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. 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. 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. Split bet - you can place a single bet on two individual numbers if those numbers are beside each other on the table layout. Street bet - this is a bet not unlike a split. It allows you to bet on three different numbers with the same bet. There are no winning outside bets for 0 or 00 results.

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. Making a bet is easy - you just place your chip(s) on the number(s), color, or sets you want to bet on. In most games players can continue making bets even while the ball is still spinning. When the ball is getting ready to drop, the dealer will wave his hand over the table, which means "No more bets". 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. There's no advantage to limiting yourself to inside or outside. Roulette games have minimum bets, which will be posted on a placard at the table. Minimum bets work differently for inside and outside bets. Inside bets can usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is the table minimum. Black and Red still have equal chances of hitting. Here's another example: Since there are 38 slots on the wheel, we expect any given number to hit 1 out of 38 spins on average. 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. 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. Your odds of winning a one-number bet are 37 to 1 (37 ways to lose, 1 way to win) Atlantic City has a special rule which reduces the house edge to 2.7% on even money bets (Red/Black, Odd/Even, 1-18/19-36): If 0 or 00 comes up on on even money bet, you lose only half your bet. If you win the second spin, your bet is "released from prison" and you get it back.