History Main / Gambitroulette

[[caption-width-right:350:[[DeathNote Just as planned]].]]

* The ''FullmetalAlchemist'' manga revealed that ''every single military action'' since Amestris's founding was orchestrated by Father, who was using his Homunculi to move the army and gain land until Amestris was large enough to turn into a giant Transmutation Circle. This one's so insane it goes right back to brilliant again.
** Adding further genius to the madness is the fact that every major military action in Amestris' history - i.e., every last site of wanton bloodshed - has formed a ''point'' on that transmutation circle. ConnectTheMurders on a grand scale, and not for the protagonists' benefit.
*** What saved this plan from falling entirely into this is that their plan was that seemingly nobody noticed that this sort of shady thing was going on until the plan was almost finished. It took many, many years to set the plan up and nobody really noticed that anything weird was going on until literally a few years or even months before it was complete.
*** There's also the fact that [[spoiler: almost all of the country's government is run by the villains, so anybody who finds anything out is quickly either killed or silenced in some other way.]]
* While ''CodeGeass'' main draw was the GambitSpeedChess, there are three main Gambit Roulettes which are plans no sane human being could come up with. Charles and Marianne's plan, which basically used Lelouch to draw his partner, the Geass Witch C.C., out so that they can take her immortality code and initiate an AssimilationPlot. In the process, they also blinded Nunnally. In short, to them, the entire fights between UFN and Britannia is just shits and giggles, since they want to use it to make [[WellIntentionedExtremist a better world]] [[KnightTemplarParent for their children]].
** Also the time Lelouch checkmated Schneizel? That recording trick may have been believable on Mao, but that's because he never went into any specifics and Mao was obsessed with C.C. He just said things that would rile Mao. He never directly had a conversation with the guy. But here, Lelouch somehow knew the first thing Schneizel was going to say, how he'd respond to any of his statements, and even the moment he'd ''interrupt him''.
** Lelouch's final plan: The Zero Requiem. Which involved turning Lelouch into an evil dictator, gaining control over every country in the world (as well as earning their hatred), and having his best friend Suzaku (who is believed to be dead) dress up as Lelouch's secret alter-ego Zero and publicly assassinate Lelouch, all in the name of uniting the world in peace. The plan includes elements like having both Lelouch and Suzaku surviving a battle, winning that battle, and Lelouch predicting how people would react to the final outcome of his machinations.

* In ''[[PokemonSpecial Pokémon Special]]'', Blue's K-O'ed while Sabrina battles Lorelei, then wakes up, [[EvilGloating tells Lorelei her entire plan up until that point]], then ''reveals'' that it was her "victory strut" and sends Clefable to grab the ice dolls. She then allows them to become broken, apparently ''taking her lower arm off'' in order to free Sabrina from the spell shackling them together...only that was never her arm in the first place, but rather her Ditto; she'd been expecting some sort of trick and this was her reason for putting her jacket on when she'd first arrived on Cerise Island. [[FridgeLogic Of course, if that were true, one wonders why she went through all of the trouble of being "dead weight" in the first place, since]] she and Sabrina were apparently never ''actually'' shackled together... Oh, yes, did we mention that she's supposed to be [[GuileHero the ''good'' guy?]]

* There's a [[http://youtu.be/ye7b3bOQ6lY famous video]] of a ''{{Pokemon}}'' player using a convoluted method to turn [[JokeCharacter Magikarp]] into an [[LethalJokeCharacter overpowered sweeper]] capable of laughing off [[TierInducedScrappy uber-tier pokemon]]. This method relies ''extremely'' heavily on the actions of his opponent (opening with Kyogre and not switching, to give Magikarp rain for its Swift Swim speed boost), and some utterly random factors (the duration of the sleep status effect). The video creator mentions this.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[DeathNote Exactly as planned]].]]

* From '' Literature/EncyclopediaBrown'', we have a robber planning to strike as the victim does his grocery shopping, but calculates he won't have enough time. No problem, just ask him to pick up four tubes of toothpaste, extending his grocery list from 7 to 11 items and thus forcing him to take a non-express lane. So the plan is: Our victim won't question why the man wants ''four'' tubes of toothpaste and will proceed to buy them all. Our victim will be honorable and take a non-express lane for being one item over (since that fourth tube of toothpaste was ''so important''). This will slow our victim down significantly enough to finish robbing his house. (This one, at least, was given a HandWave-- apparently the supermarket in question is notorious for all of its non-express lanes being glacially slow... [[VoodooShark all the more reason why our victim might choose to take the express lane despite that 11th item]].)

* From ''EncyclopediaBrown'', we have a robber planning to strike as the victim does his grocery shopping, but calculates he won't have enough time. No problem, just ask him to pick up four tubes of toothpaste, extending his grocery list from 7 to 11 items and thus forcing him to take a non-express lane. So the plan is: Our victim won't question why the man wants ''four'' tubes of toothpaste and will proceed to buy them all. Our victim will be honorable and take a non-express lane for being one item over (since that fourth tube of toothpaste was ''so important''). This will slow our victim down significantly enough to finish robbing his house. (This one, at least, was given a HandWave-- apparently the supermarket in question is notorious for all of its non-express lanes being glacially slow... [[VoodooShark all the more reason why our victim might choose to take the express lane despite that 11th item]].)

* While the movie itself wouldn't necessarily be one, the backstory of the film-version of ''SpeedRacer'' might qualify. Apparently a bunch of industries have been controlling the winner of every important race for decades. Apparently all the sponsors agreed on who won ahead of time, were always able to get the drivers to cooperate with them, and (most insanely) no designated "winner" ever crashed, leaving the race open. Let's not even go into the idea that sponsoring a winning car could double your stock price instantly.

* Fortune Teller Shalice of ''ThePiloFamilyCircus'' demonstrates her understanding of the trope in this statement:

* Fortune Teller Shalice of ''The Pilo Family Circus'' demonstrates her understanding of the trope in this statement:

** One of her ''simplest'' manipulations involves watering the lawn in front of the Acrobats' tent; when one of them left the tent, he slips on the wet grass, and angrily blames [[MonsterClown the pranksters in the Clown Division]]. He then steals a crate of fireworks to take revenge on the clowns, only to leave it by the Circus Funhouse, where one of the local dwarfs uses it as a target in a cigar-flicking game: the resulting explosion takes out half the funhouse, and forces the management to start relying on Shalice for help again.

* ''VideoGame/StarFoxAdventures'' has Andross's plan to revive himself. As explained at the end, he learned of the power of the Krazoa spirits on Dinosaur Planet, as well as Krystal's ability to channel their power, tehn had her trapped a crystal so that as Fox returned the other spirits, their power would be channeled through Krystal to revive him. So he had to [[TheManBehindTheMan manipulate]] General Scales into pushing Krystal into the Krazoa spirit's breath's path, which trapped her in a crystal that would channel the spirit's energy, and more importantly somehow know both that Krystal would arrive on the planet and that she had the ability to channel energy... although of course, we have no idea how omniscient evil ape ghosts really are.

