Roulette Statistics and Strategy

Roulette is a game of chance and as such the only real “strategy” is to play so that you slow down your losses. Perhaps the other choice you can make is, if possible, to find a roulette wheel that pays out better than 97%. That will at least keep the house edge down. Also, if you can find a wheel that only has one “0” slot and not a “00” slot, it will help your odds.

Here are some tricks you might use to try slow down you losses, but keep in mind that there is no skill involved in roulette. It is purely a game of chance.

On a “single zero” roulette table your probability of hitting a number is 1 in 37. The house will pay out 35:1 or 36:1 for a correct number. It is easy to figure out the propabilities to hit a winning number or group of numbers as seen below. These figures are not influenced in any way by what number has been hit previously.

Single number: 2.7%
Two numbers: 5.41%
Three Numbers: 8.11%
Four numbers: 10.81%
Six numbers: 16.22%
Nine numbers: 24.32%
Twelve numbers: 32.43%
Eighteen numbers: 48.65%

As you can see, even if you’re betting on half of the numbers (even vs odd, black vs red) your chance doesn’t quite make it to 50%. With a double zero roulette (one that has both a 0 and a 00), your chances are slightly worse.

Single number: 2.63%
Two numbers: 5.26%
Three numbers: 7.89%
Four numbers: 10.53%
Six numbers: 15.79%
Nine numbers: 23.68%
Twelve numbers: 31.58%
Eighteen numbers: 47.37%

Statistically, if you make 50 bets of $1 each at a roulette table with both a 0 and a 00 slot, you would lose $23.50 and gain $18.50, netting a loss of $5.00. These statistics are based on a normal distribution over many, many spins. Roulette is a fairly fast game with around 60 spins in a minute. This means that 50 bets of $1 each may last you almost an hour. Since you’re statistically likely to lose $5 for every 50 bets you make, you’re paying slightly over $5 per hour of the entertainment assuming that you find roulette entertaining. Whether you consider this a bargain or not depends on your gambling habits.

One suggestion for slowing the pace of losses is to bet the same amount on two of the 12-number bets. For example, bet $5 on 1-12, and $5 on 13-24. This will cover almost 2/3 of the board. Twelve-number bets pay 2:1. It means, that with the above bet you have $10 on the table and if the ball lands in one of those 24 numbers you’ve bet, you keep your chip and win $10. Since you lose the other bet, you lose that $5 for a net gain of $5. The big pitfall of this “strategy” is that you’ll lose all $10 if the ball lands on 25-36, 0, or 00. Whether you’ll luck out and do better than the odds predict is entirely a random event.

In conclusion, there is no real strategy to play roulette. You can hope for a winning streak or use the above 2:1 scheme in an attempt to lose money more slowly, but in reality there isn’t anything you can do to improve your odds other than to choose a roulette game that only has one 0, and choose a roulette game with the highest payout.