History Main / Gambitroulette

A convoluted plan that relies on events completely within the realm of chance yet comes off without a hitch. If your first reaction to seeing ThePlan unfold is "There is no way that you ''planned'' that!", then it's roulette.

Gambit roulette tries to make a character seem impressive but can break WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief. You ''really'' have to establish a character as TheChessmaster for them to be able to pull it off without arousing your audience's skepticism. If the character pulling the roulette is a god, a person with precognition, a hyper-advanced AI, or someone else with similar abilities interacting with mortals, it becomes ''somewhat'' more believable, but even then the [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief suspension of disbelief]] can be tenuous at best.

Note that complexity alone does not make a plan into roulette. A few separate plans may combine while individually making logical sense. When a dozen things are going on but the actual details of the plan aren't reliant on each item fortuitously fitting into place, then it is just a regular GambitPileup. If the character has plans for either outcome, not just the improbable one, it's XanatosGambit. If they ''admit'' that they [[ThrowItIn hadn't planned for certain occurrences, but took advantage of them as they came up]], that's XanatosSpeedChess. Contrast BatmanGambit which is based on the ''most likely'' outcome, based on the planner's knowledge of the people involved, rather than an improbable one. A roulette requires the planner to say that events that were literally ''impossible'' to predict were AllAccordingToPlan.

* Helmut Zemo's master plan in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' verges on a thin line between XanatosSpeedChess and this.
** His goal is very simple: [[spoiler:obtain proof the Winter Soldier killed Tony Stark's parents by any means possible, show Tony, cause internal strife and watch the Avengers fall apart as Steve and Tony fight. This simplicity allows him to both compensate when the plan doesn't turn out perfectly (like when the HYDRA agent refuses to give him information prompting him to go alternate route via Bucky) and take advantage of existing circumstances (he had nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords and just used it for distraction).]]
** Despite this, actual implementation of the plan comes dangerously close to GambitRoulette. [[spoiler:Fortunately for Zemo, Sokovia Accords, an event that divided Avengers in two camps and greatly boosted tensions between Tony and Steve just had to happen at the time when he was going to cause that tension himself. Also, it happened right at the moment when Tony's mental stability had been deteriorated by a combination of guilt over his actions in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron,'' breakup with Pepper, tensions with Secretary Ross, and the near-fatal injury and paralysis of his best friend Jim Rhodes. If either of these factors were not present, consequences of revealing the information to Tony would be ''far'' less severe and if neither happened, Tony and Steve could just talk it through. Instead, pretty much all unrelated events in the movie make Zemo's task far easier to accomplish. Additionally, Zemo's plans would've most likely failed had Captain America not escaped with Bucky, or had he not been apprehended by Iron Man's forces during the airport fight. Furthermore, numerous factors led to Iron Man, Captain America and Winter Soldier being the only heroes present in Siberia to confront Zemo. The success of Zemo's plan would've most certainly been compromised if more heroes other than those three had made it to the final act.]]

** Cersei's plot where she successfully killed her husband Robert could be considered this. Her plan was to have his squire indulge him with too much alcohol (that was extra-strength) so that he would be too inebriated to successfully hunt a boar and would run into a "hunting mishap" that would appear to be an accident. However, there were so many ways this could have not gone as planned: not finding a boar, King Robert passing out first, other members of the hunting party intervening, etc. This would be fine if it was just one of Cersei's schemes to increase the chances of King Robert getting himself killed innocently (like her ploy to have him enter the Melee), but subsequent conversations reveal that she fully anticipated that he would die to a boar during this outing, even refusing to flee King's Landing and Ned Stark's accusations as she "knows" that Robert won't be coming back to do anything about them. So, she was essentially risking her head by staying at court on the chance that a drunk Robert would get himself killed while hunting.

** Despite this, actual implementation of the plan comes dangerously close to GambitRoulette. [[spoiler:Fortunately for Zemo, Sokovia Accords, an event that divided Avengers in two camps and greatly boosted tensions between Tony and Steve just had to happen at the time when he was going to cause that tension himself. Also, it happened right at the moment when Tony's mental stability had been deteriorated by a combination of guilt over his actions in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron,'' breakup with Pepper, tensions with Secretary Ross, and the near-fatal injury and paralysis of his best friend Jim Rhodes. If either of these factors were not present, consequences of revealing the information to Tony would be ''far'' less severe and if neither happened, Tony and Steve could just talk it through. Instead, pretty much all unrelated events in the movie make Zemo's task far easier to accomplish. Additionally, Zemo's plans would've most likely failed had Captain America not escaped with Bucky, or had he not been apprehended by Iron Man's forces during the airport fight. Furthermore, numerous factors led to Iron Man, Captain America and Winter Soldier being the only heroes present in Siberia to confront Zemo. The success of Zemo's plan would've most certainly been compromised if more heroes other than those three had made it to the final act.
]]

** Despite this, actual implementation of the plan comes dangerously close to GambitRoulette. [[spoiler:Fortunately for Zemo, Sokovia Accords, an event that divided Avengers in two camps and greatly boosted tensions between Tony and Steve just had to happen at the time when he was going to cause that tension himself. Also, it happened right at the moment when Tony developed depression caused by combination of guilt over his actions in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron,'' breakup with Pepper and reliving last memory of his parents as part of a science project. If either of these factors were not present, consequences of revealing the information to Tony would be ''far'' less severe and if neither happened, Tony and Steve could just talk it through. Instead, pretty much all unrelated events in the movie make Zemo's task far easier to accomplish.]]

* In ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'', Master Sun Li, the Glorious Strategist, pulls off a twenty year Gambit Roulette to put himself in power by training the main character so that only he knows how to kill him/her, yet keeping him/her loyal, letting him/her kill the emperor after baiting him/her 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).

** The plan of the Silence over series 5 and 6 of the new ''Series/DoctorWho'' is a really amazingly convoluted one. Much of the plan is coherent. YMMV if this is a gambit rather than a roulette.

* At the end of the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/{{Jingo}}'', Lord Vetinari discusses his BatmanGambit with Vimes, making a big deal out of the fact that he managed to stop the war before too many people were killed ("Bought and sold? Perhaps. But not, I think, needlessly spent"). Except that we already know that there's a parallel universe where the Klatchians took Ankh-Morpork and the entire Watch was killed ''before'' he unleashed his Gambit, and the difference was a decision by Vimes that could have gone either way and that Lord V wasn't in a position to know anything about.

* In the infamous ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Cartman devises an extremely intricate plan to exact revenge on Scott Tenorman for cheating him out of $16.12. The plan relies on several red herrings and on Stan and Kyle's betrayal and culminates with Scott eating chili that is made of his own parents' ground-up remains and subsequently crying in front of his favorite band, Radiohead, who then mock him for being a "crybaby".

* 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, and kidnapped [[{{Rush}} Neil Peart]] in the meanwhile, 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.

