The Beginner’s Guide To Roulette

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Roulette: Playing on the Wheel of Fortune

American Roulette Table

Back in the Elizabethan period, when Queen Elizabeth I ruled over England (1558–1603) and when Shakespeare was giving birth to some of the nation’s greatest literary works (many of which we persistently force high-schoolers to study and decode with much pain and suffering), there was a prominent, widely-recognisable metaphor amongst the general population that was used to make sense of the many inconsistencies of life: the wheel of fortune. It was an icon used to account for the constant inconstancies of Fortune – from losses to gains, from highs to lows, from eminence to obscurity and so on. In essence, the wheel of fortune was one way of understanding the precarious nature of human happiness.

Probably the most modern and concrete equivalent of the wheel of fortune lies in the mechanics of the roulette table. The word roulette itself derives from the French diminutive for “little wheel” and, as in real life, testifies to the role of chance in staking one’s efforts in the “great gamble”. A player can bet high value/ high risk and potentially win or lose enormously, or he could hedge his bets and opt for a smaller payout on a win (but absorbing less risk himself).

European Roulette Table

Fortune, good-night: smile

once more; turn thy wheel!

Shakespeare often employed

the metaphor of the wheel of

fortune in his poetry and plays.

In King Lear, widely regarded as

one of his most poignant

tragedies, it was a way of un-

derstanding how a man once

revered as a king could become

a mad fool talking to the wind

bereft of his fortune and his

family.

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Roulette: Playing on the Wheel of Fortune

Compared to modestly strategic games like blackjack or poker, there is little to no skill in a game of roulette. A player makes choices based on risk. He could wager his chip straight-up (which means betting on a single number) and receive a payout 35 times the original bet if played successfully. Or he could choose to spread his risk and con-cede a lower reward by setting his chips on a corner, which cov-ers four squares but pays out at just eight times the original bet.

At its core, roulette will appeal to the casino patron who likes table games, but who is reluctant to have to use complex strat-egies and betting systems to try and eke out every fraction of a percentage from the house’s already sizeable advantage.

As with all casinos games, you’re at an enormous disadvantage if you don’t fully grasp the basics of roulette first. Luckily for you, roulette is one of the very easiest to understand. This guide will cover the major elements of roulette play, a brief history of the game, the different bet versus payout ratios, and some of the accepted, albeit controversial, “strategies” out there for the player keen to get the most out of his roulette experience.

Roulette is a glamorous game, and though it has a rela-tively small player following compared to blackjack, it re-mains a mainstay of all the major casinos worldwide.

Wheel of Fortune

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The modern iteration of roulette was first played in France in the 18th century. Many also believe that the game as it’s played today includes a fairly loose fusion of Roly-Poly, Reiner, EQ and Ace of Hearts (all English wheel games) and the Italian games Hoca and Biribi. Still earlier than that, Blaise Pascal is said to have introduced a more primitive form of the game a century earlier in his search for a perpetual motion machine. This early form is supposed to have been used in various monasteries for relieving bore-dom. Let’s just hope they didn’t gamble away the tithes and holy offerings!

In 1842/3, two Frenchmen, Francois and Louis Blanc introduced a roulette wheel with a single zero instead of a double at the casino they erected in Monte Carlo. This was meant to encourage greater casino patronage as the removal of the double zero slightly leveled the player’s odds against the house. In some early American forms of the game, the roulette table also featured an American eagle as an icon of American liberty and values. This tradition eventually fell away.

During the 19th century, roulette spread throughout the major metropoli-tan centres, becoming one of the most popular table games in Europe and the USA. The Blanc’s single-zero wheel gained in popularity and became standard for almost all variations of the game except America where, despite the Eagle’s disappearance, the double zero remained in force.

A brief history

Blaise Pascal

Louis Blanc

Introduction of the single zero

Roulette Gains Popularity

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By adding all the numbers of the squares at a roulette table (1 to 36), one arrives at a total of 666, a number variously con-sidered to have prophetic and apocalyptic connections in Chris-tian end-times theology. People who made these kinds of con-nections insisted that Francois Blanc had bargained his soul to the devil and damned himself in order to obtain the secrets of roulette. It’s not clear how and why this association was made – whether by a group of sore losers who had lost their money in Blanc’s Monte Carlo estab-lishment or just suspicious theocrats who saw a devil in every dark corner.

