How to Really “Win” At Roulette
Unlike card games like blackjack and poker, roulette is a casino game that is overwhelmingly a matter of chance, not skill. In this respect it joins the likes of slots, craps and playing the lotto as being a game requires responsible gameplay to maximize your chances at winning and though you will probably lose more often than you will win, to make sure those losses are always within an acceptable margin.
Oddly, despite roulette being a game of chance and something like poker being a game that is as much about how you play the cards you are dealt as it is about the cards themselves, it’s hardly the case that roulette players are more likely to put themselves into massive debt than high-rolling poker players. For many, it’s actually the games of skill; the games over which people have some amount of control, that gets them in the most amount of trouble.
Still, while playing roulette can be incredibly enjoyable and you might even win a buck or two – both in a casino and when you play roulette online for fun – it’s crucial to make sure that you’re playing the game and that the game isn’t playing you.
Here are a few quite simple things to keep in mind every time you step up to that roulette table (or login to your favourite online roulette site)…
Budget, Budget, Budget!
Budgeting before playing a game is not exactly what anyone would call sexy, but it is the first and most important thing you can do to ensure that your trip to the casino or a night in front of your screen playing roulette online is a fun, positive experience and not something that will leave you crying all the way to the bank.
It’s not particularly hard, either. Even if you’re not very good at budgeting in other areas in your life, budgeting for a night at the roulette table comes down to three key questions that you need to answer for yourself – and they should all be based on the assumption that you will lose every single spin of that wheel:
- Am I in such a space where I can stomach losing any amount of money for a night out gambling?
- Will the amount you play at the roulette table cut into your essential costs or will it come just from what you would otherwise spend on entertainment and/ or luxuries?
- Will the amount I spend at the casino cause me to go into debt?
In short, budget according to what you can afford to lose and what you are willing to lose and stick to it. Which brings us to the next point…
Play for Fun Not Profit
The importance of a correct attitude can not be overstated here. Every single time you place a bet on the spin of the roulette wheel expect to lose. Hope you will end the night going away with some extra cash, but realize that you most probably will not. Also remember that games of pure chance are designed in such a way that the more you play, the more likely you are to lose. This is pure, unassailable mathematics.
A game like professional poker can be played as a career if you’re in the uppermost echelons of poker players in your state, country, planet, but roulette is not something you could ever expect to profit off of long term. As a game of chance, it’s literally impossible to do so.
This doesn’t mean that you might not strike it lucky and win big on a high-odds bet (say, betting on a single winning number), but in terms of expectations, expecting anything from a game of roulette other than a fun, glamorous evening is a very bad idea.
Know When to Stop… And Make Sure You Can!
It’s great that you’ve budgeted, but you need to make sure you know that you won’t go over that budget. If you have a strong will, then just remind yourself that you made a deal with yourself on how much you would spend and leave it at that.
If you might need help with stopping when you’re supposed to – but you aren’t struggling with an actual gambling addiction, in which case you obviously should stay miles away from any sort of game of chance – then there are simple things you can do to help you along. Give your money to your responsible significant other or only bring along a certain amount of cash with you to the casino. Online gaming can be much trickier so perhaps set limits with your bank to keep you from losing track of how much you’ve spent.
Also, if you happen to win big, even if you’re (correctly) just playing for fun, it’s always a good idea to stop while you’re ahead. In fact, chasing both losses and wins can turn a win into a loss and a fun game into a nightmare.
Again, though, if you are a gambling addict or have a predilection towards addictive behaviour – addiction is genetic, after all – avoid playing the game at all costs. If you develop an unexpected addiction to roulette, know that there are many helplines and support groups that you can rely on to help you through it.
Learn the Game
Here we come across something of a paradox. In the same way expecting to win is fatal, but hoping to win is a necessity for playing roulette, just because roulette is entirely a game of chance doesn’t mean that understanding how both the game and the various bets actually work won’t improve your chances at winning. Just because you have zero control on where that ball will land, that doesn’t mean that you should just place bets completely at random.
Knowing how each bet on the table works, what the odds of them winning are, and how to maximize your chances by spreading out your bets – all of these will keep you in the game longer, will make it a more enjoyable experience and will give you at least some fighting chance of walking away from the table with more money than you came in with.
If this sounds like a lot, though, the good news is that the internet is a phenomenal resource for finding out simple, step-by-step instructions on how to play roulette like a pro. And if reading articles on the matter feels too much like homework, there are countless YouTube videos to help you along as well.
Keep all of this in mind, and there’s really no reason not to walk away from a night at the roulette table feeling like a winner – even if you never won a single bet!