Roulette strategy: what the rules and the maths allow, and what no system can do

The rules: wheel, ball, bets and payouts

A roulette wheel has numbered pockets, 1 to 36 in red and black plus one green zero on a European (single-zero) wheel or a zero and a double zero on an American wheel. Players place chips on the layout, the ball is spun, and the pocket it settles in decides every bet at once. Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0): "The European-style layout has a single zero, and the American style layout is usually a double-zero."

Bets fall into two groups. Inside bets sit on the numbers: a straight-up bet on one number pays 35 to 1, and splits, streets, corners and lines cover two to six numbers at smaller odds. Outside bets cover large groups: red or black, odd or even, 1 to 18 or 19 to 36 (all paying 1 to 1), and the dozens and columns (2 to 1). Wikipedia: "Outside bets typically have smaller payouts with better odds at winning. Except as noted, all of these bets lose if a 0 comes up." Two rules soften that on some European tables: la partage returns half of an even-money bet when zero comes up, and en prison holds the bet for one more spin.

The payouts are the same on both wheels; what differs is the number of pockets. Wikipedia: "Having 37 or more numbers gives the casino its edge."

• Straight up (one number): pays 35 to 1.
• Split, street, corner, line: two, three, four or six numbers at 17, 11, 8 and 5 to 1.
• Dozens and columns: twelve numbers at 2 to 1.
• Red/black, odd/even, low/high: eighteen numbers at 1 to 1; lose on zero unless la partage or en prison applies.

The house edge: 2.70% or 5.26%, and what la partage does to it

Wizard of Odds states it plainly for the double-zero wheel: "The house edge on all bets is 1/19, or 5.26%, except for the 0-00-1-2-3 combination, which carries a house edge of 7.89%." For the single-zero wheel: "However, with one zero the house edge is cut to 1/37, or 2.70%, on all bets." Wikipedia gives the same two figures from the expected-value calculation.

The rules on zero are the only lever that moves those numbers. Wikipedia: "If en prison rules are used, the house edge on the 1:1 bets is reduced to 1.35%-1.38% on a single-zero wheel, and to 2.63% on a double-zero wheel." So the choices that actually change your long-run cost are: play a single-zero wheel rather than a double-zero one, and, if a table offers la partage or en prison on even-money bets, use those bets. Neither choice makes the expected value positive; both make it less negative.

Martingale, Fibonacci, Labouchère, d'Alembert: what each does and why none works

Every popular roulette system is a rule for changing the bet size after a win or a loss. The Martingale doubles after a loss so the first win recovers everything plus one unit; the Fibonacci and Labouchère raise the bet along a sequence; the d'Alembert adds a unit after a loss and removes one after a win; the Paroli doubles after a win instead. They differ in how the wins and losses are arranged, not in their average.

Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) on the whole family: "All betting systems that rely on patterns, when employed on casino edge games will result, on average, in the player losing money." And: "Regardless of the specific progression, no such strategy can statistically overcome the casino's advantage, since the expected value of each allowed bet is negative." On the Martingale specifically, the same source: "A large financial loss is almost certain in the long term if the player continues to employ this strategy." The Wikipedia article on the martingale gives the reason: "no amount of information about the results of past bets can be used to predict the results of a future bet with accuracy better than chance", and "Increasing the size of wager for each round per the martingale system only serves to increase the average loss."

Put simply: a system chooses between many small wins with a rare large loss, or the reverse. The house edge is charged on every unit wagered, so a system that wagers more units costs more, not less. The only strategy with a real effect is the one in the previous section, choosing the wheel and the zero rules, plus deciding how many units you will wager before you stop.

• Martingale: double after every loss; one long losing run or the table limit ends it.
• Reverse Martingale (Paroli): double after wins; Wikipedia says it has the same problem as the martingale.
• Fibonacci, Labouchère, d'Alembert: slower progressions; Wikipedia: "As with all other betting systems, the average value of this system is negative."
• Any system: the expected value per unit is unchanged; only the distribution of results changes.

What Stake documents about its own Roulette

Stake's Originals catalogue carried a "roulette" tile on 2026-09-03, and Stake's provably-fair game-events page documents the game as a European wheel: "Our Roulette is derived from the European version of the game where the wheel consists of 37 possible different pockets, ranging from 0 to 36. The game event is calculated by multiplying the float by 37 and then translated into a corresponding pocket". The code shown is const pocket = POCKETS[Math.floor(float * 37)]. Because the pocket comes from a committed seed, a spin can be verified afterwards on the provably-fair page.

On 2026-09-03 the game page showed a single-zero layout, 0 to 36, with the standard outside bets (1 to 18, 19 to 36, odd, even, three dozens, three 2:1 columns), chip values, and undo and clear buttons. Stake's documents do not state la partage, en prison or a house-edge figure for the game, so this site claims none. With one zero and the standard payouts, the independent references above put the edge of such a wheel at 2.70%; whether Stake's payouts are the standard ones is something the rules panel of the game, not this page, confirms.

If you open a roulette table on Stake that is not the Originals game, its wheel and rules are its own and the game-events page does not cover it. This site has not spun any Stake roulette table.

The strategy that exists: units, limits and a stopping rule

Decide the unit (the bet per spin), the number of units you are prepared to lose, and the point at which you stop, before the first spin. Prefer a single-zero wheel, and on such a wheel prefer even-money bets where la partage or en prison applies. Do not raise the unit to chase a loss; that is the Martingale by another name. The responsible gambling page on this site lists tools and resources.

This site offers no system and does not claim that any bet on any wheel is a way to make money.

Where it is played, and what to confirm first

This page uses Stake's own Roulette as its example and does not list or compare other operators. Before opening an account, read the regional restrictions and the age rules in the terms: Stake's terms name 44 restricted jurisdictions, recorded in this site's source register on 2026-09-03. This site gives no legal conclusion for any place and does not accept any way of working around a restriction.