Each roulette table moves in
sessions, each session is associated with a spin of the wheel and that spin's
result. Most roulette sessions move at a fairly slow pace, to accommodate the number of
people betting, and the variety on which they can bet. At this point, as you intuition may have mentioned
to you, you can't place any more bets. Street bet - this is a bet not unlike a split.
It allows you to bet on three different numbers with the same 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. There
are the different types of outside bets. 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. 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) You don't have to make just one kind of bet for
each spin, you can make several, and you win if the ball lands on any of your
numbers. 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. Minimum bets work differently for inside and outside bets. It's important to
understand that the outcome of the roulette wheel is truly random. If Black has
come up for the last 10 spins in a row, the next spin is not more likely to be
Red. There's an old saying,
"The wheel has no memory. 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. There have been 152 spins (coincidentally,
4 x 38), and so we expect that each number should have come up 4 times on
average. 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) if you win, the
casino doesn't pay you 37 to 1, they pay you less - 35 to 1. 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. On even money bets when 0 comes up, instead of losing right
away, your bet is "imprisoned" and rides again for the next spin. You don't get paid for the win, though, but it's better than losing
it outright.