19 Common Roulette Mistakes that You Should Avoid
Roulette is one of the most thrilling and straightforward casino games available. Still, even the most experienced players make roulette mistakes that prevent them from becoming profitable.
We watched hundreds of hours of roulette gameplay footage and spent a few thousand dollars ourselves. After analyzing all the data, we’ve concluded that no matter your skill level, there are some common roulette mistakes that everyone makes sometimes.
In this article, we will explore 19 of the most dangerous roulette mistakes and offer you actionable solutions that will help avoid making them during your gambling journey.
Let’s get right to it!
12 online roulette mistakes for beginners
Even though online roulette shares a lot of similarities with the land-based version, there are certain mistakes that solely apply to the virtual casino environment. Playing without a promotion or a strategy, as well as only focusing on a type of bet can be harmful to your bankroll.
Learning how to prevent them can prove vital in your long-term success and it will guarantee that you’re not wasting money doing the wrong thing.
Let’s have a look at twelve online roulette mistakes that most beginners make:
Spitting your chips on the first dozen
Over betting
Betting nearby numbers
Not learning and applying a real strategy
Playing without knowing the math
Not quitting while you’re still winning
Not taking advantage of casino promotions
Playing American roulette
Playing without a strategy
Thinking you’re due to a win
Only go for the red or black bets
Chasing your losses
Putting your chips on each number of the first dozen is a big newbie giveaway. Apart from making it harder to keep track of how much you’re betting, if you’re planning to bet on the first dozen, you should place your bet on the dozen area instead of making a mess by betting inside.
While this mistake might seem kind of obvious, it’s surprising how many amateur roulette players tend to bet on each number of a dozen instead of simply putting their money on the area that virtually represents the same thing. The main difference is that you’re more organized and it makes it nearly impossible to control your spending.
Betting more than you need is a crucial mistake that most beginners make. If you’ve already bet on some given numbers, there is no point in betting in-between them.
The explanation is quite simple – since you’ve already wagered money on some numbers, betting on the line between the same numbers is a waste, especially if the roulette wheel doesn’t stop on any of the numbers.
Instead of betting every number individually, you should go for an outside bet like streets or dozens. Not only does this betting style make no sense, but it also proves that you don’t have a solid understanding of the roulette table.
The argument we get from most casual gamblers is that “It looks nice!”. Well, we agree that putting a chip on every number available in a dozen might look beautiful, but we’re talking about roulette, not a fill-the-gap game. Thus, we suggest learning how to use outside bets and avoid making a mess at the table.
How often do you hear total beginners saying, “I won this round because of my strategy”? Well, we’ve seen this behavior way too many times. Just because you win a round once in a blue moon because you got lucky, it doesn’t mean that your “strategy” is working.
An actual strategy means that you’re familiar with the math behind roulette and know how to manage your bankroll efficiently. Otherwise, all you’re doing is putting your money on some random numbers hoping that Lady Fortune is on your side this time.
Before claiming that you have found a fool-proof strategy, make sure you have tested it and that it has logic. Instead of trying to justify your wins, take some time developing a real strategy that you can use to improve your roulette experience and maximize your profits.
Whenever you mention that math plays a crucial role in your roulette success, newbies usually become anxious. They think that they have to go back to high school mathematics and remember how to solve complex problems.
That’s not true. According to our research, having math skills is directly correlated to your performance at the roulette table. The more analytical you are, the better you will manage your bankroll and minimize your risks.
Thus, before you start playing, it’s important to know the basic roulette mathematics like profit/loss ratio, bet value, and potential payouts. Otherwise, it will be nearly impossible to track your spending, which won’t help you improve your roulette skills and get consistent wins.
Let’s suppose you start your roulette session with C$3000, and you’re wagering C$500 on every spin. After losing the first three rounds, you bet C$500 on a Split bet and win. The bet has a 17:1 payout, meaning that you now have C$10,000 in your bankroll.
What would you do in this situation?
Suppose your answer is “I would immediately cash out and leave the casino with C$7000 in my pocket”. In that case, you are on the right track to becoming a successful roulette player.
However, if your instinct is telling you to try to bet some more, hoping that you get lucky once again, you’re probably going to leave the casino with a negative balance.
Knowing when to call it quits is the differentiation point between an experienced gambler and an amateur one. Not having a win limit in roulette can result in playing until you’re out of chips.
To ensure proper bankroll management, you should decide on how much money you want to win before you start spinning.
Both land-based and online casinos offer bonuses to incentivize new customers to spend more time at the table. While some promotions usually come with a playthrough requirement (e.g., wagering), they are worth redeeming when you’re just getting started with gambling.
