Roulette Guide – the House Edge
Wouldn’t it bet great if one these many winning roulette strategies you find onlinelike the martingales system actually worked. Can you imagine that instead of using the bank or ATM you’d just go to your local casino and win some cash for the weekend. Well there is one system that is actually very successful but unfortunately it’s being run by the casinos themselves. It’s based on a very simple concept known as the house edge.
It’s not some complicated progression system, it’s based on a very simple statistical advantage that will always triumph in the long run. So what exactly is the house edge ? One good way of illustrating the advantage is as follows – suppose you placed a single chip on every number on a roulette wheel, that’s a total of 37 chips on 1-36 plus the zero. After the spin of the wheel, you would of course have selected the winning number and could collect your winnings. You would receive the stated odds of 35-1 plus your initial stake, so in exchange for your 37 chip bet you would receive 36 chips back. Your loss would have been a single chip on that spin of the wheel.
This very straight forward example illustrates the very small but telling advantage that the casino has, the house edge. The numerical value of the house edge is equal to the probability of a single number being spun. The probability is 100 percent divided by the amount of numbers that are actually on the wheel. So using a European roulette wheel this works out as 100/37 which equals 2.7%.
It actually doesn’t sound too much does it. The casino advantage in a game is only 2.7 percent, but despite being small it is the advantage that has help create all those fabulous casinos across the world. Of course this advantage is usually amplified somewhat by the average punter , erratic betting, too much champagne or just a gambling addiction can again alter these odds in the houses favour.
But this very small house advantage is what makes roulette so appealing to many professionals who gamble for a living , the odds are only minimally in the houses favour. This is what the various gambling strategies seek to exploit , by using a system to minimize this advantage and progressively accumulate small wins. The other popular but difficult tactic often combined with one of these strategies is that of identifying a bias in a particular roulette wheel. There are many stories in the roulette world of a bias in a particular wheel being identified. It actually doesn’t take much of a bias to tip the odds back in favour of the punter.
Imagine finding a bias in a particular roulette wheel, where there are two numbers didn’t get selected in a period of time. Eliminating those two numbers and betting against them would turn the house edge around, to a 2.7% punter edge! Of course identifying a real bias against a perceived bias are two completely different things.
One things for certain, if you’re playing for fun make sure there isn’t a programmed bias as well. If you’re play online roulette, try to use an live online casino rather than a computer generated one.