How To Make Money On Roulette Table

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Roulette can be one of the best or worst casino games when it comes to making money. Everything depends upon which variation you’re playing.

European roulette gives you a fair chance to win because it only has a 2.70% house edge. This version is played on a wheel with 37 numbers, including a single zero pocket (house friendly).

French roulette is even better since it offers a 1.35% house advantage. It’s played on a European wheel and features the la partage rule, which pays half back when your even-money bets lose due to the ball landing on zero.

American roulette is the worst because it features a 5.26% house edge. The problem with American roulette is that its wheel has 38 numbers, including a zero and double zero pocket (both house friendly).

A2A “Can you make money from roulette by going every day and playing red or black, win 1 spin and walk away and come back the next day?” No. I mean, you will win about half (but – critically – not actually half) of these bets, so in the very short. But as I said at the start of the article, a guaranteed winning roulette strategy to make money is a reality, although with the following conditions: 1. You need to play over a sufficiently large sample of spins. This is because anything can happen in the short-term. In a game of roulette the house should keep at least 2.70% of all the bets players make over time. The casino has no need to cheat the players. In fact, the players often make really bad bets that improve the “house edge”, as that casino profit is called. With table games like roulette, the payoffs are in the form of 2 to 1, 3 to 1, 35 to 1, etc. This means that if you win the bet, you get to keep the amount you bet, and you get the winnings along with it. If you bet $100 on a single number at the roulette table and win, you get a payoff of $3,500. But you also get to keep your $100. You will win some spins, you will lose some spins, sometimes you will make some money, and sometimes you will leave the table at a loss. That is the way of roulette, and that is what makes the game so exciting and addictive. Furthermore, you can check our guide to live roulette which might be very useful to you!

French and European roulette give you the best opportunities to win with this game. But they still feature a house edge, which makes it difficult to earn major profits.

If you’ve ever dreamed of winning $1 million in roulette, then you’ll need to seek alternative ways to doing so beyond just choosing the best games.

That said, I’m going to discuss multiple avenues that you can take to try to win a fortune through roulette.

The simplest way to earn $1 million through roulette is by playing for high stakes on the best games. The combination of big bets and a low house edge increases your chances of winning big.

Of course, you’re still relying on luck in this situation. Even with the 1.35% French roulette house edge, you need to get hot in order to continue winning.

But it’s not totally outside the realm of possibility. It’s especially possible to earn huge profits if you’re playing up to $20,000 stakes.

Las Vegas’ Bellagio, Mirage, and Wynn all allow you to bet this much on each spin. If you’re a huge whale, they may set up a private table and let you wager even more.

Casinos welcome whales who are willing to make big bets because the house still holds the edge. However, they’re also taking a greater risk when dealing with a high roller.

You’d certainly want to have the type of bankroll that allows you to play for high stakes and avoid being financially crushed if you lose. After all, $10k to $20k wagers can bankrupt plenty of high rollers.

But if you have a bankroll worth $1-$2 million, then you could comfortably make these wagers while only risking 1% of your roll on each round.

The best thing about trying to win seven figures through high-stakes roulette is that you won’t need an elaborate plan. Instead, you simply need to make a special request for French roulette rules.

How To Make Money On Roulette Table

This gives you the best possible chance to win using basic strategy. The rest is up to Lady Luck.

Martingale System

Roulette is one of the most popular casino games in terms of systems. Every player has their own reason for using a system, but the commonality here is that roulette’s simplistic strategy leads gamblers to search for more in-depth ways of winning.

You can use a number of systems on this game, including the D’Alembert, Labouchere, Martingale, and Paroli. The Martingale is particularly popular because it’s easy to use. It is important to note, however, that none of these systems — including the Martingale — overcome the house edge.

The Martingale calls on you to double your bets following every loss. You’ll win back your losses plus a small profit as long as you’re continually successful.

Here’s an example of how the Martingale plays out.

