I’ve said it a few times before, but I don’t believe in the long-term success of betting systems for roulette. I believe each spin is independent of the last, and like rolling a pair of dice, nothing of what’s happened in the previous one, five or 10,000 turns has any affect on what the next turn will be. However, I’m certainly not above exploring popular or interesting betting systems for those who might be interested.

Which brings me to one I was recently reading about, called the Diodoro system. It caught my eye because it requires discipline from the player – and I’ll explain in a moment. Based on the rule of thirds, it forces you to keep track of two dozen spins of the wheel and eliminate each number as it comes up. After the 24 turns, any numbers remaining on the board should be played at the same time, starting small and progressively increasing your bets until a number hits – each turn removing any bets from a subseqent number that comes up. Once you hit (if you hit), you must clear all your money and begin the 24-turn tracking process all over again.

I can see right away how this would be appealing to those ready to believe there is a silver bullet betting system out there in the cosmos somewhere. Research, patience and process of elimination usually add up to results. Unfortunately, when every turn resets all the variables, it doesn’t matter how long you wait or how many times you cross a number off from contention. It doesn’t matter.

However, if you are going to try a system like this, the progression cycle for this one is way too short in my opinion. You can’t get an accurate count on number-hit likelihood from waiting through just 24 spins. If you really had discipline and patience, you’ll wait through 300 or more, and THEN count how many times each number hits and play the ones that have been winners three times or fewer. Then maybe the law of averages might swing to your favor a bit.

The system also doesn’t take into account human nature, which is not to quit right after you’re ahead, especially if that “win” just brings the player back to even. One, two or even five fluke victories playing a system doesn’t mean the system works. It just means you were lucky at the table.

Remember this: the casinos have experts working out and testing all the systems that you and your professional buddies know, and if one of them actually does fluster or scare the money machines, the game will change or disappear faster than you can say red 23.