Obviously, online casino customers should be happy about this, as the mathematical house edge in this game is double that of European roulette. But in any case, we are not here to talk about mathematics and statistics, but we like to give objective information about all forms of entertainment that we find in the gaming offer of any online casino like ours, including on the mobile app.
About American roulette: the basics
We have seen in previous installments that American roulette and European roulette may look the same but they are not. In fact, they are extremely different and this is a fact that you should bear in mind when choosing which type of game to play.
While there is a single cylinder, a croupier and the objective is to match the number or chance, you will have a better chance of success in European roulette, simply because the house has less mathematical probability of success, making it one of the least advantageous online gambling games for the customer.
This is because this style of roulette has only one zero, giving the casino a smaller margin of winning chances, as opposed to American roulette, which has a double zero, adding one more possible outcome and therefore a larger statistical margin for the casino…
Just one more number, but the advantage changes significantly.
It is said that the house edge is limited to the number zero, since it does not belong to any of the so-called “simple” bets, i.e. with a 50 percent probability of success. This is how roulette works according to the laws of statistics… But things get complicated when there are two zeros. And it works in favour of the house.
American roulette tips on how to play
The American roulette wheel: the key to the house’s advantage over the European roulette wheel.
Neither slow nor lazy, American casinos, looking for more profitability, have added the aforementioned double zero to increase their advantage. This “innocent” little number changes things radically as you will see below.
- House edge in European roulette (1 in 37) which is equivalent to 2.70%.
- Advantage of the house in American roulette (2 in 38) which is equivalent to 5.26%.
At the same time, and as there is one more number on the cylinder, the layout of the numbers on the layout also changes. This means that those who are used to European roulette and want to play a sector must learn the new order of the numbers.
As a colourful detail, American roulette is slightly smaller than European roulette and the multiple bets are located on one side of the table only.
Why would anyone play a game with less chance of success? I really don’t know, but since there is no accounting for taste, here are some strategies or tricks that have been designed to beat the casinos.
The James Bond strategy
Although it comes from fiction as it was devised by the writer of this series of novels, Ian Flemming, it usually appears in books as a column bet or multiple bet as it yields different results and various types of actions.
It requires a high initial capital, let’s say 200 $, and here is an example so that you can understand it more easily.
- 140 $ are bet on the high numbers (between 19 and 36).
- 50 $ are bet on the street of six numbers between 13 and 18.
- Ten $ are bet on the zero.
According to the followers of this “trick”, there is only a 32 percent chance of losing. Let’s see why.
- If the ball lands between 1 and 12 we would lose the 200 $, which would be the worst outcome.
- If the ball lands between 13 and 18 we would win 100 $.
- If the ball lands between 19 and 36, the profit would be 80 $.
- If it lands on the number 0, you would win 160 $.
Simple, isn’t it? However, while covering more than half the table with bets may seem like a smart move, remember that the odds are always in the casino’s favour.
The Martingale strategy
This strategy originated and became popular in 17th century France. It is quite simple, since it is based on the player doubling his bet after each loss, generating that with the first win all the previous losses are recovered in addition to obtaining a profit equivalent to the original bet.
In terms of percentages, it is the closest to 50 percent efficiency, but it does not reach this figure because, as we have mentioned in previous articles, the zero plays in favour of the house.
Let’s illustrate it for a better understanding.
- You bet two dollars on black; it comes out red, so you lose, and you bet four dollars on black.
- It comes out red again, so following the logic of this strategy, eight dollars are bet on black.
- Red comes out again, so we bet sixteen on black.
- This time the black comes out, so we collect 32 and we had lost a total of 30 (2+4+8+16).
As you can see, the profit is 2 $, the same you would have made if black had come out in the first place (when you had bet 2).
While on paper this trick looks very effective, there are two factors that defeat this strategy. You have to have a large amount of money to play it, as the succession of repeating the same colour can be long (there have been reports of 20 reds in a row).
On the other hand, online casinos often limit the stakes when this strategy is used, so it cannot be used even in free online roulette. Suppose the betting limit for a colour on the table was 32 in our example and black didn’t come up, it would be a disaster!
The Reverse Martingale strategy
This trick basically consists of increasing the bet when you win and decreasing it in case of a loss. It is based on “streaks” because if you catch a good one, you will increase your winnings quickly and otherwise your losses will be minimal.
Let’s see how it works:
- We bet one dollar on black.
- If we win, we double the bet. If we lose, we split it.
- So if we win twice in a row, our profit would be 7 $ (1+2+4).
- If we continue to play and lose, we start again from scratch.
The d’Alembert strategy
We thus enter the arithmetic betting plan as opposed to those described above which are based on the geometric plane. The strategy is based on increasing our bet by one unit in the event of a negative result and decreasing it when the result is as expected.
The idea behind all this is simple: at an equal number of wins and losses, your result will be positive and that is when you should leave the table.
Does this sound complicated to you? Perhaps an example will shed some light.
- We bet 10 $ on red.
- If we lose, we raise one unit (we bet 11 $).
- We lose again and raise another unit (bet 12 $).
- We win, so we bet one unit less (11 $).
- Again our colour comes out and we leave the table.
We fold because we have won as many times as we have lost. Looking at the results in the light of the arithmetic, we see the following: 12+11-11-10 = 2 $ profit.
Conclusions about the American Roulette tricks
In this article, we have been able to see the big differences (even if they seem minimal) between American roulette and European roulette. That famous double zero generates almost double the profit for the house.
Although roulette is a game of chance, where only the goddess of fortune is in charge of separating winners from losers, many mathematicians and players claim to have the tricks to beat it. The best advice though is to play roulette for free at online casinos like that have the option to play for play money or at the “In Practice” option (see the image below where you can select these free tables).
Free Roulette Table Tricks
Sorry for the insistence but we must be totally honest… From the moment you play, you know that the house has a percentage in favour and yet, through combination bets, progressives, mathematics or geometry they claim to have been able to defy chance and obtain logical results. Have you ever heard that the inventors of these tricks are rich? If they worked, why would they share them?
It is our humble opinion that they don’t. It is the equivalent of those books that explain how to earn 1 million dollars in a month from home. They claim that just by reading that text, you will become a millionaire by following their magic formulas on roulette tricks and other games with even more disadvantages for the player.
And we wonder… if they were really useful, wouldn’t the author be using them to become the richest man/woman in the world?
The truth is that roulette is a game of chance. And let’s stop at the definition, chance (something that is not controlled by human beings) and gambling, i.e. something that generates recreation and amusement. And that is how we should take it. As an opportunity to have a good time and maybe, if you are lucky, take a few dollars home with you. Play the number you like, whether it’s your partner’s birthday, what you’ve dreamt of or simply what you have an intuition about at that moment… Watch the ball spin and good luck!
