Roulette dates back to the 17th century and today is one of the most popular casino games. “Roulette” means little wheel in French. The aim of the game is for the player to place bets on numbers or sets of numbers on the table in the hope that the numbers will hit. This focus on numbers often brings up the question of which numbers come up the most often in the game of Roulette. The hard truth is, that, unless the player can control the spin of the wheel, there is no way to predict that numbers that hit. The Gambler's Fallacy plays a big role and has led to many worthless roulette strategies being formulated over the years.
What is the Gambler's Fallacy?
Plainly put, the Gambler's Fallacy is the erroneous belief that if a certain event has not occurred for a lengthy amount of time, it becomes more likely to occur. How this pertains to Roulette practically is that, if the number 21 has not hit for the last 10 wheel spins, then it becomes more likely to hit in the next wheel spin. Many players base their Roulette strategies on this fallacy. Literature about hot Roulette numbers even suggest taking a count of each Roulette outcome for 3,700 spins on a single-zero Roulette game to observe the instances of a hot number coming up. The bottom line is that a hot number that occurred in the last 24 hours might not be the hottest in a longer time period.
- Discard the Gambler's Fallacy
- Understand basic probabilities
- Know how the House Edge works
Probability is a term that determines the likelihood of a certain random event occurring. This can be expressed by way of a fraction or a percentage. In Roulette, the probability of a winning combination is easy to calculate. There are either 38 or 37 possible outcomes per wheel spin (depending on whether single or double-zero Roulette is played). Roulette results are totally random, meaning your bet either wins or loses. Therefore the probability of winning is the number of ways to win over the total number of outcomes. For the types of Roulette bets, this probability can be anything from 2,63% (single number bets) right up to 46,37% (odds/evens, red/black bets). Rather consult a Roulette strategy card if you don't want to make calculations with each bet.
Rules at any casino game are formulated to skew the odds in favor of the house. After all, it also needs to make money. Odds is the ratio between the number of ways to win and the numbers of ways to lose, and expressed as a pair of numbers. For example, the winning odds of a single number bet on Red 32 would be expressed as 1/36 or 1 to 36. The winning odds of a odd/even bet will be 1,056/1. Sometimes gambling houses list these odds as reversed odds, or the odds against winning. So the odds against winning for a single number Red 32 bet will be 36/1. In Roulette there is no escaping the house edge - the more you bet, the more you lose over the long term.
To sum up our thoughts on choosing the hottest Roulette numbers: People can look at mathematics and statistics around winning numbers, and do comparisons to other gambling games and lotteries ad nauseum, but the fact remains that Roulette is a random numbers casino game. Roulette will never present its players with an equal distribution of winning numbers. Randomness does not work that way. There will always be common numbers that hit in the game of Roulette, but they all have the same odds of occurring. When formulating a betting strategy or playing system for Roulette, it is important to know basic probabilities, the advantage of the House or edge, and to let go of general superstitions and beliefs around numbers.