There are two main variants of roulette: European Roulette with one 0 and American Roulette with both 0 and 00. Because of the extra 00, American Roulette gives the casino a greater advantage. If you can choose yourself, you should therefore choose the European version.
Average repayment rate
The average payback rate for European Roulette is 97.3%. For American Roulette it is down to 94.7%.
The only deviation from these percentages is when playing five numbers in American Roulette (Numbers 0, 00, 1, 2, 3). It gives a profit of seven times the bet and an average payback rate of 92.1%. Also some of the more special outside bets can give a lower repayment percentage.
Strategies
There are a lot of roulette strategies. What they all have in common is that they don’t work. However, this should not stop you from using them, as they do not reduce your chances of winning either. They simply redistribute your winnings, which can give you a profit in the short term, if you also accept the risk that you may lose.
The most well-known strategy is the Martingale strategy. The simplest version of the system involves doubling your bet every time you lose. Thus, if you start by betting $1 on red and then double down to $2, $4, etc. each time you lose until the ball lands on red, you will end up with a profit of $1 each time the ball lands on red. The method is infallible, as long as you have unlimited funds and there is no ceiling on the effort. The problem is simply that you don’t have unlimited funds, and the casino always has a cap on how much stake you can play.
One’s personal ceiling for how much one is willing to lose determines how long a losing streak one can afford. The problem is that it quickly becomes expensive, as you have to double the amount each time. If you e.g. lose six times in a row, the seventh time you have to bet $64 – and at this point you have already lost $63. You must therefore have a starting capital of $127 to be able to follow. The probability that the ball lands on red the seventh time after six times on black is exactly the same as the probability that it landed on red the first time – namely 48.65%. So there is absolutely no guarantee that you will win, even if you have lost a lot.
The probability that the ball will land on black seven times in a row is 0.94% – this will happen on average 1 time out of 106. In the short term, there is therefore a reasonably good chance that it will not happen, and you can go off the table with a profit. On the other hand, if your goal is to win $100 using this method, there is more than a 50% chance that you will lose your money before you reach your goal.
At a starting capital of $2,047 and a single bet of $1,024, most players have jumped off and most casinos’ cap has been passed. Even so, it happens on average 1 time out of 1,527 that 11 black (or green) come in a row. In an online casino, it is not unusual to play five games a minute. On average, you will experience a streak of 11 losses every 5 hours you play. At Casinopenge.dk, we have heard of someone who experienced 15 losses in a row – and that was at a “real” offline casino.
The recommendation must therefore be to set a somewhat lower ceiling and then accept that you lose once in a while. You can also make your own variations of the Martingale to make it more exciting. If you triple the amounts instead of doubling, you run into your ceiling faster, but in return you win more – if you win, that is. You can also bet on dozen instead of red/black to increase the winnings when you win.