Each roulette table moves in sessions, each session is associated with a spin of the wheel and that spin's result. At this point the dealer will say 'place your bets' and everyone at the table will start throwing chips down like crazy. Each player plays with their own color chips. You trade in your checks (which most people think of as regular casino chips, but they're actually called checks) for roulette chips when a new session starts, and the dealer assigns you a number and denomination. If you have a player you likes to put down twenty different bets each time they play, the sessions are going to move a little slower. At this point, as you intuition may have mentioned to you, you can't place any more bets. 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. Fiver number bet - there is only one five number bet available. Columns - at one end of the set of 38 numbers are boxes with the words '2 to 1' written in them. 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)

now, let's see how to play roulette. For most bets it's fairly obvious - you can't miss the Red diamond for Red bets, and things like Even, 1-18, and 1st 12 are written out in plain English. When the ball is getting ready to drop, the dealer will wave his hand over the table, which means "No more bets". 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. Don't reach for your winnings until the dealer removes the marker, or the dealer will scold you. That way, you're not locked in and you always have the ability to change your mind. Minimum bets work differently for inside and outside bets. Inside bets can usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is the table minimum. Remember that you can bet inside or outside if you like; there's no requirement to bet both on a given spin. 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. The wheel has no memory. 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. if you win, the casino doesn't pay you 37 to 1, they pay you less - 35 to 1. The difference between the true odds and what they actually pay you is 2/38, or 5.26%. If you play Roulette, the most important thing is to find a casino that offers the European wheel (which is called "Single 0" Roulette) The last time we checked, Single 0 Roulette was available at the Stratosphere and the Monte Carlo on the Vegas Strip.