Section Strategy
Section Strategy is a technique of placing inside bets to cover large areas of the wheel. By having bets in groups of adjacent numbers, if the ball is in the area covered, you win. There are no gaps or uncovered numbers. Covering large sections of the American wheel and the Hybrid wheel is a bit easier than the French wheel. Take a look at the American wheel below.
If you place bets on 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30, two sections of six numbers each are covered. To the right of 0, are 28, 9, 26, 30, 11, and 7. These are covered in the two groups above. Continuing clockwise around the wheel, to the right of 00, are the complementary 6 numbers to the group of six above. They are 27, 10, 25, 29, 12, and 8.These 12 numbers can be covered with two line bets (Double Street bets). The span of the sections may be expanded to cover 7 numbers each (for a total of 14 numbers) by placing a split bet on the 0/00 line.
Mr. Peter Svoboda in his book, Beating the Casinos at Their Own Game also gives his techniques for covering 24, 26, 30 and 32 numbers. Rather than include them here, I invite you to order his excellent book.
Back to the 12 or 14 number sections above, you might ask, could I use a betting progression and cover the sections above. Yes you can, but, you are only covering 32 or 37% of the wheel. So, this is not an even money bet like the outside bets. You will be placing a bet which pays 5 to 1, and loses the other bets. Assume you cover 12 numbers with two units. When you hit one of your numbers, you net 4 units profit (win 5, but lose the second bet). This will occur 32% of the spins on average. The other 68% of the time you lose 2 units. If you do the math you will find the house advantage holds up. The only way to use a progression with this system would be to use a negative progression.
Because you win twice as many units as you lose, you would not increase your bet after one loss. I suggest you increase the bet after two losses or even three losses. Then, double the bet. Now you are risking 4 units, but you will win 10 units, and lose 2 units of the second bet, netting 8 units. If you previously lost 3 spins, or 6 units, you now have a profit of 2 units. To use a negative progression, you must be prepared to lose. What if you doubled your bet to 4 units total and lost again? You will now have lost 10 units. If you keep your bet the same, you will break even if you win the next bet. This is what you would call a CYA bet, which means Cover Your Assets. Your hope in this bet is to simply break even. If you break even, you have not lost anything for 4 losses and 1 win. This isn't bad. But, what if you lose?
Now the question is, how high do I go? At what point do I stop escalating my bet? You can still lose many more times; that's the nature of the game. At this point you have only bet 14 units. You would have bet 10 units anyway if you had simply bet 2 units per spin. Therefore, you are only out 4 extra units, and you had a chance to profit or at least break even. It just simply didn't hit one of your 12 numbers in 5 spins. You have two choices here. You could drop down to one unit per bet, or stay at 4 units, 2 units per bet. The choice is yours. Once you win, drop back to one unit per bet and begin again. There will be times when you win two in a row and this will add to the win column and offset the losses.
Whatever you decide to do, unless you have an excess of money to throw around, I recommend you not progress to a higher level. You could, but you may accumulate a large loss and I don't think you should risk this. A negative progression must be limited in scope, or you risk a Martingale-like escalation and possible ruin.
More Sections
There are two approaches to section betting. One may attempt to cover one large section with only a few "outliers." Since the wheel is designed with adjacent numbers on the layout opposite each other on the wheel, it is easy to cover two spans using street and line bets. For example, place four line bets at 1-4, 13-16, 19-22, 31-34. You are covering 24 numbers with 4 bets, or 63% of the wheel. The numbers covered on the wheel are, clockwise, 20 to 1 and 19 to 2. With one more chip added, you could also cover 0-00, making two spans of 13 numbers. Covering them is the easy part. You have to figure out how to bet them.
My opinion, for what it is worth, is one should use a positive progression when playing more than half of the wheel. Why? Because you are going to have more wins in a row by a two to one margin in this case. When you win one of the line bets, you net one unit. If you use a positive progression of some form, you can capitalize on the longer winning streaks. You don't want to press up ad infinitum, but perhaps three times in a row, drop back, then press again. If you are placing the 0-00 split bet, it doesn't have to be pressed since it pays at a higher rate. A progression might look like the following:
First bet: 1 unit on the four lines and 1 unit on the 0-00 split bet.
Second bet: If you lose, always place the same bet.
If you win, place 1.5 units on the four lines, and leave the split at 1 unit.
Third bet: If you lose, drop back to the first bet.
If you win, Press the line bets to 2 units each.
Fourth bet: Drop back to the first bet and repeat the process.
You will win almost 7 out of 10 spins, but when you lose, you will lose all bets. When you win, you will win either one line bet, or the split bet which yields 17 units minus your line bets.
The problem with using a negative progression here is the multiple you must apply to the four line bets to recover your losses. Because you only win 1 unit per line bet win, but lose 5 units when you have a loss, to recover 5 units in one bet, the four line bets have to be increased to 5 units each. This means you have quintuple risk to recover your 5 units. What if you do this but lose again? Now you are down 26 units. To recover 26 units, You have to bet 100 units, collectively, on the line bets and 6 units on the split bet. You have placed yourself in a martingale spiral, with two losses in a row. You are in a position of losing greater than 5.26% to the casino, much greater. This is exactly where they want you to be.
You now see the problem with trying to cover large areas of the wheel. You are put in a situation of winning a little when you win, but losing a lot when you lose. I generally stay away from this type of betting, preferring even money bets and my betting progressions.
For completeness, I am going to give you three more section strategies. They cover smaller areas of the wheel, so the payoff is higher. In a way, these are more conducive to negative progressions, because you can use a slow progression. You might bet the same bet two or three times in a row because the payoff is higher.
19 to 4 Span
Place two street bets: 4-5-6, and 31-32-33
Also place 2 split bets: 16-19, and 18-21
This covers 8 contiguous numbers with two outliers. The 8 represent 21% of the wheel. Payoffs will be 11 units on the two street bets, minus 3 units for a net of 8 units. The two split bets pay 17 to one, minus three for a net of 14 units. You might devise your own progression for these bets depending on which one wins. For example, you might double the street bets if you lose three in a row. This would put your bet up to 6 units total. Lose a fourth and you might place two units on all four bets. You could leave the bet there until a win occurs, then drop back to the original bets. Sit down with a calculator and devise your own system which has acceptable risk for you. It doesn't take calculus to figure out the risk and rewards.
23 to 5 Span
Bet the center column with 4 chips
Also place 1 unit on two street bets: 7-8-9, and 28-29-30.
This leaves 0 as the only uncovered number in a 15 number span. Also, 8 and 29 are doubly covered numbers.
22 to 1 Span
Place four street bets: 1-2-3, 13-14-15, 22-23-24, and 34-35-36.
This covers an eight number group and opposite, a four number group, 2, 14, 35, and 23. You could add 0-00, and cover a nine number span and a 5 number span.
This completes this topic. Some authors and many players feel this is a good way to play because the numbers you play are grouped. Keep in mind that the numbers you don't play are also grouped. Good luck and be careful with using negative progressions.
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