James Bond has long been regarded as one of the smartest and most sophisticated gamblers around. Agent 007 is shown gambling in several of his movies, but are the strategies that he uses worth following?
The James Bond roulette strategy
We can start with the roulette strategy that carries the secret agent’s name. This system was mentioned in the Casino Royale book and is a cover the table type of approach. What this means is that you are placing your stake on several different options at once.
It is a flat betting system, so the stake remains the same on every turn. But will you win money on this? The experts generally agree that it isn’t a sure-fire success. You will certainly win on a lot of your bets; however, you will lose more money on the losing bets than you get on the winners.
The problem is that this system doesn’t help you to lower the house edge which is always present. In addition, it requires high stakes, so you run the risk of going bust if you get a losing streak. You might win using the James Bond strategy, but it isn’t really any better than just choosing your bets randomly.
If you want to test a new strategy like this, you can do so at a live dealer online roulette table. Golden Nugget brought the first live dealer games to New Jersey and they continue to gain popularity as more people discover them.
Texas Hold ’em and the importance of keeping your nerve
If we skip forward to the 2006 film version of Casino Royale, we can see the suave agent playing Texas Hold ’em against the movie’s villain, named Le Chiffre. It is a tense scene, as the stakes get higher and higher.
Bond keeps his calm, even as the amount in the pot climbs to $115m. Le Chiffre believes that he has won with aces and 6s, but Bond has the last laugh with a straight flush that ensures he wins the cash.
Le Chiffre made the mistake of going all in on a hand that could be beaten. On the other hand, 007 had a very strong hand that was unlikely to lose so all he had to do was stay confident and hold his nerve until the betting was over.
A progressive system on red
Casino Royale also features Bond playing roulette using a progressive system on red. We don’t get to find out the exact system being used, so it is difficult to know how successful this method would be.
Having said that, progressive systems are pretty highly rated among gamblers. They involve changing the amount of the stake according to your results, to minimize losing streaks and get more benefit from wins.
You would bet on an even-money option for this, so choosing red is a perfectly good choice. The biggest issue for most people who aren’t playing with a lot of money is that they can soon run out of chips if they get a few losses and need to keep increasing their stake to stick to the system.
Having said that, a progressive system like Martingale or Fibonacci offers one of the most interesting ways of trying to beat the house and may be worth investigating.
Play when you feel lucky and quit when you’re ahead
In Dr No, we can see how Sean Connery settles into the role of Bond with a trip to a casino in London. There, he plays Chemin de Fer, a version of baccarat that is one of his favorite casino games.
When we join the action, we can see that he is winning. A lady gambler challenges him by raising the stakes but he keeps on winning before walking away. Since baccarat is a game of luck, we can’t claim that 007 used any great strategic approach to win at this game.
He simply appears to have realized that he was on a winning streak and rode it for as long as he could before walking away with a profit. It’s a good move if you can manage it.
The use of big stakes
As we have seen, Bond’s use of high stakes is one of the characteristics of his betting style in most of these globe-trotting adventures. He gambles confidently and keeps on raising the stakes if he needs to. This is fine in the movies and books, but it isn’t an approach that suits most of us in real life.
The best idea is to set a budget using money that won’t cause you any problems if you lose. Then you can start playing in a relaxed way and maybe try out some of 007’s moves on a smaller scale.
