Roulette Betting
With proper roulette betting techniques, you can make your roulette play lots of fun, and you may even see a profit.
Making a Budget for Roulette Betting
The absolute most important thing to remember about roulette betting is that it’s not a business. Roulette betting should be viewed as entertainment only, not as a means of making a living. When you decide on your budget, you should think about how long you intend to play for, how much money you would spend on another activity, and how much you expect to enjoy yourself. Obviously, if you hit a winning streak, you can enjoy quite a lot of roulette betting on a very low budget. You shouldn’t count on a winning streak, though. You should also consider the tables you’ll be playing at. If you play at a table with a minimum bet of 25 cents, then a budget of 50 dollars is reasonable. If you’re playing at a table with a minimum bet of 10 dollars, however, your 50 dollars will simply be gone too quickly to have a good time.
What Kind of Bets Should You Make?
A lot of players choose to make the even-money bets, as these will generally stretch the budget the longest. Single number bets, of course, have the lowest probability of landing. On the other hand, they pay out the best. Both types of bets have the same house edge, unless the ‘en prison’ rule is in play. If the table has an ‘en prison’ rule, you should always play an even-money bet to get the lowest house edge on your bets.
If you’re feeling particularly clairvoyant or lucky on a given day, go ahead and make a single-number bet on a high dollar amount. Otherwise stick to bets with a better chance of winning, or you’ll find your budget disappearing way too quickly. Some players believe that they are somehow winning the house edge by playing the zero. This is untrue. The zero and double-zero have exactly the same house edge as any single-number bet. The five number bet, which includes zero, double-zero, one, two, and three actually has a worse house edge than other roulette betting decisions, so you should never place that bet.
Roulette Betting Strategies
The most common roulette betting strategy is the Martingale strategy. In this strategy, you set a bottom unit, and double your bet after every losing spin. After a winning spin, you reduce your bet to the initial bottom unit. The advantages of this system are clear. If you win reasonably frequently, you will always come out one unit ahead for every set of bets. There is, however, the very real risk of having too many losses in a row for your budget or for the table limit. For example, if you start with a bet of one dollar and have a budget of $100, you’ll run out of cash after just seven losses. A budget of $200 will only allow you one more bet, and a budget of $500 will run out before your tenth losing bet. One betting strategy is to turn your cash into chips and keep them in one cup. After each win, place all chips that are on the board in a second cup. Never take chips out of the second cup. When the first cup is empty, cash in all of the chips in the second cup. Enjoy knowing that you didn’t blow your whole budget!