At Roulette
Chatroulette is the original internet-breaking random chatroom to meet guys, girls, celebrities, musicians, comics, and all sorts of fascinating people. No login required. Start chatting and be instantly connected to millions of people. I would use a Martingale only on the even-money outside bets at roulette, the odd or even, high or low, red or black. These bets give the player 18 chances to win with 20 chances to lose on the American double-zero wheels and 18 chances to win with 19 chances to lose on the European Roulette (single-zero wheels). A simple Roulette strategy is to place a bet on red or black. Double up on your bet each time you lose until you get your money back. Another Roulette game strategy highlights betting high when you win, and betting low when you lose. A mathematical roulette strategy says you should increase your bet. A roulette strategy has one aim and one aim only: to win. Most roulette strategies are based around telling players how they should bet and when to bet it. The game of roulette has more potential strategies than any other casino game.
When it comes to ease of play, roulette is hard to beat. You spin a wheel that has 38 possible outcomes, and you bet on various aspects of what that outcome might be — the number, the color, whether it’s a high or low number, whether it’s an even or odd number, etc.
It might seem like there are a bewildering number of bets to choose from, but most roulette bets are more straightforward than you would think.
Unlike some casino games, though, figuring out how to play roulette at home can be a challenge. After all, it requires some specialized equipment that most people can’t afford, wouldn’t know where to buy, and wouldn’t have room to store.
This post looks at several different ways you can play roulette at home.
A Quick Roulette Tutorial
Here’s a quick tutorial about how to play roulette anywhere, at home or in the casino.
The game has two moving parts — a spinning wheel that sits in a bowl and a metal ball that spins around the edge of the bowl. Eventually, friction and gravity cause the ball to fall into one of the pockets on the spinning wheel.
Gamblers have a variety of bets they can place, all of which win or lose based on some aspect of the number where the ball lands.
On a standard American roulette wheel, you have 38 numbers — 0, 00, and 1 through 36, inclusive. The 0 and the 00 are green. Half the other numbers are black, and the other half are red.
You can bet on which color comes up. You can bet on whether the number that comes up is odd or even. You can bet on whether the number is low (1 through 18) or high (19 through 36). You can bet on multiple numbers at one time, or you can bet on ranges like first, second, or third (1-12, 13-24, or 25-36).
You can even bet on a specific number coming up. The less likely you are to win one of these bets, the more you win.
For example, if you bet on a specific number and win, you get paid off at 35 to 1. If you bet on black, you get paid off at even money.
The payouts vary based on the bet, but it’s beyond the scope of the post to get into every possible bet and payout. Also, you can find the information elsewhere on this site.
The Magic of Home Roulette Sets
When I worked as a sales manager at Expedia, I liked to have contests for the salespeople. My favorite was “casino day.”
I had a toy casino set with a deck of cards, some dice, and a miniature roulette wheel and layout. There was a craps layout on the other side. The way we played the game as a sales contest was to give you your choice of bets from the casino games available, and if you won your bet, you got an extra $100.F
This would be the best way to play roulette at home, by the way — find a miniature casino equipment setup that includes a roulette component.
The variety of home casino games available is staggering if you search a site like Amazon. You can find everything from budget games where the odds are probably not remotely what you’d expect them to be to something just short of a full-sized casino table and everything in between.
You can spend between $100 and $500 and get something you’ll be proud to play with your friends and family during your next home casino night or party. I also found some interesting drinking games you could buy that were roulette-themed.
I have a friend named Tom who was into do-it-yourself projects (he was also a fine poker player). He once spent weeks building his own smoker from scratch. He said it was far more trouble than it was worth, and he said it was harder than he expected.
I suspect that building your own casino-quality roulette table might be a similarly daunting project, but if you want to give it a try, you have plenty of options to choose from on the internet. All you have to do is search YouTube for phrases like “DIY roulette table” and follow the instructions.
You can find plenty of blueprints and instructions on various websites just by doing a search of Bing or Google, too.
Free Casino Game Software
If you like video games, you have another option. You can buy one of the many free casino game software programs available. Hoyle Casino seems to be one of the most popular on a perennial basis. It’s a brand-name, and they seem to release an updated version of their software every year.
Sometimes, they have variations. For example, one year they released “Hoyle Casino 3D,” where all the graphics are in 3D. These programs range from $5 to $20 depending on how old the release you’re buying is.
They all offer multiple casino games you can play on your computer for fake chips. You can’t play any of these games for real money. Instead, you’re given a number of free chips within the game that you can use to play with.
