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 roulette table moves in
sessions, each session is associated with a spin of the wheel and that spin's
result. 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. All of your chips of the same
color are worth the same amount. Just sit back and let the ball fall where
it may. On inside bets, the total of all
of your bets must add up to at least the table minimum. 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. Odd or Even - similar
to the red black bet, this even money bet is based on whether the resulting
number will be odd or even.
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. Making a bet is easy - you just place your chip(s) on the number(s), color, or
sets you want to bet on. Here are the
different bets you can make. The house edge is the same whether you
make one bet per spin or several. 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. 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. In other games the color of the chip
denotes the denomination, but in Roulette the color denotes only which player
the chip belongs to. Remember that
you can bet inside or outside if you like; there's no requirement to bet both on
a given spin. 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. The
chances of #27 coming up on a given spin are the same, whether it just come up
on the last spin or not - 1 in 38. On an American wheel,
there are 38 spots - numbers 1-36, plus 0 and 00. Your odds of winning a
one-number bet are 37 to 1 (37 ways to lose, 1 way to win) 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.