If you started looking for a roulette betting strategy maybe on the internet – I guarantee you would find a certain one. It might be given a different name or have some slight variation on the original – but it would highly likely be based on the martingale system. This super, secret, guaranteed winning strategy has been around for a couple of centuries and I doubt anyone has become rich from it yet. The system sounds fairly plausible – you bet on an even odds result (say red/black or odd/even) then if you lose you repeat the bet double your original stake. The idea is that if you keep doing this then you eventually make a profit. There are quite a few problems with this system even though the idea sounds like it might work.

  • There are no truly 50/50 bets in a casino – there is always a slight house edge
  • If you are unable to double your stake at any point the system fails
  • The system is taking the risk of a very large loss in exchange for lots of little gains
  • If you reach the house limit – the system breaks down
  • Your stake requirements can get very large if you lose a few times in a row

There are variants on the system – where you don’t start betting until you’ve seen certain combinations occurs e.g. wait for three reds in a row and then start using martingale buy betting on black. The main statistical problem with all of them is they are presuming that after a sequence of certain events – the opposite event is more likely. This is not true as passed events have no bearing on the next spin of the wheel – you can roll red 15 times in a row but it’s still 50/50 (excluding 0) the next spin – this is usually ignored in the average roulette betting strategy.

This statistical truth means that long sequences actually occur more often that you expect – the Martingale player could easily be faced with the situation of having to place bets of several thousand dollars to recoup a $1 profit! Also remember that such schemes are completely different for online roulette where you are not using a real casino wheel.

The major difference here is that the wheels spins are not controlled by random chance but by a computer attempting to simulate random chance. Using a flawed statistical method like Martingale in these circumstances is even more dangerous as the spins are determined by an algorithm. Online games controlled by a computer and real roulette require a completely different roulette betting strategy.

So to play real online roulette where you battle chance rather than a computer program may I suggest playing Live Roulette online

of course if you still want to battle computer algorithms – I suspect you might find this program very useful.

Roulette Killer

All the best

John