* In ''ChronoCross'' the entire plot is the result of multiple sides manipulating each other into doing their bidding. But it turns out, the manipulators are also being manipulated. And so are the manipulators of the manipulators. Now throw in TimeTravel and {{AlternateUniverse}}s and you see how overcomplicated this actually gets.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' for the Nintendo Wii, Dimentio has been orchestrating events all along as part of the QuirkyMinibossSquad so that after the hero's prophesied defeat of the BigBad Count Bleck, he could take over the power needed tp destroy the universe, channel it through one of the heroes, Luigi, to destroy and recreate the universe.

** Subverted in [[Oceans11 the original]]; all of their gambits seem to have payed off, but a small oversight results in them losing the money in the end.

* {{Homestuck}}: Pretty much all of Doc Scratch and Lord English's plans count as this trope. However, it's justified, as Doc Scratch is omniscient and Lord English can time-travel.
** On the non-EldritchAbomination front, Terezi is good at this as well. Though again, somewhat justified- she's [[BlindSeer the Seer of Mind]], so she can predict the outcomes and effects of the choices of individuals.

** In ''{{Gundam00}}'' Aeolia Schoenberg, a scientist who passed away 200 years before the setting, invented every essential technology required till the present to obtain his supposed ideal of humanity traveling to the stars. Therefore he initiates the creation of Celestial Being and probably the Innovators as well, and possibly foresaw all the important events of the series, e.g. the failure of the first CB actions, the birth of the federation which would turn corrupt and then be beaten by CB again. Though, it's unclear how much of Ribbons behaviour was in unison with his plans. Ribbons claims his rule was the final goal, but that's highly doubtful. It's more likely that Aeolia anticipated Ribbons' betrayal, or perhaps even considered in a necessary part of the plan.

*** The plan didn't - it just turned out that way. Snape was always meant to tell Harry [[spoiler: he is a Horcrux]], but it was just bad luck [[spoiler: that he gave it to Harry as he died.]] He was supposed to tell Harry of his own accord when [[spoiler: Voldy began to worry about Nagini]]. That is why, right before [[spoiler: he is killed]] he asks to be [[spoiler: allowed to track down Harry himself]], with Voldemort even remarking that Snape "sounds like Lucius." He wanted to [[spoiler: find Harry and reveal the truth]] before it was too late. Similarly, the plan had nothing to do with Lovegood - Dumbledore already, not unreasonably, expected them to try to find out what it meant out of curiousity. The Lovegood thing was just good luck that they saw it around his neck, which sped the plan up a little but didn't make much difference - Dumbledore assumed they'd find out one way or another.
** In ''HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', Voldemort and [[spoiler:Barty Crouch Jr.]] devise a complex and convoluted GambitRoulette to manipulate Harry into a position where Voldemort can capture him, kill him, and [[spoiler:use his blood to regenerate his body]], without Dumbledore knowing what's going on.
*** This plot was based on information got from Bertha Jorkins. Bertha Jorkins, the UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom who worked for the Ministry in the magical games and sports department accidentally discovered [[spoiler:Barty Crouch Jr. being kept in his father's house]]. She had that bit of memory erased, of course. However, she then went to Albania on holiday, where Voldemort was coincidentally chillaxing with Wormtail. She bumped into Wormtail and recognised him (both having gone to Hogwarts at the same time) and Voldemort took this golden opportunity to extort information from her, using torture, causing him to find out about [[spoiler:Crouch Jr.]] and the Triwizard Tournement, which was, conveniently, taking place that year.

* In ''{{Bleach}}'', much of Sosuke Aizen's ridiculously longwinded plans rely on this, which is odd given that he's been shown to be powerful enough to get what he wants via brute force. Later on, this gets brought to its logical conclusion: ''the entire plot'' (yes, as in the plot of the entire manga [or at least Ichigo's part in it]) has been ''exactly as planned''. Also, Kisuke Urahara engages in Gambit Roulettes as well, to the point where the series can be reduced to these two {{Chessmaster}}s dueling one another.
** Exactly as planned, of course, assuming Aizen's "I was behind everything that happened in your life" claim is real and not a claim he made up to mess with Ichigo's head.

* Parodied in ''The WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce Colon Movie Film For Theatres''; antagonist Walter Mellon reveals that he created the Aqua Teens, Dr. Weird, and the Insanoflex so that Frylock and Dr. Weird would ultimately become enemies and fight to their deaths, whereupon he would inherit their houses and use the land to build a gym. Frylock then informs Mellon that they all ''rent'', and he couldn't have built gyms in residential areas anyway. Then the movie ended.

** On the other hand, Habib Marwan's plan is a little more flexible than many Gambit Roulettes, in that overall success or failure did not ''require'' every single sub-plan to succeed. Sure, Bauer and CTU foiled a lot of his plans, but he accomplishes quite a bit - destroying a train, kidnapping the Secretary of Defense, shooting down Air Force One and [[BusCrash apparently killing the President of the United States, or at least forcing him out of office.]], causing massive fear and terror. The guy's ''at least'' the most successful terrorist since Osama bin Laden, and no doubt a revered martyr among the Islamist radical community.

* Hilariously subverted by [[VizziniGambit Vizzini the Sicilian]] in ''Film/ThePrincessBride'' during the iocaine powder scene.

* ''{{Kyo Kara Maoh}}'': Shinou and Daikenja/Ken Murata had a Roulette in play for ''four thousand years'' aimed at defeating the Soushou.

* In the anime and manga ''{{Spiral}}: Suiri no Kizuna'', the ability to ravel and unravel {{Gambit Gambit}}s and Roulettes is, although it's not stated quite so baldly, a superpower many characters possess. Most of them assert that everything in the plot is a giant Roulette planned by the protagonist's older brother.

* In ''FairyTail'', Jellal reveals his GambitRoulette after the Magic Council fires a magic laser for the purpose of destroying his aim to resurrect an evil mage. When the dust clears, it's found that it had been his plan to do so all along, as some special crystals have absorbed all the magic fired, giving him the power source to resurrect him. One could say that it was more of a GambitGambit, considering he planted an astral projection of himself in the council in order to guide them to that point, but there was no guarantee they would use the magic laser, hit the tower straight on, and the crystals would absorb all the magic, and that he wouldn't be found out...etc.

* Oto x Maho has Konata, Kanata's mother, having in the first chapter, what appears to be a GambitGambit. Later, in a flashback scene, we find out that the supposed GambitGambit was only the last stage of a GambitRoulette years in the making, which included nothing happening to her and her son, her finding a "supervisor"(A sort of messenger for a MagicalGirl), a bad guy showing up at PRECISELY the right time, her being physically stronger than her son when it ends, not to mention everything else that is purely in the realm of chance. Of course, because of UnspokenPlanGuarantee, it goes off without a hitch.

* In ''FanFic/AeonNatumEngel'' Gendo admits this is what his plans amount to. Although, considering the setting, even {{Gambit Gambit}}s are in risk of becoming like this. Why? Well, because [[EldritchAbomination Nyarlathotep]] is a [[SpannerInTheWorks dick]].

* [[StarWars Darth Sidious]]- see GambitGambit.

* The {{Antivillain}}s' scheme in ''InsideMan''. It hinges on ensuring that EverybodyLives (hence their AntiVillain status) while simultaneously keeping the cops thinking they're deadly dangerous. While the movie presents this as a simple GambitGambit, or really, GambitSpeedChess, it falls apart when you consider that it relies on the cops not making any mistakes like accidentally shooting a hostage.