** [[spoiler:[[Characters/SuperRobotWarsAlpha Euzeth Gozzo]]]] in the ''2nd Original Generation'' applies as well. [[spoiler:Sure, he had plenty of backups to his plan, but even he admits that a huge part of why his plan pulled off as well as it did was by a large amount of chance]].

** And in the sequel, ''Radiant Dawn'', it is revealed that Ashnard was but a pawn in an even ''larger'' roulette, orchestrated by none other than Lehran himself, who turned out to be Sephiran, the Prime Minister of Bengion, and a major ally in Path of Radiance. He wanted the "Dark God," Yune (who's actually rather nice, if a tad rude) to be released, only because this would also wake up her sister, Ashera, the Goddess of order, who would then cleanse the world of all life.

* Onaga's manipulation of Shujinko to revive him in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatDeception'' can certainly qualify.
** As well as Argus's plan to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon''.

* Master Albert from the ''VideoGame/MegaManZX'' series may have broken a record for the longest-running single Gambit Roulette (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.
** Oh, and he said "Just as I planned." Talk about a MagnificentBastard.

* ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Battalion Wars 2]]'' provides a fine example of this.In an attempt to recover a lost superweapon, Kaiser Vlad manipulates the news to cause the Anglo Isles to attack the Solar Empire. When the Anglo Isles retreats, the Solar Empire launches a counter-attack, and asks the Tundran Territories to help them. While everyone is busy with that, Vlad launches a full scale invasion of Tundra, fights his way to the far north, locates and mines the super weapon, and tries to run away. [[YouCantThwartStageOne Everything goes as planned,]] until that last step. The allied nations crush his armies, attack his mining spider, and in the end, Vlad and Kommandt Ubel end up trapped in a mine shaft.

*** Now Xenosaga makes a lot more sense.

* There's a [[http://youtu.be/ye7b3bOQ6lY famous video]] of a ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' player using a convoluted method to turn [[JokeCharacter Magikarp]] into an [[LethalJokeCharacter overpowered sweeper]] capable of laughing off [[TierInducedScrappy uber-tier Pokémon]]. 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.

** Although its mentioned in side materials that if an Epitaph PC is deleted by the user (ie, they quit the) the Avatar will simply find a new host. Furthermore, some of the plan requires no plotting at all. Haseo ended up fighting Endrance and Kuhn of their own volition, with no manipulation required.

* Pretty common in {{Stealth Based Game}}s that often involve a lot of [[SaveScumming saving and reloading.]] Wonder how [[VideoGame/SplinterCell Sam Fisher]], [[VideoGame/{{Hitman}} Agent 47]] and [[VideoGame/{{Thief}} Garrett]] are always able to pull off such neat, stainless jobs? It's because they had to go through the same scenario about ten times before finally getting the outcome they wanted.

* In ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' [[BigBad Zero's]] plan included: Seven coming up with code names for everyone [[{{Irony}} so Zero wouldn't know their identities]], Lotus randomly talking about some crazy theory she just came up with and she herself didn't take seriously so she'd mention prosopagnosia to Junpei, or Ace entering the room when Junpei and Clover were having a conversation about [[spoiler:the first Nonary Game]] ''just'' as Clover was about to say [[spoiler:the name of girl who died back then]]. Any of these events not happening would've put Zero's plan in a tight spot. [[spoiler:Justified as Zero had a glimpse in the future nine years before the game's events so she ''could'' have known this would happen.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' [[BigBad Zero's]] plan included: Seven coming up with code names for everyone [[{{Irony}} so Zero wouldn't know their identities]], Lotus randomly talking about some crazy theory she just came up with and she herself didn't take seriously, so she'd mention prosopagnosia to Junpei or Ace entering the room when Junpei and Clover had conversation about[[spoiler:the first Nonary Game]] ''just'' as Clover was about to say[[spoiler:the name of girl who died back then.]] Any of these events not happening would've put Zero's plan in tight spot.[[spoiler:Justified as Zero had glimpse in the future nine years before game events so she ''could'' have known this would happen.]]

** The plot of the Golden Age Arc relies on a certain series of events that would be otherwise meaningless without each other. [[spoiler: Griffth's fall from grace, for instance, requires four things to happen in sequence or it's for nothing.]] Justified by events being orchestrated by [[spoiler: an EldritchAbomination]].

** It's finally expanded on ''years'' later, both in real life and [[TimeSkip in-universe]]. Aizen ''was'' telling the truth when he claimed to be responsible for Ichigo's birth. However, it wasn't actually planned and mostly amounts to a lucky fluke; one of his modified-Hollow experiments was derailed by the unexpected presence of both Captain Isshin Shiba and [[spoiler:a Quincy, Masaki Kurosaki]]. But Aizen finds it fascinating when one of his experiments ''doesn't'' go as planned, and being a big fan of XanatosSpeedChess he immediately incorporates this event and its inevitable consequence (the birth of Ichigo as a [[spoiler:Shinigami/Quincy/Hollow hybrid]]) into his plan. [[spoiler:Urahara was around to witness this as well, explaining how he was able to guess that Aizen's plans would involve manipulating Ichigo.]] Despite this, it's still unclear--and debated by the fandom--whether he really [[spoiler: planned for all of Ichigo's fights--which lead to him getting killed, twice,--or if he was just screwing with Ichigo's head.]]
** Yhwach, leader of the Quincies, isn't any better. Taking out Yamamoto who he isn't strong enough to take head on? He planned for that. A possible betryal from [[spoiler: Uryu, who just joined the Quincies]]? He planned for that. Kisuke [[spoiler: restoring all of the shinigami's stolen bankais and preventing them from being taken again]]? He planned for that. Ichigo [[spoiler: leaving a path open to the Soul Palace after going there to train]]? He planned for that. While Aizen at least had to improvise once in awhile, Yhwach seems to be able to predict literally everything his opponents are going to do. [[spoiler:His [[TheDragon second in command]] later reveals Yhwach is ''literally'' omniscient once his powers fully awaken, though somehow Yhwach was successfully predicting all of his enemies' moves even before that happened.]]

* ''Manga/DeathNote'' is filled with these.[[note]]At one time, this trope was called the Light Yagami Gambit.[[/note]] 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. This involves an extended MemoryGambit, at the end of which every element needed to be exactly in the place they were in order to work. Such utterly unpredictable elements include: a cop Light didn't know prior to the MemoryGambit missing when he shot at the temporary owner of the Death Note and Light killing Higuchi while holding the Death Note, so that he could reclaim ownership of it and make the memory restoration permanent. Note that he was ''handcuffed to L'' at that point. Had the bullet been just an inch to the left, Higuchi would've died too soon and whoever picked up the Death Note first (most likely the cop who shot him) would become its official owner and Light would have had to kill ''him'' to ensure that he didn't lose his memories for good.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' once figured out a case just in time by subverting this trope. He had several suspects as to who was unknowingly given a bomb, narrowing them down by whether they had something that could hide a bomb and an electronic device that could set it off. He eventually deduced the only person it could be was [[spoiler: the woman with the cell phone]], as all other people's devices were unpredictable and accidentally pressing a button could set the bomb off too early.

