House Edge Don't Matter

[Scarface]

Sorry for the misleading title.  But for most system players, it's not the house edge causing you to lose.  Its variance, and how you deal with it.  Suppose we had a wheel without the zero, with fair payouts.  Most of the systems on here would still lose when negative variance comes in.

Let's say you walk up to a wheel (without zeros) and notice on the marquee that reds outnumber blacks.  So you bet on black to catch up.  But black may never catch up even if you played for millions of spins.  The Law of Large Numbers only says that they will balance out statistically.  But that doesn't mean that they'll even out.  Even after a million spins, there could still be a difference of hundreds of hits between even bets.

Variance is our worst enemy, not the house edge.  So, how do you deal with this?  Many times flat bet may win.  Sometimes a progression will be required (even on a non zero wheel).  You have to be able to adapt when that negative streak from hell shows up...and it will.

Forget about the house edge.  First, find a strategy that works on a non zero wheel.

[Mako]

Makes sense, if whatever method you're using can't produce over time on a no-zero wheel then it's a waste of time to keep tinkering with it.

[MoneyT101]

House edge don’t  matter 😱

Don’t say things that are forbidden in the forum. 

Steve and the goons will come and attack

😂😂😂😂😂

[Bigbroben]

I was actually curious and wondering the overall distribution of wins and losses at roulette.
House Edge is 1/37, ok.
You'd expect the sum, maybe average wins-losses of all players ever since roulette exists to be around -1/37.  Ok.

What would the distribution curve look like?  Would it be bell-shaped like SDs or wavy like the repeater probabilities graph, or just a straight line?  Say x is the %age loss/gain and y the %age of players who ended at that win/loss percentage.
Of all the losers, at what % of their bankroll did they lose ( my guess most will be at 0%!).
Of all the winners, how in %age did they increase their bankroll ?

I guess it can be calculated...

[Scarface]

Bigroben, that would be good info to know.  I have seen it posted where the US casinos posted their actual take from roulette.  The actual was different from casinos, but it ranged from about 15-25%.  We would need more info to know what the real house edge is.  I guarantee it is more than the mathematical house edge.  I'm pretty sure casino could still profit nicely off roulette with a non zero wheel, that paid fair odds. 

[ati]

I totally agree, they feed people on every media with the "fact" that you lose because of the house edge. I'm sure BV is raking in huge profits on their no zero wheel. I personally have wiped out a few bankrolls on that game.
I'm sure that even if we removed number 36 and kept the payout at 35 to 1, 99% of the players would still lose.

[Scarface]

Testing your strategy on a non zero wheel can be a real eye opener for some.  Good money management is very important.  Progressions may be necessary.  BUT, if your strategy progresses from 1 unit to 100 units, that is way to steep!  That's a $10 bet going  to $1000 bets.  Do people really play this risky like the simulations they post here?  There are better ways to manage negative variance than extreme progressions. 

You don't have to be profitable every session, as long as its profitable in the long run.  If you can beat the non zero wheel in the long run, without resorting to steep progressions, then I'd call that a good strategy

[Mako]

The only possible downside is that it might hide weaknesses for longer than necessary that otherwise would be detected. 

Pattern Breaker comes to mind as a perfect example, so many were playing (and winning in the short term) initially using it on BVNZ that it masked its true loss rate for too long before being exposed.

Still seems like a good starting point for the reasons you've mentioned Scarface.

[Roulettebeater]

Good thread with useful thoughts
I Always wondered if players can defeat roulette without the green 0.

I tend to say that it’s possible, look at what the probability say : on a fair wheel without 0, in the long term the player will win as much as the casino ..

[falkor2k15]

Hence I keep saying that Roulette is a break even game for this very reason.

[Kattila]

Then try to avoid variance with LWs strategys,  sometimes can t avoid  bad runs no matter what,
but many times yes.  Why stay and bet on lossing streak when can avoid ? Attack when W s not LLLLLs ....

[Roulettebeater]

So yeah, playing on a fair wheel without zero is advantageous and can lead to profit, why ?

If you are sure that at some point you are going to break even, then you can attack the wheel and capture a successive / final win then you are winner

[falkor2k15]

Then try to avoid variance with LWs strategys,  sometimes can t avoid  bad runs no matter what,
but many times yes.  Why stay and bet on lossing streak when can avoid ? Attack when W s not LLLLLs ....

Doesn't make any difference - just like that "perfect loser" nonsense quoted from Manrique. I've tested all these concepts comprehensively... each win/lose is independent from previous win/lose.

[Joe]

I was curious, suppose you had 2 wheels, one standard, one without a zero and played the same system for 150 spins on each. How many sessions would you lose, win or break even on each wheel? So I wrote a little program to find out. Here are the results of 100 sessions of 150 spins betting on High :

Code Select Expand

   Winning sessions with no zero :   52
    Losing sessions with no zero :   47
Break-even sessions with no zero :    1
      Winning sessions with zero :   34
       Losing sessions with zero :   58
    Break-even session with zero :    8

P(W) on standard wheel : 34.00%
      P(W) on NZ wheel : 52.00%


Since both systems are the same with the only difference being the house edge, and the probability of winning a session, denoted by P(W) is lower for the standard wheel, it shows that the house edge does matter. It's not really surprising because this is what theory says should happen. It doesn't matter if an individual session is short (in that case you would expect variance to dominate over the house edge), but as you play more sessions the house edge starts to take over.

This doesn't of course prove that no system can win, only that the house edge makes a difference, and a big one. I think you might be surprised at the difference in the results.

You can try putting in different values for the session length (SL) and number of sessions (NS). Go to

link:://rextester.com/l/pascal_online_compiler

then delete the code in the editor and paste in the code below. Press F8 to run the code and the results will be shown at the bottom of the window. Experiment with different values of SL and NS.

Code Select Expand

const
  NS = 100;  // number of sessions
  SL = 150;  // session length
var
  z,nz       : array[1..NS] of integer; // session results
  i,j,spin,
  zw,zl,bez,
  nzw,nzl,
  benz       : integer; 
begin
  zw := 0;
  zl := 0;
  bez := 0;
  nzw := 0;
  nzl := 0;
  benz := 0;
  randomize;
  for i := 1 to NS do begin
    for j := 1 to SL do begin
      // get spin (no zero wheel)
      spin := random(37);
      if spin in [1..18] then
        dec(nz[i])
      else if spin in [19..36] then
        inc(nz[i]);
      // get spin (standard wheel)
      spin := random(37);
      if spin in [0..18] then
        dec(z[i])
      else
        inc(z[i]);
    end;
    // no zero session results
    if nz[i] > 0 then
      inc(nzw)
    else if nz[i] < 0 then
      inc(nzl)
    else inc(benz);
    // standard session results
    if z[i] > 0 then
      inc(zw)
    else if z[i] < 0 then
      inc(zl)
    else inc(bez);
  end;
  writeln('Winning sessions with no zero : ':35, nzw:4);
  writeln('Losing sessions with no zero : ':35, nzl:4); 
  writeln('Break-even sessions with no zero : ':35, benz:4); 
  writeln('Winning sessions with zero : ':35, zw:4);       
  writeln('Losing sessions with zero : ':35, zl:4); 
  writeln('Break-even session with zero : ':35, bez:4);
  writeln;
  writeln('P(W) on standard wheel : ':25,zw * 100 / NS:3:2, '%'); 
  writeln('P(W) on NZ wheel : ':25, nzw * 100 / NS:3:2, '%')               
end.



[Roulettebeater]

Joecoder,

Great stuff !
You hit the nails on the head !
That’s what matters !