* The ''{{Dune}}'' series by Frank Herbert contains some of the most elaborately [[JustifiedTrope justified]] Gambit Roulettes ever committed to paper, due primarily to the fact that the protagonists and many of the antagonists are genuinely prescient. The king of these, of course, is Leto Atreides II in ''Children of Dune'', who becomes Emperor on the strength of a plot that pits him against his father, aunt, and grandmother, all of whom are or were operating their own {{Gambit Gambit}}s. The prize, of course, is absolute domination of humanity's future. To elaborate, the plot involves Leto faking his death, which was anticipated by both Jessica and Alia. Jessica sets up a test to see if Leto is possessed, which Alia knows about and infiltrates with her own instructions to have Leto killed no matter what. The method of their testing: overdosing him with spice, awakens Leto's prescient memories and forces him to choose his vision of the Golden Path without which humanity is doomed. Leto then confronts his father, Paul, who had earlier faked his own death in order to escape the curse of prescience, and wrests control of the vision from him, then proceeds to take the throne, killing Alia and utterly humiliating every other participant in the GambitPileup.

** Fringe writers seem to enjoy justifying this trope. in the episode ''Plateau'', the villain Milo gained Gambit gambit super powers by taking a drug. He orchestrated peoples deaths by setting a pen on the ground and creating a chain reaction ending in a traffic accident. In the most recent episode its been revealed that the observers are crazy good at these, but that's justified by time travel or by the fact that time isn't even linear for them. They can see ''all points of time at once.''

** Potentially a subversion. At first glance, the Scuba Diver does seem to rely on an uncontrollable event and a second person performing a GambitGambit of their own, but neither are really required. Barney did not specifically need to steal that particular girl, Lily regularly has set up Ted on dates, and any one of them could have started his plan. Lily's GambitGambit wasn't actually required, she could have just grabbed the book out of his hands and ran and Barney's plan still would have worked. Barney baited her to launch the gambit, but he didn't actually need it.

*** Worth noting that the attack on Prospero was in itself one of his {{Gambit Gambit}}s. First, he lets Magnus, one of the most powerful psykers in the universe forsee a future where the Imperium is destroyed, causing Magnus to break his word, his father to turn against him and all of this before anybody even knew he existed. Second, he allows Magnus and his legion of psykers to get the crap kicked out of them so they had no choice to turn to him for aid. Third, he causes them to use the Rubric, resulting in his now faithful legion of Supersoldiers being literally nothing but GambitSpeedChess playing psykers or their mindless servants.

* Let's talk [[{{Exalted}} Sidereals]], shall we? As they have access to the LoomOfFate, they have the power to observe the tiniest workings of Fate and all its potential consequences. Moreover, they can subtly alter fate more or less by ''[[CelestialBureaucracy filling out the right paperwork.]]'' As such, they have a bad tendency of putting forth Gambit Gambits and Roulettes with disturbing frequency.

*** It's beyond that in complexity. Ocelot actually pretends that Liquid's arm took over his personality by self-suggestion in order to trick the Patriots into believing he was a similar threat as Liquid Snake in ''Metal Gear Solid 1'', so the Patriots would pull their own GambitGambit to use Snake to defeat Ocelot, which is what he exactly planned for, as they became so focused on defeating Ocelot that they failed to realize that [[MindScrew in the course of defeating him Snake would also end up destroying the Patriots]].

* In ''SherlockHolmes Versus [[GentlemanThief Arsene Lupin]]'', Lupin's entire scheme pretty much exemplifies this trope. And then it turns out that the whole scheme- which took months to set up- was actually a smokescreen to ensure that the whole of London's police force would be in the wrong place while he carried out his ''actual'' theft. This required a GambitGambit of its own. And then the ''game'' has been playing Gambit with you all along, and if you fall for Lupin's ploy it gives you a really disheartening ending. While you are given a hint to the real target at the beginning of the game, it is tempting to choose the obvious option when the clue to your final destination is basically "It starts with 'B' and ends with 'ig Ben'." Choosing Big Ben, however, results in a cutscene of Watson, Lestrade and the Prime Minister coming up with precisely nothing, and then you are treated to a screen explaining that, [[ThisLoserIsYou due to your incorrect choice, Watson and Holmes become estranged, Holmes retires because he's crushed by his failure, and Lestrade is demoted to traffic duty.]]

** Throughout the entirety of ''ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'', Phoenix spends 70% of the game off working on a "Secret Mission". The ending reveals that Phoenix has been manipulating Apollo, Trucy, Kristoph, Klavier, and several other characters for years to single-handedly correct a major flaw in the current legal system, get revenge on Kristoph Gavin for having him disbarred (itself a GambitGambit against Phoenix), solve a seven year-old mystery, clear the name of three different people whom he barely knows, ''help recover the memories of an amnesiac woman he's never met outside of knowing her husband for all of two weeks and one day, AND REUNITE HER WITH HER CHILDREN, APOLLO AND TRUCY.'' AND EVERYTHING GOES JUST. AS. PLANNED.

*** There's no evidence that Caine had any interest other than as an observer; Los Angeles is still just a small corner of the world. And Jack may have been playing a GambitGambit instead, planting the sarcophagus to answer the question whether La Croix is powerhungry enough to commit diablerie, on a Methuselah no less, and solve the problem in one go. If La Croix hadn't attempted to open the coffin, Jack could be content that while the Camarilla in general and La Croix in particular are nuisances to the anarchy status quo, at least their professed enlightened self-interest isn't a dangerous sham.
* Wilhelm from ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}''. It wouldn't be a far stretch to say he had prepared and planned a GambitGambit, [[GambitPileup of which involves MANY other Gambit Gambits]], that spans ''several millenia''. And involves resetting the universe countless times, not unlike a GroundhogDayLoop, so that the whole plan may actually span ''many tens of thousands of years''. And that's probably on the lower end of the scale. However, this actually has a good Justification. Wilhelm possesses something called the Compass of Order and Chaos, which allows him to see the flow of the human conscious. He has also been the head of Vector since humanity left Lost Jerusalem (Earth); the kicker is that, if Vector didn't exist, humanity would've been wiped out. Because humanity needed to rely on Vector's goods to survive, it gave Wilhelm ''de facto'' control over humanity. Additionally, being the head of Vector, a former member of politics in the world of VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}, a Cardinal of Ormus by the name of Heinlein and the President of Hyams Heavy Industries, Vector's main rival]], Wilhelm has extensive knowledge of what's happening throughout the story. It helps that he's also a [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] extraordinaire, probably due to living for [[TimeAbyss several millenia]]. Given all this, it really isn't a far stretch that his plan worked simply because he had ''that'' much control over events.

* Played with in TheDefrosters. In episode 9, Pixel Girl implies that she is working on a plan to stop Pixel Boy from playing World of Warcraft. She and James even mention TV Tropes as they debate the differences between a Gambit Roulette and a Gambit Gambit.
* (Also GambitGambit) Obscure example, but in [[AvatarTheAbridgedSeries GanXingba]]'s [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhVPxYCXeRA Avatar: TAS]], a comment is made mocking Zhao's- and Light's (Death Note) -ability to have plans that rely on perfect timing and actions they shouldn't be able to see coming.

