For those who don’t gamble very often (and who have never seen a James Bond movie) roulette is one of the games you can find in casinos that’s really very common. It’s a wheel that spins, and a ball is spun along the top lip of the wheel as it spins. Just inside the outer lip are slots for the ball to fall into when it runs out of momentum. These are numbered 1 through 36 (in American roulette anyway), with black and red. You can bet by number (which is the largest payout), or by color.

Roulette is supposed to be one of the more random games of chance, up there with rolling dice at the craps table. However, anything that runs off chance works on probability, and probability can be predicted according to the odds. So, there are numerous strategies to win at a roulette table, but there is one that seems to cover more of the bases than others.

First of all, choose a section of the wheel. Six numbers should do the job. Make sure they’re all in a row, and bet an increasing amount on each of them. The first two numbers should be one dollar, the second two should be two dollars, and the last two should be three dollars. Hitting on a number pays out fairly well, so if you can hit one of the numbers in your section, then you’ve just made back more than enough to cover your initial bet.

Looking at this system, you’ve already dramatically enhanced your chances of winning. You have increased your odds of 1 in 36 (betting on a single number) to 1 in 6… so if you can make at least six rounds at the table, you should statistically win at least one of them. If you start at the table with about $100 (this isn’t a strategy to use at higher paying roulette games until you’re sure of yourself and you have more money to spend), then chances are you could increase your initial wager by quite a lot if the night is good to you. If not… then you probably don’t want to lose more than $100 by the end of the night.

There is one other, optional part of the strategy, though there are alternative claims that it’s immoral (as if gambling isn’t) and another that claims it won’t work anyway. That part of the strategy is to announce $1 for the dealer that if the ball lands on the number in the 5th position of your spread (whatever that number might be). This gives the dealer a bit of incentive to try and hit that space so that both he and you can get paid. However, roulette is a very random game for a reason, and that’s no easy thing to accomplish, getting the ball in a specific slot. But some people say that anyone who has a day job long enough, especially in a casino, should be able to pull something like that off. Giving the dealer a little more incentive never hurts, and if nothing else, it will make you a much more popular player at his wheel.