* The events of the first season of ''Anime/{{K}}'' were a plan of this sort from the Green King. Really, being the King of Chaos, he might not have cared ''what'' happened - his main goal was [[spoiler: drawing the Silver King out from hiding]] - but he seems to have put enough faith in the Silver King to know that he would come out on top after all of this - and considering that the Silver King has been ''alone in an airship with no contact with anyone for seventy years'', and that he does [[NighInvulnerable nearly]] get himself killed in solving it, that is a lot of faith to put in him.

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' Madara Uchiha reveals the truth behind [[spoiler: Obito Uchiha becoming the BigBad. Obito's FaceHeelTurn was originally after his childhood crush Rin Nohara died when she was abducted by the Hidden Mist. All of the abductors were being mind-controlled by Madara and Rin herself had seal on her heart in order to she couldn't kill herself so Obito had to watch her be murdered not knowing she likely chose it. The entire thing was planned to destroy Obito's idealism and turn him evil. The fact that Rin committed suicide via Kakashi was a happy coincidence.]]

** While the two major [[TheChessmaster players]] of the game, SEELE and Gendo had private, secret agendas which ultimately failed, everything occurred just as planned by a very hidden player, [[spoiler: Yui Ikari.]] [[MindScrew Maybe.]]

* The overarching plan Blackbeard concocts in ''Manga/OnePiece'' borders between this and XanatosSpeedChess. While there are a number of elements to his plan that rely largely on chance, they're mitigated by how either Blackbeard put himself in the best position to succeed, or the chance occurrence simply made things easier rather than being absolutely critical. For example, the start of his plot hinges on Blackbeard finding a [[GravityMaster very specific]] [[PowerupFood Devil Fruit]], when finding ''any'' Devil Fruit at all is an exceedingly rare occurrence; to deal with this, Blackbeard joins [[WorldsStrongestMan Whitebeard's]] pirate crew, realizing that he stood the best chance of finding the single fruit he wanted there. Later on, [[spoiler: Blackbeard plans on breaking out several of the most dangerous criminals of [[TheAlcatraz Impel Down]]. To even aproach the prison he has to gain favour with the government, which he plans to do by beating a high bounty-head, and delivering said person to the government. He decides on Luffy, as he was at the time worth 100.000.000, beat a Shichibukai and was relatively close. Luffy barely escapes, and Ace later catches up with Blackbeard (BB killed a crewmate to get the fruit, Ace got pissed) and after a fight Ace takes Luffy's place as a prisoner. At the prison he happens to arrive just as [[TheHero Luffy]], who had broken into the same prison earlier in order [[RescueArc to rescue his brother]], has begun his efforts to break back out alongside several allies he had made along the way, which makes things much easier for Blackbeard.]] This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by how Blackbeard and his crew often talk about the role of fate in their plans, as if recognizing that the [[YouCantThwartStageOne plot will allow their plans to succeed eventually.]] Blackbeard himself admits to Sengoku that his plan hit a snag here and there, but overall it worked out as planned.

* ''Fanfic/DeathNoteEquestria'' has one, of which Twilight's MemoryGambit is just one component. And she pulls it off masterfully, getting everything she wanted -- [[spoiler: L and Mer dead, her own name cleared as Kira, and putting herself in prime position to [[RunningBothSides take control of the investigation]].]]

* In ''Fanfic/DiariesOfAMadman'', Discord is bored. Very, very bored. He's been alive for millions of years because, as a spirit of chaos, he can't actually ''die'' while there are still sophonts on the planet, and he can't kill them directly because that would be in service to order. So he brings into existence [[spoiler: a copy of]] the one person who can potentially kill him for good, and ultimately [[spoiler: [[NiceJobFixingItVillain breaks his own plan]] by sending Nav into the past. The StableTimeLoop he creates causes him to weep for the first time in aeons.]] This is an InvertedTrope: the villain set things up so that all roads he could predict led to victory, but he just happened to land the ball on the 00. Everything ''else'' he does, however, is pretty much a GambitRoulette.

* In ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009'', Lord Blackwood's plan to kill Ambassador Standish would have failed if it hadn't been raining that day (since it required that Standish be [[spoiler: doused in oil without realizing it]]), or if Standish had chosen not to kill Blackwood that day, or not to do so with the booby-trapped gun.

** His goal is very simple: [[spoiler: obtain proof the Winter Soldier killed Tony Stark's parents by any means possible, show Tony, cause internal strife and watch the Avengers fall apart as Steve and Tony fight. This simplicity allows him to both compensate when the plan doesn't turn out perfectly (like when the HYDRA agent refuses to give him information prompting him to go alternate route via Bucky) and take advantage of existing circumstances (he had nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords and just used it for distraction).]]
** Despite this, actual implementation of the plan comes dangerously close to GambitRoulette. [[spoiler: Fortunately for Zemo, Sokovia Accords, an event that divided Avengers in two camps and greatly boosted tensions between Tony and Steve just had to happen at the time when he was going to cause that tension himself. Also, it happened right at the moment when Tony developed depression caused by combination of guilt over his actions in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron,'' breakup with Pepper and reliving last memory of his parents as part of a science project. If either of these factors were not present, consequences of revealing the information to Tony would be ''far'' less severe and if neither happened, Tony and Steve could just talk it through. Instead, pretty much all unrelated events in the movie make Zemo's task far easier to accomplish.]]

* The Demon King in Kylie Chan's ''Literature/DarkHeavens'' trilogy has one of these running from well before the beginning of the series, encompassing most of the characters in the series. The full extent of his game is revealed around the eighth book, by which point parts of it have started to go off the rails. By contrast, the Jade Emperor does this all the time for even the littlest things, just so that he can be both apparently LawfulStupid and still an effective leader. [[spoiler: The latter doesn't ''appear'' to be involved in defeating the former.]]

** Also in ''Deathly Hallows'', Dumbledore's method of getting Harry to find the Hallows relies on random encounters - for example, Hermione only recognised the symbol in her book because she happened to meet Luna's dad at Fleur and Bill's wedding. The same goes for Harry finding out [[spoiler: he is a Horcrux]]; if he hadn't been there when [[spoiler: Snape died]] he would never have [[spoiler: made his HeroicSacrifice and Voldemort would've stayed immortal]]. To be fair, [[spoiler:Snape]] was supposed to tell Harry - that's why he asks that Voldemort send him into Hogwarts during the Battle - but didn't do so in time. That is why he is scared when [[spoiler:Voldemort tells him that he is going to kill him]] - he thinks he has failed. No excuse for the symbol, though Dumbeldore [[HandWave handwaves]] it by mentioning that Hermione wouldn't rest until she knew what it meant, so he assumed she would work it out ''somehow'', just not necessarily from Xeno Lovegood.

