The first thing you should know before you learn anything about the bets you can make, is when and how you can make those bets. Each player plays with their own color chips. Most roulette sessions move at a fairly slow pace, to accommodate the number of people betting, and the variety on which they can bet. Straight-up bet - this is the classic roulette bet. Choose any one of the 38 numbers and put your chips down on that number for the chance to win back at 35 to 1. Corner bet - lets you bet on four adjoining numbers. Placing your chips at the point where four numbers meet will indicate you want a corner bet. Fiver number bet - there is only one five number bet available. The outside bets on a roulette board are simply the bets that reside 'outside' of the main playing area of 38 numbers. When you place an outside bet your bet must meet the table minimum. This is different than inside bets, where the total of all of your inside bets must meet the table minimum. Dozens - a bet very similar to the columns bet, dozens lets you place a bet on either the first dozen numbers (1-12), the second dozen (13-24), or the third dozen (25-36)

Making a bet is easy - you just place your chip(s) on the number(s), color, or sets you want to bet on. The house edge is the same whether you make one bet per spin or several. When the ball falls into a slot, the dealer will announce the number and the color, and place a marker on the layout where the winning number is. That's because if you're betting only inside and someone else is betting only outside, he can give you both the same color chips and there won't be any confusion. In other games the color of the chip denotes the denomination, but in Roulette the color denotes only which player the chip belongs to. When you buy in, tell the dealer what denomination you want. For outside bets, any bet you make has to be the table minimum. Inside bets can usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is the table minimum. Here's a handy way to remember the payouts when you're betting on a set of numbers: Take 36 divided by the quantity of numbers you're betting on, and subtract 1. If Black has come up for the last 10 spins in a row, the next spin is not more likely to be Red. Black and Red still have equal chances of hitting. Here's another example: Since there are 38 slots on the wheel, we expect any given number to hit 1 out of 38 spins on average. Now let's say you've been playing Roulette for a few hours, betting on Red every time, and you've been keeping track of what numbers have hit. It's more important to know what the house edge is, than how to calculate it, but here's a quick analysis in case you're interested. Your odds of winning a one-number bet are 37 to 1 (37 ways to lose, 1 way to win) The European wheel has a lower house edge (2.63%) because it has only 37 slots instead of 38 (no 00) In effect, this variation has the ability to turn a loss into a tie.