* There is never a full outline of what the plan was, or who was planning what, but the events of the third season finale and fourth season premiere of ''TheVentureBrothers'' required an absurd amount of chance and relied on a ShockingSwerve for resolution. Molotov Cocktease and Hunter Gathers manipulate events so that Brock Samson kills OSI's top three assassins in a fairly straightforward GambitGambit to ensure the supremacy of their Blackhearts organization. Although not specifically stated, they may have also been responsible for Brock's car attempting to kill him, which itself relied on pure luck on several levels. It gets ''completely ridiculous'' once it turns out that the whole storyline going back to Hunter's sex change operation was an elaborate plan by Hunter Gathers, who is actually TheMole for the Blackhearts who reversed his sex change, in order to convince Brock to join Hunter's SPHINX organization. The plan is either the most convoluted and implausible plan of all time or an unbelievably well executed game of GambitSpeedChess.

* Admiral Yamamoto's plan for the Battle of Midway was supposed to be a Gambit Roulette that involved splitting his forces into seven different groups across the entire Pacific to defeat the American carrier fleet. A simpler idea like "Put all my ships in one fleet, sail in to attack Midway. The Americans don't have enough ships to stop such a fleet, so if they do force a battle, I destroy their fleet. If they don't, I conquer Midway," would have been a pretty good GambitGambit. Yamamoto's roulette plan ended in a spectacular failure when American codebreakers figured out key details of his plan.

* ''DeathNote'' is essentially XanatosRoulette: the series. The most impressive is the plan that [[WhamEpisode changes the course of the entire series]] -- Light arranging [[spoiler: L's death]] while coming off completely above suspicion -- which involves an extended MemoryGambit, at the end of which every element needed to be exactly in the place they were in order to work.
* In ''{{Bleach}}'', much of Sosuke Aizen's ridiculously longwinded plans rely on this, which is odd given that he's been shown to be powerful enough to get what he wants via brute force. Later on, this gets brought to its logical conclusion: ''the entire plot'' (yes, as in the plot of the entire manga [or at least Ichigo's part in it]) has been ''exactly as planned''. Also, Kisuke Urahara engages in Xanatos Roulettes as well, to the point where the series can be reduced to these two {{Chessmaster}}s dueling one another.

* In the anime and manga ''{{Spiral}}: Suiri no Kizuna'', the ability to ravel and unravel {{Xanatos Gambit}}s and Roulettes is, although it's not stated quite so baldly, a superpower many characters possess. Most of them assert that everything in the plot is a giant Roulette planned by the protagonist's older brother.

* The titular character in the manga/anime ''{{Akagi}}'' used a Xanatos Roulette on the blind player Ishikawa that came out of nowhere so fast, that despite everything adding up, it is still hard to believe that everything was on purpose, especially considering his inner thoughts seemed rather random during the match.

* While ''CodeGeass'' main draw was the XanatosSpeedChess, there are three main Xanatos Roulettes which are plans no sane human being could come up with. Charles and Marianne's plan, which basically used Lelouch to draw his partner, the Geass Witch C.C., out so that they can take her immortality code and initiate an AssimilationPlot. In the process, they also blinded Nunnally. In short, to them, the entire fights between UFN and Britannia is just shits and giggles, since they want to use it to make [[WellIntentionedExtremist a better world]] [[KnightTemplarParent for their children]].

* Montana Max's plan from the manga of ''{{Hellsing}}'' is just a big Xanatos Roulette; It had a lot of things that could have failed, and all aimed to just one very specific purpose. Despite of this he succeed.
* In ''FairyTail'', Jellal reveals his XanatosRoulette after the Magic Council fires a magic laser for the purpose of destroying his aim to resurrect an evil mage. When the dust clears, it's found that it had been his plan to do so all along, as some special crystals have absorbed all the magic fired, giving him the power source to resurrect him. One could say that it was more of a XanatosGambit, considering he planted an astral projection of himself in the council in order to guide them to that point, but there was no guarantee they would use the magic laser, hit the tower straight on, and the crystals would absorb all the magic, and that he wouldn't be found out...etc.

* Oto x Maho has Konata, Kanata's mother, having in the first chapter, what appears to be a XanatosGambit. Later, in a flashback scene, we find out that the supposed XanatosGambit was only the last stage of a XanatosRoulette years in the making, which included nothing happening to her and her son, her finding a "supervisor"(A sort of messenger for a MagicalGirl), a bad guy showing up at PRECISELY the right time, her being physically stronger than her son when it ends, not to mention everything else that is purely in the realm of chance. Of course, because of UnspokenPlanGuarantee, it goes off without a hitch.

* DarkerThanBlack: Amber's ultimate plan to save the contractors is never explained. It involves numerous decoys and sacrifices, as well as planning ahead and taking into a account a ton of random factors and different characters. It ''would'' be a XanatosRoulette. But it's subverted because Amber can see the future, and rewind time if she messes up.

* The entire plot of "{{Berserk}}" is one big XanatosRoulette. Justified by events being orchestrated by [[spoiler: an EldritchAbomination]].

* In ''FanFic/AeonNatumEngel'' Gendo admits this is what his plans amount to. Although, considering the setting, even {{Xanatos Gambit}}s are in risk of becoming like this. Why? Well, because [[EldritchAbomination Nyarlathotep]] is a [[SpannerInTheWorks dick]].

* The ''OceansEleven'' series. The plans of the main characters match this trope quite well, apparently requiring ''everything'' to interlock absolutely perfectly. However, [[XanatosSpeedChess they have to adjust the plans several times due to unexpected variables]].
** In particular, the heist in ''Ocean's Thirteen'' relies on a XanatosRoulette within a XanatosRoulette, with a third XanatosRoulette thrown in for good measure. By the end of the film, the plan becomes so circuitous that it almost qualifies as a subversion itself.

* [[StarWars Darth Sidious]]- see XanatosGambit.

* The {{Antivillain}}s' scheme in ''InsideMan''. It hinges on ensuring that EverybodyLives (hence their AntiVillain status) while simultaneously keeping the cops thinking they're deadly dangerous. While the movie presents this as a simple XanatosGambit, or really, XanatosSpeedChess, it falls apart when you consider that it relies on the cops not making any mistakes like accidentally shooting a hostage.

* While ''Chaos'' is a good movie, it suffers for being completely made up of hundreds of {{Xanatos Roulette}}s in order to advance the plot. 1: The banker pressing the alarm, thus sending in the police. 2: Conners being made the negotiator, thus shutting down the power. 3: Conners shutting down the power, thus giving the virus free game. 4: Conners failing to stop SWAT from entering the bank, thus making the mooks escaping the bank. 5: The mooks not being caught on camera while escaping the bank with the hostages (granted, this one was admitted failed in movie). 6: The female cop's phone going off, thus making the cops entering that building. 7: The fact that the whole idea of letting Conners pretend to be dead was based on the idea that out of 2 guys, 1 body is found, and just because it has Conners badge on it makes the cops take for granted that it's Conners body, while not bothering to look for the MISSING SECOND BODY!)

* Subverted in the Danish ''OlsenBanden'' films (and the Norwegian and Swedish remakes thereof) by having Egon Olsen's elaborate schemes go off almost without a hitch, only to have the gang deprived of their rewards later by some amazing coincidence. Egon (the only competent member of the gang) is caught by the police and goes to prison (sometimes even for something he's actually done). Though, sometimes he's playing XanatosSpeedChess while the Roulette is spinning.

