Short answer: there is no best number in roulette. On a fair wheel every number has the same chance on every spin: 1 in 37 on a single-zero (European) wheel, or 1 in 38 on a double-zero (American) wheel. Every bet carries the same house edge too, so no number, streak or pattern gives you an advantage.
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Is there a best number in roulette?
No. Our sister site Wizard of Odds puts it plainly: on a fair wheel, every number is equally likely and the past does not matter.
The numbers behind that are simple:
- Single-zero wheel: each number wins 1 spin in 37 (about 2.70%).
- Double-zero wheel: each number wins 1 spin in 38 (about 2.63%).
- House edge: 2.70% on every bet on the European wheel; 5.26% on every bet on the American wheel, except the five-number line (0, 00, 1, 2, 3), which is 7.89%.
So picking 7 instead of 29 changes nothing about your odds or the casino’s edge. You can see the full breakdown in our guide to roulette odds and payouts. See also European and American roulette. No betting system overcomes the house advantage in the long run, and changing numbers is no exception.
Hot and cold numbers
“Hot” numbers are those that have come up more often than average in recent spins; “cold” numbers have come up less.
The trouble is that random results are never perfectly even. Take 300 spins on a single-zero wheel. Each number is expected about 300 ÷ 37 = 8.1 times. Some numbers will land well above that and some well below, purely through chance. A number that comes up 20 times in 300 spins looks striking, but by itself it is not evidence that the wheel favours it.
Hot and cold lists therefore describe the past. They do not predict the next spin. Betting on a hot number does not raise your chances, and betting on a cold number does not make it any more likely to arrive.
The gambler’s fallacy
Backing a cold number because it is “due” is the gambler’s fallacy: the belief that an equally probable outcome that has appeared less often than expected becomes more likely next time. As Wizard of Odds puts it, the ball has no memory.
The most famous example is Monte Carlo in 1913. According to the usual account, the ball landed on black 26 times in a row (the exact length varies between sources). Gamblers piled onto red, reasoning that the streak had thrown the wheel out of balance. Every spin was independent, so red was no more likely after the streak than before it.
Covering more numbers (it does not change the edge)
If you want more of the wheel working for you, you can cover it with bets that include several numbers. Splits, streets, corners and lines do this on the layout. Neighbour and sector bets do it by position on the wheel itself, such as announced bets like Voisins du Zero, Orphelins and Tiers du Cylindre, which each cover a set section of the wheel.
Covering more numbers makes a win more frequent, with a correspondingly smaller payout. The house edge stays the same: 2.70% on the European wheel, 5.26% on the American. Backing the neighbours of a “hot” number is just the hot-number idea with extra steps. New to the layout? Start with the roulette rules.
Biased wheels: the one real exception
There is one circumstance where some numbers genuinely do come up more: a physically biased wheel. If a wheel has a flaw, such as a tilt or a worn pocket, the results are no longer evenly spread.
The best-known story is Joseph Jagger, a Yorkshire textile worker who is said to have “broken the bank” at Monte Carlo around 1881. The account is that he recorded the winning numbers over about a month, noticed that certain numbers came up most often, and bet on them. Sources disagree on the details, including how much he won, so we do not quote a figure. Casinos now maintain and check their wheels carefully, so do not expect to find one today. Our guide to roulette wheel malfunctions covers how problems arise.
A related idea comes from physics. In 2012 Michael Small and Chi Kong Tse published “Predicting the outcome of roulette” in the journal Chaos. They argued that if you know the ball’s initial position, velocity and acceleration, you can predict the outcome well enough to show an expected return of at least 18%, against -2.7% for a random bet. They also reported that even a very slight slant in the table produces a pronounced bias.
That is not a system an ordinary player can use. It depends on measuring those conditions precisely, with a camera or careful timing, and the claim is the authors’ own. A press report of their lab test noted the method picked the correct half of the wheel 13 times in 22 trials, a small sample, and we found no independent replication. Small warned that you can still lose heavily with the odds in your favour.
Online roulette and RNG
Standard online roulette uses a random number generator (RNG) in place of a physical wheel. In a licensed game each result is meant to be independent of the last, so there is no wheel to tilt and no number that is “running hot” in any meaningful sense. Each spin is independent, just as it is on a fair wheel.
You will still see runs and gaps in the results, as you would in any random sequence. That is normal variation, not a pattern to exploit. Live dealer games use a real wheel, so the logic is the same as at a land-based table. If you want to see how a game plays without staking anything, try free roulette first, and see our guide to playing roulette online.
Choosing numbers for fun
Most players have favourites: a birthday, an anniversary, a house number, or one that just feels lucky. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as you treat it as personal taste and not as an edge. Your lucky number has exactly the same chance as any other.
A few habits keep it sensible:
- Set a budget before you play and treat it as the cost of entertainment. Our advice on how to manage your bankroll helps.
- Do not raise your stake after each loss, and do not stay on one number until it “has to” land. Larger bets will not recover earlier losses.
- Prefer the single-zero wheel, where the house edge is lower.
- Stop if you are playing to win back money. Our responsible gambling page lists tools and support if you need them.
The odds favour the casino over time whatever you pick, so choose the numbers you like and enjoy the spin.
FAQ
What is the best number to bet on in roulette?
There isn’t one. Every number has the same chance on a fair wheel (1 in 37 or 1 in 38), and every bet has the same house edge.
Do hot numbers come up more often?
Only in the sense that they already have, in a sample that is too small to mean much. Over 300 single-zero spins each number is expected about 8.1 times, so big differences are normal variation.
Is a cold number due to come up?
No. That is the gambler’s fallacy. The wheel has no memory, so a number’s chance on the next spin is the same as it was on the last.
Can a biased wheel be beaten?
In principle, yes, which is how Joseph Jagger’s story is told. In practice, modern casinos maintain and check their wheels, and the physics-based prediction research needs precise measurements that ordinary players do not have.
Are online roulette numbers random?
In licensed games, each spin is meant to be independent of the previous one, so no number is hot or cold. Play only at casinos licensed in your market.