  • You bet $10 and lose (net loss of $10)
  • You bet $20 and lose (net loss of $30)
  • You bet $40 and lose (net loss of $70)
  • You bet $80 and lose (net loss of $150)
  • You bet $160 and win (net win of $10)

Despite losing four consecutive bets, you still end the sequence with a small profit. Now imagine if you add some winning streaks into the equation.

You’ll of course need to bet high stakes while using the Martingale. Otherwise, it would still take a ridiculous amount of time to win $1 million with this system.

The other aspect worth mentioning is that your chances of failing with the Martingale increase as you continue using it because you’re still up against the house edge. You can easily continue a losing streak and bust your bankroll by doubling bets every time.

Just as concerning is that roulette tables have maximum betting limits. You can only continue doubling your wagers for so long until hitting the table max.

Therefore, you’d need to find a high-stakes roulette table that enables you to better use the Martingale.

Here’s how this could play out on a high-stakes table.

  • Table limit is $20,000
  • You bet $500 and lose (net loss of $500)
  • You bet $1,000 and lose (net loss of $1,500)
  • You bet $2,000 and lose (net loss of $3,500)
  • You bet $4,000 and lose (net loss of $7,500)
  • You bet $8,000 and lose (net loss of $15,500)
  • You bet $16,000 and win (net win of $500)

You’d never be able to double your wagers up to $16k on a normal table. Therefore, high stakes give you a stronger shot at betting big without hitting the table max.

Evidence suggests that the Martingale can work long-term if you get extremely lucky. Charles Wells, a British conman who lived in the late 19th century, experienced an incredible winning streak with this strategy.

He conned investors out of £4,000 and took the money to Monte Carlo to play roulette. He then proceeded to “break the bank” multiple times en route to winning a fortune.

Wells returned to Monte Carlo and had another highly successful session. This trip earned him international fame and the nickname “The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo,” which eventually became a song.

Wells pressed his luck with the Martingale, though, and ended up losing everything on a third trip. Worse yet is that, despite winning so much money, he continued conning people.

Wells would spend the rest of his life in and out of prisons, and he died broke and penniless. Regardless of how Wells ended up, his story proves that you can win major profits with the Martingale over a lengthy period of time if luck is on your side.

Everything I’ve covered so far involves playing roulette without an advantage, meaning you need some luck to win. But there are techniques that can help you gain an edge over the house.

Wheel bias is one such strategy. This technique involves watching wheels over a long time period and recording spins.

The hope is that you eventually find a wheel that favors certain pockets (a.k.a. shows a bias). Of course, the wheel must be faulty in some manner for this to happen.

Some roulette wheels become imbalanced over time due to various defects, including worn-down frets (pocket dividers) and/or a broken wheel shaft. However, it’s nearly impossible to spot these defects with the human eye.

This is where recording spins comes into play, because you want to collect enough data that allows you to spot biases. You can then analyze the data and try to see if the wheel favors certain numbers.

You can observe the wheel with one of two goals in mind.

  • Watching for section bias
  • Watching for number bias

Section bias refers to looking for a certain section(s) of the wheel that’s favored. You typically only have to watch a wheel for around 500 spins to tell if there’s a biased section.

Number bias refers to looking for wheels that favor specific pockets. The downside to this technique is that it takes around 5,000 spins to determine biased pockets.

The upside, though, is that number bias helps you win more profits. After all, you can make single-number bets (36:1 payout) on specific pockets and win big when they come through.

Whatever your preferred method, you can be sure that wheel bias is a legitimate advantage play method. Roulette legends such as Joseph Jagger, Billy Walters, and Gonzalo García Pelayo have all won millions of dollars by spotting biased wheels.

The only problem is that these players recorded their feats decades ago. Gonzalo is the latest roulette legend, but his big wins came in the 1990s.

Modern casinos now use what’s called a Starburst wheel, which has metal frets and is sturdier than the old wooden wheels. The Starburst wheel is less likely to break down and show bias due to its improved design.

