The Myths of Betting Systems

Renowned as being one of the most intelligent men to ever live, Albert Einstein once said “No one can possibly win at roulette unless he steals money from the table while the croupier isn't looking” – yet, despite this, thousands of people swear by betting systems claiming they have won big using them.

The biggest fallacy held by gamblers is that if something has not happened for a period of time, it simply must happen soon. Gamblers fail to accept that each spin of a Roulette wheel is entirely independent of all previous spins. One common point which they raise is the laws of probability. They claim, that as black as landed 19 times, red is by far the most likely to fall on the next spin. But unless the balls were magnetic or the table was rigged, there is simply no way of telling.

The actual odds of the ball falling black for 20 spins on a double zero table is 1 in 3,091,874 (or 18/3820). Gamblers falsely make the statement that it is therefore 1 in 3,091,874 to land black for a 20th time in a row after 19 previous spins landed in black. The actual odds? 18/38.

The bottom line is that you simply cannot predict the spin of a wheel. The ball, no matter how many times it may have fallen black, could still fall black for N times. The balls do not spin in any sort of sequence, nor does it remember where it fell previously.

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An online casino works a little differently, using a random number generator to produce results. It can be said that an online roulette game is more predictable (back to the myth of “it’s been X for N times, it must now be Y”) but again this is false as the random number generator is run without recognising any input from previous spins.