As to whether these games duplicate the odds, probability, and house edge of the real live versions of these casino games, I don’t know. I suspect that they do not. These games want to encourage you to play, so my guess is that the odds are stacked in your favor.
In that respect, I think these games act almost like advertisements for the casino industry.
Still, if you want to play casino games like roulette in front of a computer screen, this is one option.
Online Roulette Games for Real Money
The other option for playing roulette at home is to find an online casino which offers roulette for real money. These games also offer free versions of their games where you can play for free chips, but they also have the option to play for real money.
Many online casinos require you to download a software client before playing their games. These tend to have the most realistic sound effects and graphics. The download can be used to play for free or for real money.
Other online casinos now offer no-download versions of their games. Usually, they have a more limited selection of instant play games to choose from, but roulette is almost always on the menu.
Be careful, though. I have no evidence to support this, but here’s my suspicion.
Sometimes the odds on the free games are tilted slightly to the players’ advantage.
Remember that the casino’s goal is to get you to sign up for a real money account and gamble real money. What better way to do that then to subtly mislead you into thinking that your odds of winning are better than they actually are?
You’ll also find online casinos which specialize in live dealer casino games, or webcam casino games. These are games that are played using actual casino equipment. They usually hire beautiful, exotic young women to work as dealers and croupiers for such games.
You place your bets via a special interface, and you can even chat with the ladies running the casino games.
Many players feel more comfortable playing such a game because they suspect the casinos of altering the odds of their software-based games. They figure that it’s harder to alter the odds on an actual roulette wheel.
I have my doubts about that, but that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the experience of playing roulette on a real roulette table with a real roulette wheel via webcam if that’s what floats your boat.
For that matter, the house edge for a standard American roulette wheel is already 5.26%. Why would the casino need to cheat by tilting the odds further in their favor?
Mathematically, they’re going to make massive amounts of profit anyway.
Appropriate Roulette Strategy for Playing at Home
If you’re playing roulette online for real money, you have some strategic options to consider. These mostly have to do with which game you choose.
And the best you can hope to do is find a game where you lose your money more slowly.
For example, most online casinos offer a single-zero roulette game. Instead of having 38 total numbers on the wheel, this wheel only has 37 numbers. Your probability of winning a single-number bet on such a game improves from 1/38 to 1/37, but the payout (35 to 1) remains the same.
This reduces the house edge from 5.26% to 2.70%, which is a major difference.
The layout of the betting surface is slightly different, but you should be able to figure it out.
An even better rule that’s available at some online casinos is the en prison or la partage rule. In a game with this rule in place, the house edge is further reduced to 1.35%.
Here’s how that rule works.
When you place an even-money bet on such a table and lose, your bet is placed “in prison.” On the next spin, if it still loses, you’ve lost the bet.
But if it wins on that second spin, it’s returned to you (albeit with no winnings).
You can easily see why this game is superior to the standard game where you just lose a bet when you guess wrong.
The other thing to keep in mind is that this rule is only in effect for the outside bets that pay off at even money. This means that any other bet at this virtual roulette table is a sucker bet.
Finally, be careful of which online casino you sign up for. Not all online casinos are honest. They don’t usually cheat at roulette, though.
The more common way for an online casino to cheat is by interfering with your ability to cash out. They have various ways of doing this, but you can read about people’s experiences with that sort of behavior by checking out any major casino player forum online. Gamblers who have experienced delays in their cashouts are usually not shy about sharing their experiences with the rest of the internet.
The editors of this site, by the way, have spent hours researching reputations so that they could only recommend trustworthy, legitimate gambling sites at which to play.
Conclusion
If you want to learn how to play roulette at home, you have multiple options. You can buy a makeshift smaller casino-game set via Amazon for as little as $100.
Or you can make your own roulette game if you’re a DIY-er. Just search the plans and instructions and get to work.
You can also play on a computer. You can play games like Hoyle Casino, which have no real money option, or you can sign up for a free, play money account at an online casino.
You can even play for real money on the internet. You have multiple options for this, too — software-based games, instant play games in a web browser, or real roulette games played with live dealers via webcam.
You have far more options for home roulette games than I initially thought. In fact, I might have even missed a couple of options. If so, leave a message and let me know what I forgot and should have included.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.For as long as gamblers have wagered money on games of chance and skill, the temptation to cheat has loomed.
Unwilling to let fate decide, casino cheaters use creative and unscrupulous tricks to gain an unfair edge over the house.
Among the earliest methods employed by poker cheats, the gunslinging poker games of the Old West era saw cheats wield aces up their sleeves. These days, cheaters who plague poker can be found in both brick and mortar card rooms and online sites, colluding or dumping chips to team up on unsuspecting opponents.
