The idea is to divide one's roulette session bankroll into 35 units. This unit is bet on a particular number for 35 consecutive spins. Thus, if the number hits in that time, the gambler wins back the original bankroll and can play subsequent spins with house money. However, there is only a (1 - (37 / 38)35) * 100% = 60.68% probability of winning within 35 spins (assuming a double zero wheel with 38 pockets).

There is a common misconception that the green numbers are "house numbers" and that by betting on them one "gains the house edge." In fact, it is true that the house's advantage comes from the existence of the green numbers (a game without them would be statistically fair); however, they are no more or less likely to come up than any other number.

Various attempts have been made by engineers to overcome the house edge through predicting the mechanical performance of the wheel, most notably by Joseph Jagger, the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo in 1873. These schemes work by determining that the ball is more likely to fall at certain numbers. Claude Shannon, a mathematician and computer scientist best known for his contributions to information theory, built arguably the first wearable computer to do so in 1961. [2]

To try to prevent exploits like this, the casinos monitor the performance of their wheels, and rebalance and realign them regularly to try to keep the result of the spins as random as possible.

More recently Thomas Bass, in his book The Newtonian Casino 1991, has claimed to be able to predict wheel performance in real time. He is also the author of The Eudaemonic Pie, which describes the exploits of a group of computer hackers, who called themselves the Eudaemons, who in the late 1970s used computers in their shoes to win at roulette by predicting where the ball would fall.

In the early 1990s, Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo used a computer to model the tendencies of the roulette wheels at the Casino de Madrid in Madrid, Spain. Betting the most likely numbers, along with members of his family, he was able to win over one million dollars over a period of several years. A court ruled in his favor when the legality of his strategy was challenged by the casino.

In 2004, it was reported that a group in London had used mobile cameraphones to predict the path of the ball, a cheating technique called sector targeting. [3] In December 2004 court adjudged that they didn't cheat because their special laser cameraphone and microchip weren't influencing the ball - they kept all £1.3m. [4]

Betting only on red

One conceivable strategy would be to bet on the ball landing in a red space for a certain number of spins, for example, 38.

There are 18 red spaces on a roulette table with 38 total spaces. Dividing 18 by 38 yields a probability of landing on red of 47.37%. This probability can be used in a binomial distribution and made into an approximate standard normal distribution.

Doing so indicates that, if one were to spin the wheel 38 times, there is a 99% probability that the ball would land on red at least 10 times. There is an 83% probability that in 38 spins, the ball will land on red at least 15 times. Out of 38 spins, there's a 50% chance that 18 will be red.

However, the break-even point is 19 spins, since the bet on red is 1:1, and the probability of 19 red spins in 38 is only 37%. This indicates the difficulty of winning by only betting on red.

The results occur because, as indicated by the 18 divided by 38 equals 47.37% figure, the ball will land on red less than half the time. This percentage applied in the binomial and standard normal distributions creates the vast divide in probability from 18 red spins to 19 red spins out of 38 spins. Basically, it is very unlikely for anyone to spin much more than 18 red spins out of 38 spins.

Betting multiple times

This type of bet is a combination of the red bet and the martingale system. The difference is that this bet also includes the odd. This strategy starts off with a bet of 1 on each the red and the odd (or you can do the black and even). Each bet is treated separately. When one bet loses, it is doubled. When one bet wins, it gets set it back to 1. The reason that this technique keeps the player in the game so long is that there is almost a 25% chance of winning both the red and the odd and there is almost a 50% chance of breaking even (win one bet and lose the other). Of course, in order for this method to last, the player would need an unlimited source of money, and a casino with another one to boot. In reality, this method backfires when the player can't bet any longer and loses. The loss that this causes is possibly hundreds of times bigger than a loss made when starting. Also, in the long run, because the house still has an edge, the player will lose money just like with all other "unbeatable" casino games.

Using the dozen bet

There are two versions to this system, single dozen bets and double dozen bets. In the single dozen bet version, the player uses a progressively incrementing stake list starting from the casino table minimum, to the table maximum. The aim here is to use a single dozen bet to win before the stake list ends. Many techniques are employed such as: betting on the same dozen to appear after two consecutive appearances, betting on the dozen that has appeared most in the last 15, 9, or 5 spins, betting on the dozen that, after a long absence of 7 or more spins, appears for the first time. The double dozen bet version uses two dozen bets and half the stake list size of the single dozen bet version.

1st and 3rd column strategy

One bet of 2 pieces on the 1st column and one bet of 2 pieces on the 3rd column covers most of the red numbers on the table. One bet of 2 pieces on the black will provide insurance for occurance of black. This betting system covers all numbers except for the 4 red numbers in the middle column and the zero. If the result is a red number in either the 1st or 3rd column, the player only breaks even. If the result is red in the middle column the player loses 6 pieces. If the result is black and in the middle column, the player loses 2 pieces. If the result is a black in the 1st or 3rd column, the player wins 4 pieces.