* {{Deconstructed}} in [[EvilGeniusTrilogy Evil Genius]], a young adult novel by Catherine Jinks. Although the hero, Cadel, is very good at manipulating people, when he attempts a XanatosRoulette, it gets out of his control very quickly, leading to the death of several characters.

** In ''HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', Voldemort and [[spoiler:Barty Crouch Jr.]] devise a complex and convoluted XanatosRoulette to manipulate Harry into a position where Voldemort can capture him, kill him, and [[spoiler:use his blood to regenerate his body]], without Dumbledore knowing what's going on.

* Avrell Torrent, the BigBad of Orson Scott Card's ''Empire'', has been setting up a massive Xanatos Roulette that would make Palpatine envious for decades.
* The ''{{Dune}}'' series by Frank Herbert contains some of the most elaborately [[JustifiedTrope justified]] Xanatos Roulettes ever committed to paper, due primarily to the fact that the protagonists and many of the antagonists are genuinely prescient. The king of these, of course, is Leto Atreides II in ''Children of Dune'', who becomes Emperor on the strength of a plot that pits him against his father, aunt, and grandmother, all of whom are or were operating their own {{Xanatos Gambit}}s. The prize, of course, is absolute domination of humanity's future. To elaborate, the plot involves Leto faking his death, which was anticipated by both Jessica and Alia. Jessica sets up a test to see if Leto is possessed, which Alia knows about and infiltrates with her own instructions to have Leto killed no matter what. The method of their testing: overdosing him with spice, awakens Leto's prescient memories and forces him to choose his vision of the Golden Path without which humanity is doomed. Leto then confronts his father, Paul, who had earlier faked his own death in order to escape the curse of prescience, and wrests control of the vision from him, then proceeds to take the throne, killing Alia and utterly humiliating every other participant in the GambitPileup.

* A lot of early detective fiction relies on {{Xanatos Roulette}}s to the point where Raymond Chandler discusses it as a failing of the genre in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder".

* Subverted in the {{Belisarius series}} where Belisarius' answer to a Xanatos Roulette is to keep adding pieces and confusion to the board until Link doesn't know whether it's coming or going. Also subverted (although not entirely successfully) in that Belisarius claims not to calculate in depth but instead to cause confusion and take advantage of the opportunities that arise from this.

* In the ''Legacy of the Drow'' series by R.A. Salvatore, Jarlaxle at first appears to be a Manipulative Bastard. In the later books, Jarlaxle muses that most of his plans are in fact Xanatos Roulettes. Whenever he stirs up chaos, he always seems to come out on top. It's also hinted in later books ''he is the chosen of a god of chaos''.

** Kellhus engages in a calculated Xanatos roulette a few times too, hoping to win big.

** In the first, everything is set up by Gesar in order to rewrite Olga's fate in order to reinstate her connection to the Twilight and give her back her magical powers so that he and she can be equal. Some of this may be justified in that they are magicians of great power who have been alive for thousands of years and have the ability to peer into the possibilities of the future, but there are still moments when the reader (and the characters) is left wondering what is [[XanatosRoulette planned]] and what is just [[XanatosSpeedChess taking advantage of the situations as they arise]].
* In MichaelCrichton's novel ''Rising Sun'', pretty much the entire Japanese nation is portrayed as Xanatos Roulettists in garish contrast to stupid Americans who don't seem to know their noses are actually on their faces, much less than they're being led around by them. The implication is that the murder of the girl in the novel was set up right from the beginning simply to embarrass another Japanese family, right down to knowing which officer was on duty that night, that John Conner would become involved as a result, and that events would go very much as planned.

* In ''{{Daemon}}'', by Daniel Suarez, Matthew Sobol, through his Daemon AI, manages to accurately predict and control events throughout the book, even after Sobol's death. While there are humans in the Daemon apparatus, they are not depicted as being in controlling positions. Either Sobol was a master at the Xanatos Roulette, or his AI was a master at Speed Chess.

* The Demon King in Kylie Chan's ''Dark Heavens'' trilogy has one of these running from when he first meets Emma, although since a) it's implied that he was planning One Two Two's downfall even before Emma unexpectedly showed up, and b) he didn't expect her to outsmart him the first time he tried to manipulate her, it could also be considered that he starts off playing XanatosSpeedChess which develops into a Roulette.

* At the end of ''Literature/GoodOmens'', the characters begin to suspect (though they certainly can't confirm it) that the whole plot was a Xanatos Roulette by {{God}}. Could be a {{justified}} example for once...

* A heroic version of Xanatos Roulette is found in ''Master of the Five Magics'', by LyndonHardy. The fate of the world depends on a thaumaturge solving the puzzle of a castle in order to find an alchemical solution which will lead to a magical sphere which, when completed, will lead to the study of sorcery. After that, he has to come close enough to the chamber of a wizard in suspended animation to recognize the location, then awaken the wizard. Among the things that make this truly roulette: alchemy is a magical gamble, where one thousand starts can end in two successful potions, or none; getting the magical sphere correct depends on recognizing a faint difference, correcting the ritual for it, and finishing the crafting before the sphere explodes; the only reason Alodar is anywhere the tomb is because the ship he's on sinks nearby; and the plan finishes with what amounts to, "Hopefully, this person can save the world."
* This seems to be what Varys and Illyrio Mopatis are up to in ''ASongOfIceAndFire''. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when one character points out in ''Dance'' that they have been [[XanatosSpeedChess changing the plan repeatedly]].

** On the other hand, Habib Marwan's plan is a little more flexible than many Xanatos Roulettes, in that overall success or failure did not ''require'' every single sub-plan to succeed. Sure, Bauer and CTU foiled a lot of his plans, but he accomplishes quite a bit - destroying a train, kidnapping the Secretary of Defense, shooting down Air Force One and [[BusCrash apparently killing the President of the United States, or at least forcing him out of office.]], causing massive fear and terror. The guy's ''at least'' the most successful terrorist since Osama bin Laden, and no doubt a revered martyr among the Islamist radical community.

** Supposedly the reveal would have been that the Seventh Doctor was playing the BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure game. His future self was setting things up so his past self would succeed ... which, of course, meant that he couldn't cheat his way out of having to play XanatosSpeedChess, since his future self would remember his past self's difficulties and be unable to prevent them. It's hinted at vaguely in "Survival" and blatantly in "Battlefield," but the series ended before it became explicit.

*** And yet, in the season 5 finale, we discover that ''the entire frakkin' show'', including Ben with all his Xanatosian schemes and Magnificent Bastardry, have all been part of the plan devised by Jacob's nemesis, as many as 200 years ago, with the sole aim of killing Jacob without breaking these rules they both must follow. The real kicker? His UnwittingPawn is Ben.

** Fringe writers seem to enjoy justifying this trope. in the episode ''Plateau'', the villain Milo gained xanatos gambit super powers by taking a drug. He orchestrated peoples deaths by setting a pen on the ground and creating a chain reaction ending in a traffic accident. In the most recent episode its been revealed that the observers are crazy good at these, but that's justified by time travel or by the fact that time isn't even linear for them. They can see ''all points of time at once.''

