STROKING THE SYSTEMS
As opposed to Bingo gratis beware of any roulette betting system that depends on a progression of bets; it is doomed to fail. You may experience some short-term wins with a progressive system but, eventually, the house advantage will catch up with you and you’ll experience a disastrous loss that may wipe out any previous successful sessions.
Over the long run, any progressive betting system has to find a way to beat the hefty 5.26 per cent house advantage and, in the long history of roulette, no one has been able to develop a system that would beat even the low French disadvantage of 2.7 per cent.
It becomes more important, therefore, to be able to rely on human or mechanical error to become a consistent winner at roulette. There are several “systems” that may help you discern where and when the ball is going to land in a particular number or group of numbers. By reading this next section, you will understand why many roulette players seem to be studying the wheel with such great concentration.
CLOCKING THE WHEEL
In most cases, you cannot predict where the ball is going to land, but many roulette players believe that recording where the ball has landed in the past will allow them to estimate when it will land there again.
To accomplish this, roulette players sit for hours, recording the list of numbers that hit. They note when a number hits more frequently than should be statistically probable, and then bet on that number, hoping the trend will continue.
They will also try to determine whether the ball is landing in any one “section” more than another section. If you look at the roulette wheel and use the “0” as the 12 o’clock point, the wheel can be divided into four quadrants. The roulette wheel is masterfully laid out, even when the “00” is added. On the American wheel, directly across the wheel from any even number is the next odd number, and vice versa. Pairs of even numbers alternate with pairs of odd numbers, except when split by the “0” and “00”.
Clocking the wheel can be very laborious, but some casinos have added an electronic device to help. These “scoreboards” record the last 20 numbers and colours that have hit. For those who don’t want to go back hundreds of spins, this scoreboard can be of great assistance.
One system is to note whether one or more numbers have hit twice or more within the last 20 spins. If so, the player places a straight-up bet on that number for the next five spins. If it hits, he pockets the profits. This continues until the number doesn’t hit in five spins, and he gets up in search of another table hitting the “big” numbers.
Another method is to record the number of times the ball falls into a section of the wheel. By tracking the 20 spins, the ball must fall into one of the quadrants more than 25 per cent of the time, since this should be the statistical norm. When you discover an anomaly, bet the numbers in that section for ten spins. If you win, continue to play that section until it regresses to hitting the normal amount, which should be five times for every 20 spins.
BIASED WHEELS
It is possible for a roulette wheel to be “biased” in such a manner that the observant player can obtain an advantage over the casino in the long run. These biases are caused by mechanical defects in the roulette wheel. But finding a wheel that is so defective as to actually overcome the built-in house advantage is extremely rare.
Most biased roulette wheels are not balanced correctly, and the spin of the wheel causes the ball to fall in one section of the wheel statistically more than in any other section. To make a valid observation, however, the player must be prepared to “clock” the wheel for an extended amount of time. The minimum amount of spins you want to observe is 500 because anything less would be considered short-term, and not statistically valid. You also must find a group of numbers that recur at least five per cent more frequently than would be considered normal in order to overcome the house advantage.