Out of all the games you can play at the casino, roulette is perhaps one of the simplest – pick a number, put a chip on it, if the balls lands in that number you win, and if it doesn’t you lose. Of course there are various other ways you can play the game, using betting strategies, making bets such as the voisins du zero, or the orphelins, but the basic principle is simple.
Yet even though the game of roulette is a simple game to play, there are a lot of misconceptions about the game of roulette that have followed the game for years.
The major misconception around the game of roulette is that a number is due to come in, or the next number has to be red or black because of the results of previous spins. People have the misconception that if a number does not come out over a course of several spins – let’s say 50 spins – that it is more likely to come out over the course of the next few spins. Of course, this is not true. The result of the previous spins of a roulette wheel, no matter how far back you go, have no bearing on the result of the next spin, or the spin after that, or the spin after that and so on. Each spin of the roulette wheel is an independent event and no number is ever due to come up. This is known as Gambler’s Fallacy -notion that previous events have an impact on future events. The only way this could ever be possible is if the roulette wheel had some kind of bias.
Another common misconception about the game of roulette is that there is a 50% chance of the ball landing on black and a 50% chance of it landing on red. This is not true because of the 0 on the wheel, and also the 00 if you playing on an American roulette table. The actual chance of the ball landing on a red number, or on a black number on a European table is actually 48.6%, and the percentage on an American roulette table is 47.37%. The 0 and 00 exist to give the house that slight edge on even-money bets, and the house always needs an edge the game to be worthwhile to the casino.
In the same vein, many roulette beginners have the misconception that the even-money bets on a roulette table are the best value bets you can make at a casino. This is not true, as there are a few bets in the casino with a much smaller house edge than the 50-50 bets on the roulette table. The house edge on the 50-50 bets on an American roulette where is 5.26% and the house edge on a European roulette wheel is 2.7%. Bets that are better value than the 50-50 bets on a roulette table include: banker or player bet in baccarat, pass/don’t pass in craps, blackjack using basic strategy or better.
Some roulette players have the misconception that a certain betting system is a guarantee to success. Again, this is not true. You might have seen people on auction sites, or dodgier websites offering to sell a guaranteed winning system to use when playing roulette for $49.99 – the simple way of looking at it is why are they resorting to selling this sacred information when they should be rolling in money from cleaning up at casinos around the world and online. Save yourself money and do not bother with these systems. Betting systems are a fun way to play roulette, they are a great way of practising bankroll management and controlling the urge to make impulse bets, but they are never a guarantee of prolonged success as the roulette table.
A well spouted roulette misconception is that some online roulette sites are rigged. This is definitely not the case. Online gaming operators have too much to lose if they are found to be using software that cheats players – best case they will lose any custom, worst case they will end up in prison. The random number generators that online casinos use to operate their games is thoroughly tested and has to pass stringent controls to be used. Plus, with a house edge worked into the game, there is no need for the online casino to use underhand tactics, as they will always secure a profit from their players base over the long term.
And along the same lines, there is the misconception that casinos have a button that they can press which makes the ball behave in a certain way. This is purely the stuff of movies these days. While there may have been cases of unscrupulous casino owners trying to cheat customers in the days of the Wild West, these days casinos are owned mostly by multinational billion dollar companies who have no need to cheat a player out of a few dollars. There is no button the croupier can press, no switch they can flick and no pressure pad they can step on to cheat any player. There is far too much to lose for such little gain, so they just leave that to the Bond villains.