The Guetting Roulette System was invented by Charles Guetting, a Frenchman who loved both numbers and gambling. He is said to have been a mathematician, but the system he used to considerable success in the big casino at Monte Carlo in the 1800’s wasn’t based on any mathematical formula. Guetting also didn’t play roulette, he only gambled at Trente-et-Quarant (Thirty and Forty).
Trente-et-Quarant is still played at casinos in Europe, but its similarity to European roulette, where the En Prison rule is in effect, is quite striking. For players who wish to place wagers on the outside bets at roulette, most notably red/black and odd/even, the very system that Guetting practiced can be applied.
The beauty of the Guetting Roulette System is that it is a winning progression, which allows a bad streak to have only a small effect on a player’s bankroll. However, it has quite the opposite effect on the player’s bankroll when a winning streak is at hand.
While a system like the Martingale is designed to win a single unit after any coup, the Guetting system is designed to win a sizeable amount of chips by the end of a winning streak or coup.
How to Play the Guetting Roulette System
This system employs wagers on even-money bets found at roulette. These wagers are red/black, odd/even, and 1st 18/2nd 18. Players will obviously have the best results when they play on a single-zero wheel with En Prison (or La Partage) rules, which allow any even-money wager to be placed in prison when a zero is spun. The wager will be returned if on the subsequent spin the player’s original wager choice is spun. This means that if the original wager was red, and zero was spun, the wager is held captive for an additional spin and wins if red is the next spin.
This has the effect of reducing the original house edge of 2.70 % to just 1.35 %. The house edge on an American wheel, with a zero and double zero, is much higher, at 5.26%, and while the Guetting Roulette System is still used by some, the success is certainly reduced. Charles Guetting started his betting with a single unit and raised his wager to 1.5 units after it won twice in a row.
To make you’re wagering easier, start with a 2 unit first wager and a 3 unit wager after two wins. Following Guetting’s system, you place your first wager of 2 units on an even-money bet. For our example, we will use black as our bet. Win or lose, you stay with your base wager of 2 units until there are two consecutive wins, and then you raise your wager to 3 units. If this 3 unit wager wins twice, you go to 6 units. If it loses once, you go back to 2 units.
Guetting used specific units and levels for his wagering system and moved up to the next unit after each double win. He dropped back to the lowest wager on the level below after any loss. You can use the chart below to follow his progression:
- 2 Units – win twice and move to next level
- 3 Units – win twice: 4 Units – win twice: 6 Units – win twice and move to next level
- 8 Units – win twice: 12 Units – win twice: 16 units – win twice and move to next level
- 20 Units – win twice: 30 Units – win twice: 40 units – win twice and move to next level
- 60 Units – win twice: 80 Units – win twice: 100 units – stay until a loss is encountered
- Quit
If you win the first wager at level 2 through 5 but lose the second wager, repeat the same wager. If it loses a second time, drop down to the first wager of the level below. If you lose a third bet in a row, drop down to the first wager of the level below again. Stay there until you win two wagers in a row and begin to raise your bets again.
If at any time your wager is placed En Prison, let it ride for the next spin but don’t count the next spin as a win – you just broke even and now need to win again to move forward. If you are playing with La Partage rules, and have half of your wager taken away, do the same as with En Prison and let the ½ wager ride on the next spin unless that would be below 2 units. If this is the case, raise the wager back to what it was before the last spin.
Expectations
Long winning and losing streaks happen in any game of chance. You can expect to lose several spins in a row on a regular basis. You can also expect to win four or five spins on a recurring basis, which puts you at a 4 unit wager quite often.
Reaching the higher limits is rarer and, because of this, many players use a simplified version. They move their wagers up in units and levels after each win, not waiting for a second win at the same bet. If you choose to follow this style, make sure you immediately drop back to a 2 unit bet after just a single loss. This will mitigate the difference between multiple wins with the original Guetting system and the modified system. If you don’t, even a nice streak of 7 or 8 consecutive wins can be wiped out with just three losing spins.