Although you might find many people claiming otherwise, some of whom genuinely believe in what they are saying, there is no such thing as a roulette betting system that works. Sometimes our minds may deceive us that some systems work and this is because our brains work that way, it is the way we are wired up, but if you look at the detail you will find that all claims that we can do better than chance are false.
The mistake that we make instinctively over and over again in many aspects of our lives is known as the gambler’s fallacy. The fundamental error is that we fail to realise when results are entirely independent of each other. We seem to assume that that there is some unwritten natural law that things even out in the end and that short term results in some way encapsulate long term probabilities.
To give an example that relates directly to roulette, (Q1) given that for the last fifty spins the ball has landed in an even slot, what is the probability that on the next spin it will also be even? (Q2) Should you bet on even or odd?
When asked like that no doubt you can work out the correct answer and calculate your chances of winning the next bet, but when you are actually playing the game your mind will be under pressure to come up with the wrong answer.
Now let us ask another related question. (Q3) What is the probability of the next fifty spins resulting in odd numbers? For ease of calculation you can ignore the zero and double zero slots.
Next question – (Q4) what is the probability of the fifty first spins also being odd?
If you have got all these answers correct your have avoided the gambler’s fallacy and you understand that the roulette wheel does not have a memory and every spin is independent of everything that went before. Answers (ignoring the zero slots): (1) 0.5; (2) It makes no difference; (3)0.00000000000000009 (approximately); (4) 0.5.
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