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. If you haven't read up on the rest of the site I'll quickly go over the different colors of chips and how they relate to the rest of the roulette rules. 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. After the ball has started spinning, the dealer will wave his hands across the table and say 'no more bets'. Now lets take a look at each of the individual bets you can make. 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. Street bet - this is a bet not unlike a split. It allows you to bet on three different numbers with the same bet. The outside bets on a roulette board are simply the bets that reside 'outside' of the main playing area of 38 numbers. This is different than inside bets, where the total of all of your inside bets must meet the table minimum. Red or Black - you can choose to bet on the outcome either being a red number, or a black number.

Roulette would be a great game were it not for the high house edge - usually 5.26%, sometimes as low as 2.63%, which is still higher than blackjack, craps, or baccarat. You should always calculate your expected loss and how long you can play on a given bankroll before playing any game, but with roulette it's especially important. We've added blue circled letters to the diagram to point out how to make the not-so-obvious bets (the sets of 2-6 numbers) New players often have to be told this repeatedly the first time they play because they kept forgetting and because they're excited about collecting their winnings. 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. If you're asked Inside or Outside, always answer "Both", even if you only intend to bet one or the other. 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. It most other games a bet usually wins only even money, but Roulette gives you the chance to win 35 times your bet (a winning bet placed on a single number) In this way, Roulette is more like slots - one single bet can win a lot. It's important to understand that the outcome of the roulette wheel is truly random. " 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. 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. You can certainly switch to another number if you want, but that won't improve or worsen your chances. The difference between the true odds and what they actually pay you is 2/38, or 5.26%. The last time we checked, Single 0 Roulette was available at the Stratosphere and the Monte Carlo on the Vegas Strip. In effect, this variation has the ability to turn a loss into a tie.