However, there is an issue – choosing a lucrative promotion has become increasingly complex with the expansion of the online casino industry, mainly because of the abundance of bonuses available on the market.
Our casino analysts team is working hard to test, review and filter the best casino promotions and deliver you a comprehensive list of deals that are worth redeeming. We believe that transparency is the key to a fair and enjoyable gambling session, so we disclose both negative and positive aspects when writing our analysis.
If you want to kickstart your gaming journey, make sure you spend some time browsing through our bonus library and choose a promotion that suits your needs. This way, you will get additional credits to increase your playtime and expand your knowledge about roulette.
Some people think that if you’re American, you should play American Roulette. Similarly, if you’re European, then European Roulette is the game for you.
False. The fundamental difference between the two roulette versions is not sociocultural but rather related to each wheel’s total numbers. While the American Roulette has 38 numbers (18 red, 18 black, and two zeroes), the European Roulette only has 37 numbers (18 red, 18 black, and 1 zero).
To a total beginner, the one number difference doesn’t make that much of a difference. However, the truth is that in the American version, the house edge is 5.26%, while for the European wheel, it is only 2.7%.
That’s nearly twice as much house advantage in the American Roulette, which is a solid reason why you should avoid playing this version and choosing a roulette game with a lower house edge, which will bring you better returns in the long run.
Playing roulette without a strategy is like trying to pass an exam without studying. You might get lucky sometimes and win, but there is no guarantee that you will succeed in the long run.
If you Google “roulette strategy,” you will most likely find hundreds of sites claiming that they have discovered a fool-proof betting system that can make you rich overnight. Our gambling experts have tested most of the available strategies and concluded that most of them are working, but only in the short-term.
But if you want to be successful in the long-run, you will need more than a basic system. Based on our analysis, we’ve identified that bankroll discipline and intuition play a crucial role in your roulette strategy.
Keeping track of your profit and losses will ultimately allow you to make more informed gambling decisions at the roulette table.
Most beginners make a common mistake to think that if they’ve been on a losing streak, a win should occur soon. Experts call this bias the gambler’s fallacy, which is defined as the erroneous belief that if an event occurs more often than usual, it’s less likely to happen in the future.
However, years of gambling statistical analysis have proven that the probability of such events is not correlated to what happened in the past. These events have a unique quality – they are statistically independent.
Our recommendation is never to expect a win just because you lost a few rounds in a row, or even worse, wager more money on the next bet just because you “feel” that it’s time for a win. Instead, you should focus on developing solid bankroll and risk management skills that will help you maximize your profits and control your spending.
Outside bets like Red/Black or Even/Odd have nearly 50% odds (48.65% in European Roulette) and a 1:1 payout. While sticking to a betting pattern that only includes wagers with the highest odds might sound like a great strategy, statistics show that in the long run, you’re going to lose money.
Betting on Red or Black can be lucrative during a casual gambling session since there’s a good chance you will win most of your bets. But it takes more than that to be successful with roulette. If you want to make a solid profit, you need to be willing to make riskier bets and have some luck on your side.
If you’re placing a large bet on red or black, consider making a few smaller inside bets (like straight-up or street). While the additional bets won’t necessarily offer you greater odds, they will make the experience more thrilling.
Sometimes, we get too emotionally involved in our bets, which is translated as an increased worry about how much we are spending at the roulette wheel. Because our emotions overtake our rational judgment, we are susceptible to chasing our losses, which will, in turn, dig an even more giant hole in our budget.
To prevent gambling more money than you can afford to win, we suggest setting a budget dedicated to gambling. This way, you can avoid destructive behavior. Instead of increasing your bet size to cover previous losses, you will actively look for ways to optimize your wagers and enjoy your time spent in the casino.
7 dangerous mistakes in land-based casinos
There are some mistakes that mainly apply to land-based casino roulette tables. Since you’re going to interact more with the casino employees while you’re sitting at the table, it is highly recommended to stay quiet about your winnings and try to avoid saying random things that can be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
Here are seven of the most common mistakes that you should avoid in land-based casinos:
Playing on empty tables
Showing your money
Making up roulette quotes
Using the wrong chip denomination
Impairing your decision-making ability
Following gambling myths
Having “lucky numbers”
If you’re on the casino floor and you see an empty table, you should avoid joining it. That’s because whenever you play alone, you become an easy target.
Casinos love empty spots on the table because they can focus their attention on a single player. This way, they have a better chance of influencing you with the “special treatment” you receive as the only person at the table.
