Is Roulette All Luck?

Is roulette all down to luck? Do roulette systems make any difference? Here are the answers from professional roulette players.

Most people would say that roulette is all luck, and that there’s no way to consistently beat the game. The real truth is it depends on the type of roulette you’re playing. Every new online casino uses random number generators in some form. If you are playing only for entertainment, then they are perfectly fine, provided the online casino is honest.

Understanding What Makes a Casino Game Beatable

Let’s go back to basics. All gambling games are about odds versus payouts.

In the case of also dog racing, the odds and payouts are considered much the same thing. For example, if a horse has odds of 5 to 1, you might say the horse has a one in five chance of winning. But this would be correct. Because the odds or “chance” of a horse winning is not easily calculated. There are many variables that determine how likely it is to win. Although if you’re an experienced punter, your bets won’t be “all luck” – your win rate would be better than most other punters.

The payout is completely different. The payout means how much you are paid for a winning bet. This fundamental difference between odds and payout is important to understand.

So what makes a gambling game beatable? First, assume that the outcome of games are predictable to some degree. You don’t need 100% predictability. So assuming games are at least partially predictable, you have some control over the odds of winning. Remember that the odds are your chances of winning. And payouts are completely different.

Casinos normally win in the long-term because they have an in-built advantage. This is called the “house edge”. It basically means payouts are below the odds of winning. In the case of roulette, there are 37 pockets of the European wheel. But the payout for wins is only 35 to 1. It means if your bets have random accuracy, you won’t win often enough to overcome the unfair payouts.

All gambling games are fundamentally the same. In other words, the payouts are unfair, which is what makes running a casino profitable.

Now back to the question of what makes a gambling game beatable. Simply, it’s predictability of game outcomes. Put another way – and in the context of roulette – are spins predictable to any degree? The answer is yes, so roulette not not all luck.

But there’s more to the story, and the predictability of spins depends on the type of roulette.

What Types of Roulette Are Predictable?

Nothing happens without a cause. People generally use the term “random”, but nothing is ever truly random. The word random implies that things happen without a cause. In the context of playing roulette, if you make random bets, then your win rate is all luck. You might get lucky and win big in the short term, or you might be unlucky and lose. Either way, eventually your results will be a long-term loss. Generally luck occurs in the short term.

The two main types of roulette are RNG roulette, and real wheel roulette. RNG roulette does not involve a physical wheel. Instead, winning numbers are determined by software. So the winning numbers still have a cause. But predicting them, with sufficient accuracy to overcome the house edge, is a very different matter. There are ways of doing it, but it’s almost impossible.

Real wheel roulette is very different. The winning number is determined by the physics of the roulette wheel and ball. Real-wheel physics is actually quite predictable, once you understand it. This is why real wheels are favored by professional players.

Don’t Confuse Luck With a Winning System

Especially if you’re a new player, you can easily confuse lucky wins with a legitimately effective system. Even random bets can be profitable in the short term. But it doesn’t mean the system works. And it doesn’t mean you have “beaten” roulette.

In the video series shown below (bottom of page), you can see millions of spins tested with proven losing systems. You’ll see even random bets can profit over 10,000+ spins. This is more spins than most gamblers play in their lifetime. But to a casino, it’s still relatively short term; especially when they have hundreds of games or slot machines throughout the casino. So look at the bigger picture.

Conclusion

To any professional casino player, winning is not all luck. The way they perceive luck is very different to normal gamblers. A professional player generally doesn’t use the term “luck”. Instead, luck to them is simply short-term variance. And short-term variance is the term for” anything can happen in the short-term”. It’s important to understand the context of this statement. Remember that even players making random bets can profit for the day. But the casino knows in the long-term, gamblers are likely to lose their winnings, and probably more. So casinos aren’t concerned about short-term results. This is how professional players see it too.

Ultimately roulette is “all luck” ONLY if your bets are random, OR your system is ineffective. By saying “ineffective”, I mean you haven’t changed the odds of winning. The terminology I’m using is very important to understand, again because odds and payout are different things.