“Roulette” means little wheel in French and this popular casino game dates back to the 1600s. In Roulette, the player's objective is to correctly guess the numbered slot on the wheel the ball will end up in. Players play against the house and not agaist one another. Depending on the Roulette variant, there are either 37 or 38 slots which are numbered from 0 or 00 through to 36. The question of hot and cold numbers come up the most often in the game of Roulette. The Gambler's Fallacy plays a big role in Roulette outcomes and has let to players formulating their strategies around expected outcomes rather than looking at the probabilities and odds specific to the game of Roulette.
- The Gambler's Fallacy is just that, a fallacy.
- Learn basic probabilities
- Understand the House edge
The Gambler's Fallacy, or Monte Carlo Fallacy, is the incorrect belief that if something happens more frequently over a given time period, then if should occur less often in a future time frame. This fallacy most famously occurred in Monte Carlo in August of 1913 when a black number hit 26 times consecutively. This caused many gamblers to lose as they kept on betting that this streak will end. Modern roulette tables will display the last 12 or so numbers that came up as players betting based on the history works in the house's favor. Don't fall into this trap - a random outcome now does not have any influence on the next random outcome.
It will help to understand basic probability theory with playing Roulette. Probability allows you to assess how likely an outcome is to occur in future, compared to all the possible outcomes, so that you can make informed bets. In Roulette, probability is easy to work out as there are 37 or 38 possible outcomes per wheel spin. An example is a single bet on black. The formula is the number of winning ways over the sum of the number of winning and losing ways. In this case: 18/(18+19) which gives you a winning probability of 48,64% that black will hit. Many Roulette tables publish these probabilities, so make sure you understand the types of bets and their winning or losing probabilities.
- Single-zero probability of red/black bet win = 48.64%
- Single-zero probability of split win = 5.4%
- Single-zero probability of straight-up win = 2.7%
The house edge is the advantage that the casino has over players and this is built into the payouts. In Roulette, it is consistent no matter the wager. In European Roulette, betting on the outside number properties pay even money but the odds of winning are 1.055 to 1. The influence of the zero plays a bit role on the odds as it disrupts the player's winning odds. Zero is not considered red/black, odds/evens or even high/low. Therefore the zero in Roulette basically gives the casino its advantage. This is even more so with the American Roulette version where there is an extra 00 slot on the wheel. Familiarize yourself with how odds and probabilities work so that you can assess your winning chances for the different bet types.
To bring our thoughts around the hottest or coldest Roulette numbers together: The gambler's fallacy is a myth. You should not double up to try recover from a losing streak. Statistics and doing complicated mathematics around the most winning Roulette numbers to recognize trends will not benefit you. The casino game of Roulette has its foundation on the randomness of numbers. Whatever number is bet on will mathematically have the same chance to hit - there are no losing or winning numbers. If you are a Roulette beginner, your best bet is to initially stick to the outside bets with even odds until you understand the game better. Do not lose patience with long losing streaks. Roulette's entertainment value lies in its unpredictability.