Strategies for Playing Roulette
When playing roulette, you must remember that it is a game of chance. It is impossible to find a technique or strategy that can guarantee you a win every time. However, there are ways to minimize the risk and achieve short-term success when playing roulette.
The Martingale Strategy
The Martingale strategy helps reduce your losses when playing roulette. Here is how it works. Whenever you lose a bet, you increase the amount for the next bet to twice what you bet the first time. So if you bet $1 on evens and lost, leave your bet on evens and double it to $2. That way, when you finally win, you will win enough to cover the previous losing bets. Keep doubling your bet every time you lose. Once you win, go back to your minimum bet.
The drawback to this strategy is that it can take a lot of money to cover a losing streak. If you start with a $1 bet and keep losing, the seventh bet will be $64. For a $5 starting bet, the seventh bet would be $320. This strategy is based on the theory that you are sure to win sooner or later. However, it may be that you will run out of money before that happens. Also, if the table that you are playing at has an upper limit, this betting strategy will not be useful. At some point, you will reach the limit for the table and will not be able to continue doubling your bets.
Comprehensive Roulette Strategy
This strategy requires you to watch the wheel for a period of time before playing so that you can determine whether there are any patterns in how the wheel is behaving. Take a piece of paper and keep a tally of how many numbers hit in each dozen (low, medium and high). Keep doing this until there have been five spins without a certain third coming up. Don’t count any zero spins.
Start betting with the minimum bid on the category that hasn’t come up. Increase your bet each time until you win, then go back and keep track of the spins again until another pattern emerges.
More Information
Since roulette is random, you have no effect on what numbers will come up. Whether you win or lose is up to chance. There are also rules in most casino games that give the casino an advantage over the players. Here are some rules that you should be aware of. Rules vary from one casino to the next, so be sure to check before you play.
Surrender – In roulette, the surrender rule gives you a lower risk on the outside bets. If the casino has a surrender rule, you only lose half of your bet if the ball lands on zero or double zero. This rule reduces the house edge by quite a bit, so if you can find a casino that offers this rule, it will increase your odds quite a bit.
European Tables – Look for European roulette tables. These tables only have one zero space instead of two. In the United States, they are usually only found in the high roller areas of the casino. The house edge is much lower on these wheels than on the American roulette wheels.
En Prison – This rule is applied to the even-money bets only, and only goes into effect if the wheel lands on zero. With this rule, the bet stays on the board if the wheels lands on zero, and the results of the next spin determine what will happen to the bet. If the next spin wins, then the player receives the bet back but does not earn any winnings. If the spin loses, the bet is lost. If the wheel lands on zero again, then it depends on the rules of the casino. You could either lose your bet, or it could remain en prison.
Warnings
Never change your strategy in the middle of the game. You should always pick a strategy and then stick to it. Otherwise you will be betting randomly. If you keep moving your bets around, you are likely to miss when your numbers finally come up, because you will have moved on to another bet.
You should also avoid spending too much time on any one table. Thirty minutes is about the most time you should play a table before moving on. It is a good idea to take a break before going to another table in order to keep yourself fresh so that you are able to keep up with your system without making mistakes.


