Playing roulette can be a relaxing way to enjoy the casino. You have no decisions to make other than where to place your bets before the ball is released onto the spinning wheel. You then have no control as to where that ball will land. You can feel like James Bond, on a smaller scale. That does not mean that you have money to burn. Play smart and you can enjoy this experience many times over. That is the goal we are going forth with.
The American Roulette wheel has 38 numbers on it, 1 to 36 plus 0 and 00. When you make a bet straight up on a number, and win, the house will pay you 35 to 1. The true odds are 38 to 1 but the house has to have a winning edge. If you were to just keep playing long enough the house would whittle away your bankroll by not paying the true odds.
The key to money management when playing roulette is to just risk a set amount of money at a session and hope to catch some luck. When you buy in, you tell the dealer how much you want your individual chips to be worth (i.e. $1, $2, etc.). This will depend on the table minimum where you are playing. The table minimum must be met by the total of your bets on the layout for each spin. If the table minimum is $5, have your chips designated as $1 each. If the minimum is $10, have your chips designated as $2 each. Since you will be covering 5 numbers for each spin, you will meet the table minimum. You are not going to win at every session but this system will give you an exit strategy that will minimize your losses and maximize your winning sessions.
If you study the betting layout, and the roulette wheel itself, you will see that the numbers on the wheel are not in consecutive order (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) as they are on the layout. That is significant because with the basket five system you actually bet a section of the wheel, forming a pocket.
Basket Five Strategy:
You key on a number straight up, any number, and then also play the two numbers to the right and to the left of that number as they are laid out on the roulette wheel. Some casinos have taken to paying less odds on the numbers 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3. Why that is I don’t know but if that is the case where you are playing, do not include any of those numbers in your basket. Now you play one chip straight on each of those five numbers and you have formed your basket. You will play this same basket for this entire session. If one of your numbers wins, you will then double to two chips on the number that just won. If the doubled up number does not hit again, you reduce that bet to one chip for the ensuing play. If it does hit again you will continue to add one chip to that number.
Money Management:
Since you are playing 5 numbers on the wheel, out of 38, the law of averages dictates that one of your numbers should hit every 7.6 spins. Since you can’t have a .6 spin we’ll base our money management on 8 spins. Your buy-in for the session should be 20 times the table minimum. Designating your chip value as was previously discussed, you should have 100 chips. Form two piles with your chips: one stack of 20 chips (your exit stack) and one stack of 80 chips (your play stack). Whenever your play stack increases past 80 chips, move the additional chips to your exit stack. Never move chips from your exit stack into your play stack. If your play stack becomes depleted, cash in your exit stack and leave the table.
As you can see, with this strategy, you can never lose more than 80 chips, even if you did not hit a number on the first 16 spins that you were at the table. As I said before, this system minimizes your losses but there is no limit on how much you can win. As long as you have chips in your play stack, you can continue to play, with your winnings safely tucked away in your exit stack.
It’s worth repeating: Never move chips from your exit stack into your play stack! Have fun and enjoy those winning sessions to the maximum.
