When you first start playing casino games online, you’ll probably try one of the games that you most associate with the world of casino classics – roulette. Roulette was the reason that the first casino – in Monte Carlo – was opened. The inventor of the modern game – Francois Blanc – wanted a venue where everyone could enjoy the thrill of playing roulette.
by Nigel Wilson – Roulette has always been one of the most popular casino games
It’s also a game that often features in casino scenes in the movies, adding to the game’s decadent and opulent air. Above all, though, for casino player novices, roulette is an easy game to start with as whether you win or lose is dependent on the element of chance. Will you happen to bet on the number that the ball falls on, or will you pick the right colour at least?
Today there’s no need to head to Monte Carlo to play roulette – or to any other land-based casino destination, for that matter. Roulette can be played at hundreds of different online casinos like Caesars, 32red and Sky Vegas, either for real money bets or for free if you just want to experiment with the game.
When you play roulette online at 32Red, for example, you’ll see that if you play in practice mode, the bets are only virtual ones, so there’s no financial risk involved. When you feel confident you know how to play, you can switch to real money bets at any time. New players on the site get a great welcome bonus of £32 for every £10 that they add to their account as an initial deposit, so much of their early gaming will be for free.
If you’ve developed an interest in playing roulette, you’ll probably already have heard of various roulette systems that some players swear by. Is this something you should be looking into and will using a roulette system work in your favour?
Two of the most famous roulette systems are the Labouchere and the Martingale. The Martingale system is simple to grasp. Each time you lose, you double the original bet you placed for the next spin. In theory, you’ll get a win eventually and when you do, you’ll win back all your losses and make a small profit. However, betting using the Martingale system is more likely to ruin you financially than bring you any profit. Just think how quickly your original bet would multiply to a huge amount if you had a losing streak.
The Labouchere roulette system is more complex, but similar to the Martingale system. Using a number series, you decide how much to bet when you’ve had a win or a loss. The theory is that once you have won more than a third of the bets placed, you will be making a profit, but it becomes very complicated.
Where both of these theories fall down is that they rely on there being a connection between one spin of the roulette wheel and the next, and that’s not how the game works. A roulette wheel will produce a random result on each and every spin, with no correlation between a preceding and following spin. So using a mathematical system such as the Labouchere or Martingale makes no sense at all. Playing online, the Random Number Generator software that produces the results of each spin ensures that element of chance that you’d get at a land-based roulette table, so these types of system won’t work online either.
The best system you can adopt when playing roulette is to keep your bets on the small side and only ever bet with money you can afford to lose. You can never guarantee when you’ll get it right, so it’s best to accept there will be losses along the way. If you want to experiment with different types of bet, switch to practice or demo mode to make sure you know what you’re doing and then switch back to real money when you’re ready. If you have a winning streak, try not to be greedy and bet it all again. Bank some of your profit before you place your next bet.