By sitting at a crowded roulette table, you lower the chances of being persuaded into spending more money than you should. Not to mention that you will continuously get reality-checks from the mistakes made by other gamblers at the table, which could, in turn, be a great lesson, especially if you’re new to the game.
In the virtual version of roulette, you can check if a table is empty by looking at the chat and seeing if other players are interacting with the dealer.
Whenever you join a roulette game, there is one thing you should always avoid – showing off.
Suppose you’ve got C$10,000 in your pocket, but you decide to start your session with $3000 worth of chips. In that case, keep the remaining C$7000 away from the casino employees’ eyes to avoid being in the spotlight.
The croupiers and attendants are trained to look for “big shots” who show off their stacks of cash and do everything in their power to keep them at the table. That might sound a little strange if you’re a newbie, but trust us, you don’t want the people working at the casino to know that you have a large amount of money on you.
Stay out of the spotlight and focus on winning as much as you can, and take money out of your pocket only if you want to buy some more chips. Otherwise, it makes no sense to show anyone at the casino that you have cash on you. It’s against casino etiquette, and all you will achieve from this action is becoming an easy target of the overindulgent croupiers and cashiers.
You might think that saying stuff like “Always bet on zero” will make you look cooler, but it doesn’t. Making unfounded statements at the roulette table signals to casino employees that you’re a total newbie and have no real strategy.
After all, why bother justifying your wins with a random quote?
Apart from not influencing your winning odds in any particular way, making up quotes is like saying, “I have no idea what I’m doing, take my money,” to the casino operator. Thus, our suggestion is to stick with the roulette etiquette and interact with the dealer only when it is vital for the gameplay.
Whether you’re playing at a real or virtual table, make sure you’re using the correct chip denomination. For example, if you have C$5000 split into stacks of C$10 chips, it makes no sense to make large wagers between C$500 and C$1000 on a single bet.
Instead, we recommend deciding in advance how large you want your bets to be, which will allow you to keep track of your spending better. Just because having large stacks of C$10 chips looks cool, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will help you in any real way.
Using smaller chip denominations than your regular bet amount is just a guaranteed way to make a mess and be confused about your spending frequency. The more organized you are with your bankroll, the lower your chances of making costly mistakes.
Chip denomination is also important while playing online, so make sure you configure your bet value before you start wagering on roulette.
Roulette is a fast-paced casino game, and there are lots of decisions you need to take during a session. To spice things up, many roulette players like to add some alcohol to the mix, thinking that they will get a more enjoyable gambling experience.
Don’t get us wrong, drinking alcohol indeed goes hand-in-hand with the casino. Still, if you don’t pay attention to how many glasses you’ve had, you could lose track of your bets and make careless mistakes.
No wonder that most casinos supply their players with free drinks – they want to impair your decision-making ability, leading to weaker bankroll management. Ultimately, you want to make money while you’re sitting at the roulette table, so if you know that you can’t control your drinking habit, we recommend looking for a different casino game that doesn’t require too much focus.
There’s nothing wrong with people that believe that gambling myths can improve their odds at the roulette table. Avoid thinking that your gambling success comes from numerology or symbols of luck. It doesn’t.
The real secret of winning is having a solid strategy and knowing how to manage your budget well.
Our team has tested most gambling myths from diverse cultures worldwide and analyzed the results. The conclusion is that there is no correlation between symbols and the outcome, which means that the results are randomized, no matter what you believe in.
Instead of blindly following a gambling myth, we have a more effective solution. Before you start a roulette session, make sure you set a budget you can afford to lose and play until you win the desired amount or lose everything. Once your bankroll runs out, you should call it quits for the day and try again at a different time.
Forget about lucky numbers; there is no such thing in roulette!
If you have one or more favorite numbers, just bet on them and hope they will land. At the end of the day, lucky numbers are only those that pay you, so you shouldn’t develop a strategy that involves betting on a certain number that you consider “magical.”
Final thoughts
Roulette is easy to learn but hard to master. If you’re on your way to becoming a gambling legend, we highly suggest spending some time analyzing your gameplay. Ideally, you want to keep track of your profit/loss ratio and budget, which will help you better understand your performance.
Use the knowledge provided in this article and compare it to your playstyle. Do you make any of these mistakes? If the answer is yes, you can prevent them from happening by using the tips mentioned in this article.
Remember that the outcome of roulette is completely random, so you should avoid expecting that you’re due to a win or making dumb remarks like “Always cover zero.” Good luck and have fun!