Walkthrough: The Bond Spread
£140 on high, £50 on the six line 13–18, £10 on zero: £200 a spin, 25 numbers covered. The James Bond spread for twenty spins.
A simulated 20-spin session of the spread sold as the James Bond strategy. Twelve wins of £80, three six-line hits of £100, one zero for £160, and four losses of £200 on 1–12. Net +£620, never down more than £40. The spread covers about two thirds of the wheel. When one of the uncovered numbers lands, the whole £200 stake goes.
The plan
On a European table: £140 on 19–36, £50 on the six linebetSix lineSix numbers in two adjacent rows, pays 5:1. French: sixain.Read full → 13–18, £10 on zerowheelZeroThe single green pocket that no even-money, dozen or column bet covers; the source of the house edge. Also: single zero, 0.Read full →. Twenty-five numbers covered. A high number pays £140 and loses £60: +£80. A six-line number pays £250 and loses £150: +£100. Zero pays £350 and loses £190: +£160. Any of 1–12 loses the lot: −£200. Expected valuemathsExpected valueThe average result per bet over the long run. −1/37 of the stake for every standard European bet.Read full → per spin is (18×80 + 6×100 + 160 − 12×200)/37 = −£5.41, which is 2.70% of £200. The spread is a flat bet in costume.
Spins 1–10
19 27 7 33 15 0 23 31 11 29. Six highs, one six-line, one zero, two losses: +480 +100 +160 −400 = +£340. Balance +£340 after ten spins, with two losing spins that each took £200. The zero at spin 6 paid £160, which is the only time a zero felt like a friend.
Spins 11–20
5 22 36 14 20 2 28 34 17 25. Two losses in the first six spins pulled the balance back to +£280; then three highs and a six line closed the session at +£620. Twenty spins: 12 highs, 3 six-line hits, 1 zero, 4 losses. Expected net was −£108; actual +£620, about 1.2 standard deviationsmathsStandard deviationSquare root of variance; the typical distance of a result from the expected value.Read full → above expectation, a good night.
- p10 −£2,000
- p25 −£2,000
- median −£2,000
- p75 −£2,000
- p90 +£780
The accounts
Total wagered £4,000 in twenty spins. Expected lossmathsExpected lossExpected value times total amount wagered; the average amount lost over a session or a period.Read full → £108. The standard deviation of a single spin is about £135, so twenty spins have a standard deviation of about £605; +£620 or better is a one-in-nine night. The same twenty spins at £200 flat on redbetRedEven-money bet on the 18 red numbers. French: rouge.Read full → would have had the same expectation and a wider distribution (σ ≈ £200 per spin): the spread is lower variancemathsVarianceA measure of how widely results spread around the expected value. High for straight up, low for even-money bets.Read full → than an even-money betbetEven-money betRed/black, odd/even, high/low. 18 numbers, pays 1:1.Read full → because it wins more often and smaller.
What the session shows
The Bond spread is three bets whose expectations add to −1/37 of the total, like every combination of standard bets. Its real property is coverage: a 67.6% win rate makes an evening feel like a system. The 32.4% of spins that lose take £200 each, and over a long run they take exactly what the arithmetic says. Despite the name, it is not in Fleming’s novels: his Bond backs two dozensbetDozen1–12, 13–24 or 25–36, pays 2:1.Read full →. The strategy pamphlets did the rest.
Questions
The high bet is even money, so on a French table it loses only £70 on zero instead of £140, and a zero nets +£230 instead of +£160. Blended edge about 1.8%. Better, and still negative.
The proportions roughly equalise the wins: £80, £100, £160. Any proportions give the same edge.
Yes. You stake £200 on the same 25 numbers every spin. Neither the amount nor the selection changes after a win or a loss.
Comic relief
Two thirds of the wheel. One third of the time, all of it.
Sources
- Fleming, I. Casino Royale.
- Ethier, S. N. The Doctrine of Chances: Probabilistic Aspects of Gambling.