Get the Edge at Roulette: How to Predict Where the Ball Will Land (Scoblete Get-The-Edge) (Paperback)

Often they come with very attractive titles, such as 'Predict where the ball will land'. This book is rather about how difficult, if not impossible, it is to make any serious predictions, at best well calculated guesses.

The author starts of very thorougly by dissecting classic roulette systems such as the Martingale, Labouchere (and other systems which ruined people over the years) and shows with clear logic, they simply can not work. Even if you have no prior math knowledge, the explication is clear without being simplistic. So far, so good. It will surely prevent anyone, to have a go at these classic mathematical systems again.

But, rather very misleading Pawlicki rejects one way of playing the game, by another which can be as devastating to the bankroll of the player. Biased wheels and visual ballistics are explained, but the stats provided are questionable, incomplete or simply absent (in the case of visual ballistics).

In the case of visual ballistics there isn't any proove provided what so ever, only presumptions which are never a good thing. Pawlicki claims there are people who can apply visual ballistics (predicting where the ball will land depending on mental timing), but a serious statistical test to examine if a testsubject would hold up on a larger amount of trials is not provided. Or would we see it was also only good luck or belief rather than ability?

In the case of biased wheels, the calculation of standard deviation is explained (which is interesting if you never heard of it), but another very important test is left out: the Chi Square Test (casino's monitoring software actually use both in combination).

Why? Because a high standard deviation doesn't necessarily mean there is bias: it could only be a statistical fluctuation which is mathematically expected all along in a game such as roulette. In this case the book can be suggestively misleading by offering incomplete advice: outcomes with low probability are still far away from bias, and in any case it would take far larger amounts of trials to differentiate with enough statistical significance between randomness and bias. Far more, than any occasional player would probably go through.

Never the less, if you want to catch up on analysis of the game on roulette (meaning probabilitytheory and stats come into place), this is a better starting point than many other books out there. I would have given it four or five stars if Pawlicki would have expanded the book, with serious statistical tests of other so called 'advantage' systems which are discussed.

Or would the author only find he replaced one conclusion (simple mathematical systems can not work in the long run), with another belief (I can visually predict where the ball will land or high standard deviation equals bias).

I doubt strongly this book will make you a consistent winner in the long run. Stop playing all together would probably be the most wise decission.