** 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. [[spoiler: Or at least, it ''should'' have.]]

** A similar plot was hatched in ''Literature/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic''. More accurately, its sequel, which proposed that Revan's "fall" to the Dark Side and his subsequent conquering of the Republic (carefully leaving intact key positions and structures) was just to prepare for the coming of the "true Sith" lurking outside the galaxy, making Revan a WellIntentionedExtremist. This was all from the perspective of Revan's teacher, so take it with a grain of salt. Though even if you think Revan was just flat-out evil, this theory has some merit: you can't exactly conquer the galaxy if a bunch of crazy "true Sith" destroy it. This was canonized by the MMO, with the added twist that the Sith Emperor thought Revan was working for him. He later joined up with the Exile from the second game to launch a first strike against the Emperor, which bought the Republic a few centuries. [[spoiler: ''Shadow of Revan'' reveals that this rapid changing of sides literally broke his soul.]]
** ''ComicBook/XWingSeries'' has a subversion: When [[spoiler: Corran Horn]] shows up with information that can exonerate [[spoiler: Tycho Celchu]] the prosecutor tries to argue that he is an Imperial plant. This is however summarily thrown out by the judge, who points out for that to be true, the Imperials would have had to have information they could not have had in the relevant timeframe, and would be a sign of near perfect precognition.

** This trope is taken to absurd levels in ''"The Final Problem"'' as we learn about the master plan of [[spoiler: Eurus]].
*** [[spoiler: Her plan to destroy Sherlock is critically dependent on help from Moriarty. In order to meet Jim, Eurus needs to convince Mycroft to arrange a meeting for the two [[EvilGenius evil geniuses]]. This part of the plan requires Mycroft, who is phenomenally smart and is deeply caring about Sherlock, to [[PlotInducedStupidity act very dumb]] for no good reason and to allow an unsupervised meeting between two extremely dangerously psychotic and intelligent criminals, ''[[CardCarryingVillain who are not hiding their intentions to harm his brother]]''. If Mycroft refused, she would've lost her only chance to do anything outside her prison cell for the rest of her life. This highly improbable scenario works in the actual episode because plot needs to move.]]
*** [[spoiler: Ironically, one of the largest gambles and risks for her plan was highly unpredictable and unreliable [[PsychopathicManchild Moriarty]] himself. In ''"The Reichenbach Fall"'' Moriarty went full force against Sherlock and was willing to see his nemesis die, which, for obvious reasons, could cancel out plan of Eurus entirely. She also needed ''Moriarty'' to [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness die]] himself and get out of the picture with absolutely no guarantees that any of these events would happen as predicted. In fact, Moriarty seemed content with continuing his games with "ordinary" people. Her whole plan hinged on highly specific outcomes, typical of any GambitRoulette plans, while for Moriarty postmortem game was just an entertaining ''alternative'' option in his grandiose XanatosGambit.]]
*** [[spoiler: Eurus had to be able to somehow discretely and completely [[CompellingVoice brainwash]] all the prison staff without Mycroft or any other top government agent noticing; ''hope'' that Sherlock survives dismantling Moriarty’s network; ''hope'' that he survives a terror attack plot; ''hope'' that his confrontation with extremely dangerous [[TheChessmaster Magnussen]] would not end with Sherlock being destroyed; [[HollywoodHacking hack]] the telecommunication system of Great Britain to distribute Moriarty’s message ''[[ClockKing at the perfectly calculated time]]'' without anyone noticing; leave prison; reconstruct Musgrave estate without Mycroft noticing; seduce John “the Family Man” Watson and ''hope again'' that Sherlock would not see through her disguise as Culverton Smith’s daughter. In each instance chance of failure was as high as it gets with her plan critically requiring British authorities, as well as her supergenius brothers, to be extremely incompetent for no reason whatsoever.]]
*** [[spoiler: In ''"The Final Problem"'' itself her plan required Sherlock, John and Mycroft to [[NoOneShouldSurviveThat survive a grenade explosion at close range]] and infiltrate the [[TheAlcatraz highest security island prison]] with a ''very'' high chance of someone being killed or arrested in the process. In the prison, her whole plan hinges entirely on Sherlock, master of SherlockScan, not noticing the ''lack of glass''. Later trials absolutely required her brothers to suddenly get [[TheWorfEffect dumbed down]] and play by her rules without any [[IndyPloy improvisations]] or [[TakeAThirdOption creative solutions]] or even recognizing Eurus as little girl impersonator. Of course her initial plan does fall apart the moment Sherlock just ignores her rules.]]

** [[spoiler: [[Characters/SuperRobotWarsAlpha Euzeth Gozzo]]]] in the ''2nd Original Generation'' applies as well. [[spoiler:Sure, he had plenty of backups to his plan, but even he admits that a huge part of why his plan pulled off as well as it did was by a large amount of chance]].

* In ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' [[BigBad Zero's]] plan included: Seven coming up with code names for everyone [[{{Irony}} so Zero wouldn't know their identities]], Lotus randomly talking about some crazy theory she just came up with and she herself didn't take seriously, so she'd mention prosopagnosia to Junpei or Ace entering the room when Junpei and Clover had conversation about[[spoiler: the first Nonary Game]] ''just'' as Clover was about to say[[spoiler: the name of girl who died back then.]] Any of these events not happening would've put Zero's plan in tight spot.[[spoiler: Justified as Zero had glimpse in the future nine years before game events so she ''could'' have known this would happen.]]

* ''VisualNovel/SuperDanganRonpa2'' has Nagito Komaeda come to the conclusion that there is a spy in the midst of the trapped party, and, in order to out the spy to the others [[spoiler: orchestrates an elaborate ThanatosGambit involving him committing suicide in such a way that the spy would inadvertently finish him off, and thus get tried for killing him. How does he guarantee that the spy would be the one to do it? He doesn't, instead relying on his [[BornLucky Ultimate Good Luck]] that of all the people who stumbled on his body, the spy would be the one to finish him off without even realizing it. ''It works''.]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': [[spoiler: Doc Scratch and Lord English]]'s master plan takes this to truly absurd extremes. Being omniscient time travellers in a multiverse where YouCantFightFate probably helps, though. Their plan actually has no possible way of being up to chance. The two of them have tied themselves and their/the universe's existence into their plan through a mind-bending series of stable time loops. If any deviation from the timeline that they have created occurs, then somewhere along the line, an event that should/shouldn't occur doesn't/does happen, an action is or isn't taken, a mistake is or isn't made, and the timeline is doomed by the paradox. The story just follows the Alpha timeline where everything goes to plan because it would be boring to sit through all of the possible ways they could screw up. They show what happens when a deviation is made, anyway.

* In the fifth season of ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'', it was revealed that every event in the series until then -- the Shredder's rise to power, Hamato Yoshi's death, the creation of the turtles, etc. -- had all been allowed to occur as part of a plan to [[spoiler: kill the demon Shredder]].

* Canaletto in ''WesternAnimation/ObanStarRacers'' [[spoiler: Arranged for the death of the mother of the right girl]] i.e. Eva, so that she would be emotionally scarred and chase after her father off-world. [[spoiler: Then he injured the main pilot to make her the only remaining pilot who would then would have to win a VERY competitive race, and relied on her prior emotional scarring so that she would reject the grand prize at the end and he could claim it for himself.]] Ironically, the only point at which he hits a bump is not when any one of these chance events fails but when [[spoiler: Sul]] changed the flow of destiny. The only thing that helps this go down easier is that he's implied to be able to see the future and manipulate certain events.

