Roulette has a history of almost 250 years, and since its inception, many strategies have been developed to “beat” it. Over time, their number has increased: even with a simple Google search, you can find several hundred roulette strategies that claim to work. But do they really work? More importantly, is it actually possible to beat roulette using a strategy? We will try to answer these questions by looking at the most popular roulette strategies as of April 2025. Remember that you can use/test all of them in roulette games at the NV casino online.
The Martingale: Grandaddy Of All Strategies
There are two reasons why we call it “grandaddy”. Martingale is one of the oldest strategies in existence (it is thought to have emerged in France at about the same time as roulette), and a huge number of existing strategies are variations of it. Almost everyone from beginners to professional gamblers has tried it at least once because it uses a very simple cycle:
- Put your money only on even money bets (low/high, red/black, odd/even).
- Start with a low amount (for example, 2 units).
- If you win, you don’t have to do anything (keep playing with 2 units).
- If you lose, double the amount you bet the next round (for example, 4 units).
- Keep doing this (i.e., double the amount you bet) until you win.
The goal of Martingale is to make sure that when you win, the payout is big enough to cover all your losses – so you keep increasing the bet by 2x, and eventually, you will win; you can’t lose forever. Mathematically, Martingale is pretty solid: indeed, if you keep increasing your bet by 2x, the payout you get when you win will be big enough to cover all your losses and give you a profit. But there are two problems here: if the win doesn’t happen soon, you won’t be able to keep increasing your bet because you’ll run out of money in your bankroll, and you’ll go bankrupt.
Martingale requires you to increase your bet to 64 units if you lose 6 times in a row, even if you start with 2 units, and by then, you’ll have lost close to 200 units in total. If your bankroll isn’t big enough, you won’t be able to handle losing streaks.
The second problem is the table limits. Every roulette game has a maximum table (bet) limit, and once you reach this, you will not be able to increase the bet anymore. If you reach this limit while using the Martingale strategy and before scoring a win, the strategy will become ineffective.
D’alembert Strategy: Used In Everywhere
You can see that the d’Alembert strategy is used in many industries, including trading, and many people believe it works. We can say that it is a more simplified version of the Martingale. In this variant, you should still prefer even money bets and start with a low amount. However, this time, you increase the bet by 1x when you lose and decrease it by 1x when you win.
The main idea here is to ensure that the total bet amount on the table increases in a more controlled manner, giving you more time to achieve a win and delaying your bankruptcy. However, the same restrictions apply to d’Alembert: if you reach the maximum table limit and/or get into a long losing streak, it stops working.
Fibonacci System: Based On The Golden Ratio
This is also a very simple system: if you lose, you increase your bet, but the amount of the increase is determined by the Fibonacci numbers. This is an actual mathematical sequence believed to be found in the Golden Ratio – each number is the sum of the previous two.
So, the bet increase should be: 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 8x, 13x, 21x, 34x, 55x, 89x, 144x, etc. The problem is that you may have to increase your bet 21 times in the seventh round alone, and there is nothing to suggest that the Golden Ratio works in roulette, other than a “mystical” belief.
Why Don’t They Work?
Simply put, they don’t work because they can’t change the RTP and house edge values. Roulette is a game based on mathematics, and it’s determined how much money the casino will make from you if you keep playing: 2.70% for single-zero roulette, 5.26% for double-zero roulette. No strategy can change these values, and for the same reason, the strategies won’t work. The only way to win at roulette is to stop playing if you get lucky and make a profit. If you keep going, the casino will eventually win. Whatever strategy you use, remember this: roulette is a game of chance, and using a strategy/system in such games doesn’t change your chances of winning in any way. So, focus on having fun and always play responsibly.
