At this point the dealer will say 'place your bets' and everyone at the table will start throwing chips down like crazy. 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. When the new session starts you can put your chips down where you want to bet, and you don't really have to be in a hurry. 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. 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. There are the different types of outside bets.

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. 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". Sometimes the dealer will ask you "Inside or Outside? That way, you're not locked in and you always have the ability to change your mind. In other games the color of the chip denotes the denomination, but in Roulette the color denotes only which player the chip belongs to. When you buy in, tell the dealer what denomination you want. Roulette games have minimum bets, which will be posted on a placard at the table. Here's a handy way to remember the payouts when you're betting on a set of numbers: Take 36 divided by the quantity of numbers you're betting on, and subtract 1. 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! It's important to understand that the outcome of the roulette wheel is truly random. There's an old saying, "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. The last time we checked, Single 0 Roulette was available at the Stratosphere and the Monte Carlo on the Vegas Strip. 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. If you win the second spin, your bet is "released from prison" and you get it back.