Improving Your Roulette Game

Learn to Clock Wheels in Landbased Casinos

Astute players have succeeded in beating roulette in the past by clocking the wheels for bias. A biased wheel is one with uneven distribution of the results, with some numbers having abnormally high hit frequencies when compared to others.

Respectively, wheel clocking involves the player recording the results of spins as they occur and then analyzing the collected data to find potential probability anomalies. If such are present, the player would repeatedly bet on the numbers the wheel favors. Such knowledge gives the player a significant advantage over the house.

We suggest you try to master this technique but only if you are serious about this game. This is a time-consuming and laborious process, not to mention finding biased wheels is rather difficult under the current casino conditions.

Casinos themselves observe for biases and unlike players, they rely on methods that enable them to find the anomalies faster. They resort to a variety of tricks to deal with clockers, from switching wheels between different tables to altogether removing biased wheels from the gaming floor. Additionally, modern manufacturers craft the wheels from sturdier materials and with surgical precision, which makes them less prone to bias.

On top of that, the player needs to manually collect a large sample size of results before they can arrive at any reasonable conclusions. Working with an insignificant sample size won’t do, you need to record thousands of spins for this purpose.

Begin by writing down 3,700 spins on a single-zero wheel. Since each number is equally likely to hit on any given individual spin, results tend to even out over time so that all numbers show, give or take, an equal number of times, or around 100 times in this case.

Let’s assume you notice an anomaly after analyzing your data where numbers 9, 29, and 28 have occurred say 142, 164, and 156 times during this set of 3,700 spins. You are clearly on to something so you decide to record another sample of 3,700 spins. You check the results and see the anomalies persist, with 9, 29, and 28 having hit 285, 293, and 295 times over the course of 7,400 spins.

Check the single-zero wheel and you will see these three numbers are located in close proximity to each other. What you have just found may be a potential section bias. You can exploit it by placing bets on the biased numbers that can compensate for the house edge.

Lastly, you can forget all about wheel clocking if you intend to play the game online. Online roulette relies on RNGs for the outcomes of the spins. The results there are indeed random and evenly distributed over the long run unless the software has been tampered with.

Don't Waste Money on “Winning” Systems

The World Wide Web is laden with websites created by people who boldly claim they have won millions at roulette with the help of the betting systems they are selling. These systems are flawed for a number of reasons, starting with the fact they normally require the player to size their next bet on the basis of the previous outcome.

The problem is in random games like roulette past results do not influence the odds of future results in any way. The odds and the house edge remain the same, so you ultimately end up losing money.

Another issue results from the fact such betting systems are deceitful as they can indeed yield some returns in the short term. This short-lived success causes the player to think their system works, so they continue to use it until the house edge eventually catches up with them and wipes their entire bankroll away.

We advise you to refrain from ever purchasing such “winning” systems. This is money poured down the drain. If you insist on losing it anyway, you are better off going to the casino where you can at least have some fun and free drinks. Just think about it. Would anyone resort to selling betting systems if they have won millions at roulette as they claim?!

You can check out our article on progressive roulette systems for further clarifications about their long-term inefficiency.

Never Chase Your Losses, You Won't Catch Them

Every once in awhile a losing streak would occur, which causes certain gamblers to panic and start risking higher and higher amounts in a desperate attempt to recover their losses. This is an extremely dangerous path to tread and it normally leads to financial ruin.

You reach a point where you can no longer think clearly and end up busting your entire bankroll. Streaks are an inseparable part of games of chance like roulette. If you are unable to control yourself and stomach your losses, it would probably be better for you to stay out of the casino. Streaks are also random, so there is no telling when exactly they will end.

Also, do not be greedy when you score some decent wins. This is a mistake many roulette players are guilty of. Instead of quitting while they are ahead, they continue betting because they think they are on a “hot” streak, ultimately losing all of their profits and then some.

So we guess the moral is this – be disciplined with your roulette bankroll and you stand better chances of preserving and even increasing it.

And another thing. Sometimes it will happen so that you repeatedly bet straight up on a certain number. You give up at some point, post a wager on another number, and the previous number shows on the very next spin.

There is no need to become infuriated at Lady Luck because she has swindled you out of your winnings. Randomness is inherent to roulette and sometimes produces outcomes that seemingly go way beyond the bounds of the believable.

One example comes from Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace in July 2000, when a roulette wheel produced six consecutive spins of 7. The probability of this occurrence was astronomically small (1 in 3.01 billion trials) and yet it did happen.

This miraculous streak of 7s was witnessed by Barney Vinson, an acclaimed gambling author and former gaming instructor at Caesars. Had a player posted a minimum $5 bet on this number and let it ride, they would have won over $3.82 million from this streak!

Yet no one ventured to bet the 7 after it first occurred because everyone thought it was highly unlikely to hit that many times in a row. In effect, Caesars’ table #211 lost the laughable sum of $300 only.

Join the Loyalty Club

Regardless of whether you prefer to play roulette online or at a landbased casino, it would be a good idea if you join a loyalty club, especially if you play with regularity. You can ask the floor personnel to issue you a player card so they can track and rate your play.

Roulette gives decent comps you can use to exchange for free accommodations, meals, and show tickets, among other perks. In American casinos, roulette is among the games with the biggest comp value because it yields some of the highest edges for the house (5.26% and 7.89% for the five-number bet).

Comps are calculated as a percentage from your theoretical win rate. As we explained earlier on in this article, the theoretical win rate is negative in roulette and results from the multiplication of your average hourly bet, the hours you play, the number of rounds you go through per hour, and the house advantage. The casino figures out a given player’s comps by tracking their play on a per-bet basis but the overall buy-in amount is also taken into consideration.

Things are not much different in online casinos where you typically earn comp points when playing for real money. Of course, these rates vary between different casinos depending on their policies. Certain online casinos exclude low-risk bets like red/black, even/odd, and high/low from the points’ accumulation, which is something to keep in mind.

Some online gambling operators allow you to cash out the money earned through comp points while others give you bonuses to play for free with, among other perks. Either way, this is a great way to cut down on your negative expectation as you get some of the money you risk back.