Your chances are much lower today of finding biased roulette games, but that’s not to say doing so is totally impossible, especially if you find an older wheel.

Roulette dealers try to make games go as quickly and efficiently as possible because the casino makes more money this way.

But the act of speeding up games forces some roulette dealers to unconsciously spin the ball the same way each time. This leads to what’s known as a “dealer signature.”

A signature essentially means that the dealer spins the ball in a predictable pattern. This predictability often leads to the ball landing 6-10 pockets away from the last winning number.

Knowing this information doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically win. But spotting a dealer signature can give you a long-term advantage over the house.

Three things that you want to look for with regard to dealer signatures include the following.

  • Distance (number of pockets) where the ball lands versus the dealer’s release point
  • The velocity at which the dealer spins the ball
  • The velocity at which the wheel moves each round

The distance between where the dealer launches the ball and where it lands is the most important factor. If the dealer consistently releases the ball at 9 o’clock and it lands at 12 o’clock, you can make bets on the 12 o’clock range every round.

Monitoring the ball’s velocity involves counting how many revolutions the ball makes around the wheel before landing. Noticing a consistent number of revolutions is another piece of evidence that helps spot a signature.

Watching the wheel’s velocity is the same concept as monitoring the ball’s velocity because you’re trying to notice a consistent pattern in the number of wheel revolutions.

The goal is to put all this information together so that you have a good idea of which section the ball will land in. You don’t even need to be right all the time in order to make money from signatures.

How To Make Money On Roulette Table Top

Here’s an example to illustrate this.

  • You see that most of the dealer’s spins land in the 9 o’clock section of the wheel
  • You make $5 wagers on each of the nine pockets in this section ($45 total)
  • You receive a 35:1 payout for a single winning bet ($175)
  • You win one number every four rounds
  • This means you earn a $175 payout versus $135 in losses (three losing bets) every four spins
  • $175 winnings – $135 losses = $40 profit

Chances are that you’ll be thrilled with winning one out of every four spins when you’re booking a $40 profit. What’s more is that you can use dealer signatures to work your way up to $1 million in profits within a year under perfect conditions.

Here’s the math on how.

  • You make $40 in profits every four spins
  • You see an average of 50 roulette spins per hour
  • 50 / 4 = 12.5 wins per hour
  • 40 x 12.5 = $500 profit per hour
  • You play five times per week (292 days out of the year)
  • Each of your sessions is seven hours long
  • 500 profit x 7 hours x 292 days = $1,022,000 profit

Anybody would love to win $1 million in roulette in just one year. But the jury is out on whether dealer signatures truly work.

Some roulette players swear that they make consistent money by spotting signatures. However, there’s a lack of evidence in the gaming world to back these claims.

We don’t have any famous stories about dealer signature players destroying the house like we do with Billy Walters or the MIT Blackjack Team. Instead, we only have anecdotal accounts from those who claim to win big through signatures.

Adding to the difficulty is that casinos use a number of tactics when they feel that a player is consistently beating them.

These tactics include the following

  • Changing the wheel position
  • Rotating dealers at the table when they’re losing
  • Asking winning players to leave if all else fails

Certain forum users claim that dealer signatures work. And they usually point to these tactics as a reason why.

Table

Whether this is casinos actually believing in signatures or just trying to switch their games up is unclear. Regardless, some players attest to their success when using signatures.

One controversial technique that you can use to beat roulette games includes employing electronic devices. Players have used mini-computers and other devices to win consistent roulette profits in the past.

A roulette team known as the “Eudaemons” became the first to successfully beat roulette with a mini-computer. The team developed complicated gadgets that tracked the wheel’s motions and fed potential winning pockets to the team.

They quickly placed their bets while the wheel was spinning after being alerted to the numbers. This allowed them to make $10,000 in profits while playing at Vegas casinos in the 1970s.

The problem with the Eudaemons’ technique, though, is that most casino jurisdictions have outlawed using electronic devices to win. Anybody who’s caught using electronics at a roulette table will be arrested for cheating.