Cheating in modern casinos predominantly afflicts the skill-based games like poker and blackjack, but you’d be surprised by how prevalent the crime has become in roulette and other games of chance. You wouldn’t think a simple wheel-spinning affair like roulette would be subject to cheating because players don’t really have any influence on the gameplay.
Nonetheless, cheats can be found anywhere real money is being wagered, and the roulette table is no exception. Even with the ever-present “eye in the sky” watching their every move, and eagle-eyed croupiers (dealers), pit bosses, and other staff members trained to detect malfeasance, roulette cheaters just can’t help themselves.
The allure of making easy money without incurring risk certainly makes sense, but trying to cheat the casino while playing roulette is a fool’s errand. Don’t take my word for it though, just ask the long lineup of convicted roulette criminals who tried the five ways to cheat at roulette listed below.
1 – Past Posting or Late Betting to Increase Wagers on Known Winners
Every roulette player knows the feeling well…
When you nail the number perfectly and watch the croupier stack the 35 to 1 payout, wishing you would’ve bet $10 instead of $1, the experience can be bittersweet to say the least. Beating long odds for a big payout is always cause for celebration, but when you only bet a few bucks, it can be easy to kick yourself for not putting more out there.
Some roulette cheaters aren’t content with their minimal payouts, so they resort to a tactic popularly referred to as “past posting.” Also known as “late betting,” the concept of past posting is quite basic on the surface. You add chips to your bet once you know it’s a winner.
When the croupier watches the wheel to find out where the ball landed, it will take them a split second to scan the spaces, find the ball, and turn their eyes back to the table before calling the number. In that split second, past posting artists use sleight of hand tricks to secretly add significant sums to their winning bet.
Let’s say you sprinkled various bets between $5 and $40 on several single-number spaces, using combinations of both the red $5 and green $25 chips. You have the number 17 covered with one $5 chip, but when you see the ball nestle into the 17 space, you instantly dart your hand out and cap the $5 bet with a $25 chip. The croupier never notices your trickery, and just like that, you’ve turned a $175 payout (35 to 1) on $5 into a whopping $1,050.
Why You Shouldn’t Try Past Posting
While potentially lucrative when undetected, past posting is inherently dangerous based on the moving parts in play.
A professional croupier is trained to scan and memorize the bets in play when they wave for final wagers, so they might notice your small chips suddenly transforming into big ones. While you’re watching the croupier, a nearby pit boss outside of your peripheral vision might see you make the switch. And up above, high-resolution cameras are recording every move you make.
Add it all up, and past posting just isn’t worth the risk involved, a fact Charbel Tannous and Constandi Lubbat can attest to. In 2011, while playing roulette at L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort in Louisiana, the pair were caught red-handed past posting for big money.
After authorities used surveillance footage to confirm that over $175,000 was stolen via the roulette scheme, Tannous and Lubbat were charged with felony cheating and swindling over $1,500 and criminal conspiracy.
Tannous was eventually convicted and sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for organizing the roulette racket. This is a harsh punishment US Attorney Stephanie Finley made clear will be the norm for casino cheats:
“We are very pleased with the court’s decision to give this defendant a significant prison term. The casino and the citizens were victims in this case. A portion of the profits from the casino goes to the State of Louisiana and the Calcasieu Parish School Board.
We will continue to partner with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to prosecute crimes of this nature and seek the maximum amount of prison time available.”
2 – Partnering With a Croupier to Produce Fake Winners
If you read the previously linked reporting, you know Tannous and Lubbat didn’t work alone.
By conspiring with two croupiers working at the casino, these cheats made sure their past posting antics would never be reported.
That approach certainly makes sense on an objective level, too. By doubling down on the scam, colluding to ensure their cheating is allowed by the people running the table, conspirators don’t leave anything to chance. Having an “inside man” on the team only makes cheating at roulette that much easier, as a corrupt croupier can allow their partner to inflate winning bets or pull back chips on losers.
Why You Shouldn’t Partner With a Dealer
In 2016, a casino pit boss at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa, decided to go rogue. He enlisted a croupier to do the dirty deed, and a third partner to act the part of lucky player. Past posting provided the bulk of the team’s $20,000 in ill-gotten gains, but like almost all roulette cheats before them, these three were eventually caught on camera and arrested.
