A session ends when the ball lands where it may, and the dealers clear
the board of losing bets (and pay winning ones of course) 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. Most roulette sessions move at a fairly slow pace, to accommodate the number of
people betting, and the variety on which they can bet. 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. Just sit back and let the ball fall where
it may. 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. There
are the different types of outside bets. Low or High - this bet lets you predict whether you
think the next number to come up will be part of the range from 1 to 18, or part
of the range from 19 to 36. 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)
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. Then he'll scoop up all the losing bets towards the dealer area. Sometimes the dealer
will ask you "Inside or Outside? 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. Roulette chips can in fact be any denomination - $1, $5,
$25, etc. Roulette games have minimum bets, which will be posted on a
placard at the table. Remember that
you can bet inside or outside if you like; there's no requirement to bet both on
a given spin. All the bets on the layout carry the same house edge, with the exception
of 5-number Line Bet (0, 00, 1, 2, 3), which carries a whopping 7.29% edge! " That means it doesn't know what it spun
before, and even if it did, the wheel can't select what number comes up out of
its own volition. There have been 152 spins (coincidentally,
4 x 38), and so we expect that each number should have come up 4 times on
average. You can certainly switch to
another number if you want, but that won't improve or worsen your chances. Your odds of winning a
one-number bet are 37 to 1 (37 ways to lose, 1 way to win) if you win, the
casino doesn't pay you 37 to 1, they pay you less - 35 to 1. If you play Roulette, the most important thing is to find a casino that
offers the European wheel (which is called "Single 0" Roulette) Atlantic City has a special rule which
reduces the house edge to 2.7% on even money bets (Red/Black, Odd/Even,
1-18/19-36): If 0 or 00 comes up on on even money bet, you lose only half your
bet. European games have an option called en prison which reduces the house edge
to 1.35%, but it's generally not available in the U.S., even in casinos that use
the European wheel. If
you win the second spin, your bet is "released from prison" and you
get it back.