Steve Bourie, author of the American Casino Guide, interviews Michael “Wizard of Odds” Shackleford about blackjack. Mike answers some of the most common questions that players have about the game, plus he gives tips on how players can choose the best games, use the proper strategies and take advantage of the casino comping system.
The most attractive aspect of the six pack plus roulette system is that it allows a gambler to play every spin. Many gambling systemsforce the player to wait for a specific starting point, but that can be boring. With the six pack, you place at least five chips on the roulette layout each spin. This system is designed for an American roulette wheel with zero and double zero.
Most players purchase a “color” from the dealer in the lowest denomination available to start with – you can always go up in value later. Often games can still be found with 25-cent or 50-cent chips. You will want to start with at least a dozen bets worth of chips, so 12 x 5 = 60 chips minimum, and a good rule of thumb is to have enough for three purchases of the minimum. If you burn through your first stack of sixty, take a break and start again later.
Six pack refers to making bets along the inside of the numbers between them and the three “sections” of 12 (1-12, 13-24, 25-36). When you start, use a single chip to cover six numbers. Example:
First Spin
Place one chip touching number circles “1” and “4” which covers all numbers 1-6. You also place a single chip straight up on numbers 8, 10, 20 and 26. You now have a total of five chips bet and are covering a total of 10 numbers. If 1-6 hits, your profit is one chip, if 8, 10, 20 or 26 hits, your profit is 31 chips.
Second Spin
If you don’t hit a number, start in the basement with a single chip covering six numbers and the corresponding four singles. If you won the last spin, double your bets so you have 10 chips total in action, regardless of whether you hit a six pack or a straight-up bet.
Third Spin
If you don’t hit a number, start in the basement again. After the second spin, anytime you hit a six pack number, raise that bet by a chip. Anytime you hit a number straight up, raise the six pack bet one chip and the chips on your straight up bets one chip. Continue this until you miss a winner and start in the basement again or quit when you reach your target goal, usually 120 to 180 chips.
The premise of this system is that the player is able to cover 10 numbers, and the ball will always land within two spaces of one of your numbers. This makes playing very exciting. Use the straight up number with the following six packs:
Bet only one six pack combination at a time and stick with it until you book a winner or quit. This system is much different than the Pivot roulette system where you are making a continuation of similar bets for 35 spins.
How to play the pivot roulette system takes little time to explain or to understand. The original players of this system based it on the idea that in a random sampling of spins, in this case 38 spins to represent all numbers and the “0” and “00” on an American roulette wheel, not every number is going to come up. In fact, only about 2/3’s come up, which means many numbers will repeat.
With this in mind, the pivot system requires a player to wait until they see a number repeat and then bet on that number for the next 35 spins. That’s a little different than other roulette systems like the Labouchere. The amount bet should be the same for every spin. If the number bet on comes up again they will show a profit (or break-even if it comes on the 35th spin). When the number comes up again and they are paid, they choose the next number on their list that has repeated and bet on that one for 35 spins or until it comes up again.
If at any time the number they have chosen does not come up in 35 spins, then they move on to the next number that has repeated. This system requires that you keep a list of all numbers that spin and act upon previous spins to make your decisions.
Some additional options to this system can be a base bankroll, such as 35 units, and a set win amount such as 100 units. Other players place a time limit on their play such as two hours, and then walk away a winner or a loser.
Editors Notes
Numbers distribution theory and the law of large numbers work both for and against this betting system. Because the spin of a roulette wheel and the landing of the ball are random events, the wheel is certainly not going to spin a different number every time until all numbers come up. There will be numbers that repeat in even a tiny sampling of 38 spins, so there will be around a dozen numbers that do not show up at all.
The Law of Large Numbers
However, there is no way to predict which numbers those repeaters will be. Every spin of the roulette wheel is independent of the last. The law of large numbers states that as the number of samples (in this case spins) increases, the results begin to converge on the expected results. In other words, as you approach a million spins, every number will have come up very close to the same number of times.
So, should you choose a number that has spun twice in the last 38 spins, or one that hasn’t spun in the last 38 spins? Well, it’s a trick question, because either bet is going to return the same amount of money in the long run. Playing roulette and falling for the gambler’s fallacy will lead to ruination of your bankroll.
Gambler’s Fallacy
With regard to roulette, the gambler’s fallacy is the belief that if deviations from expected results (such as a number not appearing) are observed in continuous spins of the wheel, that the deviations are likely to be evened out by opposite deviations in the very near future.
Unfortunately, this is not true. Deviations may be observed in small samples, but the “correction” of results, if you will, may take thousands of spins – or more. The long run is a really long time. Nobody knows what the next spin will bring, because each spin is independent of the last. Employing a betting system to your roulette play can do several good things. It can limit your losses, it can help you understand how the odds works, and it can help you win on occasion. It can not turn the odds in your favor.
Beat The Blue Heron 