What is roulette?Roulette is a casino and gambling game (Roulette is a French word meaning "small wheel"). A croupier turns a round roulette wheel which has 37 or 38 separately numbered pockets in which a ball must land. The main pockets are numbered from 1 to 36 and alternate between red and black, with number 1 being red (A fascinating bit of trivia on the side: the numbers 1-36 add up to 666...hint hint hint). There is also a green pocket numbered 0. In most roulette wheels in the United States but not in Europe, there is a second zero compartment marked 00, also colored green. If a player bets on a single number and wins, the payout is 35 to 1. The bet itself is returned, so in total it is multiplied by 36. (In a lottery one would say 'the prize is 36 times the cost of the ticket', because in a lottery the cost of the ticket is not returned additionally.) A player can bet on numbers, combinations, ranges, odds/evens, and colors. |
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The description of how to play occupies a good 60% of the book, but numerous typographical errors, and worse yet, technical errors plague this description. For example, the five-number bet illustrated on page 21 isn't the correct five-number bet at all, but rather is a three-number bet on 0-2-00. This is real confusing for the first time roulette player, which is the only real target audience for this book.
In addition to technical errors and typographicals, there are many out-right contradictions. For example, on page 40 we read "What they don't know is that there is no law of averages.". On page 43, we read "... as we have shown, the game is one of pure chance governed by the law of averages...".
Only one common winning system is mentioned, the Martingale, and then the author turns around and says that it really isn't a good system because of losing streaks and suggests just "playing numbers". Why did the author not chose a "good system" and explain mathematically why it is a good system? Or is he trying to say that no such system exists and that the only way to win is not to play?
For those looking to learn to play roulette and then extend their knowledge to include a good description of some of the common winning systems, I'd have to suggest "All About Roulette" by John Gollehon and "Secrets of Winning Roulette" by Marten Jensen, rather than this book.