Red & Black Systems Roulette Strategy

A European roulette wheel has 18 red pockets, 18 black pockets and 1 green pocket. It’s the ‘unwanted’ green pocket that provides the casino with its advantage.

The chance of hitting a red pocket on any given spin is: 18 (number of red pockets) ÷ 37 (total number of pockets) x 100 = 48.64%. Given that there are exactly the same number of black pockets, the probability is identical. So, based on fact, there is an equal chance of it being red or black (if green, then it’s neither).

Of course, that does not mean every spin will be red, black, red, black and so on. You do get runs of consecutive colours. In fact, the longest recorded streak of one colour in roulette is 32 times. The colour was red and it happened at a casino in America in 1943.

There are a few approaches players use when using a red/black roulette system. However, it has to be said the most common is to simply pick either colour and bet on it until you hit a win. The thinking is that because the colours are alternated all the way around the wheel, you won’t hit too many long losing runs. This is why the red or black bet is preferred over the other even money wagers on the table. 

For instance, with odd/even bets, the wheel has several clusters of two odds and two evens together. Also, there are sections of the wheel that group some of the highest numbers, and other parts with lower numbers. Therefore, in the player’s mind, red/black is the fairest bet to place on the table. In reality, it doesn’t matter. The odds are the same for each.

As mentioned, our red and black systems roulette system review highlighted that the normal approach is to use a negative or positive progression betting strategy. We’ve covered these separately in great detail in other articles but we will introduce them briefly here because of their heavy involvement with red and black systems.

For each of these, the strategy will be to bet on a single colour until we hit a winner. We then bet on that same colour again, before altering to the opposite colour. So, two winning bets on the same colour, then change. You can devise your own method if desired, this part is extremely flexible.

The Martingale roulette strategy is deemed high risk. Even betting on red/black, you can (and will) hit long losing streaks and doubling up on wagers can soon get out of hand. You might hit the table limit or run out of cash. That said, on its good days, you can make some solid profits because every win puts you in profit by 1 betting unit.

For many players using a red and black roulette system strategy, the reverse Martingale is a favoured choice (between the two). This is a positive progression betting system which works the opposite way: you increase your wagers on winning rounds and decrease on losing bets.

The D’Alembert roulette strategy is a much safer negative progression system. You only increase your bet by one unit each losing round and decrease by one unit when you win. Using exactly the same formula as described above for Martingale, these are the results:

There is also a reverse D’Alembert available. Other well-known betting systems that can be used on red/black are Fibonacci, Reverse Fibonacci and Labouchere. It is also possible to flat bet, but this can be rather tedious in our experience - although one of the safer methods for protecting your bankroll.