Nevertheless, there are still people who are willing to brave the consequences in order to gain an advantage over the casino. Two Serbian men and a Hungarian woman used a phone with a laser device to detect winning roulette numbers.

The trio won £1.3 million at a London casino in just two sessions. However, their scam was uncovered, and they were all arrested.

Assuming you could pull off an identical caper without being caught, you’d win over $1 million in just two sessions! The obvious risk, though, is that you’ll more than likely be busted.

Conclusion

Roulette is far from the easiest way to earn seven figures, but you could possibly accomplish this feat with a combination of luck and the right techniques.

Wheel bias is the best way to win $1 million in roulette from an advantage play standpoint. Some players have famously earned millions of dollars using wheel bias.

However, the major problem is that wheel bias is no longer feasible in the vast majority of casinos.

Gaming establishments now use Starburst wheels, which are sturdier and less likely to break down. Nevertheless, you can make a fortune through wheel bias if you’re able to find a faulty roulette wheel.

Dealer signatures may or may not be a good way to win big profits through roulette. Assuming signatures actually work, then you can potentially use them to make hundreds of dollars in hourly profits.

It’s difficult to say whether dealer signatures are really valid. We don’t have any hard evidence that signatures work, as opposed to other advantage gambling methods like card counting, hole carding, and shuffle tracking.

Using electronic devices is a good way to collect guaranteed roulette winnings. The problem here, though, is that you risk violating the law and being arrested.

High-stakes play in a European or French roulette game is another way to win major profits. Just be aware that you’ll need a hot streak in order to win because the house holds the edge against players.

Using a system like the Martingale can also help you earn big profits during a hot streak. Again, though, you’re at the mercy of fate since these kind systems cannot overcome the house advantage.

You can see that there are several paths towards getting rich through roulette. It’s up to you to decide whether or not any of these strategies are worthwhile. And, whatever you do, you’ll never be able to GUARANTEE profits at roulette.

I suggest that you go with an advantage play technique like wheel bias or dealer signatures. You may not ultimately conquer the house with these strategies, but at least you have a chance to gain the long-term edge.

How To Make Money On Roulette Table Game

Realistically, the best way to play roulette is to just enjoy it for a bit of fun and an outside chance of winning money. The game is available at pretty much ever land-based casino, and the majority of the top online casinos.

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For as long as gamblers have wagered money on games of chance and skill, the temptation to cheat has loomed.

Unwilling to let fate decide, casino cheaters use creative and unscrupulous tricks to gain an unfair edge over the house.

Among the earliest methods employed by poker cheats, the gunslinging poker games of the Old West era saw cheats wield aces up their sleeves. These days, cheaters who plague poker can be found in both brick and mortar card rooms and online sites, colluding or dumping chips to team up on unsuspecting opponents.

Cheating in modern casinos predominantly afflicts the skill-based games like poker and blackjack, but you’d be surprised by how prevalent the crime has become in roulette and other games of chance. You wouldn’t think a simple wheel-spinning affair like roulette would be subject to cheating because players don’t really have any influence on the gameplay.

Nonetheless, cheats can be found anywhere real money is being wagered, and the roulette table is no exception. Even with the ever-present “eye in the sky” watching their every move, and eagle-eyed croupiers (dealers), pit bosses, and other staff members trained to detect malfeasance, roulette cheaters just can’t help themselves.

How to make money on roulette table top

The allure of making easy money without incurring risk certainly makes sense, but trying to cheat the casino while playing roulette is a fool’s errand. Don’t take my word for it though, just ask the long lineup of convicted roulette criminals who tried the five ways to cheat at roulette listed below.

1 – Past Posting or Late Betting to Increase Wagers on Known Winners

How To Make Money On Roulette Tables

Every roulette player knows the feeling well…

When you nail the number perfectly and watch the croupier stack the 35 to 1 payout, wishing you would’ve bet $10 instead of $1, the experience can be bittersweet to say the least. Beating long odds for a big payout is always cause for celebration, but when you only bet a few bucks, it can be easy to kick yourself for not putting more out there.

