Roulette Betting Systems Don’t Work, Oh My

We’re going to talk once again about why there are no surefire betting systems in roulette and why you should view the game as a pure entertainment.  We have found a few roulette betting systems that we had never heard of before.  We won’t name them (we aren’t even sure that they have names) but we will explain in general what is bad about them.

Gaming as Entertainment

At Springbok Casino, we feel strongly that online casino gaming should be primarily a form of gaming.  That sounds obvious but far too many players get upset if they don’t win or don’t win big.  There are two important ways we show you that our great goal is to entertain you.  The first is that we offer a large no deposit casino bonus to new players.

We offer great bonuses and other promotions every day and the no deposit bonus starts everything off in a big way.  The no deposit bonus allows you to play most of the games we have on offer for free!   The second way we demonstrate our overriding commitment to our gamers having fun is that we allow unlimited free play.

Fallacy Number One

The first great fallacy of many betting systems, not just for roulette but for many online casino games, is that most players have a bankroll that is large enough to follow the system through.

In a progressive betting system, you might need to have thousands of Rand to keep playing with the system if the numbers don’t come up for you.  We like to teach our gamers to play with a bankroll that is similar in size to the amount you might spend on a restaurant, a sporting event, a concert, or any other similar pastime.

Fallacy Number Two

This fallacy permeates a lot of the writing we find online about casino games.  It advises paying attention to trends and to bet either with a trend or against a trend.  The first part of this fallacy is that it is impossible to bet both with a trend and against it.

If a red number comes up five times in a row, should you place your next bet on red or on black?  A betting system that tells you to follow trends is far too complex for the fun-seeking gamer.  It requires a background in statistical analysis.  It requires that you chart every spin to determine not just short term trends but also long term trends.

This kind of system is similar to the technical analysis investment system in financial markets.  Technical analysis follows trends in stocks, bonds, and so on.  It actually does work to some extent.  Fundamental analysis also works to some extent as it analyses the underlying value of an investment.

Ultimately, neither is sufficient to determine how you should invest your money.  Statistical analysis in roulette is far worse because of the second part of this fallacy which is that its advocates simply ignore the Random Number Generator.  The RNG is software that continuously chooses numbers.  In blackjack, it converts the numbers into cards and in slots it converts the numbers into stops on the reels.

As far as the RNG is concerned, there are simply no trends.  Every spin of the roulette wheel is independent of everything that came before it.

Fallacy Number Three

Some roulette articles tell you that it’s possible to get better at roulette with practice.  This piece of advice is making the rounds on the internet but it has absolutely no basis in fact.  Once again, the RNG decides which number comes up every time.

Fallacy Number Four

In this system, you place only even money bets and hope to be lucky enough to win.  This fallacy simply ignores the presence of the 0.  You could win with this system but it would be because you were lucky and played with very little risk rather than because of any betting system.

Fallacy Number Five

This fallacy applies only to roulette wheels at land based casinos since they are not under the control of the RNG.  In this system, you study thousands of results and tabulate then all to determine if a given roulette wheel is tilted ever so slightly making some numbers come up more often than other numbers.

The underlying fallacy here is that a casino would let you simply observe the wheels for hours on end.  You would have to record your findings.  A casino that senses that you are trying to prove that their roulette wheel is somehow not “honest” will kick you out very quickly.

Of course, you wouldn’t have to bet to gather all the data you would need to make a proper determination but you would then have to calculate the monetary value of your time.

The second part of this fallacy is that even if you did find that a wheel favors one half of the numbers over the other half, it wouldn’t be able to hone in on the exact numbers that would come up so you would still be gambling with every bet.

Saving Your Winnings

We recently posted advice that you can save your winnings at any casino game and that would almost guarantee that you would finish a gaming session with some money left.  We have gotten some good response to this tip.  We were told that it isn’t necessary to save all of your winnings; it’s enough to save some of each win.

By saving a fraction of each win, you extend the gaming session.  You still have money left in your “saved money pocket” when the session ends.  And if you have followed our overall advice to see casino games as fun and entertaining and not as get rich quick schemes, you’ll have extended the fun by saving a fraction of each win and continuing to bet with the other part of each win.