* Kronos in ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' earned his nickname, the Crooked One, for excelling at this. ''Whenever'' his plans are thwarted, he or one of his minions says something along the lines of "we planned it that way". While he's still rotting away in Tartarus, he assembles an army, brings a dead girl back to life, kidnaps a goddess, and plans an invasion. After finding a way to possess Luke's body, he becomes almost unstoppable and is barely defeated in the end. Apparently the one thing he didn't plan for was Luke regaining control of his body just in time, resulting in RedemptionEqualsDeath for Luke AndIMustScream for Kronos.

** A similar plot was hatched in ''Literature/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic''. More accurately, its sequel, which proposed that Revan's "fall" to the Dark Side and his subsequent conquering of the Republic (carefully leaving intact key positions and structures) was just to prepare for the coming of the "true Sith" lurking outside the galaxy, making Revan a WellIntentionedExtremist. This was all from the perspective of Revan's teacher, so take it with a grain of salt. Though even if you think Revan was just flat-out evil, this theory has some merit: you can't exactly conquer the galaxy if a bunch of crazy "true sith" destroy it. This was canonized by the MMO, with the added twist that the Sith Emperor thought Revan was working for him. He later joined up with the Exile from the second game to launch a first strike against the Emperor, which bought the Republic a few centuries. [[spoiler: ''Shadow of Revan'' reveals that this rapid changing of sides literally broke his soul.]]

** Parodied neatly in the UsefulNotes/ComicRelief spoof, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoTheCurseOfFatalDeath The Curse of Fatal Death]]". The joke here is that the unexpected roulettes become so expected that it is funny when they stop happening. The basic idea is that each is using his time machine to bribe an architect to set a trap, or UNSET a trap. It is up on Website/YouTube, but unfortunately a direct link would result in them taking it down.

** In ''Literature/TheIliad'', Zeus launches an incredibly complicated plan that involves manipulating gods and mortals alike to set off a war between Troy and the cities of Greece that kills thousands upon thousands of mortals. One of his two ultimate goals is to whittle down the surplus population of Earth so the earth goddess Gaia wouldn't send another monster after him, as she had done previously with Typhon and the Giants, and more particularly to destroy the many demigods he had fathered with various mortal women on all those occasions he had cuckolded Hera, to keep them from threatening his power.

* Zemo's master plan in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' verges on a thin line between XanatosSpeedChess and this.
** Zemo’s goal is very simple: [[spoiler: obtain proof the Winter Soldier killed Tony Stark's parents by any means possible, show Tony, cause internal strife and watch the Avengers fall apart as Steve and Tony fight. This simplicity allows him to both compensate when the plan doesn't turn out perfectly (like when the HYDRA agent refuses to give him information prompting him to go alternate route via Bucky) and take advantage of existing circumstances (he had nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords and just used it for distraction).]]
** Despite this, actual implementation of the plan comes dangerously close to GambitRoulette. [[spoiler: Fortunately for Zemo, Sokovia Accords, an event that divided Avengers in two camps and greatly boosted tensions between Tony and Steve just had to happen at the time when he was going to cause that tension himself. Also, it happened right at the moment when Tony developed depression caused by combination of ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron,'' breakup with Pepper and reliving last memory of his parents as part of a science project. If either of these factors were not present, consequences of revealing the information to Tony would be ''far'' less severe and if neither happened, Tony and Steve could just talk it through. Instead, pretty much all unrelated events in the movie make his task far easier to accomplish.]]

** The final part of Zemo's master plan in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' relies on a lot of chance. The whole thing would have fallen apart if...
## ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and ComicBook/{{Bucky|Barnes}} had captured Zemo before Comicbook/IronMan arrived.
## Iron Man had not figured out where Cap and Bucky were headed in the first place.
## Iron Man had not come alone, meaning there might have been someone to restrain him or talk him down after he learned the truth.
## ComicBook/BlackPanther had actually succeeded in killing Bucky during one of their ''three'' fights during the course of the film.
## Captain America actually told Iron Man that his parents' death were orchestrated by HYDRA.
## Iron Man and Captain America weren't at odds already due to being on opposite sides of the law.
## The battle at the airport had had an entirely different outcome (by the fight going differently or Iron Man's side being smart enough to simply destroy every plane in the place instead of fighting, letting Captain America with no means to escape).
## Captain America hadn't gotten hold of Ant-Man, or had actually gotten someone like Thor at his side. In general, if any of the teams had the scales severely tipped in their favor.
## The government was actually secure enough to know who they let inside for interrogations or to have armed people in place next to the interrogator for Bucky.
## Iron Man hadn't acted completely irrationally at the climax.
## Captain America had gotten ahold of Bucky before the death of King T'Chaka so he never got captured.
*** What's worse is that Zemo spends the majority of the movie searching for information, the details of which are left deliberately vague to avoid spoiling the twist near the end. So, apparently all of the information for which he is searching just happens to fit exactly into the gambit that he's already started?

* The Demon King in Kylie Chan's ''Literature/DarkHeavens'' 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 GambitSpeedChess which develops into a Roulette.

** The book ''Literature/SmallFavor'' features a subversion. Harry considers the enemy's plot to be so complex it simply should not be possible, until Murphy points out that Harry really IS that predictable, and that the villains stood to gain by doing what they are doing, whether or not Harry acted as planned.

* In ''The Possessed'', Petr Stepanovic's labyrinthine plan, involving dozens of different characters, is mostly successful - he manages to manipulate people left and right, even if he is shown to completely misunderstand the motivations of some of them, like Stavrogin and Kirillov. Another interesting subversion of the trope is that the more complex parts of the plan (like persuading several persons to kill another man with a flimsy reason) go off like clockwork, and the apparently simpler details (like persuading a suicidal nut to... kill himself) almost fall apart on several occasions.