Some roulette cheaters aren’t content with their minimal payouts, so they resort to a tactic popularly referred to as “past posting.” Also known as “late betting,” the concept of past posting is quite basic on the surface. You add chips to your bet once you know it’s a winner.

When the croupier watches the wheel to find out where the ball landed, it will take them a split second to scan the spaces, find the ball, and turn their eyes back to the table before calling the number. In that split second, past posting artists use sleight of hand tricks to secretly add significant sums to their winning bet.

Let’s say you sprinkled various bets between $5 and $40 on several single-number spaces, using combinations of both the red $5 and green $25 chips. You have the number 17 covered with one $5 chip, but when you see the ball nestle into the 17 space, you instantly dart your hand out and cap the $5 bet with a $25 chip. The croupier never notices your trickery, and just like that, you’ve turned a $175 payout (35 to 1) on $5 into a whopping $1,050.

Why You Shouldn’t Try Past Posting

While potentially lucrative when undetected, past posting is inherently dangerous based on the moving parts in play.

Roulette

A professional croupier is trained to scan and memorize the bets in play when they wave for final wagers, so they might notice your small chips suddenly transforming into big ones. While you’re watching the croupier, a nearby pit boss outside of your peripheral vision might see you make the switch. And up above, high-resolution cameras are recording every move you make.

Add it all up, and past posting just isn’t worth the risk involved, a fact Charbel Tannous and Constandi Lubbat can attest to. In 2011, while playing roulette at L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort in Louisiana, the pair were caught red-handed past posting for big money.

After authorities used surveillance footage to confirm that over $175,000 was stolen via the roulette scheme, Tannous and Lubbat were charged with felony cheating and swindling over $1,500 and criminal conspiracy.

Tannous was eventually convicted and sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for organizing the roulette racket. This is a harsh punishment US Attorney Stephanie Finley made clear will be the norm for casino cheats:

“We are very pleased with the court’s decision to give this defendant a significant prison term. The casino and the citizens were victims in this case. A portion of the profits from the casino goes to the State of Louisiana and the Calcasieu Parish School Board.
We will continue to partner with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to prosecute crimes of this nature and seek the maximum amount of prison time available.”

2 – Partnering With a Croupier to Produce Fake Winners

If you read the previously linked reporting, you know Tannous and Lubbat didn’t work alone.

By conspiring with two croupiers working at the casino, these cheats made sure their past posting antics would never be reported.

That approach certainly makes sense on an objective level, too. By doubling down on the scam, colluding to ensure their cheating is allowed by the people running the table, conspirators don’t leave anything to chance. Having an “inside man” on the team only makes cheating at roulette that much easier, as a corrupt croupier can allow their partner to inflate winning bets or pull back chips on losers.

Why You Shouldn’t Partner With a Dealer

In 2016, a casino pit boss at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa, decided to go rogue. He enlisted a croupier to do the dirty deed, and a third partner to act the part of lucky player. Past posting provided the bulk of the team’s $20,000 in ill-gotten gains, but like almost all roulette cheats before them, these three were eventually caught on camera and arrested.

David Dales, a special agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (IDCI), issued a statement explaining how the scam was set up:

“There was a dealer that was doing some active cheating mechanism on the roulette table at Horseshoe Casino. And there was a patron he was consistently cheating for. The allegations are they were past posting – adding chips to the winning numbers – doing other activities that gave them illegal winnings at a table game.”

The offenders were charged with four felonies, including ongoing criminal conduct, first-degree theft, conspiracy, and cheating at gambling. They faced significant jail time and hefty fines.

3 – “Coloring up” Small Chips for Higher Denominations off the Table Before Cashing Out

An especially clever way roulette players can cheat the game involves the old bait and switch.

