Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning little wheel. In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a single number, various groupings of numbers, the colors red or black, whether the number is odd or even, or if the numbers are high (19–36) or low (1–18).
To determine the winning number and color, a croupier spins a wheel in one direction, then spins a ball in the opposite direction around a tilted circular track running around the outer edge of the wheel. The ball eventually loses momentum and falls onto the wheel and into one of 37 (in French/European roulette) or 38 (in American roulette) colored and numbered pockets on the wheel.
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The first form of roulette was devised in 18th century France. A century earlier, Blaise Pascal introduced a primitive form of roulette in the 17th century in his search for a perpetual motion machine. The game has been played in its present form since as early as 1796 in Paris. An early description of the roulette game in its current form is found in a French novel La Roulette, ou le Jour by Jaques Lablee, which describes a roulette wheel in the Palais Royal in Paris in 1796.
The description included details such as the house pockets, “There are exactly two slots reserved for the bank, whence it derives its sole mathematical advantage.” It then goes on to describe what we now know as “the bet”, calling it “a type of wager that ultimately derives from Boule and Italian Bocca”.
In 1843, in Germany, Karl Friedrich Scheels invented the first roulette table layout with single and double zero sectors for house advantage reduction. This layout was introduced at Hamburg Casino about 1860 by George Melas who later moved to London’s Homburg Casino where he introduced it to Charles Wells who took it to Monte Carlo Casino where it quickly became popular. house advantage was reduced from 2.
7% with the European/French layout to 1.35% with Scheel’s layout which has remained basically unchanged since then except for an extra green zero sector added in American casinos after World War II to increase house advantage even more over players.
One of the earliest forms of betting on roulette was devised by Blaise Pascal when he was trying to create a perpetual motion machine back in 1655. The basis of his system was that if he bet on red and won then he would bet double on red next time round and keep doing so until he lost at which point he would revert back to his original stake.
This system relied on streaks of luck occurring which Pascal realized could not be guaranteed over long periods of time and was therefore not sustainable as a means of winning money consistently. Nevertheless, his system gave rise to one of the most popular betting systems used on roulette today known as progression betting or simply progression systems.
The most common form of progression is flat betting where you simply place your chips on your chosen bet type and hope for the best! If you win you carry on betting at that same stake but if you lose you revert back to your original stake amount. So for example if you bet 10 units on black and it comes up you would then bet 10 units on black again next spin but if black loses you would go back down to betting just 1 unit on your next spin.
The theory behind this system is that by increasing your stake after a win you stand to win more money if your chosen bet comes up again but by decreasing your stake after a loss you minimize your losses should your chosen bet not come up again.
The main problem with this system is that it relies completely on luck and over time your luck will almost certainly run out! If you have a run of bad luck and hit several losing streaks then you can quickly find yourself losing large amounts of money as you continually increase your stakes trying to recoup previous losses only to find yourself digging an ever deeper hole!
A much safer option is known as positive progression systems where you increase your stakes after a win but decrease them after a loss. This helps to protect your bankroll as even if you do experience several losing streaks in succession you will only lose your original stake amount rather than potentially large sums of money.
One of the most popular positive progression systems used today is called Martingale progression which doubles your stake after each loss until eventually you hit a win at which point you revert back to your original stake amount.
For example, lets say we bet 1 unit on black and it loses, our next bet would be 2 units placed on black once again. If this also lost our next bet would be 4 units placed on black and so forth until eventually we hit a winner whereupon we would revert back down to betting just 1 unit again. With Martingale progression our total losses would be just 1 unit providing we hit a winner eventually but if we suffered an unlucky run of 10 successive losses then our total losses would be 1023 units which is obviously extremely risky! Nevertheless, many people still choose to use this system despite its inherent dangers due largely to its simplicity – place your chips, lose, double your stake amount until eventually you win!
So what is roulette progression? In short it is any system whereby you change either your bets or stakes after each spin depending on whether you have won or lost previous spins. There are both positive (increase stakes/bets after wins) and negative (increase stakes/bets after losses) progressions with each having their own risks attached as outlined above. Ultimately though any form of progression is extremely risky and is not recommended as a way to try and beat roulette!.