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

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', Dumbledore had orchestrated or manipulated almost every major event that had taken place in Harry's life since about the halfway point of ''The Half-Blood Prince'', with the ultimate purpose of Voldemort's destruction.
** Also in ''Deathly Hallows'', Dumbledore's method of getting Harry to find the Hallows relies on random encounters - for example, Hermione only recognised the symbol in her book because she happened to meet Luna's dad at Fleur and Bill's wedding. The same goes for Harry finding out [[spoiler: he is a Horcrux]]; if he hadn't been there when [[spoiler: Snape died]] he would never have [[spoiler: made his HeroicSacrifice and Voldemort would've stayed immortal]]. To be fair, [[spoiler:Snape]] was supposed to tell Harry - that's why he asks that Voldemort send him into Hogwarts during the Battle - but didn't do so in time. That is why he is scared when [[spoiler:Voldemort tells him that he is going to kill him]] - he thinks he has failed. No excuse for the symbol, though Dumbeldore [[HandWave handwaves]] it by mentioning that Hermione wouldn't rest until she knew what it meant, so he assumed she would work it out ''somehow'', just not necessarily from Xeno Lovegood.
*** Even if Xeno hadn't been wearing the symbol, they would have found it on Peverell's grave in Godric's Hollow, which everyone and their goldfish knew Harry would go back to. And remember that Dumbledore ''didn't'' want Harry to find the Hallows; he feared that Harry would fall into the same temptation that he had, so he gave Hermione the book that warns about their dangers in the hope that she would "slow Harry up" if he did decide to chase them down.
* Gen from ''Literature/TheQueensThief'' series manages this all the time. Awesomeness ensues.
* In the ''Literature/YoungBond'' book ''Literature/DoubleOrDie'', a teacher at Eton is kidnapped and only has enough time to send a letter confirming his resignation and send his last crossword to ''The Times''. In this, he manages to get clues to Bond and his friends about what's really happened to him, where they can go to find more information and that a friend of his is coming to Eton. This teacher probably attended a school where [[Manga/DeathNote Light]] was the headmaster and [[Franchise/{{Saw}} Jigsaw]] was the art teacher.
* Successfully executed by TheChessmaster of ''Literature/TheAssassinsOfTamurin'', but without pushing WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief, due to the years of effort she puts into it and the fact that she's crazy.
* Avrell Torrent, the BigBad of Orson Scott Card's ''[[Literature/OrsonScottCardsEmpire Empire]]'', has been setting up a massive Gambit Roulette that would make Palpatine envious for decades.

* ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone'' by Creator/AgathaChristie involves a person who not only wants to kill 10 people who got away with a crime, but to do it in a certain order (from least horrible crimes to most horrible), and to make the deaths fit a [[PoeticSerialKiller nursery rhyme that he/she happened to like]]. So many things had to go right: if a certain victim had not died last or had shot rather than hung himself/herself under psychological stress, or if someone had seen the killer after his/her "death," or if the doctor had been less gullible, or if a sea storm had not sprung up, preventing any rescuer from reaching Indian Island, or if the killer's body had not rotted enough for the time of death to be uncertain, etc., that it was almost impossible for everything to work out perfectly in the end. Yet it did. With the occasional PlotHole added into it, such as the gun having only the fingerprints of the last person to touch it, despite its owner also having handled it.
** TheFilmOfTheBook does away with the silliness with the result that the killer's plan ultimately fails, and the last two intended victims survive.
** There is another TheFilmOfTheBook (USSR, 1988) which repeats the book with one exception: in the end the killer, instead of wiping away all clues, just shoots himself/herself.
** ''After the Funeral'' is much in the same vein. Miss Gilchrist's entire plot hinged on every single member of the family not recognizing their own aunt at Richard Abernethie's funeral and believing that Richard had indeed been murdered. Even when one takes into account that none of the family members had seen their aunt in a long time, it still doesn't explain why they didn't notice that Miss Gilchrist - with whom they spent several days in the same house - looked almost exactly like the 'Aunt Cora' they had recently seen at the funeral. It also stands to reason that after the real Cora's death, a family member would have to identify the body, thus exposing the deception. Miss Gilchrist's plan to poison herself so as to appear innocent could also have colossally backfired.
** The plot in ''Evil Under the Sun'' is another example. The murderer/s not only rely on synchronizing their movements according to a very precise schedule, but also arrange for the body to be "discovered" before the actual murder takes place, while the unsuspecting intended victim is hiding nearby. There are a number of ways that could have gone wrong...
* A lot of early detective fiction relies on {{Gambit Roulette}}s to the point where Raymond Chandler discusses it as a failing of the genre in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder".
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'':
** Jake's plan to infiltrate and capture the Yeerk pool ship is a complex BatmanGambit that includes the manipulation of no less than eight separate factions, brilliantly executed by a sixteen-year-old kid of average intelligence.
** The true {{Chessmaster}}s in the series are the Ellimist and Crayak. The Ellimist's backstory begins with his favourite game being to achieve world/system domination by proxy in a simulation by changing just one factor. In the game he decides to have the clouds on a moon part to give the inhabitants the urge to travel (he loses the game though). Everything that happens in the series (including the creation of at least two highly advanced races) is implied or outright stated to be the result of his subtle moves in his overall game against Crayak.
** The Ellimist is a subversion however, since he loses. He loses ''a lot''. He was called "the greatest loser" more than once. It's not until he meets the Andalites that he starts to truly reverse that trend, and then he becomes a god and is kinda exempt from this trope.
** Cassie's surrender of the blue box. She lets Tom steal it from Jake, counting on the gut feeling that giving Yeerks morphing power will cause mass defection in their ranks, as a Yeerks trapped in morph will have no need to feed from the Yeerk pool and thus no longer depend on the Empire. However, she doesn't reveal this to have been her intention until after the defections start happening, making it seem like impossibly good foresight. Not to mention that's a plan that also creates a ton of risks, culminating with [[spoiler:Rachel's death.]]
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'':
** The book ''Literature/SmallFavor'' features a subversion. Harry considers the enemy's plot to be so complex it simply should not be possible, until Murphy points out that Harry really IS that predictable, and that the villains stood to gain by doing what they are doing, whether or not Harry acted as planned.
** Martin's actions in ''Changes'' play it straight. He engineered an incredibly complex plot, betrayed his entire organization and his closest allies, and became a ''triple'' agent in the hope of a grand masterstroke that would destroy his enemies. It ended up working, but if Harry hadn't been able to take on the ''entire'' Red Court, or if the Red King had stopped grandstanding for just ten seconds, it would have failed completely.
* One [[EpilepticTrees fan interpretation]] of the ''StarWars'' [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] is based on the idea that TheEmpire was instituted because Palpatine knew the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Yuuzhan Vong]] were going to invade.
** In ''Literature/OutboundFlight'', an agent of Sidious states that his plans to take control are to prepare for the Yuuzhan Vong invasion (though they're only known as distant invaders at that point). The book cleverly leaves it unmentioned whether Sidious ''really'' knew they were coming, and whether this was ''truly'' part of his justification for a power grab. Several characters comment that the threat of unknown invaders is a convenient excuse. Then again, he ''is'' a MagnificentBastard with insight bordering on omniscience.
*** Thrawn's actions in the Literature/HandOfThrawn Duology were retroactively made part of this conspiracy when the Literature/NewJediOrder era rolled around. Carefully cloning entire families worth of an extremely talented pilot with a bit of Thrawn's own brilliant mind, then ingraining in them an attachment to the worlds to which they were dispatched, all for the purpose of having a grass roots sleeper cell on numerous worlds, ideally positioned to help drive back the Yuuzhan Vong if the central military organization of the galaxy (regardless of whether it was the Empire, made strong by Thrawn or the New Republic, ''forced to become strong because of him'') were disabled.
** A similar plot was hatched in ''Literature/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic''. More accurately, its sequel, which proposed that Revan's "fall" to the Dark Side and his subsequent conquering of the Republic (carefully leaving intact key positions and structures) was just to prepare for the coming of the "true Sith" lurking outside the galaxy, making Revan a WellIntentionedExtremist. This was all from the perspective of Revan's teacher, so take it with a grain of salt. Though even if you think Revan was just flat-out evil, this theory has some merit: you can't exactly conquer the galaxy if a bunch of crazy "true sith" destroy it. This was canonized by the MMO, with the added twist that the Sith Emperor thought Revan was working for him. He later joined up with the Exile from the second game to launch a first strike against the Emperor, which bought the Republic a few centuries. [[spoiler: ''Shadow of Revan'' reveals that this rapid changing of sides literally broke his soul.]]
** ''ComicBook/XWingSeries'' has a subversion: When [[spoiler: Corran Horn]] shows up with information that can exonerate [[spoiler: Tycho Celchu]] the prosecutor tries to argue that he is an Imperial plant. This is however summarily thrown out by the judge, who points out for that to be true, the Imperials would have had to have information they could not have had in the relevant timeframe, and would be a sign of near perfect precognition.
* Subverted in the Literature/BelisariusSeries where Belisarius's answer to a Gambit 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 ''Literature/LegacyOfTheDrowSeries'' by R.A. Salvatore, Jarlaxle at first appears to be a ManipulativeBastard. In the later books, Jarlaxle muses that most of his plans are in fact Gambit 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''.
* In ''Literature/SecondApocalypse'', Dunyain are masters of this. They can calculate probabilities and conceive of great, sweeping plans to achieve their objectives, then make adjustments as events develop. The first trilogy is one giant gambit roulette by Moenghus. Kellhus is frequently described as navigating threads of probability, with opportunities closing with every minute action he takes.
* Subverted in Arturo Perez-Reverte's novel ''Literature/TheClubDumas'' (which was made into ''Film/TheNinthGate''). Corso spends most of the novel dodging two antagonists attempting to steal a rare manuscript and inconveniently discovering corpses along the way. Corso reasonably suspects a massive and powerful conspiracy is dogging his every move. Corso is just being paranoid, as the narrating character explicitly tells him, and there is no relation between the murders and the two manuscripts. The Film assumed that ViewersAreMorons, and so let the plot progress as expected.