Certainly, roulette can feel like a damning abomination if things go south. In 2004, a man named Ashley Revell from London decided to stake his entire life savings on a single spin of the roulette wheel. It was a heavily publicized event that attracted enormous media and pub-lic attention. Revell placed his entire net worth of US$135 300 on red at the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas. A casino pit boss gave a brief cor-porate relations speech about how the casino would never con-sent to irresponsible gambling (we’re not entirely convinced), but that they knew this had been an “adventure” for Revell.

As the croupier spun the wheel and flicked the ivory or plastic resin ball into the gyrating turn-table, the crowd, like Revell, could only watch helplessly and wait. Some of the audience began crying at the prospect of what a lost round could mean for this public gambler. Fortunately for Revell, fortune was in his favor that day, and he received his 2:1 payout, walking away with $270 600 (which included his original bet). But many gamblers haven’t been so lucky, and Revell could just as likely have suffered an embarrassing loss and a difficult financial (and very public!) predicament.

Francois Blanc

Map of Monte Carlo

Diabolical machinations and the bestial number

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In the first half of the 20th century, the casino centres of the world lay in Monte Carlo and Las Vegas. Monte Carlo upheld the French tradition of a single-zero wheel; Americans preferred the double zero, believing that the European house edge was too low on the roulette table (you have to love raw capitalism). In America today, only a few casinos still offer Euro-pean tables and there is usually some kind of caveat attached to play, like a fairly high minimum wager. It goes without saying that playing roulette in Europe improves a player’s odds significantly. If you want hard statistics, we can tell you that at the American tables the house enjoys a 5.26% advantage on all bets except the double zero, where it enjoys a whopping 7.89% edge! That’s sizeable. Not quite as high as the slot machines, but far higher than most blackjack games. On the European tables, however, the house has a 2.7% edge –still significant, yes, but far less disadvantageous to the player.

As is probably quite clear by now, roulette makes players choose to place bets on either a single number or a range of numbers, on one of two colors, or on whether a spin will result in an odd or even value. The more specific the bet, the less the probability of a win, and therefore the higher the payout.

Almost all roulette tables will impose minimum and maximum bets. Dealers will also ensure that each player has chips of differ-ent colors for easy identification. Players may keep placing chips down on the table until the dealer calls rien ne va plus or no more bets . If bets are made after this announcement, a dealer is well within his rights to bar the bet and remove the late-wager chips.

Once a winning number and color have been determined, a dealer will place a marker, also called a dolly, on the winning number. While the dolly is still on the table, players may neither touch their chips nor make any ad-ditional bets. In a swift motion, the dealer will remove all the unsuccess-ful bets from the table and determine payouts for the winning wagers.

Roulette Croupier

Modern development

General rules of play

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Inside payouts have variable payouts based on the nature of the bet being made.

This is a bet on an individual number (including 0 and 00). The pay-out on a successful play is 35:1. It sounds like a big payout (and it is), but remember that the odds of hitting a straight up are 37:1.

This is a bet on two adjoining numbers, either vertically or hori-zontally connected. The payout on a successful wager is 17:1.

This is three-number wager on a single horizontal line, paying 11:1.

When betting on a corner, a player makes a wager on four numbers simultaneously. The chip is placed where the ver-tical and horizontal lines meet. A corner win pays 8:1.

Payouts

Inside bets

Single number/straight up

Split

Street

Corner

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This is a bet on two adjoining streets. A chip is placed on the line separating the outside from the inside, strad-dling the horizontal line between two rows. The payout is 5:1.

In contrast to inside bets, all outside wagers share the same pay-out of 2:1. The reasoning is that outside bets are categorically less of a risk than their inside counterparts. As a result, their pay-out is reduced enormously compared to a single number win.

A bet on the intersection between 0, 1, and 2; or 0, 2 and 3 in a single-zero layout.

The roulette table gives you 18 numbers in red and another 18 in black. Betting on a specific color gives you slightly under a 50% chance of winning (remember: the zero is neither red nor black). The payout is 2:1 or even money.

Like a color-based bet, the payout on an odd or even number is even money.

