Roulette Betting System: Casino Betting Strategy, Roulette Gambling Tips

Roulette experts tend to differentiate between roulette betting strategy, which involves betting techniques and tactics, and a roulette betting system, which involves methodology and set rules to follow when betting.

Arguably the most popular of them is the Martingale Betting System, which has become the basis of many lesser known betting systems. Martingale is a progressive betting method whose main idea is to double your bet every time you lose so that, once you've finally won, your winnings will have recovered all those losses and made as much profit as your original bet.

Another is the Fibonacci Betting System, also an incremental betting method where you bet amounts based on the Fibonacci mathematical sequence, again, with the end-goal to hit a win with a betting amount that will cover previous losses and generate profit on top of winning back your bets.

These roulette betting systems had originally sounded sensible in theory, and so, had persisted as casino betting strategy at the roulette tables. In practice, one common flaw is that calculations are based on an assumption of standard normal distribution; for example, that the number 1 pocket on a 38-pocket roulette wheel has a 1:38 probability of coming out.

The reality is the roulette wheel is unlike a gambling game based on a standard deck of cards wherein any specific card has, say, a 1:52 fixed probability of coming out. In roulette, there are no such fixed probabilities. Every single spin of the wheel is unrelated to the preceding or succeeding spin. At any spin, every number has a 1:38 probability of coming out.

Another common flaw is that these progressive betting methods require long-term playing, banking on a random win without any statistical basis. After numerous spins that you've bankrolled expensively, your chances are the same as with your first spin: With nothing to beat the house odds provided by the green numbers, you are more likely to lose than to win.

Clearly, the ideal roulette betting strategy is one that can overcome the roulette house edge. To this end, many have tried, with mixed results. Joseph Jagger in 1873 tried to predict wheel performance, Thomas Bass in the '90s tried the same, in real time, and so did Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo, who won more than $1 million over several years.

Mathematician and computer scientist Claude Shannon in 1961 developed what may have been the first computer to calculate the likelihood the ball will land on particular pockets. Until these roulette strategies are perfected, the best one remains to be smart money management, which is covered on Roulette Gambling Tips.