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. At this point, as you intuition may have mentioned
to you, you can't place any more bets. 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. 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. Fiver number bet - there
is only one five number bet available. The outside bets on a roulette board are
simply the bets that reside 'outside' of the main playing area of 38 numbers. 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 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. now, let's see how to play roulette. We've added blue circled letters to the diagram to point out
how to make the not-so-obvious bets (the sets of 2-6 numbers) " 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) 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. 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. Inside bets can
usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is
the table minimum. Remember that
you can bet inside or outside if you like; there's no requirement to bet both on
a given spin. There's an old saying,
"The wheel has no memory. " That means it doesn't know what it spun
before, and even if it did, the wheel can't select what number comes up out of
its own volition. 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. On an American wheel,
there are 38 spots - numbers 1-36, plus 0 and 00. 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.