Even with unlimited funds it wouldn't work for roulette
Because of the 0 (and 00) as mentioned above. Also, of course, the whole switching colours thing is a red/black herring - it makes no difference whether you keep betting the same colour or switch colours.

I've mentioned before in another qotw that I've always had a problem with the whole 'every run is equally improbable' argument about statistical aberrations, by the way. It isn't true that ten reds in a row is as likely as any other combination, in the sense that ten reds in a row is 'interesting', whereas most sequences are interchangeable. That means that yes, a run of reds genuinely is improbable and worthy of surprise in just the way that common sense says it is. What it isn't is any less probable than any other *particular* run, but of course that's not what people mean at all. Arguing against that is just smug pedantry (and I speak as a fully paid-up smug pedant)

I think people confuse this with the Gambler's Fallacy, which is to say that *after* a run of reds, a black is more likely. That's a genuine error.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Fri 8 May 2009, 17:04, 1 reply)

yes. you have a point
but the a 1 in 30,000 event isn't statistically particularly rare or significant. Particularly because, as is pointed out below, you can't regard that probability in isolation.

you've got a 1 in 30,000 probability off 15 spins. How many times does a roulette wheel spin in a day? I'll get the maths wrong here, as I'm doing it off the top of my head, but I think that you only need the wheel to spin something like 2000 times for the chances of a 1 in 30,000 sequence coming up to be more or less evens.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Fri 8 May 2009, 17:29, closed)