** Of course, Holly being Holly, it's most likely just made up to make himself sound smart. Or because he felt like saying it, said it, then realised it would make him sound smart, so stuck with that story. So maybe not an actual xanatos anything.

* D. Gibbons on ''{{FlashForward}}'' is running a massive XanatosRoulette. It becomes particularly obvious when the heroes find a hidden base in Somalia and discover a 17-year-old videocassette of D. Gibbons where he addresses them by name. Then again, he's a literal {{Chessmaster}}, and he has a lot of experience with seeing flashforwards of the future.

** Potentially a subversion. At first glance, the Scuba Diver does seem to rely on an uncontrollable event and a second person performing a XanatosGambit of their own, but neither are really required. Barney did not specifically need to steal that particular girl, Lily regularly has set up Ted on dates, and any one of them could have started his plan. Lily's XanatosGambit wasn't actually required, she could have just grabbed the book out of his hands and ran and Barney's plan still would have worked. Barney baited her to launch the gambit, but he didn't actually need it.
* An interesting justified version happened in the first episode of {{Sherlock}}, where the murder victim used Xanatos Roulette to lay out a trail of clues to help the police identify her killer. Yes, it was a roulette, but considering that she had to concoct and execute this plan within the last hour or so of her life while under the watchful eyes of her killer, it makes sense that it wasn't planned out better.

* In {{LEGO}}'s ''{{BIONICLE}}'' universe, the main villain of every story year so far, Makuta Teridax, has been defeated several times, but has revealed that he has, in fact, ''planned'' for every possible setback ahead of time. The XanatosRoulette is still turning, in fact, as he planned for all of the following to happen: the destruction of his own body, the death of the benevolent Great Spirit Mata Nui, the subsequent resurrection of said spirit, the rest of the world believing him dead... And the odd thing is, he seems to be the only one. There seems to be no GambitPileup coming, no (glaringly obvious) DeusExMachina, just a slow slide towards his victory, trying to keep him from winning as long as possible. Quite dark for a MerchandiseDriven children's story. It went [[DeathNote exactly as planned]]. Makuta committed GrandTheftMe on Mata Nui just as his soul was about to return to his body, becoming the universe as a result and banishing Mata Nui into a SoulJar and out of the Matoran Universe

** That's not even mentioning the fact that KevinNash, {{Wrestler/Sting}}, and The Pope had figured out the plot (or at least a general idea of what would happen), but instead of politely informing Dixie Carter or the TNA fans of what would happen, they started talking in riddles and attacking people without any given reason to the point where they became heels in the storyline. They even challenged HulkHogan to be a part of a match against him on the date of the reveal, even though he was recovering from major back surgery. Had Nash, Sting, and Pope acted like mature adults in the storyline, the Xanatos Roulette would have probably failed.

* The [[EldritchAbomination chaos god]] Tzeentch, also known as the Architect of Fates and the Great Schemer, is the ''{{Warhammer}}'' and ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' god of {{xanatos roulette}}s and literally lives for pulling the strings of reality in increasingly implausible and intricate ways - in fact, because such scheming is such an intricate part of its being, Tzeentch is virtually ''incapable'' of doing things straight. Even the other gods step carefully around Tzeentch because of this, which is probably just what it planned anyhow. Tzeentch's C'tan counterpart the Deceiver has been pulling some pretty twisty stuff too and it is not very clear how far each is playing the other. To a much lesser extent, the Eldar Seers have pulled off less ambitious ones - like engineering Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka's rise to Warboss and indirectly causing the last two wars for Armageddon, with billions of human lives lost, just to avoid an Ork attack on a Craftworld many years down the line.

*** Reinforced with the presence of tarot cards being used by Inquisitors to help determine the Emperor's will with a great deal of implication towards this being the case as the emperor's mind had to fracture to cope with ruling the Imperium as his body lays dieing. Some of the books even show aspects of the emperor's mind(s) even disagreeing showing that not all of them are in communion with eachother. Or are they? Meaning no one is really sure what the Emperor's plans and thoughts could be. Probably not even Tzeentch. This has led to a running joke in 4chan's /tg/ boards of the Emperor, Tzeentch and the Deciever getting together every saturday and having Xanatos poker.

*** Worth noting that the attack on Prospero was in itself one of his {{Xanatos Gambit}}s. First, he lets Magnus, one of the most powerful psykers in the universe forsee a future where the Imperium is destroyed, causing Magnus to break his word, his father to turn against him and all of this before anybody even knew he existed. Second, he allows Magnus and his legion of psykers to get the crap kicked out of them so they had no choice to turn to him for aid. Third, he causes them to use the Rubric, resulting in his now faithful legion of Supersoldiers being literally nothing but XanatosSpeedChess playing psykers or their mindless servants.

* Let's talk [[{{Exalted}} Sidereals]], shall we? As they have access to the LoomOfFate, they have the power to observe the tiniest workings of Fate and all its potential consequences. Moreover, they can subtly alter fate more or less by ''[[CelestialBureaucracy filling out the right paperwork.]]'' As such, they have a bad tendency of putting forth Xanatos Gambits and Roulettes with disturbing frequency.

* In ''ShadowOfDestiny'' the Homunculi arranged all the events in hopes of being free of the bonds of the game put on it leading to multiple endings including Discovering Eikre is actually the Alchemist from centuries ago , discovering the girl in modern times is actually the centuries old daughter and the real daughter was trapped back in time , and other things. However after all play throughs Eikre can use the players own knowledge and choose bonus ending A. Causing a paradox by making the homuncili touch the gem and destroying it thus ending it's xanatos roulette or bonus ending b Giving the alchemist the knowlledge and means to save his dying wife Either ending ends with Eikre fading away and then in modern times a man looking like him getting hit in the back like in the beginning of the game but instead of a knife he turns to see it's a soccer ball and the boy who kicked it turns out to be a descendant of the boy who was trying to kill him but now since none of that happened everyones happy... cept the homunculi

* ''CityOfHeroes'' has a Doctor Doom-esque villain named Nemesis who takes this to an extreme in almost every encounter. In a single story arc, he tricks the hero into defeating some neo-fascists that ''looked'' like they were going to take over his infrastructure, just to save himself the bother; predicts that your contact will believe Nemesis's real plan was to take over the neo-fascists' robot army and send you to prevent that, while he proceeds with a kidnapping; and wraps it all up by having you supposedly ''[[NotQuiteDead kill]]'' him - even though, as a superhero, you may have never killed anyone else before (and indeed are explicitly prevented from doing so by the game mechanics), and despite his well-known use of countless robot doubles. Your Contact actually comments on this, noting that his death should have been impossible, speculating that Nemesis's real objectives were twofold, first to throw the heroes off his trail by faking his death, giving him breathing room to implement ''more'' plots, and second and most importantly, to get ahold of the technology from the kidnapped person to enable him to create perfect mechanical duplicates of ''his own mind'', resulting in the annoying prospect of having to deal with an endless supply of super-intelligent mechanical jackass villains. Finally, many heroes might have preferred Nemesis's power-base to be taken over by virtually anyone that wasn't quite so good with the XanatosRoulette. (It should be noted that this is far from Nemesis's most convoluted scheme.)