To make the “color up” scheme work, two players working in tandem start by sitting at different tables. In roulette, cash is turned into specially designed chips that are only good at the table. To avoid confusion between different players betting, everyone gets a different color chip in the denomination of their choosing.

A color up team moves from table to table, one buying in for the minimum $1 chips, and the other going bigger with a $25 or $100 denomination. When they both receive the same color chips, they’re always at a different table and only six or seven colors are in play so this will inevitably occur, the trap is sprung.

The low stakes player pockets a handful of chips on the sly, then heads off to take a quick bathroom break. With no surveillance cameras to worry about, they wait for their partner to hit the head as well, then they deliver a handful of chips when nobody’s around.

Flush with new chips in the same color as those at the big stakes table, the second player proceeds to play a spin or two with minimal action before requesting a color up and cash out.

When cheaters turn 10 of the $1 chips into an equivalent amount of $25 chips, they’ve instantly “earned” $240 in profit without incurring an ounce of risk. And if a $1 to $100 exchange rate is in play, the color up scam produces a massive $990 profit margin.

Why You Shouldn’t Color up Chips

Between 2012 and 2013, a highly organized team of color up cheaters based in New York toured the country targeting small commercial and tribal casinos. Their run came to an end in Ohio, after the team struck at four casinos and stole thousands of dollars, only for 13 members to find themselves behind bars when it was all said and done.

Karen Huey, director of enforcement for the Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC), told local media outlets that the Buckeye State was not alone:

“This is a very organized group of about 70 people. They travel the country. They’ve been identified in 18 states running this scam.”

The roulette cheating team wound up facing 29 felony counts and the possibility of lengthy prison sentences. According to Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office Special Units Division Chief John Weglian, casino criminals will never receive leniency.

“One of the principle purposes of these casinos is to provide revenue to the State of Ohio so the laws that the legislature has passed cover casino violations will be enforced strictly by the Attorney General’s office and this office. We will enforce the laws of the state.”

4 – Using Hidden Lasers to Measure Ball Speed Before Betting Concludes

These last two are so absurd that they hardly merit mention, but based on their scientific innovations alone, they made the cut.

Back in the 1970s, a physicist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico named Norman Packard postulated that laser beams could be used to measure crucial roulette variables. By using a laser and a computer to chart the ball and wheel speed, Packard succeeded in predicting which quadrant of the wheel the ball would land in.

Here’s how he described the gambit in an interview with New Scientist:

“In the best circumstances, we could predict the quadrant correctly. Even saying which half of the wheel is extremely powerful because the payoff is so good. We definitely got to the point where we were winning money, but we didn’t continue long enough to make large amounts.”

Why You Shouldn’t Use Technology to Cheat

Obviously, pulling out a laser pointer and hiding a computer on your person is impractical in the modern casino setting. Maybe the laser cheat works in a laboratory, or even an old-school gambling hall before cameras became prevalent, but this is a method of cheating at roulette that would never fly nowadays.

5 – Directing the Ball to Certain Spaces by Generating a Magnetic Field

Using a laser pointer and a computer isn’t the most discreet way to cheat at roulette. So, how about a magnetic roulette ball to improve your odds?

In the early 2000s, a team of Austrian roulette cheats found a way to activate magnetic fields that drew the ball to certain numbers based on where the player stood. While the team didn’t win on every single spin, the use of a remote-controlled ball helped them improve their chances of winning.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Magnets

Unfortunately for this team of conmen, the croupier eventually found the ball stuck to his cufflink. The jig was up, forcing the cheaters to abandon their winnings and run away in shame. Today, some casinos use magnetic field sensors to prevent this from happening.

Conclusion

Folks who feel the need to cheat at roulette represent the bottom of the barrel when it comes to casino gambling. Desperate and down on their luck, yet unwilling to simply learn a skill game and play it well, roulette cheats refuse to accept reality. And as the five entries above should show you, the run of free money always ends at some point, leaving prison, probation, and a ruined reputation as the roulette cheater’s only legacy.

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