Hi all,

1st post, however I’ve been lurking on the site for a few weeks. Also I apologize for not reading the beginner section so I’m not sure if an intro is required there.

Firstly, wow there are a lot of people punting systems for sale. Brings a smile to my face.

Anyway, I was a casino croupier in South Africa about 10 years ago and dealt, among other games, roulette. At the time they used only the European wheel and that’s pretty much where I learned about the game through dealing and watching other players.

I thought I’d get your thoughts on some observations I’ve made over the past decade or so.

Firstly, in my personal opinion, there are only two real ways one can really make money consistently over the long term.

1) Own the table.

2) With extreme discipline and a basic understanding of bankroll management.

Systems, as you all know by now, do not work consistently over the long term even though they seem fantastic when you cook them up in your mind, and will in most cases bring you short term success.

Most of us aren’t in a position, or have the desire to own a working roulette table so I’ll concentrate on the second way. Please feel free to tell me if this is an effective method of going about things.

In the local casinos close to me our minimum table limit is R5.00 for inside and R50.00 for outside bets - in other words bets on the inside have to be in multiples of R5.00 and outside in multiples of R50 (ten R5 chips). Also the max table limit on the inside is 20 chips/R100 for inside and 400 chips/R2000 on the outside. Taking into consideration though that the Rand/Dollar exchange is in the R8.00 region, you can see that even though we have to start at R5.00 it’s nevertheless a bit cheaper than you guys in the US.

With that said, I’ve experimented with many different “systems” in the last ten years and one common denominator that always ruined my bankroll (which is addmittedly smallish) was the discipline, or more accurately the lack thereof. Thus it is my opinion that you can play ANY system and it will surely work for you provided you manage your cash effectively and don’t get greedy or chase losses or stick to the same thing over and over.

Casino’s know that the biggest weapon in their arsenal is you, the player. They take advantage of this on numerous levels. Most obvious of all being the way the casino is designed. You all know what I mean so I won’t bore you with all that. They also have very subtle means of exploiting your greed. They also have many measures in place to protect their investment as can be seen in, among other things, the limitations on the games like table maxes and such. Most importantly they try to keep you there as long as possible so that the “house edge” can eventually get you.

Anyway so I’ve found a way to make some money in the long term that doesn’t necesarily rely on a system. Yes, I to a degree use a system to accomplish my cash goal, but I have found that by remaining disciplined, I am able to take home (a very little) over a long period of time. Who knows, perhaps the casino edge will eventually get me in the long term, but not before I’ve long spent their money

Also it must be said that I rely on tremendous amounts of luck (and other factors like other players present, the dealer’s demeanor, etc) while playing and I’m not afraid to admit that luck plays a large part of my game.

Here’s what I do, perhaps you could comment on my genius, or stupidity

Firstly I don’t play in online casinos. I worked in this environment too and although I cannot say with any certainty that the software is in any way manipulated, I can indeed say that some of the things I’ve seen borders on the supernatural. If you do play online, then I hope it works for you. I’m just a little too paranoid to do that.

Secondly, I play outside bets (mostly).

Have you ever noticed how outside bet results occur in clusters? For example, black/red comes up B-B-R-B-R-B-R-R-R-R-R-R-B-B-B-R-B-B-B-B-R-R-B etc or odd/even O-O-E-E-O-E-E-E-O-O-O-E-O-E-E-E etc, etc. This is probably by virtue of there being only two real outcomes (excluding zero) Odd or Even, Red or Black, High or Low.

What I do is to instead of bet against the wheel like the Martingale system suggests, I bet WITH the last result (yes I know all spins are new events and that’s where luck comes into it).

So if the last number was black then I will bet black again. If the last number was odd then I would bet odd again etc. I’m hoping that, with LUCK, the last result will repeat.

I’ve seen way too many chip trees where the results were clustered in this manner for this betting style not to be effective. Of course you will get sessions where the result goes B-R-B-R-B-R but they generally don’t last as long as the clustered results.

In addition to this I don’t play every spin, I often monitor more than one table and wait for the “conditions’ to fall in my favour. There’s probably a name for this system and someone has probably already figured this out and employed it before so I’m not really sure what to call it, or if it’s a good way to bet or not. But the real beauty to this system is the fact that I walk away after I win three (3) units.

So betting at the minimum of R50.00, I leave the casino with R150.00. Sure there are numerous times where my bet doesn’t win, but I’m only losing one unit. It doesn’t mean that I have lost, it just means that I will be in the casino a little longer than 15 minutes so as to recoup my losses.

I do not force myself into progressive play to try and recoup my losses. I play slow and steady, one chip at a time (most times not even immediately following a loss and relying on “probability”) until I get my three units profit. Three units are really not that hard to get. The hard part is leaving when you’re up. On the other hand, should I lose ten units, I get up and leave even though my bankroll can support 40 losses. I don’t just leave the table, I leave the casino and come back the next day.

Luckily for me I live mere minutes from my local casino and I can do three to four of these sessions in a day, although I choose not to.

So I usually limit myself to one session a day, at different times of the day, at different casinos, to avoid suspicion and to keep my greed (which never really goes away) in check.

In addition to this I don’t gamble for fun. Telling yourself that gambling is fun is the biggest lie you could tell yourself. I’m simply there for the money and I keep that, and only that in my mind. I don’t get my emotions involved, win or lose. I reserve my emotions for when I spend the money. The greed is always there, sure, which is probably an emotion also, but I just keep my goal of three units in mind and I can manage it.