Double street

Trio

Outside bets

Red or black

Odd or even

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Again, like red/black and odd/even, a wager on what is near-ly half the board’s betting values will pay even money at 2:1.

A wager on the first, second or third dozen numbers. This pays 2:1.

Also paying 2:1, a column wager is a bet on one of the three columns of numbers.

Every single game at any casino looking to stay in business will have a built-in house edge. It’s one of the few certainties in life (like death and taxes). Casinos exist to make money, and they stay in busi-ness precisely because they make money. While you have a fight-ing chance (albeit not a fair one) of making some money yourself, you need to know that the odds will always be stacked against you.

As has been mentioned already, American roulette generally operates on a 5.26% house edge, whereas European roulette has 2.7%. Where does the house derive its advantage? In two ways: the green square(s) that are reserved for the zero(es), and the payout versus odds ratio.

1 through 18 and 19 through 36

Dozen bets

Columns

A word on the house edge

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In American roulette, for instance, the zero and double-zero are immune to color bets. And remember that while mathemati-cally you have 1:37 chance of winning on a single number, the payout stands at 1:35. Imagine placing a single $1 chip on each num-bered square. That would cost you $37. After that the wheel has selected the winning number, however, the casino pays you just $35.

Legally, there’s an important distinction between a call bet and an announced bet. A call bet is made by the player without actu-ally placing any active chips on the table. So in a very real sense, a call bet is gambling on credit, which is actually illegal in many coun-tries. In an announced bet, however, the player will place suffi-cient chips on the table to cover his bet before the spin takes place.

French bets cover pre-determined num-ber sets on the table. These sets are all re-lated to each other in some or other way.

This covers a total of eight numbers: 17, 34, 6 and 1, 20, 14, 31, 9. A single chip is placed straight-up on 1 and an-other four on each of the splits: 6/9, 14/17, 17/20, 31/34.

French Bets

The French Flag

Call bets and announced bets

French bets

Orphelins (orphans)

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Thirds of the wheel refers to the twelve numbers on the oppo-site side of the wheel between and including 27 and 33. More specifically, on a single-zero wheel it covers 27, 13, 36, 11, 30, 8, 23, 10, 5, 24, 16, 33. The idea of a “third of the wheel’ comes from the fact that this bet covers a third (ie 12) of all the playable numbers.

Neighbors of zero refers to the seventeen numbers that lie be-tween and including 22 and 25 on the wheel and cross the green zero roughly in the middle of their sequence. The series is 22, 18, 29, 7, 28, 12, 35, 3, 26, 0, 32, 15, 19, 4, 21, 2 and 25 (all on a single-zero wheel).

A zero game, which in Germany is called zero spiel, plays the num-bers closest to zero: 12. 35, 3, 26, 0, 32, 15. One chip is placed on the 0/3 split, another one on the 12/15 split, another on a straight-up 26, and another one on the 32/35 split. That’s four chips in total.

By asking for a maximum bet on any number, the player wa-gers his chips on all the inside bets related to that number. For instance, if a table maximum were set at $100 and a player asked for “number 17 to the maximum” it would require $4000.

Full maximum/complete

Le tiers du cylinder (thirds of the wheel)

Voisins du zéro (neighbors of zero)

Jeu zéro (zero game)

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Bet

Straight

Split

Split

Split

Split

Street

Corner

Corner

Corner

Corner

Six Line

Six Line

Table squares

17

17, 14

17, 16

17, 18

17, 20

17, 16, 18

17, 16, 13, 14

17, 18, 14, 15

17, 16, 19, 20

17, 18, 20, 21

17, 16, 18, 13, 14, 15

17, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21

Pieces

1

2

2

2

2

3

4

4

4

4

6

6

Amount reqd ($)

100

200

200

200

200

300

400

400

400

400

600

By adding up all the possible bets on a 17 maximum, one arrives at $4 000. That’s the amount that would be required to play 17 to the full maximum. Most high-level casino establishments that cater to very high rollers won’t physically place all the chips on the table for this kind of bet. Rather they’ll just keep a running tally of where the player is in terms of the amount won/lost.

