Oscar's Grind Roulette Strategy

Oscar’s Grind is a roulette strategy that is also known as Holyes Press and have big similarities with the Paroli strategy. They’re both designed to take advantage of the table being hot and cold, which means that Oscar’s Grind is based on the fact that winnings and losses will come in streaks. When these streaks do in fact happen the benefit of using Oscar’s grind is huge, but in reality, there won’t always be winning and losing streaks, which means that theis roulette strategy also has its downsides. In the following article, we’ll be taking a closer look at these pros and cons, as well as how Oscar’s Grind is applied at the tables.

How Oscar's Grind works

As with the majority of roulette strategies, Oscar’s Grind is designed to be used on betting alternatives that give double the stake back, such as even/uneven number and red/black colour, but can also be used on other alternatives.

The strategy is very simple and involves different sequences where the goal in each sequence is to reach a net profit that is equal to the amount of the original bet. When such a net profit has been reached the sequence ends and a new one begins. To reach this net profit, the stake should always be increased by one unit on a win, while it should always remain the same on a loss and reset to the original stake whenever a sequence ends. Let’s illustrate this with an example:

You begin your first sequence by placing a bet of £1 on red. Lady luck is at your side and you win the bet, which means that the sequence ends as you have reached a net profit of your original £1 bet.

Sequence 1

Round	Stake	Win	Loss	Net result	Action
1	£1	x		+£1	Net profit reached, sequence ends

At the end of a sequence the stake should always be reset to what it originally was and therefore you’ll now begin a new sequence by placing a bet of £1. This time you’re losing the bet and therefore have to place a new bet of another £1 as the stake should always stay the same on a loss. Once again you’re losing, which means that you have now reached a net loss of £2 (£1 + £1) in this sequence. As the bet was lost the stake will remain the same and you therefore bet another £1. This time the tides turned and you managed to win, which means that your net loss for the sequence has been reduced to £1.

As you won, but still haven’t managed to reach a net profit of £1 it’s time to increase the stake by one unit. You therefore place your next bet of £2, which you manage to win. With this win you reached a net profit of £1, which means that the sequence ends. See the below table for a better overview of the sequence:

Round	Stake	Win	Loss	Net result	Action
1	£1		x	-£1	Loss, stake unchanged
2	£1		x	-£2	Loss, stake unchanged
3	£1	x		-£1	Win, stake increased by one unit
4	£2	x		+£1	Net profit reached, sequence ends

There’s one important exception to the rule of increasing the stake on a win, which is the fact that you should never bet more than what is required to reach a net profit of the original stake. Let’s illustrate this with a table of a new sequence:

Round	Stake	Win	Loss	Net result	Action
1	£1		x	-£1	Loss, stake unchanged
2	£1		x	-£2	Loss, stake unchanged
3	£1	x		-£1	Win, stake increased by one unit
4	£2		x	-£3	Loss, stake unchanged
5	£2		x	-£5	Loss, stake unchanged
6	£2	x		-£3	Win, stake increased by one unit
7	£3		x	-£6	Loss, stake unchanged
8	£3		x	-£9	Loss, stake unchanged
9	£3	x		-£6	Win, stake increased by one unit
10	£4	x		-£2	Win, stake increased by one unit
11	£3	x		+£1	Net profit reached, sequence ends

As you can see in the above example we won the 10th round, which means that we normally would increase the stake to £5 on the 11th round, but as a £3 win would be enough for us to reach a net profit of the original bet, we won’t place a bet higher than that. We simply don’t want to increase the stake if we don’t have to.

Pros and cons

The big benefit of using Oscar’s Grind is that the strategy is able to handle many losses in a row very well and can quickly turn these into a profit under the right circumstances. As the stake always remains the same on a loss and is only increased by one unit on a win, it usually takes a very long time before the stake reaches any high amounts and the risk is therefore relatively low. See the below example showcasing the strength of Oscar’s Grind:

Example of Oscar’s Grind working well

Round	Stake	Win	Loss	Net result
1	£1		x	-£1
2	£1		x	-£2
3	£1		x	-£3
4	£1		x	-£4
5	£1		x	-£5
6	£1		x	-£6
7	£1		x	-£7
8	£1		x	-£8
9	£1	x		-£7
10	£1		x	-£9
11	£1	x		-£7
12	£1	x		-£4
13	£1	x		-£1
14	£1	x		+£1

Even though we’ve had a total of ten losses and only five won rounds, we have during these 15 rounds managed to reach a net profit of £1.

The downside to the strategy is that it’s based on winnings and losses coming in streaks. When this doesn’t happen, which it many times won’t at the tables, it’s easy to dig yourself a hole which can be hard to recover from. See the below example:

Example of Oscar’s Grind not working well

Round	Stake	Win	Loss	Net result
1	£1		x	-£1
2	£1		x	-£2
3	£1	x		-£1
4	£2		x	-£3
5	£2	x		-£1
6	£3		x	-£4
7	£3	x		-£1
8	£4		x	-£5
9	£4	x		-£1
10	£5		x	-£6
11	£5		x	-£11
12	£5	x		-£6
13	£6		x	-£12
14	£6		x	-£18
15	£6		x	-£24

Once again we have a total of 15 rounds with five being won and ten lost, but this time the results are completely different. As the winning rounds haven’t been made directly after each other, we have not only failed to reach a net profit, but as the stake has been increased we have boosted the losses. This is the danger of Oscar’s Grind. For the strategy to work efficiently it’s required that the winning rounds happen in streaks, otherwise the wins will only result in the stake becoming higher and higher, whereas the losses will follow the same pattern. Even though the stake is only increased by one unit at a time, it will eventually reach amounts that are too big to handle.

Conclusion

Oscar’s Grind is an incredibly efficient strategy for what it’s based on – winnings and losses coming in streaks. The problem is that it relies on something that is inaccurate as every round in roulette is unique and the probability of a certain outcome is always the same. Therefore there isn’t such a thing as the table being hot or cold.

The strategy could work very well by quickly turning several lost rounds into a profit. Under the right circumstance only a third of the rounds need to be won to reach a net profit. The downside is that if the winning rounds don’t happen after each other, which many times they won’t, there’s a risk that the stakes will just become higher and higher, which leads to the losses also becoming higher and higher.