* The ''MetalGearSolid'' series is rife with {{Xanatos Roulette}}s, but ''MetalGearSolid 2'' takes the cake, though, with a plot so staggeringly convoluted that the bad guys reveal they didn't really ''have'' a goal. It was a test run to see how good they were at manipulating events. Surprisingly the bad guys are still in control long after they reveal their plot. Only the previous game's player character and his dead brother's arm have any freedom. It's a symbolism thing, honest. [[MindScrew Unless it's not.]]

*** It's beyond that in complexity. Ocelot actually pretends that Liquid's arm took over his personality by self-suggestion in order to trick the Patriots into believing he was a similar threat as Liquid Snake in ''Metal Gear Solid 1'', so the Patriots would pull their own XanatosGambit to use Snake to defeat Ocelot, which is what he exactly planned for, as they became so focused on defeating Ocelot that they failed to realize that [[MindScrew in the course of defeating him Snake would also end up destroying the Patriots]].

* The entire underlying plot behind ''FireEmblem: Path of Radiance'' is a twenty-something year-old XanatosRoulette centered around Lehran's Medallion and channeling power into it by thrusting the entire continent into a war, so that Ashnard could release the Dark God.

* In ''JadeEmpire'', Master Sun Li, the Glorious Strategist, pulls off a twenty year Xanatos Roulette to put himself in power by training the main character so that only he knows how to kill him, yet keeping him loyal, letting him kill the emperor after baiting him to that point, and then killing the main character and taking the throne. If you replay the game you can see all the points where he was manipulating things. Also lampshaded by the Spirit Monk while talking to the soldier in Tien's Landing when s/he comments that "he couldn't possibly have known that the flyer was going to crash here" (or something to that effect).

* Master Albert from the ''MegaManZX'' series may have broken a record for the longest-running single XanatosRoulette (in video games, at least), in order to reset the world and ''[[AGodAmI become its god.]]'' He even threw a couple of gambits into the mix. And it all conspired over a couple of centuries. It didn't quite work out, considering [[spoiler:he was fighting his great-great-great granddaughter/spare body, with the biometal with the same powers as he]], but even then, he doesn't seem to care anyway.

** ZX actually has TWO Roulette records - Master Thomas planned out his own Xanatos Roulette to kill off Albert so he could do his own scheme to reset the world. It may or may not have gone on for as long as Albert's, but that's not the point. This marks the first XanatosRoulette being designed to destroy ANOTHER XanatosRoulette... And the most remarkable thing about it, is that it ''worked.''

* In ''SherlockHolmes Versus [[GentlemanThief Arsene Lupin]]'', Lupin's entire scheme pretty much exemplifies this trope. And then it turns out that the whole scheme- which took months to set up- was actually a smokescreen to ensure that the whole of London's police force would be in the wrong place while he carried out his ''actual'' theft. This required a XanatosGambit of its own. And then the ''game'' has been playing Xanatos with you all along, and if you fall for Lupin's ploy it gives you a really disheartening ending. While you are given a hint to the real target at the beginning of the game, it is tempting to choose the obvious option when the clue to your final destination is basically "It starts with 'B' and ends with 'ig Ben'." Choosing Big Ben, however, results in a cutscene of Watson, Lestrade and the Prime Minister coming up with precisely nothing, and then you are treated to a screen explaining that, [[ThisLoserIsYou due to your incorrect choice, Watson and Holmes become estranged, Holmes retires because he's crushed by his failure, and Lestrade is demoted to traffic duty.]]

** Throughout the entirety of ''ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'', Phoenix spends 70% of the game off working on a "Secret Mission". The ending reveals that Phoenix has been manipulating Apollo, Trucy, Kristoph, Klavier, and several other characters for years to single-handedly correct a major flaw in the current legal system, get revenge on Kristoph Gavin for having him disbarred (itself a XanatosGambit against Phoenix), solve a seven year-old mystery, clear the name of three different people whom he barely knows, ''help recover the memories of an amnesiac woman he's never met outside of knowing her husband for all of two weeks and one day, AND REUNITE HER WITH HER CHILDREN, APOLLO AND TRUCY.'' AND EVERYTHING GOES JUST. AS. PLANNED.

* Xanatos Roulettes are the entire ''modus operandi'' of the Alchemists in ''MeltyBlood'', to varying degrees of success. Apparently, all the really experienced alchemists planned so far ahead that they noticed the inevitable end of the world, and set about trying to stop it. However, everything they do just makes it worse (they've developed an impressive collection of doomsday weapons designed to stop all the other doomsday weapons that they themselves have made). It's implied that saving the world would require the realization of the impossible, which is why at least one alchemist (who managed to set up a XanatosRoulette wherein ''the particles of his soul would not-quite-randomly come back together after being scattered into the TheLifestream and bring him back to life every so often'') is seeking the 6th sorcery (sorcery being defined as that which realizes the impossible), which could save the world.

** Eh? Sialeeds didn't plot her XanatosRoulette until halfway throughout the game when she realized that even if the Prince won the war, nothing would really change and the senate would be just as corrupt as before. Even if all the Godwins were defeated, some other faction would sooner or later attempt the same thing, so she saw only one solution. To get behind the enemy lines and wipe out all the corrupt nobles.

*** There's no evidence that Caine had any interest other than as an observer; Los Angeles is still just a small corner of the world. And Jack may have been playing a XanatosGambit instead, planting the sarcophagus to answer the question whether La Croix is powerhungry enough to commit diablerie, on a Methuselah no less, and solve the problem in one go. If La Croix hadn't attempted to open the coffin, Jack could be content that while the Camarilla in general and La Croix in particular are nuisances to the anarchy status quo, at least their professed enlightened self-interest isn't a dangerous sham.
* Wilhelm from ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}''. It wouldn't be a far stretch to say he had prepared and planned a XanatosGambit, [[GambitPileup of which involves MANY other Xanatos Gambits]], that spans ''several millenia''. And involves resetting the universe countless times, not unlike a GroundhogDayLoop, so that the whole plan may actually span ''many tens of thousands of years''. And that's probably on the lower end of the scale. However, this actually has a good Justification. Wilhelm possesses something called the Compass of Order and Chaos, which allows him to see the flow of the human conscious. He has also been the head of Vector since humanity left Lost Jerusalem (Earth); the kicker is that, if Vector didn't exist, humanity would've been wiped out. Because humanity needed to rely on Vector's goods to survive, it gave Wilhelm ''de facto'' control over humanity. Additionally, being the head of Vector, a former member of politics in the world of VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}, a Cardinal of Ormus by the name of Heinlein and the President of Hyams Heavy Industries, Vector's main rival]], Wilhelm has extensive knowledge of what's happening throughout the story. It helps that he's also a [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] extraordinaire, probably due to living for [[TimeAbyss several millenia]]. Given all this, it really isn't a far stretch that his plan worked simply because he had ''that'' much control over events.

* The entire plot of ''FinalFantasyV'' can be considered one massive XanatosRoulette. Indeed, [=ExDeath=] even goes so far as to leave all of your party's equipment and crystals in a chest when Galuf comes to rescue them, all in the hopes that everyone escapes to destroy the crystals blocking his complete [[AGodAmI rise to power]].

