Each roulette table moves in
sessions, each session is associated with a spin of the wheel and that spin's
result. 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) Each player plays with their own color chips. 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. Most roulette sessions move at a fairly slow pace, to accommodate the number of
people betting, and the variety on which they can bet. There aren't many specific things that can be
considered roulette rules at the table, but here's one you shouldn't forget. 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. When you place an outside
bet your bet must meet the table minimum.
Roulette is the game where you guess where the little marble is going to drop
on the spinning wheel. 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. 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. Here are the
different bets you can make. 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. In this way, Roulette is more like slots - one single bet can
win a lot. 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 have been 152 spins (coincidentally,
4 x 38), and so we expect that each number should have come up 4 times on
average. The wheel has no memory. You can certainly switch to
another number if you want, but that won't improve or worsen your chances. 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. 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. 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. You don't get paid for the win, though, but it's better than losing
it outright.