Before we even get into the nitty gritty of roulette, let’s be clear that when we speak of a betting strategy, we’re really referring to a betting system. The key difference is this: strategy will theoretically be able to improve the player’s statistical odds of winning; systems, by contrast, will have no effect on the house advantage. In blackjack, a carefully considered system can increase the player’s advantage, albeit slightly. In roulette, no amount of forethought and savvy will change the basic house edge… ever.

So: let’s look at some of the major roulette system in use.

Betting strategies

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In the Martingale system, the player is advised to double his bet each time he loses. The idea is that when he does win, it will leave him a profit that at least equal to his first bet, so he leaves the table in the same position as he started. While this may sound tempting, the reality of roulette is that if you’re having a particularly bad day your loss rate can increase substantially very quickly. Just because the ball landed on a 25 in one round does not mean it will now purposely vary where it lands. This is the gamblers fallacy and you’d do well to be mindful of it.

The wheel has no memory and no bias, and if you’re losing particularly badly on a given day it can be a threatening idea to suddenly double your bet after each spin in the hopes of getting your money back. The casino will maintain its advantage of between 2.7 to 7%, so in the long term the odds are firmly pitted against you. There’s nothing you can do to level this advantage.

In Grand martingale, a player is advised to not merely double his bet after a loss but actually add another unit! If the starting bet is $10 and the player loses, then in Grand martingale he is being asked to bet $30 on the next bet! On a win, grand martingale can be incredibly satisfying. On continu-al losses, it can be incredibly disheartening, disorienting, and daunting.

Finally, in Cancellation the player will start with a number (or number series) and bet the total on either end. If the players wins, he cancels the numbers he just played. If he loses, he adds the total that he just played to the end of the series. Once all the numbers have been cancelled, the result is meant to be a profit that is the same as the sum of the original numbers. A Cancel-lation isn’t considered quite as risky as a Martingale or a Grand martingale, but like most systems in roulette it can still result in a huge loss of money.

The Gambler’s Fallacy

The gambler’s fallacy is the be-

lief that past random events in-

fluence the outcome of a future

random event. For instance,

would a run of odd numbers

at the roulette table mean a

greater chance of even ones in

subsequent? The answer is no.

Take a slot machine as another

example: is a machine that

has just paid out a jackpot any

less likely to pay out again as

opposed to a machine that

has just swallowed coins with

no payouts ever? Again, the

answer is no. The chances are

equal all the time.

Martingale

Grand Martingale

Cancellation or Labouchére system

Henry Labouchére

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Leonardo Fibonacci was perhaps the greatest mathematician of his gen-eration. In the Middle Ages, Fibonacci looked at the growth population of rabbits based on certain assumptions. He posed a problem and solved it via a sequence of numbers that would later come to be known as the Fibonac-ci sequence. Coincidentally, it was discovered that Indian mathematicians had been working with the same concept some four centuries before. Fi-bonacci numbers follows an integer sequence starts with 0 and 1. From there, each subsequent number is a result of the sum of the previous two:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233 ….

Scientists have discovered that this sequence can be observed as ratios throughout nature from the branching patterns of trees to the way the leaves on a stem are arranged, and even some of the great pyramids! The empirical nature of this pattern in the world has led to an entirely mythological level about so-called “golden ratios”. For the casino player, if the vagaries of apparent chance and fortune has anything remotely re-lated to a pattern or sequence, you can sure he’ll try it. In short, a Fibo-nacci betting system says to wager your chips on a Fibonacci pattern. This means you’d need to always play for a zero, and you’d need to double your wager on the number 1 square. The rest would be as per the se-quence above. We’re not sure if we buy it, but if it gives you a sense of your play being less randomized then you should by all means give it a try.

Leonardo Fibonacci

Fibonacci sequence

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Also called montant et demontant (upwards and downwards), this system is based on French mathematicians Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert’s pyramid system and mathematical equilibri-um. It has a number of similarities to Martingale, but also falls prey to the gambler’s fallacy, which as already mentioned holds that a player has a higher chance of winning after a loss and vice versa.

By this point in the guide, the following should be clear to you:

• The basics and principles of roulette play• The different types of bets and their divisions on the roulette table• The kinds of payouts that the casino makes on each type of bet• The specific house edge that you’re trying to beat, and how that’s dependant on the kind of roulette table on which you’re playing• Some of the more popular betting systems in use today.

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Jean d’Alembert

Time to play

D’Alembert system