When it comes to betting, there are two types of endeavor: those that are based purely on luck and those that have an element of skill to them.

For example, at one end of the spectrum you have horseracing and poker. Although you can never been 100% certain that a move will be successful, you can always breakdown the necessary variables beforehand to ensure you’re getting your money in with the best EV possible.

In contrast, a simple coin flip where you’re betting on the outcome won’t have any skill involved. Because you can’t hope to breakdown the physics of the throw and use that to gain an insight into how it will land, the outcome is unknown and your success rate is down to nothing more than luck. In fact, the only thing you do know when you flip a coin is that the probability for either outcome (heads or tails) will be 0.5.

Spinning Some Skill into Roulette

Naturally, the majority of casino games fall somewhere in the middle, but there are ways you can push certain games more towards the side of horseracing (a game of skill) and away from a coin flip. Roulette, particularly in the online world, is one such game where you can take advantage of certain conditions to tip the odds towards your favor.

To give this strategy some grounding in horseracing tactics, let’s first consider the lay bet. If you’re an online punter who uses a betting exchange, then you can minimize your risk on any race through a combination of backing and laying bets. Laying a bet basically means you offer your own odds against a certain horse (i.e. the one you’ve backed) and the aim is to balance the odds so you come away with a profit regardless of the winner.

In roulette you can do something similar by betting on two dozens at the same time. While this strategy won’t guarantee you a win each time you spin, it will dramatically increase your chances and reduce your risk.

Let’s say you were playing roulette at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. If you bet an equal amount on two dozens, you’d not only cover just under 66% of the board with two bets, but you’d be guaranteed a one unit profit if either comes in.

For example, if you bet $10 on the first and third dozens, your total stake would be $20. Should one of these come in, your return would be $30 for a total profit of $10 (i.e. one unit). The crucial element to this strategy is the reduction of risk by covering multiple options. Just like backing and laying a horse, you can improve your chances of winning while maintaining a winning margin by using this strategy.

Reducing Your Risk with Gratis Cash

The other way you can introduce more skill into a game of roulette is through bonuses. Specific to the online casino world, welcome bonuses and loyalty rewards can actually be used as part of an overall strategy if you use them correctly. For instance, if you were to play roulette at Betway, the site will give you up to $250 in bonus cash when you make a deposit. By matching your opening transaction, Betway is essentially doubling your bankroll and you can use this to your advantage.

Under the terms of the deal, you must wager 50X your bonus amount before you can withdraw your profits, but the fact remains you’ll have double the amount to play with at the start. This means you can play fast and loose for a short period of time in order to generate the most profit possible with the least risk (because 50% of your stake will be free cash). Once you’ve hit a certain profit goal, you can then revert to a more conservative strategy until you meet the wagering requirements.

This strategy is similar to one a sports bettor might use at a horseracing meet. If there were seven scheduled races that day and the bettor scored a large profit on the first race, they would be more inclined to bet more on the following races than they’d previously intended as the risk would be a lot lower.

Betting is all about reducing your risk while increasing your chances of scooping a win. That, in a nutshell, is the essence of EV and should be the goal for every bettor. Although this might be easier in some games than others, there are ways to inject an element of skill into proceedings if you look hard enough and that’s certainly true in roulette.