* As it turns out, almost everything that happened during ''{{Starcraft}} 1'' and Brood War was just one epic XanatosRoulette by The Overmind. The Overmind was created by the Xel'Naga to control the zerg swarms, but [[BigBad The Dark One]] made sure it was made "with consciousness but without free will" and compelled to destroy the protoss. The Overmind (presumably by virtue of being a mountain-sized brain) had a vision of the future telling it that if it didn't do something to change the course of events then all its zerg children would become food for the menacing [[TheDragon hybrids]], so - it infested Kerrigan, the most powerful psychic it could find, to give her the potential to control the zerg, then engineered its own death so that the zerg would be released from its control and into Kerrigan's, but not before making its prophecy available for Zeratul to reach, letting Zeratul know that they needed to use [[MacGuffin the artifacts]] on Kerrigan so that she'd be freed from the same overriding compulsions that had ruled The Overmind, and also letting them know that they must not kill her. This would then rob the hybrids of their ability to control the zerg and use them to destroy all the other factions and bring about [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the end of the universe]]. That's a pretty epic gamble right there.

* ''VisualNovel/GSenjouNoMaou'' gives us one in the form of the devil, [[MagnificentBastard Maou]]. Every one of his plans require that everyone acts exactly how he knows them to act. A single misstep would bring down the entire scheme. This culminates in his last giant trap: [[spoiler:creating a blockade and making it a hell on earth all to get his father out of prison]]. It should also be noted that despite this, he ''still'' manages to weasel himself out of sticky situations by playing XanatosSpeedChess with the protagonists.

* ''DominicDeegan'', with his limited ability to [[OmniscientMoralityLicense see the future]], plays TheChessmaster in almost every arc, manipulating events to [[BeyondTheImpossible a more ridiculous degree each time]]. By the Snowsong arc, he's stepped into XanatosRoulette territory even ''considering'' his powers, albeit mitigated by some minor setbacks.
** The mindgames the Travorias play on one another throughout the series would count as {{Xanatos Roulette}}s...except that they nearly always ''fail''.

* A really stupid example, or even possibly a parody of this trope is ''BobAndGeorge'' in it's entirety. The whole series just being a gigantic set up for their mom to make George stop being a too much of a pussy to fight, and kill Bob if he got out of hand. And the last few years being a bet between the Helmeted Author and Author to see if George would shoot Bob or not based on Xanatos Roulettes between Bob and George themselves where George merged with the Shadowy Author and Bob was merged with the Helmeted Author, and manipulated certain aspects of their final meeting, that were in truth being manipulated by the author characters (even when the author characters WEREN'T using their "author powers" to alter fate and such, thus why it was bet.)

* Played with in TheDefrosters. In episode 9, Pixel Girl implies that she is working on a plan to stop Pixel Boy from playing World of Warcraft. She and James even mention TV Tropes as they debate the differences between a Xanatos Roulette and a Xanatos Gambit.
* (Also XanatosGambit) Obscure example, but in [[AvatarTheAbridgedSeries GanXingba]]'s [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhVPxYCXeRA Avatar: TAS]], a comment is made mocking Zhao's- and Light's (Death Note) -ability to have plans that rely on perfect timing and actions they shouldn't be able to see coming.

* [[http://www.seventhsanctum.com/gens/evilplot.html This webpage]] lets you create your own plots which can easily become Xanatos Roulettes, for example: Your unstoppable plot: hone your psychic powers, easily allowing you to summon a powerful spirit, easily allowing you to kidnap a popular singer for a huge ransom, easily allowing you to force your minions to make a super battleship, so you can create an evil temple, so you can acquire an unstoppable mega-tank, which allows you to kidnap the prime minister so you can replace him/her with an imposter, so you can force your minions to make a high-tech submarine, easily allowing you to summon a demonic force, which sets the stage to seize control of a legion of golems, which sets the stage to build a clone machine, which sets the stage to pillage the hemisphere which will slake your dark need for power!

** Also seen in the episode "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind," in which Homer basically pulls a Xanatos Roulette on himself. Upon learning that Marge was planning a surprise party for him, he goes to Moe's and orders an amnesia-inducing drink. Before he downs it, he predicts that he will wake up to find his family missing, remember snippets that imply that he hit Marge, go to Dr. Frink for memory recovery, only remember enough to conclude that Marge was having an affair with Duffman, and then throw himself off a bridge at the exact moment in which the party ship was underneath and at the exact place in which he lands on the ship's moonbounce.

* In ''JusticeLeague'', after Brainiac has been revealed to have been living in Lex Luthor for years, he states that he's been manipulating Lex Luthor into manipulating everything else so that he, and not Lex, could implant his mind into a duplicate of Amazo (or rather, a "more suitable body). Really, he just installed a backup of his program into Lex and rolled with whatever came his way. This turns into Xanatos Speed Chess when Lex takes advantage of being merged with an immortal robot in order to try and become a techno-organic god.
* There is never a full outline of what the plan was, or who was planning what, but the events of the third season finale and fourth season premiere of ''TheVentureBrothers'' required an absurd amount of chance and relied on a ShockingSwerve for resolution. Molotov Cocktease and Hunter Gathers manipulate events so that Brock Samson kills OSI's top three assassins in a fairly straightforward XanatosGambit to ensure the supremacy of their Blackhearts organization. Although not specifically stated, they may have also been responsible for Brock's car attempting to kill him, which itself relied on pure luck on several levels. It gets ''completely ridiculous'' once it turns out that the whole storyline going back to Hunter's sex change operation was an elaborate plan by Hunter Gathers, who is actually TheMole for the Blackhearts who reversed his sex change, in order to convince Brock to join Hunter's SPHINX organization. The plan is either the most convoluted and implausible plan of all time or an unbelievably well executed game of XanatosSpeedChess.

* Admiral Yamamoto's plan for the Battle of Midway was supposed to be a Xanatos Roulette that involved splitting his forces into seven different groups across the entire Pacific to defeat the American carrier fleet. A simpler idea like "Put all my ships in one fleet, sail in to attack Midway. The Americans don't have enough ships to stop such a fleet, so if they do force a battle, I destroy their fleet. If they don't, I conquer Midway," would have been a pretty good XanatosGambit. Yamamoto's roulette plan ended in a spectacular failure when American codebreakers figured out key details of his plan.

* The ''{{Torchwood}}'' episode "They Keep Killing Suzie" consists of the playing out of a disturbingly esoteric plan laid by the eponymous Suzie to get herself ''resurrected'' if/when she's killed.

** Well, she already had a tool to raise the dead, so probably figured 'Why not?'.
*** Not to mention the fact that she ''had'' planned it changes the spin on her original suicide at the start of the series.
** Note that this isn't much of a Roulette so much as a simple XanatosGambit. Gwen wearing the gauntlet was a bonus to Suzie's plan, but not essential to it; it would have worked no matter how they brought her back as long as they did. Escaping prison after coming back from the dead went flawlessly, but at that point she didn't need her plan any more, she could have done lots of different things. Her plan to come back from the dead really only had one part: a DeadManSwitch in the form of a brainwashed person.

* The Quori in ''{{Eberron}}'' frequently pull off this kind of plan, and the game offers a really good explanation as to how: in addition to being super-intelligent ''{{Eldritch Abomination}}s'', the Quori frequently return to their home plane to plot, where YearInsideHourOutside is in effect. This essentially means that they have ''weeks'' to plan their next move while a single night passes on the Material Plane.