David Dales, a special agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (IDCI), issued a statement explaining how the scam was set up:
Odds At Roulette
“There was a dealer that was doing some active cheating mechanism on the roulette table at Horseshoe Casino. And there was a patron he was consistently cheating for. The allegations are they were past posting – adding chips to the winning numbers – doing other activities that gave them illegal winnings at a table game.”
The offenders were charged with four felonies, including ongoing criminal conduct, first-degree theft, conspiracy, and cheating at gambling. They faced significant jail time and hefty fines.
3 – “Coloring up” Small Chips for Higher Denominations off the Table Before Cashing Out
An especially clever way roulette players can cheat the game involves the old bait and switch.
To make the “color up” scheme work, two players working in tandem start by sitting at different tables. In roulette, cash is turned into specially designed chips that are only good at the table. To avoid confusion between different players betting, everyone gets a different color chip in the denomination of their choosing.
A color up team moves from table to table, one buying in for the minimum $1 chips, and the other going bigger with a $25 or $100 denomination. When they both receive the same color chips, they’re always at a different table and only six or seven colors are in play so this will inevitably occur, the trap is sprung.
The low stakes player pockets a handful of chips on the sly, then heads off to take a quick bathroom break. With no surveillance cameras to worry about, they wait for their partner to hit the head as well, then they deliver a handful of chips when nobody’s around.
Flush with new chips in the same color as those at the big stakes table, the second player proceeds to play a spin or two with minimal action before requesting a color up and cash out.
When cheaters turn 10 of the $1 chips into an equivalent amount of $25 chips, they’ve instantly “earned” $240 in profit without incurring an ounce of risk. And if a $1 to $100 exchange rate is in play, the color up scam produces a massive $990 profit margin.
Why You Shouldn’t Color up Chips
Between 2012 and 2013, a highly organized team of color up cheaters based in New York toured the country targeting small commercial and tribal casinos. Their run came to an end in Ohio, after the team struck at four casinos and stole thousands of dollars, only for 13 members to find themselves behind bars when it was all said and done.
Karen Huey, director of enforcement for the Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC), told local media outlets that the Buckeye State was not alone:
“This is a very organized group of about 70 people. They travel the country. They’ve been identified in 18 states running this scam.”
The roulette cheating team wound up facing 29 felony counts and the possibility of lengthy prison sentences. According to Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office Special Units Division Chief John Weglian, casino criminals will never receive leniency.
“One of the principle purposes of these casinos is to provide revenue to the State of Ohio so the laws that the legislature has passed cover casino violations will be enforced strictly by the Attorney General’s office and this office. We will enforce the laws of the state.”
4 – Using Hidden Lasers to Measure Ball Speed Before Betting Concludes
These last two are so absurd that they hardly merit mention, but based on their scientific innovations alone, they made the cut.
Back in the 1970s, a physicist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico named Norman Packard postulated that laser beams could be used to measure crucial roulette variables. By using a laser and a computer to chart the ball and wheel speed, Packard succeeded in predicting which quadrant of the wheel the ball would land in.
Here’s how he described the gambit in an interview with New Scientist:
“In the best circumstances, we could predict the quadrant correctly. Even saying which half of the wheel is extremely powerful because the payoff is so good. We definitely got to the point where we were winning money, but we didn’t continue long enough to make large amounts.”
Why You Shouldn’t Use Technology to Cheat
Obviously, pulling out a laser pointer and hiding a computer on your person is impractical in the modern casino setting. Maybe the laser cheat works in a laboratory, or even an old-school gambling hall before cameras became prevalent, but this is a method of cheating at roulette that would never fly nowadays.
5 – Directing the Ball to Certain Spaces by Generating a Magnetic Field
Using a laser pointer and a computer isn’t the most discreet way to cheat at roulette. So, how about a magnetic roulette ball to improve your odds?
In the early 2000s, a team of Austrian roulette cheats found a way to activate magnetic fields that drew the ball to certain numbers based on where the player stood. While the team didn’t win on every single spin, the use of a remote-controlled ball helped them improve their chances of winning.
Why You Shouldn’t Use Magnets
Unfortunately for this team of conmen, the croupier eventually found the ball stuck to his cufflink. The jig was up, forcing the cheaters to abandon their winnings and run away in shame. Today, some casinos use magnetic field sensors to prevent this from happening.
Conclusion
How To Win At Roulette Machines
Folks who feel the need to cheat at roulette represent the bottom of the barrel when it comes to casino gambling. Desperate and down on their luck, yet unwilling to simply learn a skill game and play it well, roulette cheats refuse to accept reality. And as the five entries above should show you, the run of free money always ends at some point, leaving prison, probation, and a ruined reputation as the roulette cheater’s only legacy.