* Apparently, everything [[Literature/ThePendragonAdventure Saint Dane]] does is part of his grand plan for Halla. A lot of which is manipulating Bobby (and Mark and Courtney) to do exactly what he wants them to do without realizing it. And then stepping in to show Bobby how horribly he's been defeated [[HopeSpot just after he thought he won.]]
* Fortune Teller Shalice of ''Literature/ThePiloFamilyCircus'' demonstrates her understanding of the trope in this statement:
-->Man raises his middle finger at a passing car; the driver ponders it, wondering what he'd done to offend the stranger, misses his route home while distracted, and collides with a van, killing the driver who was the real target of the exercise. The simplest of scenarios, but the setups could be so elaborate and huge they shaped the course of history.
** 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. [[spoiler: Or at least, it ''should'' have.]]

* 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]].)
* In Fred Saberhagan's ''Literature/BookOfSwords'', and companion series ''Book of Lost Swords'', the character of The Emperor is shown to be very nearly omniscient in his plans, including fathering several children to various otherwise unimportant women around the known world, some 10 years before the events of the first book. Justified since the Emperor is [[spoiler:G-d]].
* In ''Literature/{{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 Gambit Roulette, or his AI was a master at Speed Chess.
** By the time the sequel rolls around, the AI proves to have the ability to predict TheFuture well enough to know exactly where plot critical events will occur. Even with this level of prescience, TheCavalry has to roll in several times to avoid the entire gambit falling apart.
* A very common occurrence in [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]]'s ''[[Literature/TheCulture Culture]]'' novels. The Mind {{AI}}s are frequently do this, especially when it comes to the activities of the Culture's two interventionary groups, Contact and Special Circumstances. May potentially be a subversion because Minds can think in Hyperspace and are so ridiculously intelligent and powerful that they can pull off such a plan easily.
* In Niven and Barnes's ''Literature/TheCaliforniaVoodooGame'', Dream Park's security team catches on that one of the Game's tournament participants isn't playing fair, and theorize that he's attempting a BatmanGambit to throw the win to Army. However, the suspect can't realistically expect to do this, given the sheer number of variables involved, which would make it this trope instead. As it turns out, the suspect is plotting another crime entirely, and only set things up to ''look'' like an attempt to fix the Game in order to deceive an [[UnwittingPawn accomplice]].
* The Demon King in Kylie Chan's ''Literature/DarkHeavens'' 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 GambitSpeedChess which develops into a Roulette.
* Used and lampshaded in the ''Bad Blood'' chapter of the ''Literature/{{Trainspotting}}'' novel, where the HIV-positive character Davie pulls this on Alan Venters, the man who gave the HIV to the former's girlfriend by raping her, thus leading to Davie's own contraction of the virus. His plan is to make friends with a dying Venters, so that he is allowed to visit him in hospital, and also with the mother of the rapist's only son so that one day she may trust him enough to let him babysit for her. When this happens Davie drugs the child with a sleep-inducing substance and takes pictures of him, making it look like he violently raped and murdered the boy. Then he shows the pictures to Venters on his deathbed and suffocates him with a pillow, thus filling his last moments in life with immeasurable suffering. This plan depended greatly on random chance (most significantly on Venters staying alive long enough for all the pieces to fall into place), a fact that Davie is well aware of.

* At the end of ''Literature/GoodOmens'', the characters begin to suspect (though they certainly can't confirm it) that the whole plot was a Gambit Roulette by {{God}}. Could be a {{justified|Trope}} example for once...
* Kronos in ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' earned his nickname, the Crooked One, for excelling at this. ''Whenever'' his plans are thwarted, he or one of his minions says something along the lines of "we planned it that way". While he's still rotting away in Tartarus, he assembles an army, brings a dead girl back to life, kidnaps a goddess, and plans an invasion. After finding a way to possess Luke's body, he becomes almost unstoppable and is barely defeated in the end. Apparently the one thing he didn't plan for was Luke regaining control of his body just in time, resulting in RedemptionEqualsDeath for Luke AndIMustScream for Kronos.
* A heroic version of Gambit Roulette is found in ''Master of the Five Magics'', by Creator/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."

* Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Literature/LiadenUniverse: aware of the Department of the Interior's machinations, Liaden's Scouts hatch a cunning plan: they will destroy the [=DoI=] from within by ''feeding Val Con yos'Phelium to it'' without giving him any forewarning or preparation, counting on his line's WeirdnessMagnet nature to throw a monkeywrench into its schemes. Given the way ThereAreNoCoincidences in the Liaden Universe, this effectively turns a Roulette Gambit ''into'' a BatmanGambit.
--> Clonak stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his wits. “Well, of ''course'' we gave you to them, Shadow! Who else did we have more likely to trump them than a first-in, pure-blood yos’Phelium scout ''commander''? Concentrated random action. Would we waste such a weapon? Would you? I didn’t think so.[...]"
* At the end of the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/{{Jingo}}'', Lord Vetinari discusses his BatmanGambit with Vimes, making a big deal out of the fact that he managed to stop the war before too many people were killed ("Bought and sold? Perhaps. But not, I think, needlessly spent"). Except that we already know that there's a parallel universe where the Klatchians took Ankh-Morpork and the entire Watch was killed ''before'' he unleashed his Gambit, and the difference was a decision by Vimes that could have gone either way and that Lord V wasn't in a position to know anything about.
* Jared from ''Literature/TheHost'' initially believes everything Wanderer does is proof that she's secretly a Seeker trying to infiltrate the group. This starts to annoy the others since he keeps it up way too long and even Jared starts to realize how ridiculous he's being.
* In Lee Child's Literature/JackReacher novels, basically everything the main character does in action sequences is one of these, often relying on flimsy guesswork to construct a plausible scenario, which just so happens to be exactly right. The most vivid example so far being when he - given a vague description of a character's height, weight and handedness, manages to hit him in the arm with a sniper rifle from a huge distance while the target was INSIDE A (wooden) BUILDING (he was aiming for the arm to disarm his weapon). Reacher had no reason to know where in the building the guy was standing, he just 'assumed' he would be standing behind the door waiting for Reacher to enter. The entire series is based on such coincidences and vague assumptions.
* Subverted in ''Literature/TheManWhoWasThursday'', when Syme carefully plans a conversation with a stranger line for line, before his colleagues point out that he can't predict exactly what the stranger will say.
* Most of Bärlach's actions in ''Literature/DerRichterUndSeinHenker'' are based on this, with it being one of the main themes of the book.
* Exploited in ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' with the Infinite Improbability drive, a faster-than-light travel drive that relies on the fact that, from a quantum physics standpoint, it isn't ''entirely'' impossible for an electron to suddenly be several light years away- just unfathomably unlikely. By the same logic, it's not impossible for an entire atom to do the same thing. The Infinite Improbability Drive works by manipulating probability so that nigh-impossible things happen, specifically [[UpToEleven causing every atom in the entire]] ''[[UpToEleven ship]]'' [[UpToEleven to appear on the other side of the galaxy, exactly where you want to be]].
* ''Franchise/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'':
** The entire series is the culmination of a millennia-long ThanatosGambit by the Shard Preservation, requiring the exact right things to happen at the exact right times in order to 1: Create a human who could [[spoiler:take up Preservation's power and use it to kill the Shard Ruin (something Preservation himself could never do due to his overpowering instinct to preserve)]], and 2: Create a human [[spoiler:perfectly balanced between both Preservation and Ruin, so he could take up ''both'' Shards once the holders were dead and become God of a reborn world]]. Of course, due to the nature of Preservation's power, he is very very good at predicting the future, but predicting the future thousands of years ''after you died'' is still a pretty big roulette. It did help that Ruin was very very ''bad'' at predicting the future.
** Ruin himself had another, much smaller GambitRoulette. Most of his plans were just "cause as much chaos as possible," so the details weren't really important, his plan to [[spoiler:be released from the Well of Ascension]] was definitely this. He needed to get a [[BloodMagic spike]] in a very specific person so he could influence them, get [[spoiler:the Lord Ruler]] killed a year before power returned to the Well, and then get that spiked person to the Well at a very specific hour without anyone interfering. Considering that this plan took place over a thousand years, this is roughly the equivalent of hitting the bullseye on a dartboard on a moving truck in the middle of a storm.

** Cersei's plot where she successfully killed her husband Robert could be considered this. Her plan was to have his squire indulge him with too much alcohol (that was extra-strength) so that he would be too inebriated to successfully hunt a boar and would run into a "hunting mishap" that would appear to be an accident. However, there were so many ways this could have gone as planned: not finding a boar, King Robert passing out first, other members of the hunting party intervening, etc. This would be fine if it was just one of Cersei's schemes to increase the chances of King Robert getting himself killed innocently (like her ploy to have him enter the Melee), but subsequent conversations reveal that she fully anticipated that he would die to a boar during this outing, even refusing to flee King's Landing and Ned Stark's accusations as she "knows" that Robert won't be coming back to do anything about them. So, she was essentially risking her head by staying at court on the chance that a drunk Robert would get himself killed while hunting.

* In Niven and Barnes's ''[[Literature/DreamPark The California Voodoo Game]]'', Dream Park's security team catches on that one of the Game's tournament participants isn't playing fair, and theorize that he's attempting a BatmanGambit to throw the win to Army. However, the suspect can't realistically expect to do this, given the sheer number of variables involved, which would make it this trope instead. As it turns out, the suspect is plotting another crime entirely, and only set things up to ''look'' like an attempt to fix the Game in order to deceive an [[UnwittingPawn accomplice]].

** Near the end they count on the police being so incompetent that Morgan Freeman's character is successfully framed for a crime he obviously didn't commit (who packs stolen money in their car like that? On top of that the Horseman are known for being "tricky" and Freeman was known for getting on their bad side so obviously he was being framed). Even with Dylan's help it's really not justified.

* The aggregate actions of the Joker in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'': for an agent of chaos with a stated disdain for [[TheChessmaster Chessmasters]], he effortlessly pulls together seemingly random and improbable events into a single overall scheme. A good example is his "race for two hostages scheme", which counts on 1. Joker being captured and taking to a holding cell both just close enough yet far enough from the spot of his scheme, 2. Batman being present at the jail to interrogate him, 3. Batman being in love with Rachel Dawes even though the only proof Joker has of this is seeing Batman jump out a window to save her (which he would have done for any person Joker flung out of there), 4. there still being enough time to reach either of the hostages when Joker doesn't have a clock in his cell or on his person, 5. no police being out on patrol close enough to the spots where the hostages are, 6. Batman getting to his hostage first before the police, even though he's using a new vehicle Joker has never seen until this night. And that's just one scheme out of a dozen of his. Actually subverted, though, since Joker is clearly an [[GambitSpeedChess opportunist]] who simply accommodates whenever his plans fail.

* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'': The entire casino heist and everything after was all part of a plan by the Thieves to [[spoiler:turn Sae to their side and fake the Protagonist's death, so that they could expose the traitor in their party, find out who their boss is, and throw TheConspiracy off the thieves trail for awhile.]] However, as everyone points out, nobody knew what would happen past the Protagonist's capture, and the entire plan [[BatmanGambit hinged on the Protagonist appealing to Sae's long lost sense of justice]]. Further, the interrogators drugged the protagonist, messing him up so much that he didn't even remember that there was a plan until the tail end of his talk with Sae.

* ''ComicBook/TheUltimates 3'' and ''Comicbook/{{Ultimatum}}'', where it was revealed that DoctorDoom had manipulated Comicbook/{{Ultron}} into murdering Comicbook/ScarletWitch in order to provoke ComicBook/{{Magneto}} into declaring war on mankind. Linkara pointed out that Doom's plan was full of far too many unpredictable variables to possibly be reasonable, and argued that there's no way a disciplined scientific genius like Doom would ever rely on a plan that left so much to random chance.

** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'', 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.