The game of roulette is one of the most ancient and beloved casino games ever. Even though roulette is a chance game, there are some strategies that you can implement to improve your chances of winning. In this article, we will go over these strategies to make you understand the game better and to make sure that you approach it with the right set of skills.
The Martingale Strategy
The first strategy worth mentioning is the Martingale strategy, which is a popular betting system that involves doubling your wager after every loss. The strategic side of this game modality is to eventually recover your losses with a win. It is a very on-the-point strategy, and it requires some crucial elements, such as a substantial bankroll, which can even lead to significant losses if the so anticipated winning streak does not occur.
The Reverse Martingale Strategy
Many people think that winning at roulette is almost impossible, if not only dependent on luck, but there have been winning cases that proved the opposite. There are many strategies to implement to enhance your chances of winning, and one of these strategies is the Reverse Martingale Strategy. As the name suggests, this strategy is the opposite of the Martingale strategy, and it works as follows. You increase your bet after each win, and instead of increasing it again after each loss, you actually decrease it.
The goal here is to capitalize on winning streaks and minimize losses during losing streaks. Perhaps some people would like this strategy better, as it is way less risky than the Martingale, but it is important to know that you must still set limits and manage your bankroll in the most effective of ways.
The D’Alembert Strategy
Goes without saying that nowadays, you can try all these strategies online, also thanks to the many new Paypal casino option available on the net. The D’Alembert strategy is often considered as a more conservative approach, which involves the strategic action of increasing your bet by one unit at a time after a loss and decreasing it by one unit after every win.
The point behind this strategy is to balance wins and losses over time in order to minimize the impact of eventual losing streaks and, by doing so, manage some losses, even though this specific strategy does not guarantee consistent winnings. It is still a great strategy to implement if what you want is to do some damage control on your losses.
The Fibonacci Strategy
Many people know the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical sequence where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. When using this strategy, you increase your bet to the next number in the known Fibonacci sequence after a loss and decrease it by two numbers after a win! This strategy has the aim to help you recover your losses gradually and can be much less aggressive than other strategies, as it also implements an already existing mathematical sequence.
A Spanish record producer who was also passionate about mathematics and roulette, Gonazol Garcia-Pelayo was a pioneer of the music industry. According to him, roulette wheels at casinos in the 20th century were not entirely random. It was his belief that certain numbers were more favoured over others within the same stroke.
Over the course of many hours, he watched the roulette wheels at Spanish casinos and took note of the results of thousands of spins. In the course of gathering this data, he included his children at some point. A preferred number was determined by analyzing the results. He would then place bets and cash out instantly after figuring out which machines had biases and clearing out the table’s finances. His next stop would be the next location.
Six nights a week, the family visited Casino Gran Madrid because they became so successful. Rather than being associated with each other, each team member was assigned to a different biased wheel.
After only two months of playing, they had amassed a bankroll of over $100,000. They capitalised on their strategy by placing larger wagers.
Despite the good streaks, there were also bad nights, including one where they lost $80,000. However, huge wins more than offset these losses.
Gonzalo recalls how easy it was to lose a night. Losing two nights was easy. Losing three nights [in a row] is almost impossible.”
Los Pelayos won consistently, earning thousands of dollars on a weekly basis. In spite of their success and the absence of dealer tips (Gonzalo’s rule to maintain profits), the casino began to notice them.
The Spanish casinos became aware of his methods after some time, and he was excommunicated. Thus, he pitched his tent in Las Vegas, accumulating large winnings. As he became more and more famous, he was forced to stop, but not before gaining his fortune. Gonazol netted over $1.5 million in “pure” profits (after factoring in travel and hotel expenses).
‘All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast’, or so wrote American journalist and author John Gunther. Whether or not Johanna Heundl subscribed to that philosophy as she headed for her morning meal at Bally’s Las Vegas in May, 2002, is something we may never know, but happiness, at least financial happiness, was just moments away. The 74-year-old Austrian immigrant, who was, coincidentally, celebrating her birthday, paused briefly for what she described as ‘a quick pull on the machines’. She deposited just $3 into the ‘Megabucks’ progressive jackpot slot machine, hoping to win one of the smaller progressive prizes, worth $3,000.
She reportedly looked away and, when she looked back again, saw three ‘Megabucks’ symbols which, she believed, gave her a jackpot prize of $22,000. She was mistaken; in actual fact, she had defied odds estimated at 50,000,000/1 to land a jackpot prize of $22,621,229.74, which was, at the time the third largest slot machine payout in the history of Sin City. Hitherto, her windfall had been exceeded only by a $34.9 million payout at the Desert Inn in 2000 and a $27.5 million payout at Palace Station two years previously.
Ms. Heundl was obviously delighted, saying, ‘I’m very happy it happened to me and I’m very grateful to everybody. I want to thank everybody; everybody’s very nice.’ She opted to take her winnings as a one-off lump sum, but confessed that she was unsure what she would do with the money. She said, ‘I just bought a new car. It’s not even delivered yet,’ adding, ‘I have a house. I could remodel, or maybe buy a new house. I will go to Europe to see my family’.
The emergence of live dealer roulette games in recent times has greatly increased the diversity of this classic table game. What do you know about the different versions you can now play and how they add to the basic gameplay?
Random Multipliers Offer Potentially Bigger Prizes
The traditional roulette payouts are well-established, with the highest being 35 to 1 for a straight-up bet on a single number. This is part of a mathematical model that’s been cleverly worked out to give players the chance of big wins while maintaining enough of a house edge to make it profitable for casinos no matter what numbers players bet on.
When you play online roulette at Paddy Power you’ll see games such as Lighting Roulette and Quantum Roulette, where random multipliers are applied to increase the chance of a bigger win on a straight-up bet. These games sit alongside numerous other versions that have tweaks to the basic gameplay, but the use of multipliers and a great studio design helps them catch the eye.
Themed Games with Bonus Rounds
Themed games of roulette give the developers a chance to make the studio look just right, and in some cases the human dealers wear outfits that fit the theme too. This is something that can add to the gameplay, as bonus rounds give us the chance to delve deeper into the game, TV show, or whatever else inspired the game.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Live Roulette is a good example, as it incorporates a bonus round as well as various other elements from the globally successful quiz show. Age of the Gods Live Roulette also has a bound round as well as being part of the progressive jackpot pool that all Age of the Gods games take part in.
Spread Bet Versions Add a Second Wheel
Spread betting has come to roulette, with several developers creating their own live versions of this roulette variant. It’s not exactly the same as spread betting in financial markets, as explained here by the IG site, as you have two wheels that spin in different directions. You can either carry out a traditional roulette bet or else choose the spread bet option.
If you want to place a spread bet, you need to pick a range of numbers, such as 0-1 or 2-11. This range covers the total amount of the numbers on both wheels added together, while the biggest win on a spread bet is typically a lot higher than on a straight-up bet. For example, the 0-1 range is the least likely to come up, and it pays at 400 to 1 in some cases.
With more people playing online games, we can expect to see the top developers continue the different ways of making roulette appealing to every type of player. There will always be room for the classic gameplay that’s survived centuries in the world’s casinos according to the history listed by Britannica, but we should start to see more use of features such as bonus rounds and multipliers to keep the genre fresh.