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. 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. The inside bets are made up of specific numbers or combinations of numbers within the number layout, or along the border of it. Street bet - this is a bet not unlike a split. It allows you to bet on three different numbers with the same bet. Corner bet - lets you bet on four adjoining numbers. Placing your chips at the point where four numbers meet will indicate you want a corner bet. There are no winning outside bets for 0 or 00 results. Red or Black - you can choose to bet on the outcome either being a red number, or a black number. Low or High - this bet lets you predict whether you think the next number to come up will be part of the range from 1 to 18, or part of the range from 19 to 36. Columns - at one end of the set of 38 numbers are boxes with the words '2 to 1' written in them.

Roulette is the game where you guess where the little marble is going to drop on the spinning wheel. Making a bet is easy - you just place your chip(s) on the number(s), color, or sets you want to bet on. 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. 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. Each player's chips are a different color. " when you're buying chips, to find out whether you're making inside bets (the ones listed in purple in the table, on specific numbers) or outside bets (the ones listed in yellow, on kinds of numbers) If you're asked Inside or Outside, always answer "Both", even if you only intend to bet one or the other. Roulette chips can in fact be any denomination - $1, $5, $25, etc. When you buy in, tell the dealer what denomination you want. Inside bets can usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is the table minimum. 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! 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. 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. You don't get paid for the win, though, but it's better than losing it outright. In effect, this variation has the ability to turn a loss into a tie.