Yes three units up is not a lot by any means, but tomorrow is another day as they say. Add up all the tomorrows and you achieve a significant win.

I understand of course that this “method” isn’t very practical for most of you because your trip to the casino probably costs more than three units, let alone a daily trip to the casino.

However, I have explained the “system” only on it’s minimum bet.
 
This is where the bankroll management comes in (or at least whatI perceive it to be).

When I started out, I made sure that I had at least 40 times my bet stake so that I could survive the losses. So I would initially start out on R2000.00 (R50 x 40). Each day I would make R150. Of the R150 I would put R100 back into my bankroll and use the R50 (one third) for whatever I wanted. My theory was that should this “system” go bust, at least I spent some of the money.

I would do this until I reached the next level up. The next level being R100 which was the next multiple of R50.00. I would make the jump up to R100 only if my bank could support this by 40 times. So I needed R4000 in my bank in order to make the jump. That of course took a further 20 days. It’s painfully slow. Of the R300 I would make in the day, I would take home R100 (one third) and leave the R200 in my bank. Next level was R150/R6000 and so on and so on.

I guess you could call this a progression, but I’d like to think that the progression happens on my terms and isn’t born out of emotion because I’m losing.

I of course spent some of the take home money and I saved some of it, but the initial R2000 I started on (I had written off all previous losses) was already paid back so I didn’t care if the system went bust after I made that first jump.

Eventually I started to make a decent amount of money. It took time, but I eventually got there. Each time I jumped up a bet I made sure I enough to support 40 times the next higher bet. Because the wins were becoming larger and larger, the jumps of course became more frequent until I reached the table max. I also always made sure I had taken some of the money home.

These days I play at the table maximum (R2000 for outside bets) and my bankroll can support 55 times my stake and I take home all winnings. So I still bet according to the last outside chance result that came up, and I play them all however I prefer to stick to red/black as they are more evenly alternated than any of the other “HOBREL” bets.

I also don’t play for three wins anymore. I only play for one win. One win equals R2000…

I often travel large distances to keep my wins at one casino rather small and R2000 a day is worth it for me.

You only need one

For those of you geographically limited to one session a month, I suggest save up the required bankroll and if you are fortunate to start off at the table max, which is likely also the equivalent of 400 chips on a $5.00 table then one session at one spin per month would pocket you $2000 extra dollars a month and from what I understand, $2000 extra dollars (or pounds for that matter) is quite a bit of coin.

I do of course frequently use other systems as well which sometimes win and sometimes lose, but I make sure that I give back a bit of money as well. If my wins remain reasonable and it seems that I am recording profits and losses then there is no reason for the casinos to be suspicious of me.

Regards,
23BLACK

PS: I find this VB concept very interesting. Having dealt the game for a few years I can certainly understand how VB could help with number or, at the very least, wheel section prediction. I did not see any literature though regarding how exactly it is done, so I cannot really comment on it’s effectiveness, but I’m sure it’s very interesting.

It’s probably quite difficult because as a dealer, being in control of the ball and wheel speed can certainly get you to within a certain section and with even more practice you could probably put the ball in a slot (were it not for legitimate casinos implementing wheel hazards and shallow slots to promote ball bounce “in the interest of fairness”). However from the guys standing next to the wheel this must take a tremendous amount of skill and concentration to get right, in mere seconds. Covering wheel sections I get, but visually measuring the ball and wheels velocity in real time is well beyond my capabilities. If anyone would care to explain this to me I’d be really grateful.

Thanks for reading.

*Flame suite on*

Hi 23Black.
I know you posted this a few months back, but reading all the posts on this forum is near impossible.
I am very intrigued with your system…
I have seen at the casino, (the roulette table shows the last 12 - 14 spins) and twice R was on a full board run.
I play mostly on dozens (and more recently) columns. I am also in SA, and am luckily in an area where I can choose between 3 different casino’s. I spent the better part of a year doing research on-line, and going to casino’s to get stats to work on at home. I have just recently started playing live. I have also used on-line casino’s, and maybe I used the wrong sites, but to me on-line did’nt work. I played with real money twice, and although on my first time, I won a little, the next day when I go in to play, it completely wiped me out - I was playing even money bets, so I stopped on-line immediately. I would use on-line “play” accounts just to get stats to practise on later.
I am so relieved there is someone else playing live. One thing I have seen with any and all tables, is that they vary between “runs” and “jumpers” (as I call them). Runs are easy to identify and bet on, but eventually it ends and the sequence “jumps” (total opposite of last spin). Whatever system anyone has to play, is not 100 % guaranteed, as you also know, you have to lose at some point, and it’s up to the individual to decide when is the best time to stop.
Your method of accumulating a bank role is very interesting! I, too, have a very careful money management system, which I set limits on how much I lose vs how much I win.
If your system works for you - clearly it does, then that has to be a stroke of genius in my mind!
I play what I call “sleeper dozens” - you wait for eg: 25 - 36 to not reflect for 7 spins, then on the 8th spin, you start betting. I use a progressive betting system for each time I lose, but it’s so carefully calculated, that I ensure if my next spin wins, I’m up at least 1 chip. Sure there are times that you have to wait for, lets say 15 spins before it comes, but that is where careful money management comes in. It’s working for me, and I have not yet had a major loss yet.
You mentioned that “clusters” (runs) happen more often and the opposite does’nt last long, being an ex-dealer, can you identify when it’s about to change?
Regards
Cassy