Roulette - can you beat the house?

Albert Einstein once said "the only way to beat Roulette is to steal the money when the dealer's not looking". Can it be this bad? What about the so-called techniques and strategies that are sold on the internet? We examine one in particular and come to an interesting conclusion.

"The Wealth Secret", among others, is advertised on the internet as an easy way to riches. All you need to do is play on-line roulette using a technique that "is guaranteed to succeed". It supposedly takes the gambling out of roulette and increases your odds to the point where it becomes a home-based job. The advice comes at a price, so let's see how good it turned out to be.

The theory is as follows: the chances of one third of the table not being hit is 66% but the chances of that third not begin hit seven consecutive times are much slimmer. In other words, as a specific portion of the table is missed time after time, the odds of it being missed again gets smaller and smaler. So, the trick is to wait until it has been missed seven times in a row and then you start betting on it. The alleged fail-safe method works as follows. Wait until one of the three dozens (1st 12, 2nd 12, 3rd 12) has not been hit for seven consecutive times, then bet $1 on it. If you don't win, bet $2. Then $3, then $4, then $6, and so on. In the end you win, the casino loses.

We tested this theory on a computer that can simulate hundreds of thousands of roulette games per second. The higher the betting threshold (seven in this case) the fewer and further apart the betting opportunities are. This comes as no surprise. The success rate of each of these "qualified" bets appears to be higher, based on the fact that you take much longer to be "wiped out". However, this is due to the fact that you play much slower using this method and your odds of being wiped out are therefore smaller. Or rather, your odds of being wiped out are the same per number of bets placed, you just bet less frequently and therefore take longer before being wiped out.

After thousands of simulated roulette games, the verdict is that, in the end, the casino wins. It always comes with a spectacular sequence of improbable conditions, such as one of the dozens not being hit for many times in a row. One of the thirds not being hit twenty consecutive times is not uncommon as our simulation illustrated. In a Vegas casino the ball fell on red twenty five times in a row - a clear illustration of the unpredictibility of a random sequence of numbers. You need a fortune to survive that, often more than what the casino is willing to allow, since it is really a game of "double or bust".