Roulette strategies tested: 1,100,000 simulated sessions

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Looking for the short version? What is the best roulette strategy? ranks all ten systems through every honest lens, and Can you beat roulette? shows why the answer had to come out the way it did.

What we did

We took the ten classic betting systems built into The Roulette Assistant and ran each one through 100,000 simulated sessions, which is 1,000,000 sessions in total. Each session lasts up to 100 spins on a fair single zero wheel, starting with 500 virtual points and a base bet of 5.

The systems are not reimplemented for this page. The simulation imports the same strategy code the app itself runs, so these numbers are what the app produces. Every system was dealt the same seeded sequence of spins, so the comparison between them is fair.

The app also includes one original system of our own for subscribers, The Glacial System. It is tested the same honest way, with its outcome figures published in full on its own page and in the table below.

The results side by side

A higher success rate does not mean a system is profitable. The worst session column shows what the bad day costs, and the average result includes it: every row, ours included, averages a loss. The classic rows share one setup (500 points, base bet 5); The Glacial System runs its own kind of session and is evaluated the way the app's leaderboard evaluates it, so compare its row by rate and shape rather than point for point.

Notice the pattern among the classic systems: the ones that stake the most lose the most, in almost exact proportion. That is the house edge doing its work, and no arrangement of bet sizes escapes it.

The ten systems

• Flat betting

  Flat betting is the simplest approach there is: you stake the same amount on the same kind of bet every round, whatever happened before. Nothing goes up after a loss and nothing goes down after a win.

  35.6% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -13.6 points. 0.0% ran out of money.

• Martingale

  The Martingale doubles the stake after every loss and resets to the starting stake after every win. The idea is that one win recovers every loss in the run and adds one unit of profit on top.

  49.2% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -31.1 points. 50.1% ran out of money.

• Grand Martingale

  The Grand Martingale is the Martingale with the volume turned up. After a loss you double the stake and then add one more base unit on top, so a winning round recovers the run and returns more than a single unit of profit.

  32.9% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -38.4 points. 66.8% ran out of money.

• Paroli

  The Paroli is the Martingale turned around. You double the stake after a win and reset to the base stake after a loss, aiming to ride a short hot streak with the table money rather than your own.

  38.4% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -22.9 points. 0.0% ran out of money.

• D'Alembert

  The D'Alembert raises the stake by one base unit after a loss and lowers it by one after a win, never dropping below the base unit. It is a much gentler staircase than the doubling systems.

  54.6% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -63.4 points. 30.4% ran out of money.

• Reverse D'Alembert

  The Reverse D'Alembert is the mirror image: add one base unit after a win, remove one after a loss, never going below the base unit. It leans into winning runs and pulls back during losing ones.

  23.9% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -70 points. 0.0% ran out of money.

• Fibonacci

  The Fibonacci walks up the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and so on after each loss, and steps back two places after each win. Stakes are that sequence multiplied by your base unit.

  73.8% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -29.3 points. 23.0% ran out of money.

• Labouchere

  You write down a short line of numbers, for example 1, 2, 3, 4. Each bet is the first number plus the last. If it wins, you cross both off. If it loses, you add the amount you just lost to the end of the line.

  31.3% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -84.2 points. 67.8% ran out of money.

• Oscar's Grind

  Oscar's Grind targets exactly one unit of profit per cycle. The stake stays the same after a loss and increases by one unit after a win, but never so far that a win would overshoot the one unit target.

  68.5% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -35.4 points. 15.0% ran out of money.

• James Bond

  The James Bond is a fixed spread rather than a progression. Every round you place the same three bets: a large stake on 19 to 36, a smaller stake on the six line covering 13 to 18, and one unit on zero as insurance.

  27.5% of sessions finished ahead. Average result -162.8 points. 64.1% ran out of money.

Our own system

• The Glacial System ours, subscribers

  Our own original system, exclusive to subscribers. We do not describe how it plays; we publish what it does: 96.2% of 100,000 simulated sessions finished ahead, the worst session lost 1,320 points, and the average result is -4.5 points per session. It cannot beat the house edge either, and its page says so in the first sentence.

Head to head comparisons

• Martingale vs Paroli: both systems' real numbers side by side, and how their risk shapes differ.
• Martingale vs D'Alembert: both systems' real numbers side by side, and how their risk shapes differ.
• Fibonacci vs Labouchere: both systems' real numbers side by side, and how their risk shapes differ.
• Paroli vs D'Alembert: both systems' real numbers side by side, and how their risk shapes differ.
• D'Alembert vs Fibonacci: both systems' real numbers side by side, and how their risk shapes differ.
• Labouchere vs Oscar's Grind: both systems' real numbers side by side, and how their risk shapes differ.
• Flat betting vs Martingale: both systems' real numbers side by side, and how their risk shapes differ.

Roulette guides

• How to play roulette: the table, the bets, the flow of a round, and honest expectations.
• Payouts and odds: every bet with its exact probability and house edge, computed, not copied.
• European vs American roulette: why one zero beats two, with the exact math.
• Glossary: the terms, in plain English.
• Can you beat roulette?: the exact math and the million session evidence.
• Bankroll management: honest limits for entertainment play.
• The gambler's fallacy: the wheel has no memory.

Also on the site: the collected FAQ and our lab notes, the data journal of these simulations.

Common questions

Is there a roulette strategy that beats the house edge?

No. Across 1,000,000 simulated sessions, every one of the ten systems finished with an average loss close to the house edge applied to everything it staked. Changing the size or order of bets moves risk around and does not change the total.

Which roulette system loses the least?

In our data the systems that stake the least in total lose the least in absolute points, because the house edge is a percentage of the amount staked. A flat stake staked the least of any system tested.

How were these roulette simulations run?

Each classic system was run for 100,000 sessions of up to 100 spins on a fair single zero wheel with 37 pockets, starting from 500 virtual points with a base bet of 5, and every classic system was dealt the same seeded sequence of spins so the comparison is fair. The Glacial System plays its own kind of session, so it was run for 100,000 sessions the same way the app's built in leaderboard evaluates it, at the leaderboard's fixed bankroll.