Other Systems Used in Roulette

Some gamblers place much mistaken faith in a system sometimes known as the Cuban.

A glance at the colonne bets on the staking layout will show that the center column contains eight black numbers and only four reds.

A chip placed on this column at 2-1, coupled with a chip at evens on red, means that the gambler has 26 numbers working for him, and only ten and the zero against him.

If the column wins, he will win at least one chip, possibly three. If the column doesn't win, then the odds are 14-11 on red wining, as the other two columns contain 14 reds to 10 blacks (the zero making the eleventh loser).

Actually the odds are slightly better, as the zero is not an automatic loser for backers of red.

However, over the long run, the colonne bet will lose 1 chip in 37 to the bank, the bank's advantage on this bet being 2-7 percent.

This bet on red will lose 1 chip in 73 to the bank. It is impossible to combine two losing bets to make one wining bet, In fact, the bank's advantage over players using this system is just over 2 percent.

On an American double-zero wheel, the bank's advantage is 5-26 percent.

The most interesting roulette system is the Labouchere or cancellation system.

The gambler begins by writing down a series of numbers, say 1, 2, 3, 4 or 1, 1, 1, 1, or 2, 2, 2.

For the purposes of illustration, let us assume a gambler has decided to back the even numbers (pair) and his series is 1, 2, 3, 4.

His first stake is the sum of the two outside numbers of his series, 1 and 4, so he places five chips on pair. If it wins, he crosses off, or cancels, the numbers 1 and 4 and backs the sum of the two outside numbers remaining, 2 and 3; his stake is again five chips.

Should he win, he crosses off 2 and 3. All his numbers are now deleted, the first sequence is over and he is ten chips to the good.

Now let us suppose his first bet of five chips loses.

Instead of crossing out 1 and 4, he adds his losing stake to the series of numbers, so that it becomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

His next stake is 1+5=6 chips. The beauty of this system is that the gambler crosses out two numbers of his series for each win, and adds only one for each loss.

As he is backing even chances it is clear that the series of numbers will tend to get shorter rather than longer, and every time it disappears altogether, the sequence ends with the gambler showing a profit of the sum of the numbers in this series, in this example 1+2+3+4= 10 chips.